Love to Dress

Modest Style Ideas - 1

2012-02-01T08:09:00.002Z

It's Wednesday's Passion for Fashion day and here are some ideas for styling. I'm not going to encourage you guys to go down to the shop and buy these, I'm sure we have more than enough in our closets (beware of your shopping habits and your carbon footprint!). It's just to give some ideas on how to put things together. Hope you like them :-).

The Plan

2012-01-31T08:19:00.001Z

I am thinking of organizing my blog during the days in a week into this, if God willing:

(What do you guys think?)

MONDAY GUIDANCE:

Monday will be the day where we shall start with something that allows us to focus on one topic. This acts as a guidance for this week.

TUESDAY TUTORIALS:

On Tuesdays, we shall pick one tutorial that allows us to look for creative ways to style our scarf or other clothing items.

WEDNESDAY'S PASSION FOR FASHION:

Wednesday is dedicated to fashion ideas or reviews. This could include product reviews or some inspiration from other designers. Anyway, we could also talk about what's going on in the fashion world!

THURSDAY IS BUSINESS DAY:

Thursday is the day to talk about business. What's happening on the business side of things, tips on business and other useful information or lessons relating to business.

FRIDAY REFLECTIONS:

Come Friday, we'll wrap things up and do a summary on what has happened during the week i.e. on the things that we have discussed through the week's posts.

If you like my plans so far, do subscribe to my blog here and you'll receive my posts (if God willing) straight in your mailbox :-).

Am I The Exception?

2012-01-30T08:55:00.000Z

I've have often wondered if women entrepreneurs were the exception? Are we???

Hmmm... I have always thought so until recently. I am starting to notice that a lot of our mothers work very hard as business women to sustain their families, helping out their husbands. Even when they do not need to help their husbands out (like my mom once upon a time), they still do dabble into business. And it was smart of her to do so since her business acumen and knowledge allowed her to earn a living after my Baba (father) has past away, all praises be to God.

Women around me are entrepreneurs. Chia's mum takes care of young children for mothers who have to go out and work, Ada's mum sold those 10 cents ice-cream after school, my mom had a boutique (amongst other businesses) and is now currently running a cake business. Aainaa's mum sells all sorts of things, Nova's mum sells at the Pasar Malam (Malaysian Night Market). I can only find one or two that did not dwell into business, but most of the women around me, be it in this generation, or the generation before me, were business women. However, most women are overlooked because they remain within the micro-business group.

Honestly, I find it liberating to realize that entrepreneurs are all around me, especially within the circle of women that I am surrounded with. I've often looked at my dad as the source of inspiration when it comes to entrepreneurship because his business brought in the big bucks. But I think I'm dismissing many lessons from the women surrounding me. Whilst my father spent lots of time working, he didn't really have that much time for us, although he really did try his best to manage his time with us. However, many women around me had to manage their business with the responsibilities of rearing children amongst other responsibilities at home. Women around me are really strong in my opinion. Whilst a career in business is challenging on its own, it is harder to find the balance with earning money and the responsibilities at home. I believe being a balanced person is the example of our beloved prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), glory to God!

If you asked me why I am pursuing my passion in dresses through entrepreneurship, I'm going to be honest and tell you that it is because my family is in debt. To settle the debt of RM4.6 million, I see no other way than doing business. It is hard for me to earn this much if I go down the employee route. One of my route to paradise will be the opportunity to pay off our family's debt. I see this business as an act of worship, because as Muslims we must pay off our debts before we die, and that includes the paying of our parent's debt, in this case my father's business debts. And I used to feel sorry for myself in the situation of being left in debt by Baba, but no, not anymore. Oh my Lord, the master of Wisdom and my fate, it is blessing indeed. Truly it is a privilege to serve my family, I mean how can I ever repay my father's love, compassion and mercy with any amount of wealth. Yes he wasn't a perfect man but boy did he work hard and shared his blessings of wealth with us the best that he could.

Islam is really forcing me to pursue God and stop acting like a victim. Suma, be proactive to pursue a life of servitude. THIS IS FREEDOM TO ME. Definitely I cannot remain within the micro-business group if I am looking to pay this amount of money to people who my father owes. Because of this, I find strength from the lessons and experiences that I can gather from Baba. However, I also have to look at the example of people who manage to balance work and home, and this is the strength that I find from many unsung heroes of women entrepreneurs around me, all praises to God the Creator of all the worlds.

Let's make a silent prayer to all women entrepreneurs who are trying to make ends meet, to our mothers with micro-businesses that has helped our families to pay rent, electricity and put food on the table, may you always be blessed by the Most Gracious and Most Merciful.

(If you cannot view this video, click here.)

P.S.: My husband is actually funding my business to help me and my sisters pay off our family's debt. I am so grateful because Chia is so supportive of me and for loving me just the way I am. May God always bless, protect and forgive Chia and Baba because they have been so kind to me. Makes me feel so grateful to God for sending me these men to my life. Men who are far from perfect but loves/d me nonetheless, and for me, that if more than enough.

Consistency over Intensity

2012-01-28T13:53:00.000Z

One of the key things that I have learnt from some of the lessons that I have gone through in life in general, is to be consistent. Honestly, THIS PAYS OFF!!

God always asks us to start with something that is small and consistent. There is a specific verse in the Qur'an but I can't seem to remember where it is....

Anyway, if you are anything like me, my friend Amin used to refer to me like the 'Enegizer Battery Bunny' due to my enthusiasm for projects that we had for YMP (Young Muslims Project). Unfortunately, my enthusiasm package came with intensity. This meant that for the next 6 - 12 months I would work with much intense until the project materializes, the sit back until the next project would come by. I was hoping to somehow find the miraculous big break.

But if I have learnt anything after Islam, it was God favors those who are consistent over intensity. Consistency comes with taking things one thing at a time, making it a habit, something that we continuously do. As I watch BBC Planet about the jungles, in the end the tree species that makes it to the top of the jungle is the plant that takes it slow and steady... slowly taking it's pace to the top.

Anyway, for a quick explanation on consistency, here's a video to explain it to you, enjoy!

p.s: Terribly sorry for not being able to post anything on Friday. There was an internet disruption due to the change from Virgin to Sky as my broadband provider. Sky is having a promotion, yippee!!!

Event Review: Reflection 2012

2012-01-26T08:48:00.000Z

This was an event not to be missed!

I am sorry for not being able to post this earlier, but a few weeks ago my sister Asma told me that she went to a charity event called Reflection 2012. It was also a platform for hijabi fashionistas who wanted to displayed designs for Muslim girls in Malaysia.

(If you can't view this video, click here.)

Initially, when I went to the Islamic Fashion Festival, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2009, I felt like I wanted to be part a fashion show but this was not my place. Maybe because the designers were people who were well established - I consider myself as a small family enterprise :-).

Anyway, Reflection seemed like a fantastic event for younger girls to participate if they are interested in fashion for Muslim women. They featured blogshop designers such as AMMARAHIJABI, YASALMA, OLD BLOSSOM BOX, RINA SALLEH COLLECTIONS, SHOP SPTNKSWTHRT, NILAM, and ABIYA MUSLIMAH. Attendees were Malaysian celebrities such as Hana Tajima (a UK designer but a Malaysian celebrity nonetheless :-)!), Vivy Yusoff from Fashion Valet and other local celebrities.

I think the entrance fee was only RM5, that's only £1!!! So it was pretty cheap. Woo hoo!!! Things like these are so nice in Malaysia, can't wait to go home soon if God willing.

Asma thinks this is such a good way to launch our line of dresses since it was Asma's friends who organized it. Good idea and contact Mims!! All praises to God. I can really feel God is helping me in every step of the way. I just have to a bit more patient.

Anyway here are some of the designs that caught my eye...

Listen with your heart, you will understand....

2012-01-25T08:13:00.000Z

See with your heart, listen with your heart. Observe the world that we live in with our heart, and we will understand how Majestic God is....

Always, always purify your heart and soul so that when you are lost and you don't know what to do, you are open for the guidance that God is giving you.

(if you cannot view this video, click here.)

Every time we defy or go against God's commands (when we know), a black dot will appear in our heart. And if we keep on putting black dots, there will be a point where our heart is so black that we cannot see and listen anymore to all the guidance and signs of God because our heart is DEAD.

And when we choose to follow God's command to do good, a white dot will appear, and if we keep on following God's command, our heart will be so clean that we will be sensitive to God's guidance and signs. This is when our heart becomes the best compass for whatever situation that we are in.

Therefore, follow God's command so you can listen with your heart, you will then understand...

**The heart is far more intelligent that our minds. Click here to see the scientific explanation.

Secrets of Success

2012-01-24T08:53:00.001Z

This is Richard St. John's 8 secret to success. I have found this talk fantastic. Here are the list with my commentaries:

Passion - do thing out of love, not for money. So for me, I try to do things for the love of God. Interestingly, if you do it for love, the money comes anyway, go figure!;
Work - this is not rocket science, everything boils down to putting the effort;
Good - be good at what you do. How to do this? Practice, practice and practice;
Focus - I've always had a problem with this until recently when I started to notice that if we try to do everything, nothing gets done properly.
Push - push yourself mentally and physically to perform better. Push through shyness, self-doubt, laziness etc... Islam has really helped me with this. I also found it easier to push and focus not only when I love, but also when I fear the wrath of God. When I think about hell, it really gives me the extra nudge.
Serve - Learn to serve others. This is always a test of humility which I am struggling with. But now God has taught me [through the example of all the prophets especially Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him)] that serving is actually a privilege;
Ideas - try to innovate, find solutions etc. The world is constantly moving so we always have to try to think ahead;
Persist - I found it easier to persist when I make small and consistent steps. Because even if you fail, you'll continue to do it because it is part of your lifestyle. It's something that you do with or without success.

This is my own take on success:

I think these are the most important things to success. Salah (prayers), patience and consistency. For me, knowing that there is always God who is listening and controlling everything makes me feel at peace. At the end of the day, I just try my best and the rest I leave it up to God. Success was never about just this life. Success is ultimately in the Hereafter. If we are really smart, we use everything in this life as a tool to get us closer to God.

Hence, everything that we do, leads us to success if we do it to get closer to God (with love, fear and hope) by following the principles in the Qur'an through the example of our beloved prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him).

Fashion Blogging among the Educated, Middle-class and Young Muslim Women in Urban Malaysia

2012-01-23T08:15:00.000Z

Introduction

The need to dress modestly is a guideline given to all Abrahamicfaiths and there has been a rapid growth, expansion and diversification in thefashion industry to suit those who would like to fashion faith. However of allthese three faiths, it seems that the Muslim women’s fashion industry ismarking its way globally more so than others. This is apparent within the:research and studies done in the UK, Canada and United States (Lewis, 2011);abundant online ‘hijabi’ bloggers,websites and start-up businesses (Tarlo, 2010); participation of the Malaysiangovernment to promote their IslamicFashion Festival in Muslim countries and others such as London New Yorkand Monaco[1];countless of fashion journals that talks about the Muslim fashion as an emergingmarket; and the inclusion of the Muslim clothing as a niche market withincontemporary trend setters such as Vogue.

