At a traditional Muslim wedding celebration in Zanzibar, thumping music, ululating women, and spirited shouts fill the air. Nearly all of Zanzibar's and much of Tanzania’s coastal inhabitants adhere to Islam, while inland populations follow Christianity, Hinduism, and indigenous faiths.

Tanzania is an East African nation one of the oldest inhabited places on earth. Today it has a population of about 45 million, of which Muslims are about 35%. The official languages are Swahili and English. It’s an incredibly beautiful country, with the stunning Mount Kilimanjaro, rain forest, desert plains, and an abundance of wildlife. Dar es Salaam (“Home of Peace” in Arabic) is the largest city and is the commercial center, though it is not the political capital.

The African population of Tanzania consists of over 120 ethnic groups. There are large groups that are descended from Arabs, Indians, and Pakistanis, and there are also small European and Chinese communities. The people of Tanzania pride themselves on their diversity and their ability to live together in peace.

Here are some photos of this beautiful nation and its wonderful people:

Women celebrating at an Egyptian open air wedding

This lovely collection of Cairo photos was posted on Flickr by RvDario, a world traveler and photographer.

A view of a Muslim wedding in Kerala, India, from somewhere near the inner family circle – but not quite inside…

The bride and friends at a Muslim wedding in Kerala, India

Barnaby Haszard Morris
December 18, 2010

The Hindu and Christian weddings I wrote about earlier were the ceremonies of the more ubiquitous and integrated faiths of Kerala. If a visitor stays here for any length of time longer than a month, he or she will invariably be invited to a Hindu and/or a Christian marriage by some open and welcoming new friend, such is the ease of meeting and befriending members of both faiths. Kerala’s Muslims, on the other hand, live their lives largely behind closed doors – as a group they are both ostracised and withdrawn, generally living in segregated communities. Grand old mosques dot the landscape and announce their presence five times a day over a loudspeaker, but in public, their faithful tend to keep a dignified and impenetrable silence.

Kerala is a state along the south western coast of India

I am fortunate that my good friend Shibu, who works in the tourist trade on Varkala’s cliff, is Muslim, and has invited me into his life in every manner possible, including the marriage of his youngest sister last year.

In contrast to the Hindu and Christian weddings I have been to, where I was merely an observer, this time I was invited to be an active part of proceedings. Shibu’s family is not wealthy, so the function was to be held at his home in a small village near Varkala; this meant a full night’s work for almost everyone. A couple of cousins joined the catering team and made a massive batch of parathas, the bride-to-be (in her sparkling wedding sari) sat cross-legged and made flower garlands of all colours, and Em and I helped the older kids decorate a bedroom for the new couple. We spent hours taping paper streamers and bright plastic decorations to the walls.

All this was done with an overriding calmness and lack of fuss, even by Shibu as he flitted from station to station checking on progress and performing all unfilled tasks. This carried through to the next day, when I was asked to join the men of the family as they travelled to the groom’s house and formally invited them to come for the ceremony. Before that, however, came an important prayer to remind everyone that we owe all of this to Allah and hope that he will bless the occasion. A priest led our select group, sitting in a rough circle on plastic chairs in Shibu’s yard, his voice deep and barely above a whisper. As he gently intoned his words of praise, the other men quietly responded with ‘Insh’Allah’ and other phrases where appropriate. These were a few moments of near stillness and utter peace; all sounds in the neighbourhood seemed to cease.

We left, and 45 minutes later we arrived at the groom’s house to formally invite him. An economy of words were spoken on either side; everyone seemed to know their lines by heart. After a quick cup of pink water, we 12 piled back into our minivan, and the groom’s extended family clambered aboard four full-size, brightly coloured buses bearing slogans like ‘Total Travel Solutions’ and ‘Executive Coach’. Another 45 minutes and we’d arrived back at Shibu’s, where half of us were dropped and the other half – Shibu and a few seniors – headed to the nearby mosque to meet with the groom and his respected elders to carry out the marriage proper. Neither the congregation nor the bride were present, which I suppose makes the Muslim wedding the shortest of all I’ve been to from an observer’s point of view.

Varkala Beach. Kerala state is known for its beaches, backwater rivers and lagoons, Ayurvedic treatments, high literacy rate, and cultural diversity.

With both sides of the congregation together at Shibu’s, we milled about under a huge tarp drinking water and exchanging a few words, while the children played (mostly) nicely. As with the Hindu and Christian ceremonies, the women of the congregation wore saris of all colours and designs, while the men stuck to plain pastel dress shirts and starched white mundus. The colour that was so prevalent at the weddings of those other two faiths wasn’t the same here; it was in the trees that surrounded us in the open air. Looking at some of the elderly women sitting patiently, it struck me that perhaps the colour of this particular wedding lay not in the here and now, but in the pasts of their weathered faces.

A short while later the couple arrived, the bride having first gotten married in absentia then met her husband for the first time on the street round the corner. They walked slowly and silently past us, looking very young and uncertain, but a flicker of a smile crossed the bride’s lips as she glanced at her friends and family watching her pass. The couple were seated next to each other at a specially decorated table and served a helping of parathas and beef. As the rest of us moved to sit at the other tables, a chatter started up and grew into a happy, noisy ambience: the calm and dignified air lifted. At last, it was time to eat, to talk, to laugh and to celebrate.

Iqbal and Haslina arrived in traditional Malay costume for the bersanding ceremony, the day's main event.

by Sharifah
reprinted from building bridges

A wedding is like a microcosm of life. Family, friends, hope, past, present and future all meet on that special day.

On my recent trip home, I was fortunate to attend the wedding of my cousin’s daughter, Haslina. It was wonderful to meet again so many people who have been a part of my life, including former neighbors whom I have not met in years.

Though the Malay community in Singapore lives in a thoroughly modern city, much of our heritage still permeates our lives. For instance, weddings still remain big, community affairs. This dates back from the kampung (which means village) days when all the neighbors and relatives pitched in to help with the preparations and celebrations. And relatives from Malaysia, and sometimes Indonesia, made the trip over to spend a few days with their relatives on the island.

The number of guests can easily be between 500 to 1,000 people. We have a large extended family, and my cousin Rashid is active in the community, so his guest list was quite extensive. There was a constant stream of guests from lunch time till dinner time.

Malays have been pretty adaptable people and have found ways to merge or synthesize the new and the old. In the old days, tents were set up in the front yard for the wedding celebrations. Today, most Singaporeans live in high-rise flats and apartments. To accommodate the number of guests, the spacious lobby of the apartment building, or what is known locally as the void deck, is utilized as the wedding venue. I think this is a uniquely Singaporean feature.

Weddings used to be the launching pad for budding musicians who entertained the guests. Today, live music is not such a common feature of weddings. Haslina’s wedding had a band which played Hindi songs, and it was really fun listening to the popular hits.

On Haslina’s side, we celebrate our Malay and Indian Muslim roots, while the groom, Iqbal, celebrates his Pakistani traditions. And this was seen in the costumes and the two groups of musicians and dancers, the kompang and the bhangra, that heralded the arrival of the couple.

Haslina and Iqbal make a wonderful couple, adding another branch to our kinship tree. And thanks to my cousin Rashid and his wife Masita for giving me an opportunity to get close to my heritage and all the folks that I cherish.

“]

In Yemen's largest mass wedding to date, 1,600 grooms filled a sports hall in the capital [Credit: Oliver Holmes

Mass weddings grow in Yemen

In the Arab world’s poorest state, a new breed of wedding ceremony has emerged out of financial hardship.
Oliver Holmes for Al Jazeera, 15 Nov 2010 13:54 GMT

As is customary in Yemen’s highly conservative culture, Muhammed al-Khouja has never met his fiancée. The couple have been engaged for almost two years and set multiple wedding dates, but every time the day draws near, the wedding is delayed. Yemen is full of single young men like Muhammed who cannot afford to marry.

Weddings are pricey in Yemen – bachelors have to pay their fiancée’s family to marry their daughter. The groom and his father split the cost of a dowry to the bride’s father, normally around $5,000, and the family of the groom is also expected to pay for the wedding expenses.

In the capital Sana’a, this means renting a giant beige tent, filling it with cushions, hiring a local band, covering the surrounding alleyways in light bulbs and blaring music out of colossal speakers fixed to street lamps for three days.

Until recently, the groom’s side also paid for sizeable lamb lunches and the guests’ qat, a mildly narcotic leaf chewed during afternoons and especially at weddings, but it is now generally acknowledged that these are unreasonable additional expenses.

In March, Muhammed’s father told him that to cut costs, Muhammed would get married jointly with his three brothers, a growing trend in Yemen, the poorest of all the Arab states. Now the idea has been taken a step further and a new breed of ceremony has emerged out of hardship – mass weddings ranging from 10 to more than 1,500 couples.

1,600 grooms

Last month, in Yemen’s largest mass wedding to date, 1,600 couples tied the knot. The grooms filled a sports hall in the capital, each dressed in traditional flowing robes, with black and green scarves wrapped around their heads and holding long, curved golden swords.

In Yemen, weddings are a single-sex affair and the brides had their own separate parties at home. The couples were to meet later that night, many for the first time.

Yemeni grooms wearing traditional dress and carrying ceremonial swords, take part in a mass wedding in the capital San'a, Yemen Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010. The mass wedding was organized by a local non-governmental group aiming to help young couples facing difficulties with the high cost of weddings and marriage, and was funded by Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, according to the organizers. (AP Photo)

The event was organised by the Orphans Charitable Organisation and sponsored by Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, a brother of the Saudi sovereign.

“All the grooms are orphans,” organiser Abdul Rajeh explained. “Orphans have a really hard time getting married as they don’t have the financial support of a father to help them with the dowry.”

The festivities included a morning of dancing, poetry and short comedic plays and the front few rows of seats were filled with Saudi dignitaries with a sea of the grooms’ black and green headscarves behind them. Even leading Yemeni Islamic scholar Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani attended, a man the US has labelled a “specifically designated global terrorist”.

Spirits were high and the grooms unsheathed their swords and danced with them above their heads for some of the more popular songs. Verses of the Quran were read and VIP guests delivered long speeches filled with accolades to Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is also Yemen’s biggest funder of Islamic institutions and analysts say Saudi Arabia’s philanthropic work here is part of a wider scheme to exert influence in the Arabian Peninsula.

In addition to funding the event, Prince Aziz donated a generous sum of 200,000 Yemeni Rials ($900) to each groom as a contribution to his dowry.

“By funding our wedding and helping us with the dowry, Prince Aziz is showing us that he is the father of Yemen’s orphans,” said 25-year-old groom Abdul Ghani at the wedding feast. After the morning’s entertainment, the grooms were bused over to a hall on the other side of the capital to enjoy a lunch of tender lamb, soft Yemeni bread drenched in spicy yogurt and sweet pomegranates.

The donation will only cover a fifth of the cost of the dowry Abdul Ghani will have to pay, but he says the money helps. “I’ve been dreaming of marriage since I was a boy. This is the happiest day of my life, we are all so happy,” he said.

Growing trend

Mass weddings are not only a Yemeni phenomenon. Iran has hosted mass weddings since the mid-1990s, in part to aid the poor and in part to prevent young people from marrying late, fearing premarital sex.

In South Korea, controversial Unification Church founder and self-proclaimed “Messiah” Reverend Sun Myung Moon has married tens of thousands of young couples from around the globe.

But mass weddings in Yemen are a cultural craze. As in Iran, there is a fear among Yemenis that if a man cannot afford to marry he will look for sex elsewhere. In much of the country, friendship with a woman before marriage is considered shameful and worried parents endeavour to marry off their sons and daughters as fast as possible.

Bridegrooms take part in a mass wedding in Attawila, Yemen in 2007. Some 250 couples were married in a celebration funded by a charity run by the eldest son of the Yemeni president.

There is no stigma attached to marrying en-mass and local charities, the government, tribal sheikhs and the military have started organising weddings.

Even private companies have jumped on the bandwagon in a bizarre gesture of corporate social responsibility.

A corporate wedding

MTN, a South Africa-based telecommunications company that operates mobile phone networks in Yemen, has organised an annual mass wedding for its local Yemeni staff for the past few years. At the most recent ceremony, 30 colleagues were married simultaneously.

A senior development manager at MTN Yemen said that the aim of the wedding was to “make employees loyal to the company and to raise morale”.

Yellow posters baring the MTN logo covered the walls of the hall and an MTN jingle from a TV advertisement would occasionally blast out of the speakers. At one point during the ceremony, the CEO of MTN in Yemen appeared on televisions positioned around the room and talked at length about how MTN is “allowing its employees to settle down”.

But at this corporate wedding, the grooms make relatively decent salaries and are not trapped into single life like many of those at Yemen’s charity-organised weddings.

“This is not my real wedding day,” whispered one of the grooms, adding with a smile: “I’ll be married in a couple months, this is just a good party.”

The bride uncovered (in white in the middle)

Alex Silvester spent some time in The Gambia, West Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, working on tree-planting and vegetable-planting projects. During that time he traveled extensively in West Africa. In November 2009 he attended a wedding of the Fula people in Gambia. The Fula, also known as Fulani, are a nomadic or semi-nomadic people scattered all across the desert areas of Africa. They were among the first African peoples to accept Islam and today are 99% Muslim, though their actual practice of Islam varies widely.

The bride was Alex’s “host sister.”

Here is Alex’s story. Make sure to click on the photos, as they are quite large and interesting:

A Fula Wedding

I had been waiting all day for this moment. I watched as the women filed into the compound. I asked the man next to me where the bride was. He pointed to a brightly clothed woman. I was confused. My host sister was getting married, but the woman he pointed to was not my host sister. I asked again and this time he said look behind. Then I saw her, my host sister. She stood huddled behind the women wrapped from head to toe in fula fabric (Fula fabric is traditional fabric made by hand by the Fulas). She reminded me of a mummy because I could not see any skin. I do not know how she breathed. It was a hot day and the fabric covered her face. A man picked her up and laid her down on a prayer mat and the official tying of the knot started.

The bride, completely covered in white

The wedding began the day before in the bride’s father’s compound (where I lived). It started with a big lunch for all the guests. My compound killed two goats. I never saw my host sister the whole day. She stayed in the house, while everyone else was dancing, cooking, talking, and having a good time. Right before dark, the gifts were brought out and a crier started to count all the presents. My host sister had over 40 buckets, 250 meters of fabric, and 70 bowls not to mention the other household items she received. Each guest brought a present. To me, it seemed such a waste to have some items of the same kind because these people do not have enough money to replace their own broken bowls and buckets, but one woman gets more buckets, meters of fabric and bowls than she could use in her entire life. Later I learned the presents are actually shared with the family and friends.

Around 1 am, a gele (bush taxi) showed up with the groom contingent. After a couple of hours the groom left taking the bride to his village. Women, the bride’s family and friends, go in the car to the groom’s village. The bride’s parents do not go. The women were all crying (extremely uncommon in Gambian culture) because my host sister was leaving her village for good and may be visiting only rarely. Men usually do not go, but my family encouraged me to go to the groom’s village to see what happens next.

The Fula groom in a traditional wedding costume (the fellow on the left, obviously)

The bride contingent stayed the entire morning in a different compound while people arrived in the groom’s compound. The women cooked. The men chatted. The kids chased each other around. Around two, the bride’s contingent showed up in the compound to look at the cow to be slaughtered for the meal. They approved and the dancing began. I helped a man from my village kill the cow and cut up the meat. In the evening the bride and her contingent showed up in the compound as the sun was going down.

I sat in the back watching as a family friend picked my host sister up to lay her down on the prayer mat. All the men were sitting around her. The groom was sitting a couple of rows back. Many men spoke and blessed the two. Then everyone got up and I could not see where my host sister went. Luckily a woman explained to me what was going to happen. I quickly followed a bunch of people as they headed to the open well.

My host sister went through the ritual of what she must do before she can enter in her “married” house. She knelt on each side of the well. She washed her husband’s clothes splashing everyone when she finished. She then went to the cattle field where a kid milked a cow. She finally was able to take off the fabric around her head and put it on the cow. Now she was ready to enter her house. As she approached the door, the groom’s friends would not let her in. The women’s friends must pay the fee to enter which is not more than 2 or 3 dollars but there was a lot of negotiating the price down. Then the women ran in trying to smear cream on the groom’s friends as they tried to escape. The women then took over the house. The bride was in her house and the women stayed there all night talking, eating, and congratulating the bride. The party continued the next day. Fula weddings are always three days, with much eating, dancing and celebrating.

Gate to the old city of Fez, Morocco

A blog called “The View from Fez: Observations from the Medina of Fez in Morocco” published a nice series of photos of a traditional (if somewhat lavish) Moroccan wedding in the city of Fez. The authors of the blog were invited in 2009 to attend the wedding of Si Mohamed and Hakima, a Moroccan couple. Tom Fakler took the photographs.

