walimah

Yesterday, I attended my friend's walimah. It is the first time for me to attend walimah at Melbourne. Both of the groom and the bride, Faiz and Marlina are my colleagues from the same batch.

The walimah was held in a mosque and it was only for male. Walimah for female was held at a different place. The ceremony started with recitation of the following verses from al-Quran.

O MANKIND! Be conscious of your Sustainer, who has created you out of one living entity, and out of it created its mate, and out of the two spread abroad a multitude of men and women. And remain conscious of God, in whose name you demand [your rights] from one another, and of these ties of kinship. Verily, God is ever watchful over you!

Hence, render unto the orphans their posses­sions, and do not substitute bad things [of your own] for the good things [that belong to them], and do not consume their possessions together with your own: this, verily, is a great crime.

And if you have reason to fear that you might not act equitably towards orphans, then marry from among [other] women such as are lawful to you - [even] two, or three, or four: but if you have reason to fear that you might not be able to treat them with equal fairness, then [only] one - or [from among] those whom you rightfully possess. This will make it more likely that you will not deviate from the right course.

And give unto women their marriage portions in the spirit of a gift; but if they, of their own accord, give up unto you aught thereof, then enjoy it with pleasure and good cheer.

And do not entrust to those who are weak of judgment the possessions which God has placed in your charge for [their] support; but let them have their sustenance therefrom, and clothe them, and speak unto them in a kindly way.

And test the orphans [in your charge] until they reach a marriage­able age; then, if you find them to be mature of mind, hand over to them their possessions; and do not consume them by wasteful spending, and in haste, ere they grow up. And let him who is rich abstain entirely [from his ward's property]; and let him who is poor partake thereof in a fair manner. And when you hand over to them their possessions, let there be witnesses on their behalf - although none can take count as God does.

[an-Nisa:4-6]

A lecture related to wedding in Islam was given and it touches on how to choose the right spouse while in the same time remind the audience the impact of Western civilisation towards Muslim view with regard to love and wedding. It also highlighted the effect of culture in organising walimah back in Malaysia.

The building block of any community begins with a family. A good family will contribute a lot to the society. Deciding who you are going to marry with will lead to large effect in the future and upon this, the talk reminds us again on the famous hadith on how to choose a wife.

The talk was refreshing and a good reminder for all of us.

After that, few of the boys performed nasyid dedicated specially for the groom. The next event was a bit unexpected which was having martial art show inside a mosque. Four people performed Malay martial art from silat gayong and silat cekak and it was quite entertaining. It reminds me of those days back in KMB when I was actively involved in silat gayong.

The food was delicious and it is certainly different from walimah back in Malaysia. Anyway, I think I need to do lots of exercise now to burn all the cholestrol I got from the food :).

Being in the same batch with the bride and the groom, the usual question of asking me when it will be my turn follows. There were several people who asked me this question and I quickly replied that I have not found the candidate yet. If I find the right person, I will get married as soon as possible :). Hopefully this answer will satisfy their curiosity.

So, out of 20 people in my batch, 5 are already married and I wonder who will be next...