The question then is,‘what has fashion got to do with Islam?’ After all much discussions of Islam, globalisation and the West would focus on itshistorical and political mergesand clashes. Yet the emergingfashion scape for Muslim women gives a different perspective to how theseconcepts come together. Also, this new phenomenon cannot exclude thesignificance of the internet as its main tool. The internet, which also playeda significant part in the Egyptian revolution among the youth, cannot beignored for those who are studying contemporary phenomena among the Muslimyouth.

The objective of this research wasto understand the relationship that faith has with fashion among the educated,middle-class and urbanized Muslim youth in Malaysia. This would entail andexamine how their Islamic faith has incorporated the fashioning of the Muslimgarment. Fashion and faith has been given focus in hopes to explore theaesthetic preference to garments in relation to those who are visibly Muslims.Is it true that those who are visibly Muslim concern themselves withbeautification, and if they do, to what extent?

In relation tofaith and fashion most research and studies are done within the UK, Canada,United States, Netherlands, Iran, Yemen, Indonesia, India, Mali, Egypt and theUAE. However, these academic researchers did not cover fashion for the Muslimwomen in Malaysia. Yet the Malaysian government plays a vital role in the‘halalisation’ industry which includes clothing (Fisher, 2009). Understandingthe Malaysian context would perhaps give a more holistic approach to the studyof Muslims as they do give a different perspective to the understanding ofIslam.

My experience andunderstanding of Islam, globalisation and the West has been different toacademic journals that I was exposed to during my course. Most of my classesentailed discussions on politics, history and the how some academic journalsrelating to the study of Islam and Muslims did not do justice these researches.However, I could not relate to the concept of Islam vs. west, traditional vs.modernity, modesty vs. fashionable, gender equality vs. victims of patriarchalsociety. It was never about ‘this vs. that’, but it was always about ‘this andthat’.

The littleexperience of attending ‘Women in Islam’ classes made me exposed to the thoughtof being able to allow women to act as agents for themselves. However, thestruggle for a woman to achieve gender equality in Islam such as myself is tounderstand how religious persons submit to God. I could not understand andrelate to the concept of being victimized as how some feminists have argued,nor did I understand and relate to gender equality that fought without thebasis of God as the ultimate theme. I am a Muslim woman and I can only be trueto how I perceive things based on my limited experience. This is not to dismissthe abundant, extensive and beneficial work that feminist scholars have done inrelation to the lives of women. However by being true to my faith andexperiences, I hope that my studies could somehow rather shed a light to thedifferences of needs and wants from the perspective of a Muslim woman.

The firstchapter is a theoretical analysis of faith and fashion in Malaysia. Thischapter begins to discuss how the concept of ‘halalisation of the body’ byFisher (2009) came into effect. The educated, middle-class and urbanized Muslimwomen in Malaysia wears traditional and contemporary clothing which has beenaffected by its historical context. The da`wah[2] movementhas played a significant role in affecting how garments are styled for Muslimwomen in Malaysia since most of the educated, middle-class and urbanized Muslimwomen stem from this movement. Hence politics is most certainly involved withinthe issue of hijab[3].

Fashioning the hijab is apparent in Malaysia,especially among the educated, middle-class and urbanized Muslim women. Thequestion lies, what does Islam (within the Malaysian context) say about theobjective of the garment? Whilst the Malaysian government is a strong supporterof the campaign to fashion the Muslim garment, the orthodox Muslims criticizethe act of capitalizing modesty. Are there any basis to both (for and againstthe fashioning of Muslim garments) their arguments? Lastly, what are theeffects of the internet to this emerging market and its significance to theyouth among Muslim women in Malaysia? These are all discussed in thetheoretical analysis chapter. Lastly, I shall discuss how the emerging fashionindustry among the Muslim society is challenging the fashion theory itself.

My secondchapter is the results and analysis based on the interviews and blogs of fiveinternet bloggers that are well known in Malaysia. They are among the educated,middle-class and urbanized Muslim youth in Malaysia which have influenced thefashion scape in Malaysia. The first discussion is about the relationship thatfaith has with fashion. The second discussion entails the criticism fromcapitalizing modesty and arguments about fashion, art and the agency of thesewomen. The politics of fashioning faith is also included. It was interesting tonote the ability of these women to form a valuable network based on theironline personality. Lastly, I shall discuss how they have managed theconfrontations that have resulted by their visibility of fashioning the Muslimgarments.

The thirdchapter discusses the methodology of this research. Interviews and theirrespective blogs are my primary sources for this research. Secondary sourcescame from Silvia Friesk (2009), Johan Fisher (2009) and Sandikci and Ger(2009). Other sources were books and journals by feminist scholars, fashionjournals, online newspaper articles and YouTube videos. The challenges of thisresearch and its method are also discussed thoroughly in this methodology chapter.

[1] www.islamicfashionfestival.com.my

[2] Spreading the faith anddrawing people to the faith.

[3] Within the Malaysiancontext, hijab in most cases refersto the veiling of the hair (Malay word for the garment that covers the hairwould be tudung) since the Malaywomen were already wearing loose clothing that covered everything except forthe hair, hands and the feet.

Conclusion

Islam continues to play a vital role in the construction of one’sidentity for the educated, middle-class and urbanized Muslim women in Malaysia.As the definition of awrah changedwith the influences of the da`wahmovement in Malaysia, the clothing styles started to adapt to include the hijab. However, the hijab is not a garment enforced by thegovernment. Therefore it is left up to the choice of the individual to adopt aclothing style is preferred. Also, the choice of garments are left up to theindividual’s interpretation and the learning curve into the submission to thewill of God. The Islamic faith of a person becomes the resistance part that isreferred to in the ‘halalisation of the body’ brought by Fisher (2009).

The Malaysian government’s initiative to alleviate the poverty stateof the Malays has resulted in a society that is part and parcel ofpost-modernity. The Malaysian state that has based its capitalistic aspirationsfor the Malays to penetrate the state’s economic wealth that is monopolized bythe Chinese have resulted the Muslim society to be one that is open toconsumerism. Thus fashion which stems from a consumerist society is one of thefactors of the ‘halalisation of the body’ argued by Fischer (2009).

Young Muslims in Malaysia have the attitude of ‘openness’ inintegrating Islamic faith into their daily lives and interests. This allowsthem to explore aesthetic preferences in clothing without separating theIslamic identity. Whilst the Islamic faith acts as resistance to some of thechallenges of consumerism and clothing styles (i.e. excessive consumption, theoutward display of the body),coupled with the politics of hijab in Malaysia, the ability tointegrate Islam in every aspects of one’s life has facilitated to the emergenceof the fashion industry among the Muslims in Malaysia. The ‘openness’ attitudeallows women to negotiate their gender boundaries and this becomes theexperimentation part of the ‘halalisation of the body’ brought by Fischer(2009).

All this goes to show how Islam shapes the consumption practices inMalaysia. Hence the educated, middle-class and urbanized Muslim youth inMalaysia do not reject capitalism and beautification of oneself within thepublic sphere. In fact it embraces consumerism, fashion, blogging and all ofthe elements of a post-modern society as long as it retains the Islamic faithby adhering to the guidelines of the shar`īah.Although the shar`īah has defined what the Muslim women’s awrah is, it is notenforced by the state and the individual is left to decide where moderationbegins and when excessive starts to take place. Therefore, the educated,middle-class and urbanized Muslim youth in Malaysia cannot be argued as either beingtraditional or modern, this or that, nor are they ajihad or mcworld persons as argued by Barber (2003), but it is rather a thisand that, jihad and mcworld or in this case Islam and fashion persons.

The impact of the internet andthe blogosphere has allowed Muslim women to create a space where they couldexpress themselves better. Hence among those who have an interest in fashionwithin the educated, middle-class and urbanized young Muslims in Malaysia, theyhave created a network of ‘hijabi fashionistas’ where the onlinepersonality has affected and thus transformed the public sphere. This is whyblogs continue to thrive in Malaysia even when other forms of social networksdeem to be more popular. Ultimately, other forms of social media do not replacethe significance of blogs where it serves: to be a platform to express one’sthoughts and ideas; and to engage with the online public at large.

The ability to express aestheticpreferences to clothing does involve the agency of women. The issues of hijabin Malaysia are too diverse and generalizing the conclusion would not dojustice to the research. This is not to dismiss the work of many feministscholars who have exhausted their research on the issue of hijab.However, my respondents have shown courage in addressing and confronting thewider online public with their views that are not always appreciated by manyorthodox Muslims. This is evidence to suggest some form of agency towards theirability to challenge people’s perception and ideas about how the Islamic conceptof modesty should be embodied in a woman’s life.

It was also apparent within boththe theoretical analysis and my respondents that there was a problem incapitalizing modesty. Fashion is very much part of a capitalized andconsumerist world. While it is agreed that beautification (within the publicsphere) and commerce (to a certain extent) does not coincide with one’s duty tosubmit to God, capitalizing on modesty has (to a certain extent) reduce the actof being spiritually modest to the superficial outer garment of modesty that ispopularized by trends. Thus the challenge for these women was to find a way on howto balance fashioning their act of worship to the intention and the spirit orobjective as to why the hijabwas adopted in the first place.

Whilst there are ethical issuespertaining to the internet, the ability to obtain information from the means ofblogs have remedied my challenges due to geographical barriers. The ability togo online and access information and data of people was not easily accessibleforty years ago. The significance of information and data derived from blogsand other social medias such as Facebook and YouTube allows researchers such asme to an endless and limitless materials of study.

The study of women and the workof feminist scholars cannot be dismissed as we see significant progressiontowards the betterment of lives for many women. However, my ability tounderstand the depth of the perspective of many feminist scholars was handicappedby the struggle to relate to my faith. Therefore, I believe there is much workto be done within how Muslim women craft themselves as God’s subject. The mainstruggle for women of faith is not to fight for gender equality, but it is tobe closer to God. Perhaps it would be fair to suggest that Muslim womenunderstand their relationship with the other sex, in relation to understandingtheir relationship with God.

The knowledge of understandinghumans in relation to her or his existence has allowed Muslims such as myselfto craft themselves as vicegerent of God. Thus, the challenge is to understandthe Islamic faith in relation to the context of the society and surroundingthat she or he lives in. Whilst fashion is seen as a paradox to the act ofbeing modest, there is evidence to suggest that it can be combined as long asthere is an awareness of ethical issues that lie within its juxtaposition.

You are more than welcome to request a copy of my whole masters dissertation. Just drop me an email ya.

What copyright infrigement can learn from the fashion industry.

2012-01-21T09:55:00.000Z

Have you guys heard about the SOPA?? It's a bill or law that the US is about to pass. It has to do with the copyright infringement of intellectual property and how the US is passing a bill that makes it ok for them to regulate websites that come-up in search engines that they suspect has infringed copyright materials. I try to respect artists and buy their work when I think it's good, but honestly I am still struggling to buy all the movies or shows that I watch. Honestly when it comes to protection of intellectual and copyright materials, I find so many grey areas.

But anyway, I am so so happy to announce that us in the fashion industry are way ahead of the game. In this industry, we all copy each other and we are super proud of it!!!! Watch how it all make sense in this presentation by Johanna Blakley. People think that ideas are their property and it must not be copied or shared. Honestly, for now I think otherwise... I stand to be corrected :-).

Golden rules on money...