The bride and groom were married a few months ago, but according to Moroccan and Islamic tradition, couldn’t begin their life together until they had celebrated properly with family and friends. The party, known as a walimah, took place at one of the wedding halls in the new city of Fez.

Map of Karnataka, India

Below are a few photos of a colorful Muslim wedding in South Karnataka, India. Photos by BoazImages from Flickr.

Readers are always welcome to send us their Islamic wedding photos. We are very interested in Muslim wedding customs and traditions all over the world.

Karnataka is a state in the southern part of India, bordered by the Arabian sea. It is an extremely diverse state linguistically and religiously. Apart from the majority Kannadigas, Karnataka is home to Tuluvas, Kodavas and Konkanis. Minor populations of Tibetan Buddhists and tribes like the Soligas, Yeravas, Todas and Siddhis also live in Karnataka.

Karnataka has made major contributions to classical Indian music, and southern Karnataka has its own distinctive cuisines.

Islam, which had an early presence on the west coast of India as early as the tenth century, gained an early foothold in Karnataka. Muslim traders also brought coffee, incense sticks and paper to the local economy. With the creation of Deccan Sultanates and the entry of Mughal rulers, Islam became the predominant religion in regions like Gulbarga and Bijapur.

While Hinduism is the majority religion, there are today more than seven million Muslims in Karnataka. Bangalore, which has become one of the top information technology cities in the world, has over one millioni Muslims.

Karnataka is a place of beautiful scenery and plentiful wildlife. It is also full of historical Islamic mosques and forts. The Khwaja Bande Nawaz Durgah in Gulbarga is regarded as one of the holiest Muslim sites in Karnataka.

Winter time is wedding season in Bangladesh. They are easy to spot: huge strings of lights in front of houses and hotels throughout the city. Bengali wedding are elaborate affairs that involve four or five days.

Weddings are of course held round the year in Bangladesh like any other country, but the favorite season for weddings in Bangladesh is winter. Since Bangladesh is tropical in climate, summer is the hot and humid monsoon season, while winter is mild and pleasant from October to March. Rural communication and travel are also easier and less hazardous in winter.

Bengali weddings generally meet all the formal requirements for a marriage in Islam, such as consent of bride and groom, the presence of witnesses, payment of the mahr (dowry) to the bride, etc. Beyond these legal requirements, a Bengali wedding is the most pompous and elaborate of all social ceremonies in Bangladesh.

The above photo is not a political rally. It’s the grooms extended family arriving for the festivities.

For good or bad, people of all classes from the poorest farmers to the richest elites spend to their utmost economic abilities to stage an elaborate and memorable wedding ceremony.

Modern Reform

In ancient times, the bride had no right to choose a husband and no choice in the matter, in spite of the fact that this is a violation of her Islamic rights. It was a part of the culture. The marriage was arranged by the parents and the bride had no right or thought of refusing.

In modern days attitudes have changed. This is partly due to greater education among the population, especially the education of women, and partly due to a greater awareness of proper Islamic teachings. The personal choices of the bride are more commonly respected now. Forced marriages still occur but are not the norm.

A Bengali Muslim bride and her bridesmaids

Panchini (Engagement)

This is the first stage of the elaborate Bengali marriage process, in which the ring is given to the bride by the guardian of the bridegroom. The bridegroom’s guardian would normally be his father, or if the father is absent then the mother, or of both parents are absent then any elder relative such as a grandparent or uncle.

At this time the date of the wedding would be set, as well as the amount of the mahr, or as it is called in Bengali, the Denmahor. The Denmahor is a gift given to the bride by the groom, and can consist of cash, gold or any other significant asset. The amount depends on the financial ability of the groom and will be negotiated between the groom and the bride’s representative. Typically in Bangladesh half of the Denmahor will be paid at the time of marriage, and the remainder will be paid in the future according to an agreed schedule.

Gaye Hulud

The Gaye Hulud is sort of a pre-wedding festival and is one of the most interesting parts of the Bengali marriage process. It is arranged at the houses of the bride and the groom as well. The children and youth of the groom’s family go to the bride’s house with various gifts that are necessary for the Gaye Hulud festival. They bring a sharee (a type of garment), a flower garland, turmeric paste, mehendi paste, and sweets. The bride puts on the sharee and flower garland, and the girls smear the turmeric paste on the bride’s body. Then the sweets are distributed to everyone to enjoy.

