SMILE IN MIRROR

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31767, 26 August 1968, Page 2

SMILE IN MIRROR

Bride And Groom

(N.Z.r.A.-KtuttT—Copyrtfiht) KARACHI, AuV 25.

With the Koran between them an Arab Prlnee and a 21-year-old Pakistani girl will amile at each other’s image in an upturned mirror after they are married tn a Moslem ceremony at Karachi on Wednesday. Prince Hassan Bin Tallal, of Jordan, aged 21, is Crown Prince of the Hashemite Kingdom, and his bride is a diplomat’s daughter called Sarvath Ikramullab. Her late father was High Commissioner for Pakistan in London from 1955 to 1959. Because of a Pakistani custom from the age of strict purdah the Prince and the bride must be in different rooms while being married. The bride will give her consent by proxy and only after the Moslem priest has solemnised the union will the couple meet—with the Koran and the upturned mirror between them because they are supposed at first to see each other only in reflection. Prince Hassan and his bride must wait until later in the year, and the ceremony of the girl’s journey to Amman, before they live together as man and wife.

The customary separation derives from the days of arranged unions of young children, when the bride waited to grow up before leaving home. Sarvath’s mother, Begum Shaista Ikramullab, said the couple met as children when they were attending schools in England. When their engagement was announced King Hussein styled Sarvath a Royal princess.