For Some Muslim Couples, Gender-Separate Weddings Are the Norm

Weddings are usually associated with joyous togetherness, a time for family and friends to celebrate alongside the couple and with each other.

Some communities, though, have their own brand of togetherness. Although considered uncommon in the United States, Muslim couples may opt for gender-separate wedding celebrations, men and women sit separately during the ceremony and celebrate in different rooms during the reception, because of the strict observance of the hijab, which means veil in Arabic. Rules of hijab both apply to men and women even though it is commonly referred to as a head scarf for women. For men, everything between the navel to the knee should be covered; for women, only her face, hands and sometimes feet are allowed to be exposed.

“The idea of gender segregation in conservative Islamic circles is actually just one expression of a much broader puritanical ideal of social partitioning between genders in Islam,” said Shaykh Dr. Mohammad Omar Hussaini, a pathologist whose spiritual writings can be found on the website Pureway. He explained that the hijab “is not simply a piece of cloth but rather an attitude that desexualizes, and in the process humanizes, our experience as men and women, who are like two aspects of one soul.”

In the Islamic faith, a woman’s hair is seen as her awrah, or part of the body that requires covering outside the home and in front of restricted adult males. “Most women who wear the hijab do so not only because it is a religious duty but also to show modesty,” said Shaykh Amin Kholwadia, the founder of Darul-Qasim, an Islamic seminary based in the Glendale Heights suburb of Chicago. “Some women may wear the hijab as part of an identity culture.”

Men and women, who are guests, do not sit together at the wedding ceremony, he said, because “it is seen as a ‘time out’ from the usual mixing of the sexes and allows men and women to socialize without observing the rules of gender relationships. Both sets of genders feel a sense of freedom in doing this.”

Runna Othman, 26, a talent acquisition specialist who has been observing hijab for nearly two decades, had a gender-separate wedding when she married Mussttafa Shelo, also 26, a financial analyst in Chicago, on Dec. 17, 2017 at Drury Lane Theatre in Oak Brook, Ill. “Although you can act modestly at a traditional wedding, undoubtedly, I wanted a space where women can just celebrate without any barriers,” she said. “At celebrations, especially big Arab weddings with hundreds, sometimes even upward of 1,000 guests, it is hard to maintain a modest composure.”

Ms. Othman and the women who celebrated with her were able to let their hair down and forgo their hijabs and dress in ornate gowns that were less modest. “I did not want to wear a hijab on my wedding,” she said. “I wanted to wear a sleeveless gown and to do my hair and makeup. This would not have been possible if I were to have to keep my hijab on during a traditional wedding that wasn’t separated.”

Ms. Othman added, “While Muslim fashion has come a long way to include beautiful modest gowns, sometimes a girl just wants to dress immodestly, if we’re being frank.”

During her celebration, she said, the women guest were also able to “dance, we sing, we join hand in hand to do debke, which many Muslim women would be uncomfortable to do in front of nonrelative men.”

Couples can also celebrate together in a segregated wedding, along with certain male relatives of the bride, including her father, brothers, grandfathers, and maternal and paternal uncles.