Similarly, the youth of the bride’s family go to the groom’s family and initiate a similar festival.

The Gaye Hulud ceremony. Hulud is turmeric, a spice which since ancient times has been used in beauty treatments for girls. Gaye means body. (Both in Bengali) Turmeric is known for its antiseptic and cosmetic properties. 'Gaye Hulud' is a pre-wedding ritual where a turmeric paste is put on the girl. This photograph is taken during that ritual. The convention is that the paste is put all over her face, arms and feet. Nowadays, however, due to the fact that turmeric is a dye and if put all over the face in considerable amount, may leave a stain which might be difficult to remove before the wedding), it is applied only to her forehead (as you can see in this photograph). Though there is always a popular demand to put it on her face, and some ensuing commotion.

That evening, the mehendi festival takes place at the bride and groom’s house simultaneously. The girls of each household draw beautiful designs on the bride’s hands and on each other’s hands.

The Biye

The Biye is what is called in Arabic the nikah, or the marriage itself. In Bangladesh, this traditionally takes place at the bride’s house.

First, a ritual called Doi Mangole takes place, in which curd is mixed with chira and doi, and is given to the groom to eat.

Then the groom and his relatives proceed in a march to the bride’s house. This festive journey is called Barjatra. Upon arrival, the groom’s guardians give some gifts to the bride, such as a sharee, ornaments or jewelry, and cosmetics.

A religious leader, Maulana, or Marriage Registrar performs the main event. He begins by reciting scriptures from the Holy Quran. Then he asks the groom if he accepts this woman to be his wife. Upon receiving the groom’s consent, the Marriage Registrar along with two witnesses (generally respectable relatives from both sides) goes to the bride, who sits separately on a stage, surrounded by her female relatives and friends.

The Maulana or Registrar names the groom with his full name and tells her that this man wants to marry her, and he asks her if she consents as well. The question is asked three times, and the reply should be given three times as well, so that no doubt remains that the bride consents of her own free will. The Registrar then confirms with the witnesses that they heard the consent of the bride.

After getting the bride’s consent the Registrar gives her the marriage contract to be signed, then the team returns to the groom and obtains his signature as well. At this point the couple are considered married, and the formal part of the marriage ceremony is over.

Now the feast takes place, and every invited person attends. Customary dishes are polow, biriani, roast chicken, and sweet desserts.

Biryani being prepared for the occasion. Biryani at most wedding feasts is cooked in huge cauldrons outdoors and stirred with a spoon as long as a boat oar. In Bangladesh, the biryani is made with long-grain rice, goat meat, potatoes, prunes, rose water, saffron, and plentiful butter and cream.The meat is marinated in yogurt and spices and the ingredients are layered on top of one another. The result is a golden medley of rice, meat and potato. The prunes grow plump and caramelized, the meat is soft, and the potato is sweet and delicious.

Finally at this point the groom goes to the bride’s stage. If she is wearing a veil then he lifts her veil and their eyes meet, and they exchange their flower garlands in a ritual called Shah Nazar. This is assisted by the bride’s sisters and sisters-in-law.

Bride and groom exchanging flower garlands at a Bengali wedding

Bashar Sajja (Bed of Flowers)

The Bashar Sajja or bed of flowers is the honeymoon bed. After all the formalities of the wedding and the feast have concluded, the bride and groom are sent alone to a separate room. This room will have been nicely decorated by boys and girls from both families. The room will be filled with natural flowers, multicolored papers and perfumes, and the bed also may be strewn with flower petals. In this lovely room the groom and bride meet intimately for the first time.

Bou-bhat (Wedding Reception)

The Bou-bhat ceremony takes place at the groom’s house. The groom formally introduces his bride to all his relatives. The relatives of the bride also attend this function, as well as friends and relatives.

While some of these functions may sound rather formal, in reality they are all social occasions which quickly turn to merry-making, singing and dancing.

***

- Courtesy of Sayma’s Weblog, rewritten by Zawaj.com for clarity.

Rashid and his sister Amina Kholwadid who were the first Gujarati Muslim children to enter the educational system in Gloucester.

