Entrepreneur Hammad Rahman of Nikahforever initiates a campaign to encourage simple weddings
Nikhat Fatima, Siyasat.net
Hyderabad: A wedding is a union of two hearts and not a business. Simple weddings are the best because they are intimate and warm. And of course in Islam a simple wedding is sunnah of our beloved prophet, but people have forgotten the ascetic ways and simple marriages became a thing of the past.
Weddings, especially Indian weddings are a season to splurge on clothes, jewelry, food, exotic locations, a huge list of guests, Music, DJ, videos and pictures captured by drones and professional photographers. No wonder then the Indian marital industry is worth 3 lakh crores, the second largest after the US.
Many reformers have begun to talk about simple weddings and instead spending the large amounts for charity. There were a handful of people who shunned lavish weddings and instead used the amount to construct houses for the poor, buy books for poor students and organise marriages of widows. But these are very few and far between. The rest of the weddings are extravagant with many people spending more than they earn.
“20% of loan applications are received for fulfilling the marriage expenditures by Indians between 20-30 years” says Hammad Rahman, who is the founder of a Muslim Matrimony site called nikahforever that caters to Muslims eager to find their soul-mates.
However all the big fat Indian weddings have been forcibly put on hold, thanks to the pandemic COVID-19. It certainly looks like a pandemic situation was needed to check the wasteful expenditures that burn a hole in the pocket of the lower middle and poor class people of the society.
But Hammad wants the trend to continue post covid. So he began a campaign called “Say No to Big Fat wedding” in the month of August to bring a social change. And close to 2 lakh people have signed this campaign. The signatures are of people from all walks of life, students and professionals.
Talking with siyasat.net Hammad Rahman says, “The initiative is built to educate the whole community to adapt to simpler marriages and give up the illogical traditions that are more of a burden.”
Hammad Rahman started the nikahforever site in 2018 and has nearly 25000 registered users. His site is about marriages but at the same time discourage marriages that incur heavy expenses burdening the parents of the youngsters. And till date Hammad and his team have helped around 3500 couples to find their perfect mate.
With the increasing number of signatures the campaign has garnered on instagram and other social media platforms, it sure looks like the younger generation is ready to take the plunge and revolutionise the idea of celebrating marriages by replacing lavish mindless spending with minimal expenses. People have supported this campaign by sending their pictures with the message “Say no to big fat weddings”
Hammad Rahman says, “I believe the beauty of true things lies in its simplicity. When I took a pause, I was shocked by the amount of money we waste on lavish weddings when the same Nikah can be completed minimally. The campaign wants to unlock the reasoning power of the Muslim community so they are motivated to opt for simpler weddings.”
He reasons that all the money used for lavish weddings can be used for strengthening the community.
And he is right because the trend of simple weddings though started by covid is catching on in almost all over India and even the globe.
(www.siyasat.net is Ahmedabad,Gujarat,India based website)
Join the campaign now: https://nikahforever.com/campaign
