Muslim Wedding: Contract, Dowry, Engagement, Party | Middle East And North Africa

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MUSLIM WEDDING

wedding in Pakistan
Muslim weddings are often held before Ramadan They can last for four to seven days and usually feature traditional music and often dancing. Guests are expected to dress in their finest clothes. Not all Muslim cultures have wedding celebrations because once a marriage contract is signed, the couple is regarded as married.

When there is a wedding ceremony it is generally not performed in a mosque because most Islamic marriages are effected by a civil contract and men and women are supposed to be separated in a mosque. Instead the ceremony and celebration afterwards are usually is held in a wedding salon, the house of the groom or the bride or one of their relatives or in the streets or a courtyard. The guests are usually neighbors and extended family members. Foreigners are often invited.

George P. Monger wrote in “Marriage Customs of the World From Henna to Honeymoons”: “ Typically an Arab wedding involves either the bride being taken to her new husband’s house or the groom collecting his bride; this procession is accompanied by music and singing and a great deal of noise, including the firing of guns into the air. Decorating the bride’s hands and feet with henna is a fairly universal practice across the Arab world; this is considered very sensuous, and the application of the henna decorations is a ceremony in itself. Feasting, singing, and dancing over several days is also an element of the Arab wedding. Such celebrations may be segregated by sexes, as in Yemen. [Source: “Marriage Customs of the World From Henna to Honeymoons”: “ by George P. Monger, 2004 ^]

At a traditional Bedouin wedding, families prepare a feast of goat meat and rice and other foods. The featured dish is often a cooked camel, stuffed with a whole roasted sheep, which in turn is stuffed with a chicken stuffed with fish filled with eggs. Traditionally, the camel was sacrificed. A marital tent is set up to signify that a couple can live with each other. At sunset the bride is escorted by female relatives of the groom. After the groom arrives the relatives depart. No presents are exchanged. The following morning the couple is congratulated. The bride then joins the groom’s family in their tents while the grooms does various chores to earn enough money to pay for the bride price.

Websites and Resources: Islam IslamOnline islamonline.net ; Institute for Social Policy and Understanding ispu.org; Islam.com islam.com ; Islamic City islamicity.com ; BBC article bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam ; University of Southern California Compendium of Muslim Texts web.archive.org ; Encyclopædia Britannica article on Islam britannica.com ; Islam at Project Gutenberg gutenberg.org ; Muslims: PBS Frontline documentary pbs.org frontline

Legal Muslim Marriage

Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood wrote for BBC:“In Islam, a person should be properly married, and this should include both the religious ceremony and the legal requirements of the law of the land - something not of prime concern to certain Muslims. However, Muslims who marry without legal registration are putting their womenfolk at some risk, and their children are not legitimate in the eyes of the UK law - and no Muslim should wish to put his wife and children in this difficult position. [Source: Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, BBC, September 8, 2009 |::|]

“In Islam, marriages are not considered to be 'made in heaven' between 'soul-mates' destined for each other; they are not sacraments. They are social contracts which bring rights and obligations to both parties, and can only be successful when these are mutually respected and cherished. |::|

Signing the Nikah (Marriage contract)
“If and when such contracts are broken, either party is entitled to seek divorce. It is not assumed that a couple will remain together 'till death do us part'. Islam is realistic, and aware that many marriages go wrong and break down for all sorts of reasons. However, most marriages commence with the best of intentions, and the state of marriage is regarded as the ideal way for Muslims to live. Celibacy is disapproved, as it may lead to all sorts of psychological and physical tensions and problems. Sexual intimacy outside marriage is forbidden to Muslims, including all varieties of relationship - homosexual as well as heterosexual. |::|

“It is important, therefore, that persons getting married should do their utmost to make the partner happy and satisfied in every respect. Truly practising Muslims will keep the rules, and may only have one sexual partner in the whole of their lives. In some Muslim communities divorce is common and frequent, but in others it is strongly disapproved of and divorced women would find it difficult to find a later partner. |::|

“In Islam, it is commendable if women can be taken care of, and so efforts should be made to settle them with good husbands so far as is possible. Many Muslim marriages are very happy, sometimes even if the couple have not seen each other before the marriage, but have trusted in the judgement of their parents to arrange a good match for them. However, it is recommended that prospective spouses do see each other, and have a guardian or wali to make discreet inquiries about the intended to discern if the marriage has a good chance of success. |::|

Muslim Marriage Contract

Marriage contracts are another fixture of Muslim marriage arrangements. They are sort of like pre-nuptial agreements and are generally regarded as vehicle to guarantee certain rights to the wife. In addition to specifying a bride price, the contract can be used by a wife to spell out her expectations and demands from the marriage. She can insist on working outside the home and keeping her finances separate from husband’s. She can also establish the terms for a divorce and reserve the right not to clean the house or cook.

