Muslim wedding practices in our country are enriched with the great pomp and splendour of distinctive regional customs and practices wrapped with the essence of the binding contract between a man and a woman. It is an integral part of Malayalee Muslims in India as this religious act is considered as a duty through which the family is established. Like any other religion, Islam has several sects or denominations, and the Muslims worldwide fall into the two major sects namely the Sunnis and the Shias along with some other sects or classes. The Thableegh Jamaat or the Tablighi Jamaat (Society of Preachers), one of the most widespread Sunni sects in the world today was established in the Mewat region of India. It is believed as one of the most influential religious movements in the 20th century Islam with an estimate of 12-80 million adherents worldwide. It is a Sunni Islamic missionary movement that focuses on encouraging Muslims and urging fellow disciples to revert to practicing their religion in accordance with the Islamic prophet Muhammed, in particular concerning rituals, attire, and personal behaviour, and so on. The founder of the Thableegh Jamaat movement Maulana Muhammad Ilyas in 1926 on his second pilgrimage to the holy city of Islam, Mecca, the birthplace of the Islamic prophet Muhammed was enthused to create a movement that would enjoin good and forbid evil as the Quran decreed, as his teacher Rasheed Ahmad Gangohi envisioned of doing.
As an offshoot of the Deobandi movement that was established in Saharanpur in around 1866-67, this movement arose in response to an apparent weakening in moral norms and a disregard of Islamic characteristics. The main intention was to propagate the pure teachings of the Quran and Hadith among Muslims. As the name implies, the Deobandi Islamic scholar Muhammad Ilyas Al- Kandhlawi’s goal was to start a devoted group of preachers as a Muslim revivalists’ society who could revive “true” Islam which he saw was not being embraced by many Muslims. The Tablighi Jamaat Muslim movement with the slogan “Oh Muslims, become true Muslims” was ideally unveiled to amend the respective conscientious traditions and guard the Islamic faith together with the Muslim minority inhabitants. The headquarter of Tablighi Jamaat Muslims in India is in Nizamuddin which is famous as Markaz which serves as a haven and accommodation of the Tablighi Muslim people.
Muslims in Kerala who belong to the Thableegh Jamaat Muslims in Kerala or the Malayalee Tablighi Jamaat Muslims do not deem in the Sufi’s edict, but some communities within Muslim follow it and are called themselves as Sunnis. Just like any other grandiose wedding in Kerala, Thableegh Jamaat Muslim marriages looks dazzling to people with a lot of traditional rituals and customary practices. Though folks nowadays are influenced by the cultural and regional charms add colour to their big day, most of the Thableegh Jamaat Muslim marriages look so warm, simply calm, and bright. Kerala Muslim who are adherents of Thableegh Jamaat movements tries to focus to revive and present a traditionalist outlook in their Muslim matrimonial rituals, dress, and costumes. They stress on the individual’s belief, contemplation, and spiritual development. They incorporate the traditional notions and focuses more on the revival of the Muslim faith. With the advent of the digital era, some of the conventional outlooks have changed a bit and Tablighi Jamaat tries to distort the frontiers of gender roles and both genders share a common behavioural model and their commitment to Tablighi. In this movement, Tablighi Jamaat brides are heartened to stay home, and to decide on a life of “segregation between female and male”. And in the case of Muslim matrimony of these folks, Thableegh Muslim brides and grooms in Kerala take the wedding ceremonies very seriously and look from a traditional perspective and carry the matrimonial practices wholly based on Islamic ways of life.
