Islamic clerics weigh against music, buffets at marriages

According to Uttar Pradesh Imam Sangathan president Maulana Tamkeem Ahmad, at least half a dozen marriages in Muzaffarnagar had to be postponed because the clerics refused to perform the ceremony over the past five days.

Terming both music and buffet as "grossly un-Islamic", he said while he was always against the modern practices, now adopted by a majority of Muslims, he chose to take a strong view recently when he got his organisation to formally pass a resolution against it.

"Looking at the increasing trend of people going for loud music and buffet at weddings, we had no choice but to take a harsh decision not to perform a nikaah at a place where music was being played or meals were offered through buffet," the Maulana told IANS Monday over telephone from Muzaffarnagar.

His stand was endorsed by several prominent Islamic scholars and clerics in Lucknow as well.

"I have been following this very strictly at all Shia marriages, where I make it loud and clear to the hosts in advance that I will not read the nikaah if they have any kind of music playing at the venue or if they serve a buffet," said renowned Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Jawaad.

Leading Sunni cleric and Lucknow’s Naib Imam Maulana Khalid Rasheed too said he was against these practices but did not take such an extreme view.

"I make it a point to tell the hosts to stop playing music while the nikaah is being performed, but I do not refuse to perform the nikaah, to prevent people from falling back upon unqualified maulanas who would not carry out a proper nikah," he said.

Echoing the same sentiment, another leading Islamic scholar Maulana Abul Irfan Mian Firangi Mahili observed: "Islam completely disapproves of music at a solemn occasion like nikaah and even buffet was disallowed under the tenets.”

"Food deserves to be given due respect, therefore it was improper to eat while standing," he said, even citing references from other religious books which termed the buffet as "unhealthy way of eating".