2012-01-20T11:42:00.012Z

Hey you fashionistas our there:-)! Can I share some tips about money? The thing is, how many of us work very hard only to find ourselves exhausted and living by every month just enough to get by? I know I did before. Every month hubby's paycheck was just enough for us to survive, paying all our debts so we didn't even have a bit left to save. That was how bad things were. In fact at times we didn't even have enough to get by so we had to use credit card the worse of it all!!! So if I could share some golden rules that I found online that made a lot of sense.

Spend Less Than You Earn;
Eliminate (and avoid) Debt;
Stop Wasting Time;
Don't Over-Think You Investments;
Talk About Money (And Be Honest);
Stop Trying to Impress Other People;
Watch Your Progress (But Make It Fun);
Take Care of Your Things;
Do It Yourself;
Plan Ahead Every Time You Spend;
Find and Work Toward Your True Passions;
Build Real Friendships and Relationships;
Improve Yourself Every Chance You Get; and
Give Without Strings or Regrets.

To be honest, I haven't mastered all of these rules yet since I am still in the process of turning things round. But I am firm believer in small but persistent steps so I am slowly getting there if God willing. Anyway, as you guys know I've been struggling to get rid of all my debt since I became a Muslim and what a fantastic experience it has been. Now God has sent me a great blog that give me tips on how I can manage my finances better. It's called 'The Simple Dollar'. Do check it out ya guys. I am really looking forward to live a debt free life :-), if God willing. We can even subscribe to this blog so every day I get tips on how to save money, I LOVE THIS, mashAllah...

Getting to know you....

2012-01-19T10:59:00.009Z

I had one of the worst period pain ever yesterday. One panadol did not do it so I had to take 2. Thank God hubby took care of me. But I felt bad because he was sick too, he had the worst cough ever yesterday too. He only slept at 2am!

I woke up today feeling so tired and depressed and thank God my mum called me on skype to cheer me up. And we listened to songs together. Since mummy's new MAC, she knows how to share screen and all! hehehhe. So IT savy laa my mum. We bought a MAC for her birthday because most of her kids live overseas so skype is our daily activity with each other. After listening to 'Getting to know you' from the movie 'King and I', I finally got out of bed at 11am. hahahahhaa.... Enjoy! I feel like watching the movie laa... Maybe I should go and get it later at blockbuster.... Anyway, I dedicate this song to you guys out there. I noticed that my viewers have increased, mashAllah. Hopefully we can meet each other one day if God willing :-).

p.s.: Her dress is so chantek (pretty) kan (right)? So inspired to do a dress similar to this, without the skirt being too fluffy ofcourse hehehe....

Sumayyah in service...

2012-01-18T08:57:00.041Z

I was listening to Ustazah Maha Hamoui's talk called The Way of Life from One Legacy Radio. I love listening to her talks cause I feel so comforted by her wisdom. Anyway, she was saying that the best honour that was given to Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was being the servant of God. Keyword here people is servant.

From what I understand, servant of God implies servitude, humility and surrender to God and to Him alone. So if we see our movements when we do our Salah (prayers), it is the perfection of all these three factors within our body and soul. But hang on a second, is servitude, humility and surrender to God required only during prayers??? Absolutely not. By right, we are supposed to be in this servitude state 24/7. Ok guys, here is where I am struggling.

Did I mention to you guys that I was actually born in La La Land? Whilst Chia went through a life that was kinda tough since he came from a very humble background (masAllah), I came from a life of luxury. My parents were given wealth by God beyond our wildest dreams so let's just say that I grew up in an environment where others were serving me. As long as I could remember, we always had maids to pick up after us and we have drivers to drive us around. Occasionally there would be a bodyguard who could keep us company when we needed to go out. Whilst most mid-life crisis of our ageing dads would be a sad picture of a middle aged man in a sports car, my dad took a step further by deciding to race with his friends to see who's helicopter was faster and have breakfast in Kelantan to try out his new jet. I am not going to dwell more since I think you guys got the picture. Back then, my soul before was an empty vessel and because I had a life that was filled with others serving me, it made me very arrogant thus making me go further and further away from God. May God forgive my soul... Thank you God for giving me Islam.

Anyway, since I became a Muslim and started to understand Islam further in this miraculous journey, currently I find myself in a state of struggling to be humble with others. Definitely with God we automatically would be humble because He is the Supreme Being. But you know, my journey has just begun. I actually have to be in a state of humility, servitude and surrender to God all the time. This is the difficult bit for me. In my marriage, although I am a wife who accompanies her husband, cooks, clean, takes care of the house when he is not around etc, I find it not natural for me to humble myself before my husband. Seriously. I don't do it because of Chia, but because God asks me to be humble and to take pride and honour in serving others, starting with those who are closest around me. All praises to God, I know that characters can change. I know that us humans are creatures of habit. Characters are a compilation of the little daily habits that we do. So if I want to change from being a person that is arrogant, I must start to purify my intentions to please God, and start to look for new habits to serve people who I love for the sake of God.

Al-Kahf (The Cave). In the name of God the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful

30. Verily, as for those who believed and did righteous deeds, certainly We shall not make the reward of anyone who does his (righteous) deeds in the most perfect manner to be lost.

I think if I start by having a more humble attitude towards the one who are closest to me, like Chia, my mom, his parents, my sisters, his sisters and all... there just might be a chance that I can serve my customers better if God willing. Remember, good character always start from home.

So guess what, after realizing this, I decided firstly, to take up a small habit which is, every time Chia comes home, I can serve him a glass of juice, or water. I believe in starting with something that is simple and consistent. Secondly, now I take time to perfect my preparation of food. Sometimes when Chia comes home from work, I get annoyed if I am alone in the kitchen cooking. I always feel like I want him to help out so I don't feel like I am his maid. Now, I take time to make a silent prayer in my heart while I am cooking. For example, "Oh my Lord, please make my food good, please make this food a nourishment for us to eat so we can become better servants to You, God." And then I try my best to make the food taste good and have healthy ingredients. And I really enjoy doing it on my own. I love that I get to take pride in serving my husband as a way to get me closer to God. It's such a nice feeling, Glory be to God. I've never ever had this feeling before. I have a long way to go since I battle with ego all the time, but I feel that God is slowly guiding me. Please make dua (prayers) for me to become a better servant of God since I'm going to need all the help that I can get :-)!

My Circle

2012-01-17T09:30:00.011Z

It has always been my family's tradition to have a halaqah (knowledge) circle once a week, and no matter where I go, I always seem to find people who practice this amazing habit.

Last time me and hubby used to go to Ustaz Abdullah Yasin's class together but since we came to the UK, most halaqah circles were restricted to the segregation of sex, so I thought, might as well we start our own so me and hubby can go together. Now with our own circle, all praises to God, me and hubby can check each others spiritual progress and give support to each other to become better Muslim, if God willing.

Every Thursday, this special medical student called Ada will come to my house and she will teach us a few verses from the Qur'an. With those few verses she will go through the meaning and we will have to relate to our lives. I love how Ada always reply any of my answers or any of my comments with a verse from the Qur'an. She also told me that when we read the Qur'an, we have to picture it as if God is talking to us. Glory be to God this has made such an impact in my life. Now I really do see the Qur'an as my daily source of guidance.

Anyway, did you know that this halaqah (knowledge) circle can be found anywhere??? Like it's everywhere around the world. There was an online competition to do a nice video on halaqah (knowledge) or usrah (family) circle and I was so attracted to a few of them. Do watch them, ya. They were made by students je but the quality is amazing all praises to God.

When I look for friends, I am so attracted to people who can help and support me to strengthen my faith. Thank you Allah for giving me good friends... it all started with Aainaa... Seriously she was my first best girl friend that I feel so much love because when I am with her, I feel like she helps and supports me to be close to God... Since Aainaa went back to KL a few months ago, I felt a bit sad. But now with this halaqah (knowledge) circle, I hope Ada can be my new bestie. By the way, actually our best friend should be God, but in human form is first hubby, then in girl friend form now it's Ada if God willing :-)

The Chosen One

2012-01-16T08:13:00.021Z

Dear beautiful people,

Yes I am referring to you since I am confident that you people who read my blog are interested in being beautiful both inside and out :-) iA (if God willing). Have you heard about this man called Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)? I think most of us who come from Muslim families have at least the basic knowledge on the fact the he is the last messenger, chosen by God to guide us back to the true religion of submission to the will of God, just like how other prophets have called mankind to.

I would never know the depth of how much this man has been a blessing to us all. We would like to think that Muhammad (saw) was sent for us Muslims, but no. Muhammad (saw) was sent as a mercy to mankind from God. So if we were to follow the footsteps of Muhammad, it makes sense that us Muslims are supposed to stand for compassion, mercy and justice not only for Muslims or any specific group of people, but it should be towards all mankind. We have to remember that we are following the legacy of Muhammad (saw). Today, I'm going to focus our legacy in following our beloved prophet Muhammad (saw) during the 5 daily prayers of tahyat awal (first) and akhir (last). It's also called the invocations for at-Tashahhud (sitting in prayer).

Did you guys know the way we pray is based on Muhammad's (saw) journey to meet God called isra' mi'raj. Muhammad (saw) describes all the places that he has seen, the creature buraq that he rode on (other prophets such as Abraham/ Ibrahim (saw) has also taken a ride on this creature of Allah), other prophets that he met which among them were Adam, Jesus, Moses, Idris, Abraham (peace be upon them all) in different layers of the heaven until he came to the 7th lawyer of heaven or sky where he saw Al-Bait-al-Ma‘mûr (House of God). This is where 70,000 angels would get to visit each day, once and they could never come back because of the numerous amount of angels. Ok guys, just imagine one angel is HUGE so if only 70,000 can visit daily and only once, that means this place is beyond our wildest imagination, Glory Glory be to God, Master, Sustainer and Cherisher of the whole universe. Then Muhammd (saw) was lifted to Sidrat-al-Muntaha where he saw and conversed with God. He describes God as the Supreme Glorious Being as light upon light upon light. wow... the ultimate desire, meeting God....

So what do you think Muhammad (saw) said when he met God? Did he give the salam like how we give each other salam??? Duh?! Obviously not since God is the source of salam (peace) :-)!

Muhammad says what we say during at-Tashahhud:

Attahiyatul mubarakatus solawatut taiyibatu laillah.

All greetings of humility are for God, and all prayers and goodness.

God then replies:

Assalamu'alaika aiyuhan nabiyu warahmatullayhi wabarakatuh.
Peace be upon you o prophet, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.

When God makes this statement, did you know what, ok I feel like crying now, Muhammad (saw) straight away remembered us all. Can you guys see the type of man that God has chosen as our prophet for us??? Muhammad says to God:

Assalamu'alaina wa'la 'ibadillahis salihin.
Peace be upon us and upon the righteous slaves of God.

Muhammad could have just been happy with the honor that God gave him, but no, he tried to include all righteous slaves of God, people like you and me who are struggling to the lead a life that God is pleased with.

Then all the angels said:

Asyhadu alla illahah. Wa'asyhadu anna Muhammadar Rasulullah.
I bear witness that there is nothing worth worshiping but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His messenger (and slave).

