SILENT WEDDING

It was one of my wishes; I hoped I could attend their wedding.
Salam , one of my best friends, a Shiite guy, who had been in love with his future wife for many years. He used to live in AL-Durra, an area in Baghdad, until the time when AL-Mujahedin decided that he and his family are infidels, so they had to leave their big house for a very small tented flat; they were not even allowed to take their furniture.

“Wise” that what I used to call his wife, a very nice young doctor who is one of the most well mannered people I’ve ever known in my life. By the way she is Sunni from Al-Aadhamiya. For Wahabis, what she is going to do is an apostasy; however she doesn’t care about them and their opinions.

They loved each other, so they decide to face all the difficulties to be together. Last July, we were celebrating their engagement at the bride’s house; it was a very nice traditional meeting despite the horror in Baghdad’s streets at that time, when the massive killer Abu-diraa was killing everybody.
A few days later, I left Iraq and they stayed there.

I phoned them yesterday, I heard sounds of music when I was talking to her, and I thought they were celebrating her “Henna”, which is the traditional Iraqi celebration on the night before the wedding. I asked her about it, she said “no, only my family is here, nobody could come”. I asked her to be careful tomorrow, “I’m ready to wear a skirt and shirt just to go with him”. She responded. So she decided to sacrifice the traditional white dressing.
He was in the hair dressing salon when I phoned him, I asked about his feelings; I thought he was exited “worried” he said.
I told him that I’m so sad about not being able to attend the wedding. “It doesn’t matter” he said, “even my friends who are living here will not attend the wedding procession, it’s unsafe”, he added “there will be no party, we can’t bring a band”

They will go quietly to his house, few days later; they will run away from Baghdad. The only traditional thing they will do is taking the wedding photograph;
In Majdi photography studio “one of the most famous studios in Baghdad”. Some of my friends will go to say “good luck” and “best wishes”, of course this will happen during the daytime instead of being at night.

Iraqi weddings used to be very glamorous, but the Islamists consider such ways of celebrating weddings are “Haram” (forbidden). Once a religious man said about the wedding procession which we call”zafah” :”it’s not “zafah” it’s “zift”, which means blacktop, and this is an Arabic way to show disgust, nobody told me about that, I heard it strait from the horse’s mouth.
I’m quite sure that our celebrations are “Halal” in Islam, but they don’t want to admit it, they want to deprive us from happiness or from life in general.

Going back to Salam ”peace”, whose name has become symbolic in Iraq at the moment, he and his bride are helpless ,but they have not lost their hope; they’re optimistic about their future in spite of all odds. They believe that they will be fine despite their “silent wedding”


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