Azizah al-Hibri, a professor of law at the the University of Richmond told the New Yorker the concept of a marriage contract “goes back to early days of Islam, when it was understood that women entered marriage equally, unlike previous regimes, in which she was chattel.”

Marriage contracts are worked out by bride’s family and the groom’s family. The bride often has no say in the matter and must follow the wishes of her father guardian. Muslim marriage contracts are usually signed with the consent of the bride or groom but sometimes it is done without their consent even though they are bound by Islamic law to abide by it. A marriage involving a woman with the participation of male next of kin is regarded as invalid.

The marriage contract can be signed a few weeks before the wedding takes place or on the day of the wedding celebration. Usually it signed by the groom or his father and two representatives each from the bride’s and groom’s family in the presence of an imam. The bride’s father usually also signs it. In some places the contract is delivered to the bride at another location, where she signs it and repeats three times before witnesses that she has agreed to marry the groom to indicate that she is not forced into the marriage against her will.

Muslim Wedding Customs

Many of the activities that surround a wedding are exclusively for women: singing ribald songs, cooking and preparing dishes, apply henna patterns to various parts of the body. A day or so before the official wedding ceremony there is a woman-only pre-marriage ceremony called “lailat al henna” (See Below). In arranged marriages it has traditionally not been unusual for a bridegroom to see his bride for the first time after her veil has been removed after the wedding.

Kazakh wedding
Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood wrote for BBC: “Muslim weddings vary enormously according to the culture of the people involved. Many people in the UK, for example, confuse the celebrations at a Pakistani or Bangladeshi wedding with an Islamic wedding, and assume they are the same thing. This is not so, of course, for many of the Muslims who marry are from widely different cultures - for example European, Turkish, African, Malaysian, and so on. “Secondly, it is important to realise that the 'wedding' means different things too. For many Muslims, it is the Islamic ceremony that counts as the actual wedding, and not the confirmation of that wedding in a registry office." [Source: Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, BBC, September 8, 2009 |::|]

“Many wedding customs are a matter of culture and not of Islam. The bride and groom may be obliged to sit on 'thrones' on a platform, to be seen by the guests. They may receive gifts, or gifts of money. The majority of brides favour a traditional white wedding dress, but brides from the Asian subcontinent often favour a shalwar-qameez outfit in scarlet with gold thread, and have their hands and feet patterned with henna. They might also have vast feasts with hundreds of guests, usually with the males in a separate room from the females. Other Muslims have simple celebratory parties with only close friends and relatives. In some cultures there may be dancing, firing of guns, lots of noise and hilarity. Asian weddings often include pre-nuptial parties and gathering too - the whole process may last several days.” |::|

Muslim Proposals and Engagement

George P. Monger wrote: “ A young man who has fallen in love may tell his mother, who then makes inquiries about the woman and her family. If his family members are satisfied, they will approach the girl’s family with an offer of marriage. The marriage offer and arrangements are likely to be arranged through an intermediary, either a relative or a matchmaker. However, it is not necessary for the young man to fall in love before suggesting to his parents that he is ready to marry. Once he has informed his parents that he is ready for a wife, his parents make every effort to find one for him. [Source: “Marriage Customs of the World From Henna to Honeymoons”: “ by George P. Monger, 2004]

When asked how one goes about proposing to a boy or a girl, The late Dr. Mahmood Abu Saud, a well-known Islamic scholar, said: “If you know the person, simply talk about your desire to get married and wait for the reaction. Then, if the reaction is positive, just express your desire to engage the person. If the answer is positive again, inform both families and arrange for the "official" engagement.” Shahid Athar, a well known Muslim American psychiatrist at the Islamic Center in Toledo, Ohio, said in 1992: “You let him/her know your intention to marry him/her, through your parents or trusted friends.” [Source: “Sexuality in Islam” by Heba G. Kotb M.D., A dissertation presented to Maimonides University, 2004]

When asked what a Muslim boy should do if his proposals are constantly rejected, Dr. Abu Saud said. “He must be following the wrong approach and procedure, or there must be something basically wrong with him. Counseling would be very useful in this case. Shahid Athar said:: “He should find out why he/she is being rejected. Maybe it is the way he/she proposed, etc.

