“Dear Friends: This is an invitation to my ‘Jaha’ on Friday ‘insha’alla’, Gathering will be at my house at 4:30 PM. Please share with me this great moment, and please spread the word to all of our friends. If you don’t know the location of my house, please don’t hesitate to contact me”.
This is an email we got from our friend and colleague at the office the other day. “Jaha”, for those of you not familiar with the term, is the Arab social custom where a young man’s tribe, go, en masse, to the house of a young woman, to ask her father for her hand.
For us non-tribal big city dwellers, a Jaha includes family members as well as friends and work colleagues. Customs evolve with time, for sure. Still, receiving a Jaha invitation by email was a nice surprise. I am definitely going!
In a distant future, we can imagine e-Jahas. Suppose a young man’s tribe is dispersed all over the globe. An e-Jaha would be a web-based application, allowing family members and friends to register online, then, at a pre-agreed time, they all log-into the girl’s family chat room. Each e-Jaha user will be presented with an icon on the screen, depicting a cup of Arabic coffee. The elder of the man’s tribe then says, (or types on his keyboard) “We will not drink your coffee unless you agree to our request.” The future bride’s father is then presented with an online form: Tick the appropriate answer, yes or no. If the answer is yes, a voice on all users’ computers says “drink your coffee!”
If you think this is amusing, please consider, quite seriously now, that the internet is conducive to tribal connectedness. While the net enables people with similar interests (say, collectors of fast food packaging) to form their own online communities, it also allows families and people from similar ethnic backgrounds to find each other and stick together.
Take me as an example. Five of my best friends live outside Jordan. Without email, and online chatting, we would have probably lost touch (as has happened to some of my pre-internet friendships). The net allows us to fill the gaps between actual encounters.
Last year, a female colleague, found one of her old acquaintances online, and started chatting with him. They fell in love, and got married. In New Zealand!
Even Egypt’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Ali Gomaa is taking note. He has issued a decree approving marriages arranged by matchmaking agencies, including those operating on the internet, as long as women’s families were informed.
“It is legal under Islamic law to get married through firms that specialize in marriages, on condition that correct information is given,” he said.
Comments
2 responses to “Technology, love and marriage”
yeah mate in New Zealand! and i was just checking the date u wrote that, 14 4
our 1st anniversary!!
Congratulations!