Is there music at traditional Muslim weddings? We’re doing a show on love, marriage, and dating and the question came up. Just wondering…
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abunoor 1:41 pm on February 5, 2009 Permalink |
Kaitlin,
I guess it would depend what your definition of “traditional” is. My experience here in the U.S. is that most weddings for cultural Muslims will feature some music, obviouisly desis have their ‘wedding songs.’ Arabs will often have singers. Obviously weddings in many cultures are a time of great extravagance which is not really in the spirit of Islamic teachings but is still a reality in “Muslim” cultures.
There is a certain subset of “religious” Muslims (including myself) who will not have music at their wedding and are uncomfortable attending weddings that have music, and would probably leave if there was dancing. (although sometimes I do let my young kids dance a little before I leave). Some will play some religious songs without instruments which are not made for dancing.
Obviously, in some ways weddings should be the one time when music and even dancing are allowed even by the most religious muslims, but this would be observing strict gender segregation.
abunoor 1:46 pm on February 5, 2009 Permalink |
My experience is obviously limited (although my wife is Pakistani and I’ve been to plenty of weddings of her family and friends, who are diverse in their religious observance). I, also however have been to a number of very small and inexpensive weddings involving poor converts in the inner city (usually held in storefront mosques). I have also been to some larger weddings (including my own) which involved converts and so had a high percentage of non-Muslims attending and therefore take on a certain flavor — often including an attempt to explain to people a little about what Islam is and talk about marriage in Islam.
kaitlin 4:48 pm on February 5, 2009 Permalink |
Thanks for giving me a good sense of what goes on. I’ve only been to Catholic weddings: long ceremony, lots of dancing, music (and unfortunately but usually drinking) afterward. But the family and community traditions change across the board, much like what you described.
abunoor 4:59 pm on February 5, 2009 Permalink |
I grew up Catholic and I know what you mean about the long ceremonies. The actual Muslim wedding ceremony is very short, but in most Muslim cultures today that is made up for by starting about 3-6 hours late (literally)….so you still feel completely exhausted by the time it’s over. You can tell your non-Muslim family members that “starting late” is part of the culture, but believe me you have no idea what that really means until you have to live through it.
thabet 1:12 am on February 6, 2009 Permalink |
I would drop the idea of ther being a “traditional” Muslim wedding.
Muse 2:42 am on February 6, 2009 Permalink |
in punjab, wedding songs making fun of the groom and/or his family are usually sung by the brides friends at the bride’s mehndi (henna party) the day before the wedding. they sang this song at mine.
aziz 7:02 am on February 6, 2009 Permalink |
we Bohras don’t have singing, but we do have madeh and noha (celebratory vocal hymns with religious themes, sung by men and women without instruments). There is also usually a band for the wedding procession (where the groom is on a horse and leads a parade of sorts around the neighborhood) – all wind and brass instruments, no strings. Strangely, at least in US-based Bohra communities there’s been a fad of also having bagpipes. Don’t ask me why this starte, but I do note that my wedding in Houston was one of the first if not the first to have them (I was not in charge – I disclaim any responsibility/blame/credit). At any rate the instruments (including the bagpipes) are used to also play the tune from the noha and madeh i mentioned earlier, though they do take requests (I asked for the Imperial March, which you havent heard till youve heard it on the bagpipes).
I agree with thabe that there is no such thing as a “traditional muslim wedding”. You might argue that there are “traditionalist” muslim weddings though, as Abu Noor describes above; likewise there are Iranian weddings, Desi weddings, etc – basically every flavor of muslim ethnicity and interpretation will result in some new combination of what is done and what isn’t done.
kaitlin 4:45 pm on February 6, 2009 Permalink |
Muse, thanks for sharing that song! Aziz, awesome. story. Why wouldn’t they whip out the bagpipes at a wedding?
Actually, my aunt hired a bag-pipe player to burst into the Church at the end of the ceremony to play a song for her husband. It was pretty hilarious.
kaitlin 4:47 pm on February 6, 2009 Permalink |
I heard that sometimes the groom’s family is ridiculously late to the wedding, and that no one can eat or drink anything until they arrive.