Fatimas life 2.3

Salaam alaikum,

Mehendi has successfully arrived!...So what's the mehendi deal?. I've heard from allot of my Hindu friends that they too have mehendi. Wherein all the girls and the bride have mehendi applied to their hands, it's a celebration with music, and enjoyment etc.

In our place it's pretty different. We have mehendis applied on any day convenient, usually after the manja so that the it's well dark for the main day.

So what do we do?

We have this ceremony where the brides sister, closest in relation, if not blood sister applies mehendi on the little finger of the groom!. But it's not as simple as it sounds, its a whole war that takes place, the groom is supposed to not want to have it put, even though ultimately he is going to! How intelligent is that?!The bride is nowhere on site on this day. And all her sisters wear khada dupattas representing the brides team!.

Anyway, so the scene is like this, both the families of the couple are sitting opposite each other, or standing, or just falling over, in a joking protest to the act, while all the brides side are doing the same. There is a cloth held between the two teams. I fail to understand the purpose of! and the war begins, the brides side try to convince the groom to agree his enslavement to the bride; while the grooms denying it. You see all these people have no other interesting thing to do.

The whole thing, ends with the groom finally giving in to the whole mehendi scene, usually after the interference of the older people, when they get bored. This whole thing takes hours!...

Allot of other incidences happen, squirting water via syringes, spraying party sprays etc. Just for fun sake. You don't have to be a graduate in Islamic studies to notice the violation of Islamic rulings here.

So what violations have occurred, just in case you forgot:
1. Hijab! girls trying to get hold of the hand of a na mahram basically fighting for it!.
2. The application of henna, leading to touching of hands of two na-mahrams.
3. Aunts and uncles take no responsibility of being adult and instead promote this.
4. Allot of the people are without hijab
5. camera men and photographers present.
6. Extra intermingling of na mahrams, mind you all young and spirited getting to see each other and fight, and spray water (in some cases) etc. Also older people too.

This comes to a point I've been meaning to make for quite some time,Talking to your na mahrams unnecessarily is Haraam, period. There is no rebate when that person is closest in cousins, or is your husbands brother (young or old). It's the culture we've creating where the distance between two na-mahrams is ignored, but that doesn't make it right. Just cause you are way older/younger to someone doesn't mean you can chat your way to glory with him/her. This is something that is prevalent in the other religions, because not all religions have marriage permission to cousins like in Islam. For them it's a whole different story. But we have to follow OUR religion NOT theirs.!!

Also, another thing i wanted to share, Sari is not the most hijabi garment to sport especially in a mixed gathering. No matter if you're sleeves are full, and you're wearing a head cover. Sari is an invention by the Indian people for the curvy Indian woman for a reason. Any guesses?, it's insanely flattering on the Indian body type. Not to mention, the stomach and back being revealed.

It's clearly understandable why a young girl should especially avoid it if she intends to be dressed modestly. However, for some unknown and unreasonable reason older women don't consider themselves applicable to hijab in any way. Why? "we're old, no one looks at us". WHO ARE YOU KIDDING?!!.

Testosterone is almost a disease. It's stupid to think, that once you've attained a certain age you're not falling into hijab category (except for really aged women, refer taudhi). Allah didn't create women so that they'd be beautiful only for few years. Marriages would not last otherwise. And which ever woman thinks she's ugly enough to not do hijab should also consider herself ugly enough to cover everything she has init!?
Conclusion: It's all crap!. We've spent too much time fooling ourselves. As women the only way to being satisfied is understanding inner beauty and outer beauty too. When one says their 'niyyah is clean and that's what matters'; let them know that if you're niyyat would be clean, you'd preserve it with outward modesty.

I've also noticed allot of delusional women here. Who act so weird in gatherings that it puts all women to shame. Laughing out loud, bending down like an insane rukuh to pick something, it's almost like a dirty music video where the screen of the TV fills with the ass of the woman. Lets face it, ladies gain insane on their hips especially after kids, to not realize how big you are is another reason why observing hijab feels unnecessary. I've been having crazy ideas of taking pictures and showing these ladies what they look like, just to get a perspective on things. It's unreasonable to say you didn't know, if you don't know these things about yourself, then what else important do you do the whole day?

Humph..So how does it feel to read all this? Does it make sense to you? it should. If it doesn't now then there's something wrong. I ask for some time, again, just to reflect on these issues that we take so lightly. Hijab is not Islam, Islam is more than that, but everything in Islam is connected.

That was mehendi and an insight to a world of delusional living. I'm going to leave you all now with some thinking to do, have to go for a wedding....will let you know about it in the next mail inshallah. May Allah help us understand things through the big picture of His justice, and the day of qayamah.

take care everyone!

Khuda hafiz,

Fatima.

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written by Syeda
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