By AP Muhammed Afsal
DOHA: In a rare incident, a young woman from India’s gold-obsessed Kerala state demanded for 50 books as wedding gift and her duty bound fiancé complied. Sahla Nechiyil, a political science post graduate from University of Hyderabad, and her now husband Anees Nadodi did this despite much protestation from their families’ side.
Mehr is the mandatory payment in the form of money or possessions paid by the groom to the bride at the time of marriage in Islam. “According to the religious texts, a girl can demand anything she wants and the groom cannot disagree. The second reason is I wanted to show my community that a wedding can take place without transacting gold between both parties,” she said.
The fiancé was handed a list of 50 books by Nechiyil, and he went to Bangalore to find all the books that she wanted. Nechiyil explains that this is not the first time that a Muslim woman demand something that she wish. Nechiyil demanded a list of books that include Islamic feminist literature, feminist literature, fiction and politics etc. Anees enjoyed the book-hunt Sahla assigned to him. He went to Bengaluru’s popular Blossoms, Gangaram and Bookworm bookstores looking for the rare titles that Nechiyil had meticulously listed.
The Peninsula
