Anas bin malik reported that The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, “When a slave (of Allah) marries he has fulfilled half of the deen (religion); so let him fear Allah regarding the remaining half.”
Al Silsila As Sahiha , 1895
Marriage is a beautiful relationship that completes half of our Deen. What is the purpose of marriage? To show off or to enjoy? To have fun with mutual gatherings and music? No, it is a best way to follow a Sunnah of Rasoolullah ﷺ , a way of getting peace and to fulfil our physical and emotional needs. But this beautiful Sunnah has been made so difficult by our society, people and culture. The unnecessary cultural practices requiring a lot of money has made it hard for young people to get married. Now the point is how our culture has inculcated this beautiful practice?
Taking dowry in the name of religion
Firstly, even before marriage, the concern of dowry haunts the parents. This practice is so common that most people consider it a part of our religion and relate it with Rasoolullah ﷺ that he gave it to his daughter which is completely wrong…We have to read to Seerah as well for this and for practicing deen on the footsteps of Rasoolullah ﷺ . Many girls can’t get married just because their parents don’t have enough money for dowry.
Let’s move onto the wedding functions now.
Reckless wedding functions
Weeks before the wedding, the whole family starts doing dholki, a ritual where family gathers, plays drums and sing songs. An instrument that’s not permissible, an event coming from Indian culture and free mixing, how can a combination like this be halal?
Then there’s the turn of haldi , mayoon and mehndi, all coming from Hindu culture again. All these are filled with music , free mixing, even dancing in front of non-mahrams and a total waste of time and money. After that, the wedding day arrives, called baraat in our culture, putting a burden on bride’s family to afford all the arrangements. How can this be associated to Islam? Did Prophet ﷺ do all this at his daughter’s wedding? Did he demanded any of this from his wives? You already know the answer to that.
Now let’s see what harms are they doing to society:
Making marriage hard makes zina easier
When nikah is hard for people, they turn to zina to fulfil their needs, which is one of the biggest sins. The society becomes wild, with no morality and character. One of the signs of qiyamah is that zina will become common.
Riyah (showoff)
Many people spend lavishly and unnecessarily on their weddings just to show off. They do a lot of functions including dholki, mayoon , mehndi etc which have no significance in our religion. This causes the poor to feel inferior and remind them of their difficulties in getting married.
Denial of Sunnah
We all need to study how Prophet ﷺ taught us to get married and how he married his daughters to sahaba with simplicity with only nikah and then valima by husband.
Ignoring the purpose of marriage
The purpose of marriage according to Quran is:
"And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquillity in them, and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought." (Surah Ar-Rum :21)
We often forget this purpose during these lavish functions and just get indulged in so-called fun during that time. Husband and wife are worried about expenses making them less excited for the biggest day of their lives.
Waste of money
These cultural rituals are a big waste of money. Lots and lots of money is spent on dresses for all these events, then other expenses like marriage hall fee and other stuff requires a lot of money too. Music arrangements and decorative arrangements prove to be an additional burden for the family.
Paving path for more sins
One sin paves the path for another. The loud music makes our hearts hardened and we forget to pray during these events. So we are increasing our sins when we don’t take care of our hearts in such situations.
Free mixing
All these events have one thing in common, free mixing between opposite genders, making it easier for devil to inculcate evil thoughts in mind. It’s difficult to protect our gaze like Allah commanded us. The rituals like”doodh pilai, joota chipai” etc causes a lot of free mixing and jokes with non mehrams. How can we not be sinful by doing this?
May Allah protect all of us from adaption of different cultures and assuming it as part of our deen. May Allah help all of us to do nikah with the Right person in a way that Prophet ﷺ has taught us. Aameen summa aameen
Written By
Hamsa Fatimah
