Let’s talk about Marriage
20–07–2018, Mumbai, India: I am quite sure that an Indian Muslim Marriage is the alliance of two people one of whom prefers chicken biryani and the other who prefers mutton.
Good Morning Everyone. It’s the Friday Post on a sultry Friday morning. The last few weeks have been really engaging, pun intended. Two friends got married, one in Nashik and one in Chennai. Another friend got engaged in Vijayawada. In a span of two weeks, I saw a Marathi wedding and a Tamil wedding and a Telugu engagement. Seeing so much of prospective conjugal bliss around, I am but forced to think what the template of an Indian Muslim wedding is.
This piece is about a few aspects of Indian weddings. It is based on my experience of weddings held in North India of people who are similar socially and economically to me and my family. I am pretty sure I will keep developing this section — other social orders, castes, etc. — and so new and newer stuff should get added. Till then, let me take you through the basics of a North Indian Muslim wedding.
Indian Muslim Weddings 101
Unity in Diversity
Just like the other communities, Muslim weddings too are heavily influenced by geographical, social, and economic considerations. South Indian weddings are different from North Indian ones. Rich weddings differ from poor ones. Caste plays a role. (We will discuss caste in some other post.) India is a cauldron of multiple cultures, and Muslims are another part of this melting pot that creates the broth we call India.
The basic Muslim wedding
The very basic Muslim wedding requires one of the spouses to offer a marriage proposal and the other to accept it. There have to be two witnesses present to see the same happening. The marrying parties have to agree upon a dower — mahr. This is the bare minimum that needs to be done for the solemnisation of a Muslim marriage.
There is no need for a Qazi as is often mistakenly assumed. The involvement of parents for consenting adults is debated with some scholars maintaining that the same is necessary. However, the school of thought most Indian Muslims follow does not hold the same opinion.
There are of course other recommended practices. The most important one is to let people know of the marriage. The groom is expected to arrange a walima — a post-wedding feast — that can be very basic and just limited to a few people from the community.
“Indian” Wedding enters the Muslim Wedding
There are a lot of local practices that are followed — largely a result of the intermingling of people following different religions. There are some customs — engagement being a prime example — which Muslim weddings have that are a result of this amalgamation of cultures. Similarly, the concept of baraat or the groom’s wedding party, the kind of gifts exchanged, fruits and sweets being exchanged, etc. are very much Indian in nature. Please note that these things happen in Middle Eastern cultures too; however, these are not practices required by Islam. Hence, respective local customs are followed in different parts of the world. Indian Muslims, therefore, follow their local customs and the influence of the old Indian culture is very clearly visible on Indian Muslim Weddings.
Before the Wedding — The One where no one’s ready
The matchmaking process
I have written about cousin marriages in the past. While we might not always marry our cousins, there’s no denying that social network does play a huge part in finding prospective partners. There are also professional — part-time professional, rather — matchmakers. They keep a steady database of potential brides and grooms sorted by caste, income, education, age, and a lot of other factors in their heads. Quite often, this role is performed by eunuchs as is wont in some parts of the country.
The modern matrimony websites and pre-modern matrimony columns are also finding favour with educated Muslims. However, don’t be surprised to hear your parents say something like they don’t do “such things”. Resistance to these modern matchmakers exists because some perceive resorting to websites and newspapers as a failure. The belief is that it shows you have failed to find someone good in your social network and hence have some flaw. Since people in your network who know you better have rejected you, you’re not a good candidate. Thus, taking to these resources is a bad signal in the marriage market.
Yeah, I know. It sounds stupid.
There’s a Muslim dating app as well — Minder (we will talk on some later date about my experience with it). In my experience, my social network largely looks to traditional methods of matchmaking.
Love marriages are finding more acceptance but they still remain a taboo. A cleric — on a TV show — once advised parents not to start opposing their children’s choices just because the children dared to choose someone. It’s true — Indian parents do take pride in saying they chose their child’s spouse. In my opinion, this gives them the illusion of control that many of us seek. There is also the taboo associated with love — people who marry on their own are not of good character.
Yeah, this too sounds stupid.
