Well, if you haven’t known any, consider yourself knowing one now.
I did.
Giggled. During. The akad nikah.
Ayah performed the akad nikah himself instead of asking somebody else to be the wali to marry me off. Ayah, being the former contractor of a cleaning service who used to shout at lots of cleaners, could sometimes startle others with his deafening voice. And he did just that to hubby as he called out hubby’s name at the beginning of the ceremony.
Nevertheless, hubby remained calm, thinking he was quite well prepared, having rehearsed the qabul part of the akad for quite some time prior to the actual ceremony.
He answered Ayah’s ijab in a single breath, “Aku terima nikahnya …… dengan mas kahwin RM80 tunai”
Most people thought – that was it, the end of a simple akad ceremony.
But that was not to be. The Pendaftar Nikah was quick to point out that the qabul should be read as “Aku terima nikah…..”, not “Aku terima nikahnya…”
Ok, so Ayah began another ijab.
Hubby answered it, still confidently, “Aku terima nikah …Haida bin….dengan mas kahwinnya RM80 tunai”
Bin? Bin? Oit, oit, you are marrying a girl la…. I tried to control a small smile which began to appear on my face.
Hubby was surprised to learn from his cousin who was acting as his pengapit that night that he had referred to me as a male (using “bin” instead of “binti”).
So Ayah began yet another ijab.
Rather cautiously, hubby uttered his third attempt at qabul that night, “Aku terima nikah… Haida bin, binti…”
Apparently – to poor hubby, nothing bad happens without coming in groups of three. By this time he was sweaty all over, so much so that his cousin actually teased him – are you sure you don’t want to take a shower first to calm your nerves?
First a “bin”, then a “bin,binti”… What am I - a boy-girl? Sitting not very far behind them, I could no longer hid my efforts to stifle my giggles. My brother-in-law even managed to snap a shot of me closing my mouth in a futile attempt to hide my giggles.
Fortunately, hubby got it right at the forth attempt – to everyone’s relief. Then, there was a quick doa, after which he had to read out loud the lafaz taklik, signed the declaration, and we had to salam both our own parents and parents-in-law before we went up to perform our solat sunat nikah together.
He smiled nervously at me as we entered the bridal room, and my stomach jumped. There were still some beads of sweat on his forehead – perhaps remnants of the nerve-wrecking nikah ceremony. But looking into his eye just before we were about to perform the first solat together as legally wedded husband and wife, I saw something that gave me goosebumps of the positive kind.
I saw true love. The kind that will survive most anything, insya Allah.
Even a less-than- perfect akad nikah
No comments:
Post a Comment