New Delhi.

Dr. Syeda Saiyadain Hameed, a former Member of the Planning Commission, turned Qazi on Friday to solemnize the marriage of a great-grandson of Dr. Zakir Hussain, India’s third President.  

The marriage of Gibran Rehan Rahman (son of Yusuf Rehan Rehman and Humaira Mishra) and Ursila Ali (daughter of Qurban Ali and Hina Ali) took place at the home of the late former President and was attended by close family members and friends.

“The terms set forth in the Nikaahnama were prepared under the auspices of Muslim Women's Forum - an organization of which the groom's great-grandmother Begum Saeeda Khurshid was a founding president,” said Dr. Hameed who had also served as Chancellor of Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad.

Although Islam does not stop a woman from solemnizing a nikah (marriage), a woman Qazi is a rarity and most marriages are conducted by men in Muslim families in India

“Whereas the Quranic injunctions for solemnization of the Nikaah are mehr, witnesses and the Qazi – the added significance of this Nikahnama is the Iqrarnama (agreement) which enlists the conditions mutually agreed upon by the bride and groom, pertaining to the equal rights and responsibilities along with respect and regard for all aspects of married life,” Dr. Hameed said.

At the ceremony, Dr. Hameed invoked passages from the Quran as explained by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in his Tarjuman ul Quran - the outcome of his 27-year-long rigorous study of the Quran. The ceremony concluded with a call to celebrate the union of the bride and groom as equals in marital, legal, and spiritual partnership, by quoting the passage from Surah Al Ahzab 33:35 in the Quran.

"For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women... for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward."