Is Muslim Maldives permitting Christian weddings?

(Dhigurah island, Alif Dhaal atoll, Maldives, Friday, 6 January 2023)

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When it comes to Maldives, everything can be baffling.

For instance, take the case of Alif Dhaal atoll Dhigurah island with its council recently claiming that they hold weddings for even foreign tourists.

Anyone familiar with Maldives' government's policies will know that it is a sensitive issue when it comes to holding "Christian" weddings for "Western" tourists, regardless of however much our economy depends on tourism and its related livelihoods. Therefore, the government allows such tourists to hold only "renewal of vows".

This policy also applies to foreign tourists who subscribe to other religions: for instance, if you want a Kandy style wedding, you have to travel to Sri Lanka (which is sometimes marketed as a dual package with Maldives) and perhaps get the Mount Lavinia hotel in Colombo host one for you.

So I had a friend check this Dhigurah case with the Maldives' Tourism Ministry and she got back to me saying that she was told that there has been "no change in policy" - meaning that foreigners of faiths other than Islam are still not allowed to hold weddings in Maldives according to their religious rites.

She said that she guessed Dhigurah is using the term "weddings" to market the island which is becoming a local and world phenomenon that is mesmerizing both Maldivians and foreigners with its unique "long" sandbank from which the island's name "Dhigu" is derived. When I went there in January, there were more than 400 foreign travellers, I was told.

However much Maldives is going to extremes to promote itself as a leading honeymoon destination for upmarket foreign travellers, it is still grappling with a lot of issues that relate to its "clash of civilizations".

For example, tourism magnate and Parliament member "Lolly" Jabir recently called for licensing casinos but Islamic Affairs Minister Dr. Ahmed Zahir Ali responded that it can't be allowed in a 100% Islamic nation like Maldives as gambling is haraam (illegal) in Islam.

But the perplexing factor is that already Maldives conduct haraam activities for the benefit of upscale foreign tourists such as providing pork and alcohol.

Without naming names the Minister said that the pork and alcohol business was introduced under an earlier administration (President Maumoon's regime) but he ignored the fact that pork and alcohol can still be outlawed alongside casinos.

What the silliness about the tourism industry in Maldives is that successive governments engage in "intellectual gymnastics" in trying to justify the introduction of decadent Western hedonism by confining resorts to uninhabited islands on the pretext that there are no local population settlements there.

When President Nasheed said that inhabited islands should dig trenches around city hotels, he wasn't been his cheeky self: he was pointing out the confusing ways Maldivians were unsuccessfully trying to come to terms with hosting Western tourists in order to ensure that the tourist dollars kept flowing into Maldives.