On whether and engaged, couple was allowed to go out with each other, Dr. Abu Saud said. “Yes, provided there is no touching, necking and no staying behind closed doors or in a place where they would not be seen by others. Engagement in Islam is not a contract of marriage binding on either party. Shahid Athar said: “No, not alone; unless a third adult member of the family is present, i.e., brother, sister or one of the parents.”

Muslim Wedding Preparations

The young woman has to agree to the marriage before the parents set a date and go to the mosque to mark the beginning of the engagement period. This is a time for preparation and for the couple to set up the home. The bride-to-be begins to collect items to take into the marriage, including gold, clothes, household items, and wool to produce mattresses. The young man meanwhile buys presents for his bride and her mother as a sign of respect and love. The marriage settlement, dowry, and all other financial arrangements are arranged by the families of the couple.

An Imam at the mosque explains the Islamic moral code, which the couple is expected to follow. The couple’s responsibilities are also clearly defined: The husband and wife are equal partners in the marriage, so that the husband is expected to provide for and protect the family but does not have the right to rule the family. The woman is required to care for the children and run the household; all decisions should be by mutual agreement between the couple.

Preparations are made for the wedding festivities after consent for the marriage is obtained from the father. Often the festivities take place in three stages. First there is the bridal shower, where friends of the bride get together to dress the bride and put colored dyes on each other. Sometimes there is a simultaneous party for the groom at another place. Next is the official marriage ceremony held at the bride's house, with a reading from the Qur’an. The last is a reception in honor of the new couple at the groom's residence.

Muslim Wedding Ceremony

The marriage ceremony has traditionally been done in private, overseen by a mullah and attended only by two Muslim witnesses or close family members. Before the ceremony the groom formally informs the father of the bride of his intention to marry his daughter and asks for permission. A mullah is learned Muslim man trained in Muslim law.

Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood wrote for BBC: “The actual Muslim wedding is known as a nikah. It is a simple ceremony, at which the bride does not have to be present so long as she sends two witnesses to the drawn-up agreement. Normally, the ceremony consists of reading from the Qur'an, and the exchange of vows in front of witnesses for both partners. No special religious official is necessary, but often the Imam is present and performs the ceremony. He may give a short sermon.” [Source: Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, BBC, September 8, 2009]

Salar wedding in China
The formal betrothal, the “ khitbah” , starts with prayers praising Allah and asking for His forgiveness and protection and including the words: “God is God and Muhammad is His messenger.” The bride and groom often face each other with their hands clasped, sometimes with a white cloth held over their head which signifies their purity and chastity. As the couple stand together a friend or relative of the groom makes a statement of the groom’s intent which is acknowledged and approved by a representative from the bride’s family.

The mullah asks the groom, “Have you chosen this young woman for your wife?” The groom responds, “I have. “You have heard? — the mullahs asks the witnesses. “We have heard,” they reply. The process is repeated for the bride. She is expected to answer in a soft, demure voice. She also says something like: “I offer you myself in marriage in accordance with the instructions of the Holy Qur’an and the Holy Prophet, peace and blessing be upon Him.”

Traditionally, when the witnesses are asked if they have heard they say no and the bride must say “I have” very loudly. The couple pledges their honesty, sincerity, obedience and faith. The mullah then blesses the couple and prayers are recited as the father of the bride formally accepts the groom as his son-in-law.

Muslim Wedding Party

In many places there is wedding party or reception after the ceremony. Customs vary quite a bit from culture to culture. After the ceremony the bride is often presented to the public. Sometimes she has to sit still for hours while groups of people admire her beautiful clothes and elaborate henna patterns on her feet and hands. Sometimes there is a procession of guests bearing presents for the bride, which are then put on display at the reception. Sometimes when they arrive candy and rice is thrown on the bride.

Sometimes the bride wears a Western-style wedding dress. Most often she wears a traditional costume of her ethnic group or tribe. The groom can wear a Western suit or a traditional costume Sometimes rings are exchanged at the ceremony. Sometimes jewelry and money is tacked onto the clothes of the bride and groom. At some point during the celebration the groom may ride through the streets on a horse.

There is generally a big feast with lots of food that may last for a day or more. The featured dish at a Bedouin wedding is often a cooked camel, stuffed with a whole roasted sheep, which in turn is stuffed with a chicken stuffed with fish filled with eggs.