Guys, this is what we say at least 9 times a day [9 in total since all prayers (except for subuh/ the dawn prayers) has 2 sittings]. We are conversing with God just how Muhammad (saw) has conversed, and we follow his footsteps in conversing with God at Sidrat-al-Muntaha. Glory be to you God.... Let's not take our prayers for granted. This is our own journey of isra' mi'raj with God - Oh God, help me and all of us to concentrate in our prayers so we can further submit to You just like prophet Muhammad (saw).

Some modest style ideas....

2012-01-14T11:27:00.051Z

Ok ladies. Today I am geared up for some style and elegance. We are all big fans of beautiful garments right??? But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's start by understanding that Allah asks us to always see the bigger picture.

(Al - A`Raf) In the name of Allah the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful.

26. O Children of Adam! We have bestowed raiment (clothing/ apparel/ garments) upon you to cover your private parts and as an adornment; and the raiment (clothing/ apparel/ garment) of the righteousness, that is better. Such are among the Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelation, etc.) of Allah, that they may remember (i.e. leave falsehood and follow truth).

So we can gather that there are two purposes of clothing that is mentioned in the Qur'an:

to cover private part - to cover our intimate parts of the body; and
as an adornment or part of our beautification.

But the beautification of our piety (iman, taqwa, akhlak) that is better.

So here's the deal, when we want to approach beauty, it is best to first concentrate on our inner struggle in the pursuit of Allah. This is definitely a sign of beauty. Well, duh! I have never once met an ugly women who had the best of intentions and akhlak, have you? But I have certainly met divas with the best form of clothing but oh so ugly because I saw their terrible akhlak (attitude), jealousy and words (talking bad about people, harsh with people, foul language etc), sigh.... Just you guys take a minute and really think about this. I certainly don't have to look far, I can just take a good look at myself before and after Islam. Yes, I made more effort to look good before Islam, yet I have so many people coming up to me saying I look much better now. Hmmm... Allah is certainly true in His words and promises.

If you see my initial posts back in 2009, they were focused on beautification of the outer layer of my self as a Muslim. Yes, I would not deny the importance of beautification for us muslims. I DO :-)! hehehe... But more serious is the real and sustainable beautification of our soul. And if we learn to beautify our soul automatically our outer selves will naturally beautify itself. Honestly it's not rocket science... So even when I want to start sharing some bits and pieces about some ideas and styles for Muslim women, I cannot be more LOUD and CLEAR to remind myself and you guys who are reading that, please do not get fooled by the outer garments of a Muslim women. What really counts is in our SOUL. We must must must always purify our soul and ask Allah swt to forgive us should our beautification be a form of pride and ways to seek attention from people. We must beautify ourselves for the sake of pleasing Allah in the best way that we can.

Ok, so now I can start:
For this month, not only did the Aab design caught the attention of my eye (in my post entitled Reflections of Beauty), but also one of Mango's maxi dresses going for £60. Here it is. Ta da! Seriously to me this is just another simple yet elegant design and it's made out of my favorite fabric - COTTON! What a breath of fresh air against all those synthetic fabrics. Sorry polyester... But alas, I do not have any reason to buy this dress ("err... because it's pretty?" - lame excuse! Do watch out for the carbon footprint that we are responsible for when it comes to our fashion habits!) So I will just watch this from a far and appreciate its beauty :-). For those who have the need to buy a dress, THIS ONE!!! heheheh... Of course you only buy this dress if this suits your budget, style and needs. Do go to Mango online and see if this dress is available in your country and see if the shipping cost is reasonable.
If you guys want to get some ideas and styles online, you can get free style guide from Emel magazine Modest Style. It's completely free and you just have to give your email, first name, last name and country. Just click here to get your free copy. Enjoy!

If you want to subscribe to the full Emel magazine, please do. It's super super cheap and there are lots of useful articles on lifestyle that is based on our Islamic principles with wonderful style ideas. Each month I just pay £1 (RM5) for a digital copy (I don't see the point of printing paper unless it is completely necessary) via my debit card and I get them instantly. Woo hoo! Love this! Just click here and you can see how easy it is to subscribe to their January issue. Alternatively you may check out Emel's website here.

For a daily dose of modest clothing styles and ideas, you can check out Hijab Style. Jana is a medical student but with a passion for fashion. She writes for Vogue UK, Guardian and much more. When you subscribe to her mailing list, you will see how useful her daily ideas are. Lot's of Muslim clothing companies around the world, especially in the UK advertises with her so for those who are also trying to see what is in the market, this is super useful. You can click here to go to her website.

Maysaa is on sale as well and there are two designs that I particularly like. One is called the Kimona wrap on sale for £35 and the other one is called Jumpsuit maxi for £45. However I just have one slight hump with these dresses. They are polyester :-(. Sorry Hana Tajima, I love your designs but am not a fan of synthetic materials. I'm not sure if you guys are like me but I get the annoying static electricity when I wear synthetic fabrics. Sigh....

There are loads of maxi skirts based on last season's sale and January is a good time to scout for bargains (again please buy based on needs and not your nafs). But I don't know why this year's design is such a flop for me. Honestly I am not a big fan of trends and styles that do not last. Oh you think that skinny jeans is hot, trust me wait for a few years and you'll start to think otherwise until the trend comes up again. It's like over sized shoulder pads in the 80s.

The thing about style is that you have to find something that suits you, and then it becomes everlasting. Don't follow trends!!!!! Find a style that you feel most innate with you and the challenges that you are facing. So for example, I find a style that is most suitable for my character and my lifestyle. Yes we tend to change our clothing styles to suit some changes to our lives but I find it useful to know what style makes me tick instead of allowing fashion retailers to dictate what is suitable for me.

So here is my style, based on my characteristics and my lifestyle. Enjoy!

When it comes to going to be the beach, I like to blend in with the nude colors of the sand plus something that I can also run and walk too :-). I like nice nude linen pants with a simple cotton top and cardigan to keep me warm. I wore a scarf that is light pink just to give a hint of color but to also blend in with the neutral tones that I have. Excuse the facial expression! hehehe.. This was candid - lame excuse. hhehhee...

Here's me in Paris, smack in the capital of fashion and romanticism. OOh la la... I chose my white coat with Zyra's spring collection of dress 2010 and Zyra shawl to match the beautiful flowers that were slowly making its way out to the world again. Thank you Allah for spring. What a beautiful sight it was... If you want to shop for Zyra shawls, here is their link. Unfortunately I do not do their dresses anymore and so the current dress collection are no longer designed and produced by me. Oh don't worry there is no drama here :-). I had to leave the partnership because I wanted to continue my studies here in Aberdeen, Scotland.

I had the chance to celebrate Eid with hubby whilst recycling my baby sister Asma bridesmaid's dress. I can always trust Asma when it comes to fashion. I had my favorite colored (a mixed of pink and peach pastel colour) chiffon turned into a beautiful kaftan with minimal beading in the middle. This dress was done by a company of sisters called Mimpi Kita. Do check them out online or in Bangsar.

When in professional settings, I cannot help but to prefer black. Whilst some prefer pants, I got to say that my black cotton maxi skirt did the job just fine. I topped this with a New Look jacket that had some puffed shoulder sleeve and a black top. Honestly, material matters when it comes to jackets, so do pay extra for suitable material. Ok who am I kidding?! Material matters in all types of clothing, but I suppose my point is to say more so in jackets. When it comes to jackets, if you are a newbie and you want something that is of quality in material and has elegant cuts, you can never go wrong with Zara.

When it starts to pour snow in Aberdeen, I gear up for my snow boots and ditch my elegant skirts. Sob sob... I don't have a car so my lifestyle requires a lot of walking. I find the snow hard to manage with my cotton maxi skirts so I gear it up with any type of pants that can go into my boots. Ah yes, the crisps is really bad of me! yikess.... Sorry mum....

On a beautiful country sight that was also a surprise romantic get away with hubby (awww....), I wore my white dress with a white basic cardigan from Zara and a £3 Primark shawl. Didn't do a lot of walking cause we managed to rent a car alhamdulillah for only £50-60 for the whole of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Cars are so cheap here in UK... no 300% percent tax and certain group of people making money from selling APs! hehehhe...

Inspired by the beautiful colors of autumn, this was a Zyra cotton dress made with a pinch of vintage. This dress is one of those dresses where I wear excessively because I just love it so much! That's Zai at the back, my ex-partner when I was still part of the Zyra team. Had so much fun with these Zyra peeps...

I try to lead an active lifestyle by picking up sports that I can enjoy with hubby. One of them is roller-blading and we do this in a park where there are no cars since I fall down easily, right smack on my bum! ouch!!! hehehe.. Nonetheless, having an active lifestyle is superb and it does bring out the 'fun'ness in family time. This was a black reebok pants made of 92% cotton and 8% elastane bought from Sports Direct for £16. They are so comfortable because of the composition of the material and the cutting is superb so after buying one for a month, I bought another one cause I couldn't take them off. Plus I do lots of sports so I do need more than 1 pair of pants :-). I just topped it with a cotton top and a pashmina. Although I do wish there was a better option for my headgear instead of pashmina. I am thinking of getting another head gear that covers the hair when I do sports. I need something that is more suitable for sporting activities. You guys have any suggestions???

This is another dress from Zyra's spring collection 2010. The navy blue background against the white bunga raya was chosen by my baby niece Raissa when she was only 3 years old. I took her for my usual scouting for kain outing and she looked at me with her innocent baby face, "This one mummy Sue." Oh wow, this baby sure has style and taste even at the age of three. So I designed it a little bit like a baby doll dress by bringing up the waistline an inch below the bust line, strap a silverish ribbon to separate the white cotton top part of the dress to the printed skirt below. This dress was a hit, thanks to Raissa, alhamdulillah...

Lastly, Asma bought me a wonderful yellow trench coat just before I came to Aberdeen and subhanallah I love it so so so much. She bought this in Australia and the cutting of the trench coat is superb. I matched it with a white cotton maxi skirt and a simple cotton top inside. The shawl is the same shawl that I wore in Paris, it's from Zyra.

So that's all from me folks. I wrote a long one because it's the weekend :-) and I just had a urge to keep on going. I hope this post was of some benefit to you all. Salam and have a great weekend ...

Loans and Partnership Agreements

2012-01-13T07:52:00.028Z

I just managed to post my latest project's (with my sisters) partnership agreement. Woo hoo! Now all the partners are busy signing the contract, so I thought I might share some of my experiences to you guys about loans and partnership agreements. If you guys are thinking of going to the bank for a loan, hmmm... THINK AGAIN! I would highly advice business capital to come from your savings, or a partnership with someone who has the means to fund your business, is God fearing and experienced in business. Yes, it would take some time but I believe this is much better than taking bank loans. Here's the reason why:

Al-Baqarah: In the name of Allah the Most Gracious and Most Merciful

275. Those who eat Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga) will not stand (on the Day of Resurrection) except like the standing of a person beaten by Shaitan (devil) leading him to insanity. That is because they say: "Trading is only like Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga)," whereas Allah has permitted trading and forbidden Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga). So whoever receives admonition from His Lord and stops eating Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga) shall not be punished for the past; his case is for Allah (to judge); but whoever return [to Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga)], such are the dwellers of the Fire - they will abide therein forever.

276. Allah will destroy Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga) and will give increase for the Sadaqat (deeds of charity, alms, etc.) And Allah like not the disbelievers and the sinners.

