Wedding rituals…culture or part of our deen?

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.