The story below is part of the Gloucestershire County Council’s Untold Stories series.

Zawaj.com is a Muslim marriage website that also has many unique features, including a section on Muslim wedding photos, and another on Muslim wedding customs around the world. So what I mainly found interesting in this article was the historical photo of the first Gujarati Muslim wedding in Gloucester, UK, on April 21 1972.

And note that the schoolboy Rashid on the left, who (along with his sister) was the first Gujarati Muslim school child in Gloucester, is also the groom in the first Gujarati Muslim wedding in Gloucester! Cool, huh? Ma-sha-Allah.

I have reprinted the entire article for those who are interested:

The Gujurati Muslim Community

The bulk of the Gloucestershire Gujarati Muslim community arrived in England during the 1960′s, in response to a call from the Commonwealth leader for workers to meet the demands of the labour shortage. They came from towns, cities and even remote villages from Gujarat State in India.

What kind of obstacles did they encounter? Most émigrés remember the harsh, frigid winters with icy roads, and fridge-freezer air. They coped with very different working conditions. There was no siesta or break during the day – just one long 8-12 hour working shift. Most laboured at the mills and factories of Lancashire and Yorkshire and moved often, to find work elsewhere. They were wanted as factory hands and labourers. Those with professional qualifications were informed they were not wanted.

Rashid and Sarah with the city Mayor Harry Worral at the first Gujarati Muslim wedding in Gloucester on April 21 1972.

Gloucester boasted very little industry in the late 50′s and early 60′s and so many worked in hotels at first and transferred later to such companies as Williams and James Engineering, British Nylon (Du Pont, Brockworth) and Walls Ice Cream. Many private and commercial companies candidly told job interviewees that they ‘weren’t hiring blacks’. It was quite legal to do so before the Race Relations Act criminalized such practices.

In the absence of families and long-term friends, the men formed close friendships with their compatriots and joined together to purchase properties to use as flats and houses. Many landlords in the sixties would hang “No Blacks” signs in their windows. Thus the arrivals had no choice but to buy the properties outright to enjoy a roof over their heads.

Some of the earliest men to arrive became known for leasing out rooms as temporary accommodation for new arrivals. Some beds would actually never turn cold, as a daytime worker would vacate the bed for a nightshift worker in the morning.

It seems that there is a disproportional representation of Gujarati Muslims in Gloucester. But there seems to be a similar pattern of disproportional representation in most regions in Europe. For example, there is a Sikh majority in Hounslow, and mostly Hindus in Leicester. This could be the result of colonial ties and also the fact that first arrivals would become contact points for later arrivals. As a result, if several Gujarati Muslims had established themselves at an early stage in Gloucester, later arrivals would find the path ‘already beaten’ and reap the benefits.

A Muslim community has to abide by dietary protocols and Muslim butchers soon appeared. Similar to Jewish Kosher food, Muslim Halal meat is obligatory for all. Today there are five major grocery/butcher shops in central Gloucester that cater not just to Muslims but to any person who appreciates vegetables and spices not commonly found at regular shops and superstores.

Members of the community at the launch of the library Gujarati video service in 1994.

The men, at first, used empty rooms in their own homes as places of congregational worship, but soon banded together, raised funds and established mosques for their burgeoning communities. The two domed mosques in Gloucester today are difficult to miss but are quite recent additions. For decades, men prayed at non-descript buildings that had originally served as warehouses or TV Rental shops.

Later, the families joined the men and experienced the strange land of England from another viewpoint. Men experienced England from a working man’s perspective. Wives and mothers saw England through a female prism. The children entered schools and came to know England from another completely different standpoint.

As bilingual children, the youth quickly adopted the norms and culture of their host country and thus weaved between two foreign worlds, able at a moment’s notice to switch from the dialect of an English borough to the idioms of a state many thousands of miles hence. Always conscious of being the ‘outsider’, young people kept a low profile and were often perceived as diffident, shy individuals. Teachers would often report them as ‘model’ students, perhaps because they were least likely to cause incidents in the classroom and because they were disciplined by parents to work hard at school.

Discipline for youth was uncompromising. English schools then also used corporal punishment and it was certainly practiced at the ‘Madressah’; a school attended by Muslim children every evening after regular school. Nowadays, this form of discipline is outmoded, partly because of recent laws regarding child rights but primarily because second and third generation parents are less tolerant of excessive smacking and caning today.

