The Electronic Nikah!

Though this piece is a little old but it caught my attention only recently. It shows the need for Muslims too, to adopt to new technologies.

Although the news is all over I'm putting the one that came in 'Times of India' in July 2006.

“Enter, double click and get married ”

Manjari Mishra

LUCKNOW: Twenty-four-year- old Aliza Alim made a coy bride-to-be as she entered the Taj marriage hall in Mansoornagar on Thursday night. The place was smelling strongly of attar and choicest Awadhi cuisine.

The venue was duly partitioned into zanana (womens') and mardana (mens') wings and was packed with guests and relatives just like any other marriage. Everything seemed in place for the shaadi(wedding) but there was a vital difference — the groom was missing.

Alishan Zaidi — the lucky man — was sitting in Dubai facing his laptop waiting patiently for the rites to begin. So was everyone back home here, inching forward to catch a glimpse of the first marriage by video-conferencing at least in this side of the country.

"It did feel a little queer to visualise a 'nikaah'(muslim wedding ceremony) without the groom (dulha nadarat tha, after all –the bridegrrom was missing)" confessed Ali Hussain Abidi, Zaidi's first cousin and the matchmaker. "But later everyone, he claimed, got into the spirit of the occasion and it turned out to be quite an exciting event.

This included even for the two Maulavis — Maulana Hamidul Hasan (a prominent Muslim cleric and scholar) and Maulana Liyaqat Raza. Zaidi an MBA from Lucknow, currently working in a Dubai based multimedia company, had got engaged to Aliza last month during his trip to the hometown.

The marriage was initially fixed for December but both the families decided to advance the D-day as visa formalities for Aliza were taking too long for comfort.

Talking to the TOI on Friday Aliza (now a Zaidi) admitted that she had not imagined that hers would be the first high tech marriage in the state. The Loretto educated young woman, doing a course in fashion designing looked thrilled about her overnight celebrity status. "Why not, every marriage would not have a journalist talking about it", she giggled.

But last night, she confessed, she was scared. Specially when she anxiously looked at the laptop attached to a mobile phone placed in the centre of the room.

However the proceedings turned out to be fairly simple, informed her uncle Irfan Zaidi. The groom appeared on the screen and asked the Maulavi to carry on his behalf.

He also fixed the Mehar at Rs 14000 before saying the mandatory 'qubool hai'( I do). Aliza also gave her consent to Maulavi Hamidul Hasan before the 450 odd guests trooped out for the dawat.

"This is the second hi-tech marriage in our family", claimed Abidi. Alishan's aunt got married telephonically 15-years ago, he claimed.

Things have changed since then, says the prominent cleric Maulana Khalid Rashid, head of Firangimahal. Nikah rules have to be adapted to the changing time like everything else.


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