The First Interaction
While growing up, one bone I had always to pick with the Muslim matchmaking process was that the boy and the girl didn’t get to even see each other — leave aside talk. Generally, the males in the extended family of one potential spouse go and see the other potential spouse. The males of this spouse come and meet the other spouse. This is followed by the females repeating the same procedure. All of this is coupled with a lot of good food — but then in Muslim households what isn’t.
Missing in all this was the interaction between the bride and the groom.
I never got it, as I said. One reason given was the purdah — the male cannot meet the female and hence cannot talk to her. While that is not exactly how the purdah system works in Islam, male members of the boy’s family did meet the girl. It beat me then; it beats me now.
Facebook and WhatsApp to the rescue
Moving on, things are changing slightly. Photographs were already in vogue earlier. (The girl almost always was in a studio with a garden in the background, her elbow resting on a stand on which is placed a flower vase.) More things seem to be shaking up. WhatsApp has come as a technical shock to this setup of “don’t see don’t talk”. There’s always a naughty sister who slyly slips the potential bride’s number to the boy and then the couple tries and fall in love over the phone. Befriending on Facebook and chatting is an option if you don’t have a smart sister at your disposal. Technology, like always, is the harbinger of social change.
The D-Word
The dowry is decided before a go-ahead is given to the alliance. Cash is going out of fashion but is being replaced with kind. Things aren’t changing in this regard — I have seen the amount given as dowry increase, adjusted for inflation. Make no mistake — there are lesser people demanding dowry now. However, the attitude of these definitely progressive people is that they will accept whatever the girl’s family gives in dowry. The girl’s family ends up giving a lot of household articles that were not in vogue earlier fearing social backlash and the fear that their daughter might have to hear taunts in her in-laws’ house.
As I have written earlier, the other d-word, dower or mahr, also gets decided as a by-product somewhere.
The Engagement
There is an increased acceptance of engagement with rings and gifts. However, even traditional households have a ceremony called roka where gifts are exchanged between families. It used to be a mellow affair earlier with just the close family involved. It is taking the form of a feast nowadays with entire parties going to each other’s places and engage in engagement (pun, a bad one, intended).
Generally, the date for marriage is also decided during this ceremony. A calendar with good and bad dates marked in it is often employed at this point. I have never understood the religious validity of this calendar. While Islam does have a concept of good days — Friday being the most important one — I am yet to understand the idea behind a bad day for marriage. Nevertheless, this small booklet is pulled out for setting the dates in our family.
The Wedding Day — The One with all the Eating
The Relatives Descend
Skipping a lot of drama, let’s jump to the week just before the wedding. The relatives start coming over — a lot of them. For a few days, our house and our neighbours’ will be filled with people. (They will grin and bear it just like our parents had when their son or daughter got married.) The relatives will come with gifts — mostly a set of clothes for the to-be-married person’s parents. These clothes are kept in stock — to be used after marriage — because when the relatives return, they are supposed to be given something. Most households just give one relative’s gift to another. These gifts that the relative take back are also kept in store — to be used at some other near-future wedding.
Copious amount of food is cooked, consumed, or wasted — yet there will be one family member who will complain every day of her child not getting anything to eat. The only solution is the host, the to-be-married person’s mother, apologising. The father too has his fair share of apologising to do.
The Clothes and other preparations
The groom wears a sherwani for the engagement and the wedding. For the walima or the reception, a suit is employed. The bride just wears different lehenga cholis for all the functions. Black appears to be a taboo colour for the bride — even the ceremonial hijab is not in black.
There are other preparations to be made as well — least of all the space. The events are generally held in marriage halls in the case of cities and open fields in villages. Food is prepared for the expected turnout. Vehicles are arranged for the travelling party. Horses used to be popular earlier but are now going out of fashion. Most of the guests leave on the same day and hence residential arrangements are not needed.
The Groom and Bride get ready
Many families have some kind of sangeet — local folk songs are sung. It is called manjha. (Think Gangs of Wasseypur.) Both the bride and the groom get ready in the presence of some rituals. This takes place a day or two before the wedding. The girl is subjected to makeup — both traditional and modern. Traditional makeup includes turmeric, ubtan, and henna. Islam prohibits henna and ubtan etc. for men but these are generally used by men also. Don’t ask me why.
Almost always, there will also be a religious sermon organised at both houses. This takes place on the same day the to-be-married couple have their haldi ceremony or the manjha.
On the day of the wedding, the bride and groom are helped to get ready for the wedding. There are special headgears that both are supposed to put on. The groom generally puts on a turban. The bride puts on jewellery. She wears red for the wedding but that, again, is not a mandatory practice. Once they are ready, they perform a short prayer. The groom’s party then leaves for the wedding. (The mother stays back in most cases.)
The wedding party is generally accompanied by some kind of music — again an un-Islamic practice. Nowadays, some religious families are replacing this with religious songs that have no music. The baraat has its fair share of issues. The father does most of the apologising here. Often but not always, there will be an uncle who will bring up an issue because of which he won’t go to the wedding. The resolution, of course, is apologising.
The Wedding — Rites and Rituals
The groom’s party reaches the bride’s and are comfortably seated. Snacks are served. The groom is presented with clothes from the bride’s side. He is supposed to wear this for the wedding rites but this is not mandatorily followed. He is also presented with gifts like watches and rings.
The nikah starts after this. Generally, a Qazi comes to the bride and asks her if she accepts the boy in marriage for a certain mehr. The bride agrees. The same process is repeated with the groom. With the groom agreeing, the marriage is solemnised. The qazi follows it up with a special prayer for the couple where he asks Allah to bless the couple. The rest of the audience prays for the same. Dates are distributed once the prayer is over and people take turns to congratulate the groom and the bride.
Bollywood might have made us believe that the bride and groom say Qubool hai three times but that is rarely the case. Mostly, an Arabianised Qabiltu is said thrice.
The Sehra
A dying ritual is the reading of the sehra. It literally translates into the headgear made of flowers worn by the groom. This used to be very important in the heydays of Urdu poetry where local poets used to compile poems in praise of the couple and their families and wish them a happy married life. This is a custom slowly dying out. Do read about the interesting rivalry between Mirza Ghalib and Sheikh Ibrahim Zauq traded over their Sehra writing skills. A more relatable sehra would be the song “Dulhe ka Sehra” sung by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I personally do hope this practice gets revived.
The Feast — Biryani and something else
For a long time, the wedding feast was biryani followed a sweet preparation of rice. That seems to be changing even though biryani remains the star attraction. Modern weddings follow the buffet system where there are a variety of items to choose from and eat. Traditional families still prefer to feed guests on their own, one set of a people at a time. Caterers are finding acceptance too with more and more families going nuclear.
The groom, his immediate family, and his friends eat last. This is a significant part with the girl’s brother or a cousin taking special care. Some cultures also have a ritual where this brother is supposed to help the groom wash his hands and is rewarded with some money as a gift.
After the Wedding — The One after “Qubool Hai, Qubool Hai, Qubool Hai”
The Bidaai or the Rukhsati
This generally takes place the following morning. A small section of the groom’s family stays back to take the girl with them. It is a very cathartic affair with the departure of a daughter sitting heavy on the parent’s hearts. Someone from the bride’s family accompanies her to the groom’s house. The groom meets all the relatives of the household during the Rukhsati. There is also scope for fun and games here — his sisters-in-law generally tease him and crack jokes at his expense. The bride’s sisters steal shoes and demand money for their return. The groom is protected by his friends who reply with their own jokes and also bargain a price for the shoes.
The groom’s mother stays back to receive the bride. The bride has to follow a lot of rituals — not all Islamic and definitely not scientific — before she enters the house. However, we can summarise the same as a welcoming where she is metaphorically given the charge of the house. The members of the household come to meet the bride and help her feel welcome.
The Walima or the Reception
As stated earlier, this is a feast thrown by the groom. It is equivalent to a reception in modern terminology. The girl’s family visits the groom’s side with gifts. The photo-ops session is a modern introduction to this ceremony. All of this, of course, is accompanied with food. Here too, biryani used to prevail but is now getting replaced with a wider array of items. The girl is expected to return to her parents after this ceremony.
Happily, Ever After?
This is a succinct summary of a typical North-Indian Muslim wedding. I need to attend a South Indian Muslim wedding to figure out what goes on there. The details I have shared here show how much a Muslim wedding is influenced by Indian rituals and cultural traditions. This is an example of our common culture and the shared history we have.
Next week, we will talk about something else. Till then, live long and prosper!
The author is a routine Engineer-MBA with a nine-to-undefined job and lives under the illusion that he can write. He also blogs here.