At the Madressah School, usually based in a room at the local mosque, children learnt to recite the Holy Koran (the Koran is to Muslims as the Bible is to Christians), to practice different forms of worship and to understand laws and scripture from books written by scholars and teachers. The Koran is written in Arabic but children aren’t taught Arabic grammar or even the meanings of words. Children are taught the sounds of letters and words which they learn to recite. Imagine reading this paragraph aloud but without understanding any of the words or the sense of the sentences? Recitation of the Koran is an important form of worship but some parents are addressing the Arabic language gap and attending Arabic classes with their children. A few Indian families in Gloucester speak Arabic exclusively to their young infants. After all, the language of the afterlife will be Arabic, so a ‘headstart’ is prudent.

Fathers and grandparents didn’t always come to England direct but often lived a generation in a third country as guest workers. Perhaps passage to England could prove to be too expensive. One source claimed Nehru, the Indian Prime Minister prevented Indian citizens travelling to England because he feared they were being exploited by the colonial ‘mother’ which was making professional migrants undertake unskilled, low paid manual work. To avoid the barriers many men first obtained visas to a third country and then moved onto England. The author has found no data to confirm this but it’s certainly how one person remembers it.

Indian Muslims are a minority in England and a minority in India. Other nationals, such as Pakistanis are gifted with a genuine homeland. Indians are conscious of being in the fringe, even in their parents’ country of origin. Their parents and grandparents establish their roots during childhood through everyday memories of family and a sense of belonging to their homeland. Younger community members, born in Europe, may visit the ‘mother’ country briefly and may identify a few faces from family photograph albums. But the connection to the ‘extended’ family is tenuous and there can often be a language barrier.

Watching events at the Asian community event held in the city park as a part of the annual Gloucester festival.

The young generation occupies a larger footprint in this country’s industrial and commercial sectors than their forebears. Fathers and grandparents, confined to manual labour, dreamt of higher ambitions for future generations. Today, sons and daughters are employed as factory hands, IT Professionals, lawyers, doctors, architects and also self-employed as business-owners. More recently, adults and teenagers joined the British Army, marking an enormous cultural leap. Would the Army allow the observance of prayers and sensitivity to dietary restrictions? The MOD has relaxed a number of regulations to encourage ethnic minority participation. The Muslim Territorial recruits enjoyed the Army experience without jettisoning their Muslim observances. One Muslim recruit is considering a full professional career with the Forces. Invisible ceilings denying access to many job sectors have become porous.

Sometimes the barriers are within. Young people have rarely participated as members of Gyms or other leisure clubs. Membership costs can be prohibitive and even today there is an untapped fund of talent for certain sports. There has admittedly been an insular attitude stemming from the elderly generation and infecting the young men and women. However, the spirit of youth often dares to step outside the box.

The elderly Asian population, though small, is increasing. Those who migrated during the 60′s were relatively young and are now facing old age in Great Britain; something for which they did not plan. The current elders did not envisage remaining in Britain permanently. Their objective was always to earn some money, and to try and improve the standing, conditions and circumstances of the extended family back ‘home’ in India. The emotional roots remained in India and still do, to this day.

Growing old in a foreign country can raise the spectre of isolation and depression. National research has highlighted the low uptake of mainstream services, especially community care services. There are specific needs relating to language, culture, religion and tradition. The Asian Elders Drop-in Centre at Hatherly Day Centre and the Mainstream Day Care Provision at Great Western Court (managed by Social Services) respond to these specific needs.

These elderly men and women left all that was familiar in their youth and embarked on a voyage to ameliorate the economic standing of their families. They cabled monies to fund buildings, amenities and to succor the general well being of relatives. At the same time they raised their own immediate families and established a quality of life for their sons and daughters unknown to themselves in their youth.

They sacrificed with a purpose, and people on two different continents have reaped the benefits. The present generation and generations to come owe a debt of gratitude to the courageous spirit of their elderly parents and one day, perhaps with the help of this history project, will recall the love and labour expended on their behalf.

Best man, groom, bride and bridesmaid

Amrul from Malaysia published these lovely photos of his brother’s wedding, and wrote the captions:

By Amrul