277. Truly those who believe, and do deeds of righteousness, and perform As-Salat (prayers), and give Zakat, they will have their reward with their Lord. On them we shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

278. O you who believe! Be afraid of Allah and give up what remains (due to you) from Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga) (from now and onwards), if you are (really) believers.

279. And if you do not do it, then take a notice of war from Allah and His messengers (saw), but if you repent, you shall gain the capital sums. Deal not unjustly (by asking more than your capital sums), and you shall not be dealt with unjustly (by receiving less than your capital sums).

280. And if that debtor is in a hard time (has no money), then grant him time till it is easy for him to repay, but if you remit it by charity, that is better for you if you did know.

281. And be afraid of the Day when you shall be brought back to Allah. Then every person shall be paid in what he earned, and they shall not be dealt with unjustly.

282. O you who believe! When you contract a debt for fixed period, write it down. Let a scribe write it down in justice between you. Let not the scribe refuse to write as Allah has taught him, so let him write. Let him (the debtor) who incurs the liability dictate, and he must fear Allah, his Lord, and diminish not anything of what he owes. But if the debtor is of poor understanding, or weak, or in unable to dictate himself, then let his guardian dictate in justice. And get two witnesses out of your own men. And if there are not two men (available), then a man and two women, such as you agree for witnesses, so that if one of then (two women) errs, the other can remind her. And the witnesses should not refuse when they are called (for evidence). You should not become weary to write it (your contract), whether it be big or small or big, for its fixed term, that is more just with Allah; more solid as evidence, and more convenient to prevent doubts among yourselves, save when it is a present trade which you carry out on the spot among yourselves, then there is no sin on you if you do not write it down. But take witnesses whenever you make a commercial contract. Let neither scribe nor witnesses suffer any harm, but if you do (such harm), it would be wickedness in you. So be afraid of Allah; and Allah teaches you. And Allah is All-Knower of each and everything.

The first time I came around these verses, I was like oh no.... Not only is it not allowed but Allah wages war against me whose life was filled with Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga). I mean its not just anybody waging war, it's GOD! Do we really wanna pick a fight with this One? I was so much in debt that incurred Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga), and I was also working as a merchant banker (people who give out loans to company) and yes it was based on Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga). Alhamdulillah that career path was not for me and Allah gave me other means for rezk. Also, Allah has been so kind and merciful to me by making me and hubby get out of debt as soon as possible. We're still paying our debts now, but I think in 2 years time (if God willing) we could finish all our debt that is based on Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga). Allah is true to His promises. My life after debt based on Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga) has been truly blissful compared to before. Thank you Allah... I pray that Allah will allow us all to get out from Riba (usury/ interest/ bunga).

But not only that, I remember giving loans to my family and friends not according to what Allah has stated in the Qur'an. When my family or friends was a bit late in the payment of the loan I would pester them and do things that Allah is not pleased. I am so glad that I can slowly improve. I am so thankful that Allah swt has shown me guidelines how I can approach giving loans to people, taking loans from people and how to write commercial contracts. This has made things so much easier in my life. I pray Allah will allow and make it easy all of us to follow his guidelines :-).

So why are partnership agreements so important? Well for a start the Qur'an has stated it as the best way to clear doubts among the partners. Having a contract will allow you to know what is the purpose of having partners. Whilst most contracts would entail the list of how the partners would operate, I would highly advice a contract that included:

personal intentions of why the partners are doing the business;
what are the partners' commitment to the partners of the business; and
each partners' commitment to the business itself.

I would skip the legal jargon and go straight to what is important to each partners.

Since I did law as my bachelor degree, I hope I could shed some light into how you guys can write your own partnership agreement*. So here's a run down or some suggestions as to what you can put into your own partnership agreement.

Initially when you write the contract, do start with "In the name of Allah the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful". This is to allow each partner to be reminded that business is part of our ibadah to Allah swt to become better servants to Him;
Enter the execution date of the contract;
List down the full name of the partners and their addresses;
Background: What is the purpose of the agreement;
Which court of law is this contract abiding to;
The name of the business;
Purpose of the partnership;
Term: from when till when is this contract/ agreement in place;
Place/ address of the business;
Contributions. This is the part where you list down each contribution of the partners whether it be financial or work, or both;
Timeline of the contribution of the partners;
Conditions of financial withdrawal from the business;
Profit and Loss - What is the percentage of profit or loss that each partner will bare. This is usually dependent on the percentage of shares as well;
Accounting books - accessible to all the partners and should abide with shariah guidelines
Management Meetings - what is the minimal amount of meeting will the partners be responsible for;
Admitting new partners and transfer of partnership interest;
In what conditions could you and how to dismiss partners;
Dissolution of the agreement/ business;
Management voting;
Duty of loyalty;
Duty to devote time;
In which conditions would require unanimous consent from all the partners?
Forbidden acts;
How to amend the contract/ agreement?
Other things that you feel is important for your business;
Lastly each partner will have to sign with their name and date;
Take witnesses - somebody that is impartial;
It would be better if you have the company's seal or the company's chop.

After that just be a good Muslim by working consistently according to what you have promised to do with the best of ethics, and the leave the rest up to Allah :-).

*my advice is just advice from a law graduate so it could not be sufficient according to the legal system of where you guys come from. It is better to seek advice from a proper legal channel if it is possible.

Where is your heart today?

2012-01-12T08:19:00.006Z

I always want my heart to be filled with nothing short of loving Allah, fearing Allah and hoping for Allah. Is this possible? Honestly, I am struggling. I am a struggling Muslim. My purpose is to be a servant to Allah (100% and 24 hours 7 days a week) but I find sometimes with the equation (in a course of a day) 20% Allah (times when I solat or do zhikr etc), 50% nafs (ego, other nafs that I allow to over power me), 30% (on auto mode of doing things that are on routine). This is of course not a true and precise reflection but just to give you guys a rough idea. But I am sure lot's of people can relate to this. Guys, it's time to stop this nonsense. Time to get back on track and heart Allah the best that we can. Let's ask Allah to make us His faithful servants all the time and let us die in full 100% submission to Him. You guys know that death is just around the corner right?? If you don't, man you are really, really, really STUPID. Sorry for being blunt but I really wanna be clear on this. So blow that dust on the Qur'an and start reading it! And please please by all means read Qur'an is not reading without understanding, I'm talking about reading the arabic and the translation or tafsir for us who do not understand arabic. You can't possibility attain iman without a clean heart, knowledge and understanding (if God willing).

The Entrepreneur Rollercoaster

2012-01-10T09:18:00.004Z

Today = Animation + Entrepreneurial Advice + Wisdom.

Enjoy :-).

The Best Present

2012-01-09T12:13:00.014Z

My husband woke me up early in the morning today just to tell me that Anwar Ibrahim won the court case. I am so so so happy and relieved. There is still a long way to go for Malaysia, but I remain optimistic because I see most people around me in Malaysia want change. I want change. I hope to see a more just system that gives the same opportunities for every citizen despite their religion or race. I just love Malaysia for the fact that all the races and religion can come and work together to achieve harmony and peace. Yes, there are so many problems that we are facing. The are so many corrupted individuals and I don't just mean politicians. I remember doing terrible things as an entrepreneur and as a merchant/ investment banker. We think corruption is susceptible to the ruling elites but I beg to defer. I think corruption lies within each layer of the society, making it possible for leaders to emerge from the corrupted bunch. This is the reality of Malaysia.

Only as I have embraced Islam that I finally see all the things that I did that has affected myself and the society at large. I regret not having ethics in doing business before embracing Islam. I regret using public funds to sell and raise funds for companies as a merchant banker that was based on interest and the selling of debt. I regret being in debt with banks that fed on my interest and made me a slave of that debt. So it was a viscous cycle. I sold debt for the public to buy and I myself was entangled with debt that made me a slave to it. How merciful was my Lord when he gave me Islam and made me seek redemption in all that I have done. God is the Greatest.

If you asked me a couple of years ago, I would have told you the best gift or asset that I have in life was my husband. Not to deny the other things that I am thankful for, but so far my husband has been (all praises to God) consistent in his good treatment to me. But now I have come to understand that truly the best gift that I have ever received is the gift of being a Muslim. As I feel my heart expand with compassion and mercy to everything around me, I also see a better way to live life according to the guidelines that I have understood in the Qur'an. Not that the list of being a Muslim is extensive. I'm not one to debate about the differences of opinion among scholars. Oh no, I try to stay away from those. But I do try to live life with principles. And here is what I have so far.

Principle 1
Do everything for the sake of God and let your heart be filled with love and awe for God. Yes, I also fear Allah but my hope in His Mercy supersedes and goes beyond everything.

Principle 2
If you want to be good and charitable, always start with family. We can always pretend to other people but improving oneself starting with family is a real test of character.

Principle 3
Learn to be patient and consistent in everything that we do. This a test of FOCUS!

Principle 4
Know what is your talent (everybody has one, seriously!) and focus on your strength to achieve your goals in life.

Principle 5
Be humble with all God's creatures and learn to curb your ego because the ego always hijack the best in us.

Principle 6
Be honest starting with yourself, and then to your family and then to the society at large. Follow this order and remember that this is the most valuable character, ever!

Principle 7
The heart can only find peace in God, so if you have a good relationship with God: You just do your best and God will take care of the rest.

Peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad and all other prophets that came before him. Glory be to God, all praises and thanks go to God, there is truly nothing worth worshiping except for God alone, God is the Greatest. Peace be upon you all....

Reflections on beauty

2012-01-08T11:46:00.039Z

I'd like to share a superb design from Aab, a UK clothing that has made my eyeballs roll on the floor because it is absolutely gorgeous mashallah!

I love designs that come close to the proportions that I aspire to be. I think modesty is about knowing that we are a perfect being because we were created by the Most Supreme and Beautiful (amongst other magnificent names and attributes that God has). I have often wondered if embodying modesty in clothing is about covering our physical body. Yes, covering our body is part of it I believe. Covering our body is honoring our position as highly civilized women. But is this all there is to it???

I think it is beyond doubt that most Muslims would agree that we aspire to wear what we wear because Allah asks us to. Yes, I am aware that there are differences of opinion among the scholars on what is prescribed by the Qur'an and the Sunnah (where Islamic laws are derived from). But it does help us to understand beauty from understanding our inner selves (which is really the depth of our soul) and how we fit into this present physical world. The more God reveals Himself to me, the more in awe of I am to Him, and the more in-tune I am with my soul. It is easier to understand the depth of my existence when it is in relation to Him. If you asked me how come, I might come with some reasons but I will never know the magnitude of this relationship of knowing myself through knowing God.

I am attracted to beauty so why not I worship the One who is the Creator and Source of all beauty (amongst other things that He is attributed to). When I think about beauty, as a designer I understand that beauty is ultimately doing everything within the correct measure or the correct proportion of factors. I get this simple but profound understanding from the Qur'an from surah Rahman (the Most Gracious). In the name of God, the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful.

