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Islamic Wedding Customs Around the Muslim World

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Muslim Weddings:

Muslim wedding customs around the world

Traditional Muslim weddings are always events of a lifetime, with every friend and distant relative attending, lavish costumes often adorned with gold or silver jewelry, and precise Islamic religious rituals to be followed.

Still, people are people, and each culture tends to evolve its own ways of celebrating. So a Muslim wedding in Egypt might look one way, while a Muslim wedding in Africa or India might follow completely different customs. Sure, there will be certain core religious traditions that are constant, but beyond that each culture may have very different Muslm wedding traditions.

I began investigating this when I was getting ready to get married in 1998. I had grown up mostly in the United States and I didn't want the typical Western-style wedding with black suit and white gown, best man and bridesmaids, the wedding march, children bearing rings, etc. All of that has nothing to do with our Islamic history and traidtions. I wanted something traditionally Islamic, whether from my own Egyptian culture or any other. So I began researching traditional Muslim wedding customs to see how we Muslims have been doing weddings around the world for 1,400 years.

The photo essays below are the result. Enjoy!

- Wael Abdelgawad

Would you like to share the wedding customs of your country, city, or even just your family traditions? This page is intended to be a celebration of the various local customs with which people have embellished their wedding day. If you'd like to share your customs, stories or photos with us, send your email to:

Three Days of a Traditional Indian Muslim Wedding - a good description with a dozen full-color photographs.

Indian Muslim Weddings

Islamic Wedding Ceremony of the U.A.E.

Why Emirati Weddings are Getting Less Lavish - reprinted from the BBC online, this article discusses the economizing of weddings that is taking place in the United Arab Emirates.

Philippine Muslim (Tausug) Marriages
on Jolo Island
- an excellent five-part photo essay by Dr. Thomas Kiefer of Harvard University. Plenty of great photos of this little-known culture.

Muslim Tausag Marriages on Jolo Island

Muslim Bedouin weddings Muslim Bedouin Weddings: A Riot of Color and Music - the bedouin wedding reflects the ancient Arab concept of marriage.

Kashmiri Muslim Weddings - a description of the Kashmiri wedding. Includes a nice photo of a Kashmiri bride and groom.

A Kashmiri Muslim wedding

Islamic Weddings of the Muslim Rashaayda Bedouins of Sudan

Weddings of the Rashaayda Bedouins of Sudan - includes a detailed description and photo of traditional men's and women's sword dancing.

Moroccan Weddings - a photo essay on Moroccan and Berber weddings.

Muslim Moroccan Berber Weddings

The Money Hat: a Muslim Wedding Headdress

"The Money Hat" - a Traditional Palestinian Wedding Head-Dress

Traditional Palestinian Wedding Dresses Traditional Palestinian Islamic wedding dresses

A Muslim Wedding in Harar, Ethiopia A Muslim Wedding in Harar, Ethiopia: Harar is the only walled city in Ethiopia. It is a historically important Muslim city.

A Ribnovo Wedding of the Bulgarian Muslims:
A fascinating photographic account of the customs of the Bulgarian Muslims.
A Muslim Wedding of the Ribnovo People

A Muslim Wedding in the Tafilalet A Wedding in the Tafilalet: The Ain Atta people live in the Tafilalet region of southeastern Morocco and have their own unique customs.

A Traditional Yemeni Wedding: The Yemeni wedding celebration can take three days, with feasting, sword dancing and qat chewing. A Traditional Yemeni Wedding

Marriage in Somali Muslim Culture Marriage in Muslim Somali Culture: Hooyo Hooyo, Hibo iyo Ducaba Naga Hooyo Wiil iyo Caano Naga Hooyo. Queen Arawelo, "the original Somali feminist," has put together a page on marriage in Somalia.

"Turkish Odyssey": Weddings in Turkey (as well as other rites of passage, such as birth, naming ceremony, circumcision, death) are explained in this article. Turkish Weddings and Rites of Passage

Islamic Wedding Ceremony of the U.A.E.

Wedding Ceremony of United Arab Emirates - This tells about the customs of wedding preparations and ceremony. These brides go through some serious preparation!

Antique Arab Wedding Veil.
Antique Arab wedding veil

Weddings in Islam Wedding in Islam, by Mir Mohammed Assadullah: a discussion of wedding issues based on Qur'an and Sunnah.

Muslim Marriage Customs in Villages of Upper Egypt, by Hala Dergham. No pictures here, just a description of engagements / arranged marriages through a "match-maker", a henna party before the ceremony, dowry, and the ceremony itself. Muslim Marriage Customs of Upper Egypt

Egyptian Muslim Marriage Customs Egyptian Muslim Marriage Customs of the Past and Present, by Ahmad Nejm. A few good photos and a very detailed description of ancient Egyptian wedding practices, contrasted with post-Islamic weddings.

Indian Muslim Marriage Customs: This description was written by Deeba Abdin, an Indian Muslim. Also includes a photo of a wedding in Trivandrum, Kerala state. Indian Muslim Marriage Customs

Gujarati Muslim Weddings

 

Gujarati Muslim Weddings: some of our readers wrote in with these detailed descriptions of Musilim weddings in the Indian state of Gujarat

The Javanese Muslim Wedding

A photo and short description sent in by a reader.

The Javanese Muslim Wedding

Malay wedding ceremony

The Malay Wedding:

A description of Malay weddings in Malaysian and Singapore

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