Of Simple Weddings and Sad Trees

When I went back to Penang for Raya this time, I attended a wedding of a cousin of a cousin in Balik Pulau. Balik Pulau is a quaint town with a lot of greenery. The wedding was held in one of the kampong houses by the roadside. There were three canopies for the guests and in the verandah of the house, there was table very simply decorated for the newly-weds and their closest relatives. It was nice to see such simplicity in a time when most people like to have very grand weddings, sometimes to compete with one another, as to who has the most grandiose wedding of them all. Often youngsters follow blindly and rather stupidly too, the wedding style and theme of celebrities which usually cost a fortune. Celebrities can do it because they are rich, but we are not and so should refrain from hosting grand weddings at the expense of our financial stability. How many times have we heard of couples who have ‘meletop’ weddings and then get into so much of debt which then destabilises their marriage, not uncommonly resulting in divorce. Wedding feasts are meant as a celebration for new couples and their families, as well as a form of worship to show gratitude to Allah for allowing the union of two beings in love in a sacred bond of marriage. And that is why it is very recommended to invite poor people to attend the feast. The prophet said, “The worst food is that of a wedding banquet (walima) to which only the rich are invited whilst the poor are not invited. And he who refuses an invitation (to a banquet) disobeys Allah and His Messenger (Allah bless him & give him peace).” (Sahih al-Bukhari, no. 4882)

Overly lavish wedding feasts are wasteful and hateful in the sight of Allah. We should strive to have moderate feasts so we may gain His blessings. It’s ok to have a grand wedding if it is within our means, but it shouldn’t be so lavish as to be detestable , and certainly shouldn’t be done at all if it is beyond our means which can lead to unnecessary debt!

Now back to the wedding I attended. At different corners of the canopies were baskets filled with rambutans from the rambutan trees within the compound of the house, for the guests to take as and when they like. All the kampong houses in the vicinity had rambutan trees in their compounds, and so abundant were the rambutans, the red colour of the fruit eclipsed the green of the leaves! The compound of the wedding house also had others fruit trees like guava, duku (from whose branches I managed to pluck some duku and eat them on the spot), mangosteen, and others. I was very thrilled at the experience of being able to pluck duku fruits directly from the tree and eat them, as it is not a very common fruit tree. I have a rambutan tree in my own house and managed to pluck so many rambutans a few weeks ago. Plucking duku though was something completely new to me, hence the excitement. I was actually confused as to the difference between duku, langsat, and duku langsat, but an uncle at the house explained the difference and showed me a bunch of ripe duku deep within the branches which I excitedly picked off and ate.

Duku tree with basket of rambutans in the shade

so many rambutans!

yellow rambutan tree across the road.... enlarge for better view

The fruits though were not always abundant as they are this year. For more than 20 years, the fruit trees hardly bore any fruits and an auntie living in the house attributed this phenomenon to the death of her mother who used to take very good care of the trees. When she was alive, they would bear lots of fruits, but upon her death, they beared very little fruit, if any until this year, when suddenly they started bringing forth lots of fruit. I suppose the trees mourned for the lady who took care of them by not bearing fruit, and such a long mourning period too. There had been no weddings at the house since the old lady died, until now. This was her grandson’s wedding, and perhaps the trees came out of their mourning to celebrate a new beginning in the house, bearing an abundance of fruits.

As a write this, I can already imagine some people shaking their heads while they read this post, thinking that I have clearly lost the plot! But I believe that living creatures other than humans do mourn for the dead. It is probably quite obvious in animals, but trees mourn too. There is a hadith reported by Anas ibn Malik that Allah’s Messenger (SAW) used to deliver his sermons reclining on the trunk of a palm tree. The sahabah (RA) then made a pulpit for him and he delivered a sermon from it, but the trunk wept like the weeping of a she-camel. So, he descended and stroked it and it ceased to weep (Tirmidhi, graded as sahih by Albani). So let us care for nature sincerely (trees included in case it isn’t obvious enough!), as it is a duty Allah has entrusted us with. Not only will we be rewarded by Allah for it, nature too will make dua’ for us, insya Allah.