1. The Most Gracious (Rahman = Allah). 2. He has taught (you mankind) the Qur'an (by His Mercy). 3. He created man. 4. He taught eloquent speech. 5. The sun and the moon run on their fixed courses (exactly) calculated with measured stages for each (for reckoning). 6. And the herbs (or stars) and the trees both prostrate themselves (to Allah). 7. And the heaven: He raised it high, and He has set up the Balance. 8. In order that you may not transgress (due) balance. 9. And observe the weight with equity and do not make the balance deficient. 10. And the earth: He has put down (laid) for the creatures. 11. Therein are fruits, and date-palms producing sheathed fruit-stalks (enclosing dates). 12. And also corn, with (its) leaves and stalk for fodder, and sweet-scented plants. 13. Then which of the Blessings of your Lord will you both (jinn and men) deny?

Hence, whilst I appreciate the appreciation of the beautiful physical nature of the human body to the fullest, I believe putting, painting or displaying naked pictures or sculptures of the human anatomy does not put beauty within the right proportion. Because there is also dignity in clothing oneself. You see what I mean??? I must admit I do not know the exact proportion of things because I only have an idea that everything is supposed to be within the correct measure of its purpose to achieve the perfect balance of what defines beauty. But when I study the attributes and names of God, I believe this is the correct proportion of things. And nature is the best physical manifestation of the perfect measure of beauty, where its multitude purposes are in proportion to its design. Nothing competes with nature for me...

So with the limited knowledge and consciousness that I have, I have found that beauty is not one dimensional. It's not just what we see, it is actually how we feel. Beauty embodies a multiple combination of all our sensory systems (the eyes on what we see, our nose on what we smell, what we touch, our ears on what we hear, the soul, the mind etc). Watch how Richard Seymour explain how beauty feels. It's not gawking with faces tensely stretched and saying OMG!!! It's feeling in awe, inspired or lifted, humility and ultimately peace all packed into one. Its the acknowledgement of God and trying to follow the footsteps of the prophets that I feel a sense of being one with nature. The feeling is like coming home. Not that all is smooth sailing with home here on earth but you find your sense of belonging anyway. By the way real and ultimate coming home feeling is eternally in paradise: looking at the face of God. It was reported by the Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him, that God is so beautiful that it is like light after light after light, gosh can you imagine what it would be like to meet God in heaven? So to me, having a romanticized view of everything that we see in this present world is only a way to deny other people's experiences and realities, and thus a superficial view of the pursuit of serenity. On the present earth that I live in 1 in 4 children die out of hunger, women get raped, pregnant women go through torture in prisons, innocent people die out of war amongst other atrocities that is happening around the globe. There are times where we will feel sad, depressed, disappointed etc because we are forced to deal with the realities of life. Could I really fathom to comprehend the wisdom behind these sufferings? I must admit not. But I know there are reasons and purposes to these things, and hence even my negative feelings have its purpose. Therefore as I find peace in being a human being and relating it to everything around me, I feel my heart is slowly able to expand itself to include mercy and compassion for people, animals and plants around me. And this is why I bow down to God, the Creator and the Source of beauty. The question is, what or who do you bow down to?

Was the BERSIH demonstrations unIslamic?

2012-01-05T08:15:00.000Z

This was written by a fellow Muslim brother who I have the utmost respect.

As some of you are already aware the premise Bersih 2.0 movement is a civil society initiative to demand free and fair election. It's not about wanting a particular party to win the next election, but knowing the fact that whatever the outcome is, it would be a clean fair victory.

Let me ask you this. If a million Americans were to march to the Capital Hill in a peaceful rally to demand an end to the Israeli's wanton oppression and occupation, is that acceptable to us? Do we support it or say there's no place for rallies in a peaceful and modern society?

In Islam we all know the famous axiom that in dealings (muamalat) everything is permissible unless there is a clear prohibition. So example, durian would be halal because there's no clear prohibition against it.

So when it comes to peaceful demonstration, some people quote the verse about being obedient to the rulers and hadith that ask us to obey our rulers. That verse makes it clear that ONLY obedience is to Allah s.w.t. and our beloved Prophet s.a.w. is unconditional whereas obedience to rulers are conditional. Whereas the hadith often quoted (recently during the khutbah by JAKIM) was in the context of obedience to the prophet s.a.w. at that time.

Enjoining good and forbidding evil is the cornerstone of our religion. Some scholars like Sheikh al-Ghazaly includes justice and freedom among the higher objective of the shariah (maqasid). I believe in a democratic country, it is incumbent on all of us to actively voice our opinion. Gone are the days where rulers have absolute power. Rulers are elected by us. We have the opportunity to shape and dictate our future. We will ve answerable in front of Allah s.w.t. why didn't we actively make use of the opportunity to put forward our voice.

So in the absence of a clear injunction many modern scholars believe peaceful rally is permissible. What is not permissible is the destruction of property or injuring of other lives. In fact it becomes fard kifayah if peaceful rally can determine change for the better. It would be enjoining good. So what is needed is rules and guidelines in performing a peaceful rally. This is where the authorities like the police comes in. Police can easily demarcate a place to hold a rally. They can accommodate lanes so that protesters can peacefully start and end the walk. We can organize efficient marathons running across Kuala Lumpur with minimal public inconvenience every year. An interesting note, some scholars even include segregation of female and male in peaceful rallies as a condition.

The polices' job is to safeguard the public, inclusive of protestors. Their job is to protect all citizens and not to bully them into submission. It is their job to give the demonstrators an opportunity and place to voice their opinion. The polices' presence is to make sure no one creates trouble. If someone goes beyond the limit and starts harming others or destroying public property then they should professionally detain the person so that others can continue protesting peacefully. Rallies around the world are done that way. We see many rallies happening in the western world without any drama. People protest in front of the G8 summit all the time but rarely do we see any violence. Where violence are seen it is usually perpetrated by the polices themselves at the expense of the peaceful participants.

We need to in a society where we promote healthy exchange of ideas. A place conducive to spark divergence of opinion and ideas. If we believe we are speaking the truth (Allah's word), why are we sometimes so afraid of dialogues? Only then can we reproduce the giant luminaries of our past Islamic history. Those men were in the fore front of every science be it medical, astronomy or mathematics.

We don't need to look far into our past to realize that peaceful demonstrations can lead to change. Ghandi led a successful civil disobedience movement by organizing the Salt March to Dandi. He proved that peaceful demonstration can lead to a positive change in the fight against social and political injustice. That led to the independence of India.

That influenced greatly Martin Luther King jr who led the civil liberty movement. Their passion for justice sparked the momentum for justice for ethnic minorities. They now have a black president.

Locally we sha when our government wanted to legalize betting (gambling) during the recent world cup, PAS and the oppositions led a successful campaign by going down the streets to eventually force the government to backtrack on the announcement to legalize sports betting.

My point is sometimes we may agree to disagree to the issue. But to squash down without engaging it is not the way to go around it. We can't say I support rally for Palestinian but when it comes to issues that I don't agree there cannot be a rally. Recently all the inconveniences are caused by the police. That I am so sure. During the Malaysian Cup final we get crowds of us to 80,000 filling up the Bukit Jalil Stadium. The police handled the crowd professionally. Sometimes there are hooligans in the stadium and we see the police handling it professionally bu isolating the hooligan. Stadium Merdeka is used to hold 45,000 people and there wasn't any untoward incident. The government and police overreacted beyond paranoia. That instigated violence, allow racial hatred to permeate unabated and condone extreme prejudice. Please don't see this as an attack to ALL policemen. I'm sure some of them didn't condone to what happened.

It is a sad day indeed for democracy but when it even sad is people using the name of Islam to bulldoze the idea that supporting justice is somehow unIslamic.

Obviously these are my views. I apologize if it is long winded. I felt I need to say it out :) You are more than welcome to disagree, correct me or add more to the discussion.

All good is from Allah and any mistakes are my own.

Getting the most of out of an easy life...

2011-05-21T09:15:00.032+01:00

One of the amazing things that I have discovered in yet another productive conversation with Aainaa is how easy God has made it for me to manage my life. Not to say that things are perfect, but I noticed that it's easy for a person like me to get things that I want. Most of the things/ goals that I have put forth has been achieved and the journey to that achievement has been on the most part, bearably easy.

When it comes to money/ wealth in this world, I am fortunate enough to be born with parents who not only had an abundant of it, but they are so generous. Some parents would consider not spoiling their children even though they are wealthy, but mine was not like that. So growing up, I got most of the things that I wanted, and more! Then, when I grew up, I found it really easy to get work or to get a source of income from other means.

Interestingly, when I got married to Chia, I thought I would be challenged financially since he was just a normal working executive in Malaysia (Malaysia's executive paycheck is so sad, seriously! hahahahha even though he worked in Petronas, they really do pay peanuts to local employees). And I did have debts to settle since I vowed to not be involved with debt that was based on interest. In 2 years of our marriage, we agreed to live on as little as possible to achieve our dreams of a debt free life. In those 2 years, I experienced what most people in Malaysia experience, public transportion of bus, lrt and Chia's kapchai motorcycle.

Anyway, I thought to myself, maybe this is the fate of my life. And honestly, I was ok with it. I thought to myself, alhamdulillah for the wisdom of Islam which made me look at things beyond material things in this world which does not last. However, this 'normal' kl life did not last more than 2 years. After I applied for a scholarship in Scotland, Chia accompanied me. With the economic downturn and all, we thought if he got a job as a cleaner here that would suffice to keep a comfortable life. But we thought there was no harm in applying for other engineering jobs in the UK. Surprisingly after 1 week of distributing his CV, several companies called him for an interview! Mashallah.... He secured a job in a matter of weeks and I was shocked the first time his pay check came in. Ok, so I am back to those who are again blessed with an abundant of wealth. Now Chia's career is rocketing here compared to Malaysia where he was considered as an average employee who could not go anywhere in Petronas. He is so good here that the company has decided to apply for a visa for him just so that they could keep him longer even when there are other unemployed engineers in the UK. Subhanallah, how easy is was for the tables to turn.

Also, I am daddy's girl ;-) which had lots of perks. For one, my father always made me feel special. Although my father was far from perfect, he gave me a lot of opportunities to learn from his ultra positive personality. If you knew my Baba, you knew that he was a lot of fun to hang out with (he always made us or at least made an effort to make us laugh), he was full of wisdom when it came to convincing people to get what he wants and he gave me the opportunity to manage business at a young age. This all became part and parcel of my personality and the confidence level that I have with myself.

So as Aainaa was busy telling me about her challenges in life when it came to money, my mind wondered off with how completely opposite my life was compared to her trials and tribulations. So I said, 'Aain, I don't think I've ever had a real challenge/ trial before.' Aain looked at me and said, 'Sumi, even an easy life is a challenge. Wealth can make you 'lalai'.' Subhanallah. She nailed it! If you knew what wealth did to my family, you would gasp. Because my parents are people who are God fearing, that meant that they were in most parts, people who strive for the balance of this world and the next. But there was a time when there was an abundant of wealth, we (not including my mom! hahaha... I think she was smarter than all of us) got swept away with the charms of wealth and abandon our connection with God. I chose not to be a Muslim and started a life based solely on what I can get most out of this world.

But God, the most merciful, gracious and full of wisdom managed to pull me out from that state of loss to start finding ways to connect to Him again. God is truly the Greatest. After Baba and Salman passed away, the experience of death of loved ones forces a person to go beyond the superficial ideals of life and really challenge oneself to think beyond what you can get solely out of this world. This world is after all just a time frame that will pass. There must be more to life right? So that was my journey. When I married Chia, he himself was beginning to change to understand his spiritual awakening. So alhamdulillah for a husband who is supportive of my journey in seeking the spiritual meaning to life.

If there is one thing that I have learnt based on this short life of mine, is that an easy life is a trial/ challenge to not be 'lalai' or negligent. Wealth is a test, like all other things in life. Wealth that is given, does not belong to us. It is given to us to manage in accordance to our needs, our families' needs and our responsibility towards our community. We are going to be answerable to what we have done with this wealth, like a managing director explaining how she has managed the company's fund to her director. That is the 1st things that I have to bear in mind.

Secondly, one of the things that I can learn from negligence stemming from the abundance of wealth is: the group of company that we keep. One of the key things that I can learn from my father's experience is, when his group of friends changed, he started to change to. It went from those who consumed life with living in accordance to pleasing God to those who were consumed with seeking as much as wealth from this world. It is so important that I choose people who are there to remind me when I am negligent. Having friends who consume themselves with pleasing God (I'm talking about positive, caring people, not those who are judgemental and negative) is a blessing that can help me who is easily forgetful of my purpose in life. Personally, I believe in making as many friends as possible in the hope that we get exposed and learn from others who differ from us. They are very vital for me. However, I make a distinction to those who I confide and spend most of my time with. Nowadays, I am picky in those who belong within my circle of influence, solely because I know I am weak and I need my friends to positively remind me of my existence.

So when it comes to friendship, I now choose those who can nurture out the best of me. This would mean people who are positively supportive which means that they do not make me feel like crap about myself. We can feel when someone brings out the best in us, or someone that brings out the worse in us. I tend to avoid God fearing people who are judgemental, negative about others and who consume themselves on why they are right and others who do not agree to their perspective of 'truth' are wrong. These type of people have a negative impact on me and they bring out the worse in me, so I avoid completely confiding in them.

Thirdly and most importantly is my inner speech. As Prof. Mahdi has revealed, the things that we say to ourselves is the mother of all influence. Before we decide and act on something, we tend to converse with ourselves. There will be one voice pulling us towards doing what we think is right, and another voice that tries to take us away from it. hehehhee.... This is why I have to constantly read surah al-nas. The influence of negativity that takes us further from God is the one that is constantly influencing me to neglect and forget what what my purpose is. The only way to silent this negativity for me is to do my 'zikr' (remembrance of God). This helps when I am fighting to wake up for subuh during summer! hahaha....

Ok, so one more thing for me to remember based on the wisdom of what life has taught me. How we manage wealth. Last time when my family had money, we wasted them on so many things that did not amount to anything! Ok for instance, my parents used to buy expensive watches, me and my sisters would buy expensive bags and clothes on the pretence of quality and looking beautiful. The key is to lead a balanced life, so I am not in the notion of rejecting quality and looking clean and beautiful, but try to converse with ourselves. DO I REALLY NEED THIS? Is that rolex watch and gucci shoes and bag A GOOD INVESTMENT? Let me give an example. If I have RM50,000, I could choose to buy something and keep it stashed somewhere for investment right? Ok, all fair and square. But even investments can go bust, and we've experienced the economic downturn. The fact of life is, no material wealth last forever. BUT, when we choose to use wealth to be more generous to our responsibilities to our families, even when those wealth will be spent, when they part with us, we will not loose the investment that we made in the hereafter. God will account even the smallest amount of good deed when done in sincerity. So I know money will come and go, but now I have to be more smarter in where it goes. It is much better for me to not spend so much luxury on myself (bad investment because it is short term) to spending it on those who are in need of it, not for the purpose of getting people to like me, or do what I want, but for the reward that God will provide me in this world and the next. THIS IS THE BEST INVESTMENT PLAN. So I've given up on the Pradas, Guccis and all those alike even when money is abundance. Now the plan is to use some for me as long as it is based on needs and not wants, to use some for savings and more importantly, to distribute them to those who need them the most, starting with my family.

Ok, so far this is my plan to help me not be so 'negligent' in dealing with my life of easyness. It could be wrong, since I am only learning from my short experience of life, but let's see if this would help me lead a life full of happiness. To those who actually do read my ramblings, please don't take my word as final. This is Sumayyah in progress, so there is much to learn for me. However, I do hope that my ramblings will spark an interest for you to confront the challenges in your life and to deal with them accordingly.

Glory to God, All praises to God, there is no God but the one true God, God is truly the Greatest.

Confronting my prejudices and stereotypes...

2011-05-10T16:24:00.013+01:00

I don't know about you guys, but I find God's mercy on confronting my stereotypes and prejudices. My life experiences were filled with bad memories in dealing with Malays. I was an outcast in my high school that was filled with Malay girls, when I stayed in Oxford, I was kicked out from my Malay house mates. There are other painful memories dealing with my Malay identity. It didn't help that my brother passed away by an accident caused by a royal family that used the police to cover the case up. And unfortunately, it has made me have a negative outlook on my Malay identity.

I can safely say that I am a Malay by ethnicity, but without its culture. Even my family upbringing was not rooted on the Malay culture. I wonder why Mom and Baba did not bring me up with a Malay identity? What happened to them that they rejected the notion of 'Malayness'?

Anyway, I recently moved Dundee, Scotland to do my Masters. I found out about the Masters program and the scholarship from my friend Aain. She has been the first time I have felt like I had a best friend. Honestly, I have never had a best friend. This person has taught me so much in life. She always wake up early in the morning to pray, read Qur'an, study and exercise with me. What makes her so unique is the fact that she is such an open person. Even though I am weird, she accepts me as who I am. She doesn't know that she has so many potential because she has to confront a lot of her self esteem issues, but if you knew her, you'd say she's special too. She constantly thinks about being grateful to God and my conversations with her are so enlightening.

This is Elly. After being friends with Aaina, I found myself being friends with yet another special person. She is one of the most giving and soft spoken person that I know. Me and Aain would sleep at her house for days and we love it! Her house is a simple house, but it is always filled with warmth that I cannot explain. She also taught me something very significant. Being a fashionista, I can't help but to spend so much on clothes. Elly buys clothes from car boot, second hand clothing. At first, I was hesitant at wearing second hand clothing, but after a while, I found that it was

my ego that had problems with it. So what if it was second-hand. If it was in a good condition, and it fit my style, why not? She made me realize that my obsession with looking good was making me manage money not so efficiently. Its so important that I manage money efficiently. Money or wealth that God has given does not belong to me. It is a responsibility to make good use of it. So if most of my money goes into buying clothes, then there is something seriously wrong with how I am managing this wealth.

This K.fa. She is another person that has caused me to re-examine my understanding of Malays. She is so helpful to others that she forgets to help herself. Even though she is super busy (she's finishing her PhD, a mom to 2 kids, pregnant with another one and leading several groups) she can still find time to help everybody that she comes across. It's sad that I couldn't be closer to her. It was on my fault because she is not an easy person to understand for me. I feel that she builds a very concrete wall around herself because most of time, because she has to be the strong person to lead. However, her true self comes out when she starts singing among the girls and she's a very sensitive person. I guess that could be the reason why she builds such a concrete wall amongst people, to protect herself from getting hurt.

These are three significant Malays that are slowly making me confront my prejudices and stereotypes. But the most significant person is none other than my husband Chia... I would not think that I would end up marrying a Malay guy. I've never known a love as good, calm, secured and warm as this. He is responsible, respectful and romantic defeating all my expectations of my prince charming. Don't get me wrong, none of these people that I have mention are perfect. But they have none the less taught me a very important lesson. We are dictated by our experiences in life. With that, we tend to be bias, subjecting certain things according to our prejudices and stereotypes. I have to re-examine my thoughts on things as I begin to realize that indeed my thoughts are based on my version of 'truth' and assumptions, which as a sign of mercy from God, is challenged again and again.

Do watch this video as it helps me to re-think my perception on things and I have clinged to them. These negative prejudices and stereotypes became a hinder for my mind to progress. Thank you God, for yet another important lesson in life.

A Biography of Faith and Fashion among Young Muslim Women in Malaysia.

2011-05-10T15:29:00.002+01:00

INTRODUCTION

In most cases, the discussion on what Muslim women choose to wear is often dictated by the notion of politics, oppression, patriarchal, culture, honour, rights and so forth. We can see this from the books and journals that are published academically. These are excellent fields of research providing issues concerning gender either within the framework of Islam, the study of Muslim women or incorporating both of these issues. Is this the same case among young Muslim women?

There is no denying that politics, cultures and other issues do play a role in what young Muslims choose to wear. However, the younger generation of women are not only dictated by such influences, but they are also a product of ‘liquid modernity’, a product of living within the post-modern era (Bauman, 2000). The social changes that are faced by these young Muslims are making way for the notion of fusing faith and clothing preferences to a new depth. I would therefore argue that the notion of clothing preferences have become more complex than the usual influences within the framework of gender studies among Muslim women.

As a researcher that is often intrigued of social phenomena surrounding the youth, there is no better time than to document such occurrence. It is interesting to see how and what the role of faith plays within this transformation in the hope that this would break the usual debate among scholars. Such debates would include but would not be limited to traditional vs. modernity, modesty vs. fashionable, Islam vs. West, patriarchal vs. gender equality and much more. They provide good food for thought but I believe the issue within the challenges confronting the youth lies deeper than that. I find no better way to tackle this by looking at the crux of it all and it is identity.

This project aims to look at the relationship between faith and fashion among young Muslim women in Malaysia. I have specifically chosen faith and fashion because it is a growing trend among young Muslim women. In a recent book published by Emma Tarlo, she examined the notion of fashion among young Muslim women in Britain. Her findings were exactly what I had expected; there is a growing trend among young Muslim women in the fashion scape.

…Nothing epitomizes the wide-ranging and eclectic nature of thus Islamic fashion scape more clearly than the recent emergence and spread of Hijabi Fashion blogs in Britain and the United States. Here young Muslim women blog about fashion and appearances; discuss the advertise international fashion events whether in Britain, Canada, and the Unites States, Turkey, Egypt, Dubai, Indonesia, Oman or Europe; offer links to Islamic fashion outlets; write reviews of glossy magazines and TV programmes related to fashion; and give advice on how to tie the hijab in different styles… For increasing numbers of young Muslim women living in the West, such as images represent the birth of a modern Western Islamic fashion in which distinction of ethnicity have become irrelevant…

Therefore, in my essay I shall be looking at some literature reviews that have provided me with the themes and concepts among the study of faith and fashion for young Muslim women. They will also entail other studies of sociology relating to identity and its challenges within the 21^st century. Secondly, I shall discuss the methods chosen for this project, the reasons for choosing such a method, the challenges with them and ethical issues within this form of research. Thirdly, I shall highlight the results and analysis of my project and lastly conclude this essay. In truth, I hope this will challenge the usual framework of gender studies of Muslim women to include other themes such as those confronting the youth and it would be no other than the post-modern society.