A band is usually on hand that begins by singing Islamic poetry and playing favorite Egyptian and Indian show tunes. After the bands gets warmed up and the party gets going they play dance music as well as audience participation songs and deliver clever lyric directed at the bride and groom and other people in the crowd. The wedding party often takes place without the married couple present. They are sequestered in special quarters and share a meal with special foods. Afterwards the couple are alone and expected to consummate the marriage. The next morning two old women are given the duty of determining if the “boy has become a king,” or in other words find out of the marriage has been consummated. If the answer is “yes” the bride is no longer regarded as a “servant” (sometimes translated as “slave”) of her father but is now a “servant” of her husband.

There are pre-wedding parties too. Reporting from Libya, Marie-Louise Gumuchian of Reuters wrote: At a pre-wedding evening party in central Tripoli, a group of Libyan women sing traditional songs to the beat of a drum as they prepare to apply henna to the bride’s hands and feet. Clapping her hands to the music as she waited for the bride to appear, 23-year-old Sarah

Marriage, Virginity and Consummation in Islam

young couple with a child in Saudi Arabia

Muslim females and males are expected to be virgins at the time of the first marriage. Obviously, this would not be the case for a subsequent marriage. In some Muslim countries women are tested to make sure they are virgins in a pre-wedding ceremony in which an elderly woman sticks a rag into the bride's vagina. If the hymen is broken and blood appears on the rag, it is displayed as proof of virginity. In many of these same countries it is also possible for a woman to get a hush hush operation to have the hymen sewn back together if it should...um...happen to accidentally get broken while doing gymnastics or riding a bicycle

Wedding night rituals in some places sometimes still feature a manual deflowering of the virgin bride by the husbands or an elderly woman with a piece of muslin placed over the index finger and placed into the hymen. The blood-stained cloth is then displayed as a indication of the bride's purity. "Patria potestas” in Islam is the right recognized to the father of giving a virgin daughter to marriage to whomever he pleases. The bride price for a virgin is often at least double that of a non-virgin.

George P. Monger wrote: “Consummation of the marriage is most important, with evidence of the bride’s virginity at marriage often required. Often the bride was not expected to talk to her new husband at all on the first night. With some groups in the past the marriage was not considered properly sealed until the wife was proven to be pregnant; thus, among the Bedouin of Mount Sinai, the wife was not allowed to enter her husband’s tent until she was advanced in pregnancy. [Source: “Marriage Customs of the World From Henna to Honeymoons”: “ by George P. Monger, 2004]

Henna and Muslim Weddings

A day or so before the official wedding ceremony there is a woman-only pre-marriage ceremony called “lailat al henna” , in which the hands and feet of bride and sometimes her guests are decorated with elaborate henna designs. The reddish-colored designs wear off after a couple of weeks.

George P. Monger wrote: “Henna is a dark, reddish-orange plant dye derived from the shoots and leaves of the Egyptian privet (Lawsonia alba or Lawsonia inermis), used as a cosmetic and for decorative purposes. Although some medicinal properties have been claimed for the dye, it has not traditionally been used in healing. [Source: “Marriage Customs of the World From Henna to Honeymoons”: “ by George P. Monger, 2004 ^]

Holud wedding party henna
hand decorations in Dhaka
The leaves are crushed into a green powder, and water is added to make the paste. It is applied to the body as a paste and left for, usually, up to two hours to dye the skin a deep orange color. This will fade over two to three weeks. (It is also used for dyeing hair.) Black henna is also sometimes used, but only on the soles of the feet and on the hands.

Henna is considered very sensual in some societies and is used as a beautifying agent to decorate the hands and feet of brides, with often intricate patterns. In Afghanistan, henna is said to bring good luck and happiness. Non-Muslim also get into henna. On the night before a Sikh wedding, in a ritual called mehndi, hands and feet of the bride are decorated with henna in a way similar to the way Muslims do it. Bulgarian Gypsies use henna to ritually “clean” the bride during a week of celebrations. In this culture, henna was said to be emblematic of the bloodstained sheets of the virgin bride after consummation of the marriage, and it is also said that the longer the henna stays on the girl’s hands, the longer her husband will love her.

Muslim Dowry and Bride Price

Dowry and bride prices have traditionally been part of the Muslim marriage arrangements. The Qur’an instructs the man to give the woman a dowry as a free gift (but adds that if she chooses to give some of it to the man, he may accept that portion and it is lawfully his). The Qur’an also states: “If the intention of a husband is not to pay the dowry, the marriage is void.” This is generally taken to mean that the groom or his family must pay a bride price. The Muslim law schools generally list a relatively small amount as a minimum, and require only a portion to be paid at the time of the wedding with balance paid when the husband dies or divorces her.

