The Bride’s or Groom’s Set of Clothes at the Nikah

Question

At a wedding, on the groom’s side, the groom’s people take clothes for the bride and clothes for the bride’s mother, and on the bride’s side, the bride’s people give clothes for the groom; these clothes are put on before the nikah. Is this very practice a sunna, or is it a reprehensible innovation (bid‘a sayyi’a)?

Answer

For the groom’s people to give the bride clothes and the like, or for the bride’s people to give the groom something, is in itself mubah (allowed) and permissible; there is nothing impermissible in it. In reality, however, it is given for the sake of fame and show (riya’), because if they do not give it, the people of the biradari (kin community)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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