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The time-honoured conception of marriages being made in heaven falls to the ground when you attend a Muslim wedding these days. The upper and the middle of the Muslim community are unable to perform their weddings anywhere except in Shadi Mahals. Heaven has no Shadi Mahals, only angels, the pure paradigms of virtue. But the present-day earth is choke-full of Muslim couples dying to get married in Shadi Mahals. Simplicity in Muslim marriages is gone with the passing away of the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him). When the venerable Prophet gave his daughter in marriag to Hazrath Ali all he had given Ali as dowry was a little basket of dates. Neither had Ali asked for a substantial dowry like a bridegroom of today. And let the Muslims think of the way the Prophet lived his everyday life. When the whole of Arabia lay at his feet and was ready to lay down their lives in his service he strictly preserved his image of the embodiment of simplicity. He cooked his own food, washed his clothes himself.
But his simplicity of life cuts no ice with the so-called Muslims of today. To begin with there is the wedding invitation cards printed at enormous expense and sent down to the invitees who, after having attended the wedding, throw away the unwanted cards with, ‘In the name of Allah the Beneficent.’ printed thereon, and passers-by trample upon these cards with Allah’s name on them. Yet another way of inviting divine wrath, the Muslims have devised is to go in for pomp and pageantry in decorating the Shadi Mahal lavishly, spending money like water with TV cameras, floodlights and so on. Two decorated arm-chairs looking like royal thrones are placed side by side on the dais for the profusely garlanded bride and the groom to be seated side by side.
The other day I attended the wedding of a close relative’s son. I was appalled at the colossal waste of money all round, especially the inevitable biryani and the many mouth-watering items accompanying it to make the affair a gourmet’s delight. To cap it all there were the decorated tables laid out with plastic saucers of delicious ice-cream. Those who had finished filling themselves with biryani now made for these tables and consumed as many saucers of it as they could manage. Then they made for the tables with pan beedas. This table was in charge of a turbaned worthy in a long, shining robe, looking like a maharaja of yesteryears.
I am reminiscent of the day years ago when I attended the wedding of the daughter of a friend. No invitation cards were sent out. A few selected friends were invited on phone. No Shadi Mahals, no cameras, no decked chairs for the bride and the groom, no biryani, no ice-cram, no pan-beedas. The wedding ceremony was performed in a mosque by the qazi. After which sharbath was given to the invitees. Will the Muslims of today take a lesson from this?
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