The bride price is often given to the bride not her family and is expected to be considerable value, say, a year’s salary. If a groom or his family can’t pay the sum the mehir can be treated like a deferred loan that the woman can claim any time she chooses to. In some Muslim cultures, the family of the bride has to provide the husband or his family with a dowry. This arrangement is generally based on local customs and traditions rather than Islam.

Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood wrote for BBC: “A Muslim husband has to agree a financial deal with the prospective wife before marriage. The payment made to the bride is hers to keep and use as she wishes. The reason is that even if the girl has nothing, she becomes a bride with property of her own. If the bride later seeks a divorce which the husband does not wish for, she is allowed to return him the money and seek what is known as a khul divorce. Normally, if a divorce takes place for the usual reasons, the bride would be entitled to keep the mahr. [Source: Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, BBC, September 8, 2009 |::|]

“Sometimes a bride (or her family) demands an enormous mahr. The Prophet (pbuh) set the example of modest sums, and many Muslim women generously use their money to support their husbands and families in some way, although they are not obliged to do so. If a woman has money of her own, she is not obliged to spend it on her husband or family, but a Muslim husband has the obligation to be able to keep and support his wife and children himself, at his own expense. If a wife goes out to work, or donates money, this is to her credit and is regarded as an act of charity (sadaqah). |::|

Dowries have been criticized by foreign observers, who suggest that the money changing hands is a form of purchase. However, some of the money paid by the groom’s family is typically used to purchase household items for the bride to bring with her. The dowry payment may also be looked upon as a kind bond — if the groom pulls out of the arrangement he loses at least part of his money.

Muslim Dowry Customs

Dowry and bride price customs vary somewhat from group to group and place to place. At their wedding, Bedouin girls traditionally wore coins given to them by their father that constituted part of her dowry. Her husband had no claim to this money, as in some Christian traditions. In most Middle Eastern countries, a bride price known as “mehir” (or “mahr” ) is negotiated by the families of the bride and groom a few weeks before the wedding and after the fathers have given their consent. The “ mehir” (mahr) is regarded as security for the wife if something happens to her husband or she gets divorced. The terms are spelled out in the marriage contract.

George P. Monger wrote: “ The bride-to-be begins to collect items that she takes into the marriage, which include gold, clothes, household items, and wool to produce mattresses. In Algeria this is called her shoura, which, in the event of her husband divorcing her, remains her property that she will take with her. As such it is part of her dowry. The size of her dowry, which the groom-to-be pays, is negotiated between the families; some of the dowry is used to purchase her shoura. [Source: “Marriage Customs of the World From Henna to Honeymoons”: “ by George P. Monger, 2004]

The size of dowries and the increasing costs of weddings have forced many young Kuwaiti men to either marry foreign women or remain single, a state of affairs that is being addressed by an Islamic religious charity that offers young men incentives to marry Kuwaiti women. Usually a portion of the dowry (one-third to one-half) is retained to be given to the wife in the event of her husband’s death or her being divorced by him.

Protecting Newlyweds from the Evil Eye

Sometimes there are rituals to protect the bride and groom from the evil eye. George P. Monger wrote in “Marriage Customs of the World From Henna to Honeymoons”: “ The notion of the “evil eye” suggests that there are malevolent influences that will bring bad luck, or even worse, to people, and that there are specific times when these forces can be most active and effective. Transitional times are believed to bring specific vulnerability, and a wedding is certainly a transitional time. The evil eye or evil influences range from malevolent spirits that will enter and do harm to the newly married couple to simple bad luck.[Source: “Marriage Customs of the World From Henna to Honeymoons”: “ by George P. Monger, 2004 ^]

There are, according to tradition, three main methods of protection from the evil eye: deceiving the malevolent spirits; using protective amulets, charms, or clothing; and frightening the spirits by firing guns or making a huge noise. Veils to hide the bride and dressing the bridesmaids in a similar way to the bride are used to protect the bride from bad luck, malevolent spirits, or magicians. The Berbers of Morocco keep the marriage time secret for fear of witchcraft.

Pearls form the main element in the traditional bridal outfit of the Fassi of Morocco. The costume is known as el-jawbar, the “dress of pearls” because it is believed that the shiny surface offers a defense against the evil eye. The bride’s head and chest, vital parts of her body, are covered with pearl decorations. The extremities are considered by some to be very susceptible, and hands and feet are to be protected by decoration with henna.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Islamic History Sourcebook: sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Arab News, Jeddah; “Islam, a Short History” by Karen Armstrong; “A History of the Arab Peoples” by Albert Hourani (Faber and Faber, 1991); “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); Metropolitan Museum of Art, Encyclopedia.com, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Library of Congress and various books and other publications.

Last updated April 2024