Islamic Marriage Sites

Given that there are over 1.25 billion Muslims in the Muslim world, there is no one way to hold all Muslim weddings. There are 49 Muslim-majority countries and each has many regional and cultural differences. Additionally, many Muslims living in the West then mix family traditions with those of their host countries.

Muslims in the Indian subcontinent generally follow wedding customs practiced by Middle-East Muslims, which are based on Islamic convention. These Islamic traditions were first handed down to medieval Indians by propagators of the Islamic religion which included the Sultans and Mughal rulers at the time. The blueprint is the same as the Middle Eastern nikah, a pattern seen in marriage ceremonies of Sunnis and Shias. Traditional Muslim Indian wedding ceremonies typically last three days. Before the proper observance of the marriage ceremony, two different pre-wedding rituals, consisting of traditional dancing and singing, take place in two places: at the groom's house and at the bride's home.

On the eve of the wedding day, a bridal service known as the Mehndi ceremony or Henna ceremony is held at the bride's home. This ritual is sometimes performed two days before the actual wedding day. During this bridal preparation ritual, turmeric paste is placed on the bride's skin for the purpose of improving and brightening her complexion, after which henna is applied on the bride's hands and feet from mehndiwali, a female relative.

Long abandoned, anointing with a powder called 'miso' to darken teeth used to be part of Islamic wedding rituals in India.

The Indian Islamic wedding ceremony is also preceded by a procession known as the groom's procession. From this convoy comes the groom, who will share a drink of sherbet with his bride's brother at the venue of the marriage ceremony. This drinking ritual takes place when the sisters of the bride engage in tomfoolery and beat up the guests using cuddles filled with flowers.

The marriage ceremony, known as the nikah, is conducted by the cleric, a priest also known as the qazi. Important participants of the wedding are the wallis or the father of both the bride and groom. And the bride's legal representative. It is the father of the bride who promises to give the hand of his daughter to the groom, which is known as Kanya-Dhan. This is also a formal occasion, especially in traditional Islamic weddings, when men and women have separate seating arrangements. Another common practice is the wedding sequence which includes the recitation of Quranic verses, the groom's proposal and the bride's acceptance portions known as ijab-e-qubul or ijab and kabul; Deciding the families of the bride and groom about the cost of the matrimonial financial endowment known as mehar or mehar, which will come from the family of the bride and groom. Blessings and prayers are then offered to the couple by older women and other guests. The groom, in return, extends greetings of salute to his blessings, especially the female elders. The bride also usually receives gifts which are usually seen as badi. , which can be in the form of gold ornaments, clothing, money and the like.