Wedding Cards... the Silent Disclosure

A session gathered me with one of the Orientalists friends... During a joint session to probe the depths of the lists of prohibitions in the behavior of some of the successive generations in our contemporary Arab world, we discussed at length customs that existed before Islam—such as the burial of infant girls—which the noble Islamic religion fought and forbade, and which no longer exist in our present time, praise be to God... However, my Orientalist friend left all the discussion and surprised me by commenting that there are no old customs unsuitable for the era, then handed me a modern wedding invitation card dated recently... on which it was written that the groom’s father, al-Hajj. his full name (Abu Fulan)... is honored to invite you to attend the marriage contract of his well-mannered son, the engineer: Mutawalli.... the rest of the name. As for the bride’s father, he announced his honor after writing his full name: al-Hajj..(Abu Fulan).... by inviting family, relatives and friends to attend the marriage contract of: his daughter.... (without mentioning the name)... My friend said to me: Indeed many customs have perished and disappeared—either because the Islamic religion stopped and forbade them, or because they became extinct with the passage of time through the succession of generations—but the custom of not mentioning or disclosure of the daughter’s name or the sister’s name... or the mother’s name or the wife’s name in any document or card... and considering that a defect agreed upon—is truly a shameful matter.!

My friend added... Why specifically the female, for example, on her wedding day is her name not mentioned as if she must be content to remain anonymous... the name omitted out of consideration for customs and feelings, without considering her feelings that she will be happy for herself because she will become a wife... But this female studied at the university and her full name appears in the graduates’ lists... so why do you not mention it on the card I named the celebration and wedding card..! As for the male—he is not even since the father is still called by the kunyah: Abu Fulan after the name of the first male child in his offspring (al-Mahrous). Why does he take this privilege over his sisters among the females and even over his younger male brothers!! Why is the father not called by his first name or Hajj and his first name, as most people do including some Arab countries? I recalled in this conversation the story of the dean of the college where I was teaching a master’s program in 1979 in the state of Texas... I entered the office of the Dean of the College of Business Administration whose name was George... and he was then about 82 years old and held 4 doctoral degrees... and I noticed that the students whose ages mostly did not exceed 25 years called him by his name: George...—without Doctor...!!—and I noticed that he did not see any impropriety in it and did not appear annoyed!! So I was surprised at that coming from me who came from the Middle East... Afterwards I tried to find the name of his eldest male child to call him Abu..., and I found that he had two married daughters and no males in his offspring.!!

But I did not show my Orientalist friend my astonishment or recount to him my story with George, but I told him that such matters are extremely rare and cannot be generalized to our society—it certainly suffers—but they are not common.... Yet in my heart I admit that there are many weddings and events we witness in which the female is an unknown soldier... even in some of them when the bride’s consent to the proposal is taken by remaining silent and that silence is taken as her approval to marry the young man... the forthcoming tahini!! She only bows her head and everyone knows she agreed... and the marriage registrar writes the document!!

And I say again to you: these are individual, rare and isolated cases, certainly... But I wanted to tell you what people say about us in some of our customs... and we should not be upset if there is a case or cases of what was referred to or similar!! We must change for the better when change is required... and change for the better is not a defect... And to those who (are ashamed) of writing their daughters’ names—God forbid—I say to them: write and disclose their names.... for they are a source of pride for you... in the lives of the greatness of some men there are women capable of managing and leading countries... Look before you, study carefully and remember the names... .!!!

5-1-2019