CAIRO — A video began circulating recently of a man and his veiled wife performing a song at a wedding party. The song includes such lyrics as “I don’t go to a place without performing ablution and prayers,” and has spread on social media with assurances that it was produced by an “Islamic” wedding band.
My social media feed has recently become flooded with videos and ads on “Islamic” wedding bands, which typically included girls wearing satin dresses, as well as some with niqabs covering their faces. These bands insist that they are prepared to lead parties in line with God, and without mingling between women and men.
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The wave of videos stirred up confusion among some of the public who did not imagine the existence of this type of celebration. Others, including myself, were surprised by the “return” of Islamic celebrations again after more than a decade of decline.
Around the summer of 2003, my father took me to a celebration that he called an “Islamic wedding party.” It was the first of its kind in our village of Abu al-Shaqqaf in the Nile Delta province of Beheira, as such religious parties had begun to spread throughout the Nile Delta with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The whole village gathered in joy to explore the songs and the strange atmosphere, especially when the performer sang: “We will fight our battles against them.” The crowds chanted in memory of Mohammed al-Dura, the teenager who had become a martyr for the Palestinian cause after being shot in crossfire by Israeli troops during the Second Intifada.
Months later, a band was founded in the village. It was named “Al-Badr Band for Islamic Weddings.” Its slogan was: “Our wedding parties are in compliance (with God) … let us begin our lives in pleasing God.”
There was also al-Huda, which the Muslim Brotherhood founded in the Nile Delta city of Tanta. Al-Huda, which became the starting point for many other bands, “Islamic bands,” which became an increasingly influential phenomenon during that period across Egypt.
Tanta was the beginning
Al-Huda was founded around the second half of the 1990s, by Ramadan Waden, a teacher from Tanta. The Muslim Brotherhood wanted to present itself in an artistic form that would help the movement connect with people. The wedding party program was very consistent: it started with reciting two verses from the Quran, and the Names of Allah, then general songs about marriage.
The band also performed a comedy sketch, then several songs about weddings and the Palestinian Cause, then a smaller theatrical sketch, often about the Intifada, before ending the party, Zafa, with tambourines.
The aim of Al-Huda and other bands was to “Islamize” the modern wedding party. Songs were meant to modify the behavior of society through a reformist logic that contradicted the village customs and traditions, like a song addressing the bride’s father, saying: “Sater Banatak, Akram” or “It’s better for you to marry your daughters.”
But such methods reinforced and strengthened such traditional ideas and customs. The songs turned the wedding parties into propaganda gatherings flirting with the general context of Egyptian society.
The chants were in clear contrast to traditional wedding songs. While country songs celebrated coquetry and sex and did not pay attention to anything outside the moment of overwhelming joy, the songs of the Islamic bands were akin to preaching, driven in large part by a religious guilt complex.
Many of al-Huda performers rose with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood group, including Ashraf Zahran, Mohamed Naguib, and others who years later would perform songs for the 2012 campaign to elect Mohamed Morsi of the Brotherhood. They also performed the official song of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which was performed by Ahmed Bu Shehab.
Periphery vs. Center
In our village, the al-Huda Band quickly became famous. They performed at many local wedding parties, and perhaps in the central cities as well.
That led to the establishment of al-Badr band, with its members were from young people in the village including Brotherhood members, sympathizers or talented people not affiliated with the group. They included two of my uncles and a neighbor.
The aim of Al-Huda and other bands was to “Islamize” the modern wedding party.
Al-Badr band started with simple tools, several hand-made tambourines, and a uniform of a pink shirt and a navy blue suit, without a tie. With that simple and quick start, they did not have any stock of songs, so they relied on many of the al-Huda songs, along with famous songs by the Jordanian performer Abu Rateb, such as “Ya Dawati Siri,” or “O my call go” which was the band’s iconic piece for years.
The wedding bands proved to people that they are capable of expressing themselves through producing art. The young members of the band also felt that they were stars amid increased demand for their band.
Centralization
The success of the Badr band caught the attention of the central division of the Muslim Brotherhood in the province. The division built its own band and later integrated the two bands.
Al-Badr members were outraged, and some of them withdrew from the integrated band, as well as the Brotherhood itself. In its new form, people did not feel that the bands belonged to them, as much as it belonged to the Brotherhood. While the goal of establishing the band was to connect the Brotherhood with the public, it turned out to be a tool that separated the group’s members from the people.
The band gradually disappeared amid security crackdown and restrictions in the years preceding Egypt’s 2011 revolution, and the notable decrease in demand for such a kind of weddings and religious ceremonies.
Inevitable ending
After the revolution, the Brotherhood rose and many many band performers were optimistic. They thought that they found an opportunity to spread to new social and artistic spaces. The Brotherhood was preoccupied with reaping every possible political gain, but it was bound not to last. In the aftermath of the 2013 coup that drove Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood from power, Islamic bands were dissolved spontaneously.
The wedding bands proved to people that they are capable of expressing themselves through art.
I do not know where the members of the Badr band went. I met once with Mr. Hamada in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, before he left the country permanently. That was the only time when all political forces agreed to be present in the field. I don’t remember the exact occasion, but I remember that we stood around the Alexandrella band – a secular band – as they sang their famous song: “It is said that.”
Recently, the Islamic bands began to reappear, popping up on social media, but in a different form from the wedding parties bands, in terms of form, lyrics — and one other big change: female members.