LITERATURE REVIEWS

One of the reasons why I wanted to start the research for my project was because Emma Tarlo tackled the issue of faith and fashion in Visibly Muslims by making a biography of Muslim women in London. The issue of clothing preference among Muslim women living in the urban parts of the United Kingdom was smartly addressed by the introduction of a biography of three women. This was sort of, ‘breaking the ice’ method to introduce her work to the reader. She cleverly revealed the complexities that lie within the choices of clothing for these women. She revealed that she intends to challenge the perception of clothing preferences of Muslim women being confined to cultural, religious identity, politics and so forth. She argues that the clothing preferences are far more dynamic than that.

However, there is a similarity among the three biographies that she has discussed. There seems to be a strong indication of distancing themselves away from the usual ethnic clothing in preference of clothing that are more fashionable and current to their lifestyle. Ethnic clothing were rejected and categorized as ‘traditional’, hence they were only worn in festive occasions. The two women, Humera and Rezia have adopted the covering of the head as a distinct style then their mothers who have adopted a more loosely covering of the hair. Their choice to cover their hair was not based on ethnic or cultural understanding of Islam, but it stems out of their own understanding of the Qur’ān, ‘their individual spiritual journeys, their commitment to being identified as Muslims and their conviction of the hijab’s social and religious benefits.’ All of these women had the desire to challenge stereotypes/ categories that they have been boxed in.

The second literature review comes from Annelies Moors in “Islamic Fashion” in Europe: Religious Conviction, Aesthetic Style, and Creative Consumption. This article also focuses on three young Muslim women in Netherlands. Although she points out that this is not a representative of all young Muslim women in Netherlands, this qualitative approach did give her better insights to the complexities that lie in the relationship of religion and fashion. She argues that the visibility of young Muslim women in Netherlands is part and parcel of the Islamic revivalist movement that started in 1970s. They formed the new version of veiling because their veiling appearance differed from those styles of the older generation. This new veiled generation were ‘first worn by young, well-educated urban women, the very same women who would have been expected to wear Western styles of fashion’. She stresses the fact that cyberspace has helped to popularize Islamic fashion and this can be seen by the amount of fashion blogs available online.

All three women strongly showed that the covered style of clothing goes back to their understanding of religion, although all of them differed in how they have understood such religious obligations. However, it was agreed that they were given the liberty or freedom to decide their on clothing preferences. Hence they do not find it problematic to combine both liberal and Islamic tradition because they find the central theme to the Islamic faith is ‘one’s intention’. This intention (to be totally submissive to God would only work if it was done voluntarily. To conclude this argument, she says that:

…following such a line of argumentation, Islamic and liberal traditions are brought together in their emphasis on choice and conviction…

The third literature review comes from Zygmunt Bauman on ‘liquid modernity’. The society that younger generations of Muslims are living in is an urban society that is concerned with individuality. Hence there was a rejection of understanding faith predominantly from their cultural/ ethnic. This would potentially relate to the desire to create and innovate the understanding of faith to one’s own surroundings instead of heavily depending them on socially/ familial construction of Islamic code of dress for women. Bauman states that individualization is part and parcel of post-modernism:

…Individualization is here to stay; all thinking about the means of dealing with its impact in the fashion in which we all conduct our lives must start from acknowledging this fact. Individualization brings to the ever-growing number of men and women an unprecedented freedom of experimenting – but (timeo danaos et dona ferentes…) it also brings the unprecedented task of coping with their consequences. The yawning gap between the right or self-assertion and the capacity to control the social settings which render such self-assertion feasible or unrealistic seems to be the main contradiction of fluid modernity – one that, through trial and error, critical reflection and bold experimentation, we would need collectively to learn to tackle collectively.

There are numerous articles and media coverage on this new phenomena. We can see this evidently in Vogue’s piece of article written by a medical student in the UK on hijab styles. In this article, Vogue showcased a fashion show staged in InterContinental Hotel, Park Lane in 2009. It also seeks to address the growing need of young Muslim women to dress modestly whilst showcasing fashion from Muslims all around the world. In another article by Katherine Boyle titled Fashion Week: Is Modesty Back? published in 2010 by the Washington Post, she discusses how the trend of fashion is influenced by the ‘new conservative markets’ as a result of ‘the growing middle eastern and couture markets’. High fashion has turned from ‘pushing the boundaries of sex and skin’ towards ‘ladylike and demure’.

METHODOLOGY

For this project, I have chosen qualitative method and discourse content analysis. My primary sources were the three blogs of young Muslim women in Malaysia. I will further elaborate the criteria that I have chosen for these blogs. My secondary sources are academic books and journals that discusses faith, fashion and identity within Muslim women or the youth. These include but are not limited to authors such as Emma Tarlo, Zygmunt Bauman and Annelis Moors. They remain as secondary sources because they do not write within the specific context of the young Muslim women in Malaysia. After consulting these two sources, I shall look at other sources such as those from fashion and junk magazines. The reasons why I have chosen to consult these online magazines are because they are current and most of these youth phenomena remain within the scope of underground media in Malaysia.

Blogs are considered a new source of social research that uses the internet. Most research methodology via the internet has been quantitative, as surveys are been distributed via this medium. There has not been many studies done in blogging methodology, but I was able to find sources that gave me a good start. They are from Helene Snee from University of Manchester, Nicholas Hookway from University of Tasmania, Australia and some academic sites that explore online research methods which include blogging from the University of Leicester. There are also ethical issues that I have taken into consideration and they are taken from Association of Internet Researchers. Here is a definition of blog given by Helene Snee:

…Blogs are a form of internet communication in which the author writes dated entries that appear in reverse order (i.e. earliest first) that can link to other webpages and that usually allow readers to comment. There are lots of different types of blogs. Originally ‘web logs’ were collections of links, but increasing the term has come to be applied to online journals. They are often quite personal forms of writing…

There are a few reasons why I have chosen blogging as the primary source of my research. Firstly and most importantly, I wanted my research to be about how they view themselves. It is important that I understand how these young women write about their lives and the choices that they have taken with regards to balancing faith and fashion. Blogging provided a good medium for me to explore this phenomenon as blog entries constitute short stories of what they encounter. In a way, this is also like a published diary among the youth (Hookway, 2008). I personally believe blogging could be the unedited versions of thoughts and expressions of oneself that they are used to communicate to the public. Hence it is this raw material that I place high value with regards to study the issues within identities. It is important that this study is not only driven by what I was seeking out, but also what these young women have chosen to share within the public sphere of the internet.

Secondly, blogs provide a practical approach to students such as me because it allows me to access these materials within being confined to geographical challenges. I am able to access these materials despite the fact that I am in Scotland and these young women are in Malaysia. It is important that I take practical approaches to study the phenomena in Malaysia since I am confined to Scotland and travelling within four weeks of finishing this project requires me to be creative in getting the sources that I need. Blogging has thus become a practical and innovative solution.

Things that I considered before using these three blogs were the criteria of the young Muslim women, a way to keep record of my research of searches and specific topics that are discussed or published in their blog. Although these seem difficult at a glance, the search for blogs was not hard for me. Compared to other researchers of bloggers who had to use search engines such as ‘Google’ or ‘Technorati’, it would take months of sifting through blogs that would fit the criteria of their subjects. It was easy for me to know the ‘who’s who’ in the fashion scape among young Muslim women in Malaysia due to the experience of selling fashionable dresses online in Malaysia. Also, because I have used blogs in my medium of communication, it was easy for me to extract the data (texts, pictures, videos, simple programs to view the numbers of followers and geographical locations of these readers) from these blogs.

With regards to managing the data that I have collected, within four weeks of researching, I did not manage to use all their entries. I only managed to look at entries during the year 2010-2011 as they have already provided me with enough materials to draw some issues within the complexities of balancing faith and fashion. Collected data could be saved using simple programs such as ‘Microsoft Word’ and they could be transferred to a ‘data analysis system’ such as NVivo. However, I did not venture into this system because it was too time consuming and because I have decided to not include all the entries by these bloggers. I might proceed to use this system should I decide to do this topic for my dissertation. Also, I prefer to use entries according to the latest dates than manage them according to their topic or subject. As blog are entries that reflect the on-going process of thoughts, I therefore prefer to follow their flow of thought. I have also taken into consideration what Helene Snee says:

…It is advisable to read then blog online even if you decide to import it into a data analysis package. This helps you gain an understanding of the blog in context and you can see it how it is meant to be viewed, even if you then end up analysing particular element of it in analysis software…

Similar to other methods employed by researchers, ethical issues were considered in this project. One of the key questions in relation to blogging is to either categorize them as private or public. Although they are accessible in the public sphere of the internet, some blogs belong to private viewing of approved members. Therefore, I have specifically chosen blogs that do not restrict their viewing to a closed/ approved membership.

Another important ethical issue lie within the protection of identity of the blogger’s authors. Some scholars argue to treat bloggers as any other interview participants. In this case, permission and confidentiality of these bloggers would be crucial. There are also some who argue that bloggers want their work to be recognized and should therefore be treated as authors of a published article such as the newspaper. In cases such as these, informed consent would cease to be obligatory. After much consideration of these issues, I have only chosen subjects that have exposed their identity publicly by taking their own photos and publish personal information of themselves so I know that they do not intend to keep their identity private. Also, as a precautionary step, I have contacted them personally to gain permission to use their blog entries as materials for my research.

The main challenge to my methodology is not incorporating interviews as part of my primary source. Interviews would help me combine both the online and offline personalities that are often non-prevalent within the confined spaces of each environment. Both online and offline spaces had advantages and disadvantages in representing one’s identity. The reason for not using the interviews was because I was not certain that it would be possible for me to conduct a proper interview given the time-frame that I had. Even an interview via the email would not do justice to this project. Blogging was the best solution after incorporating the challenges for doing this research. Therefore, should I proceed to develop this into a research for my dissertation, I would include a face to face interview with them.

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

My results concern three bloggers from young Muslim women from Malaysia. It would be useful to know that they are by no means a representation of the average young Muslim women in Malaysia. However, these women are an introduction to the relationship that faith has with fashion. In all my literature reviews, they were sources that did not look at Malaysian context specifically. Nonetheless, we can see the similarity of some issues regarding faith and fashion in Malaysia.

For a start, there is no code of dressing that is enforced by the Sharīʿah courts in Malaysia. Women are allowed to choose their dress code, just as similarly as those of their non-Muslim citizens. It should be noted that there are some restrictions for women to enter international beauty pageants[1] and the niqāb is not allowed to be worn by public officers in public institutions. Hence for the most part, dress code for Muslim women is left to the liberty of that individual. This does not exclude that certain environment would favour certain type of dress codes but it does not negate the fact that the government do not actively participate in the Islamic code of clothing for women. Therefore, most young Muslim women are given the liberty to dictate their choice of clothing.

Emmy Zuraihan is a law graduate and a practising lawyer who works in a multinational company. She works closely with labour and employment law and specifies in industrial relations matters. Online, she is known as 'Lady Gamelan' who defines herself as 'a niche by product, emerged from less mainstream cult'. Her blog is full of fashion photographs, art photos and videos of clothing, music and quotations. From a glance, it would be hard to identify that she is a Muslim, more or less a woman. However, as we further examine other posts in her blog, we begin to see traces of Islamic identity merging with art. This can be seen by the Qur’ānic verses that she puts up and some quotations regarding the Qur’ān and its lessons. She also uses her blog to raise funds for the tsunami catastrophe in Japan.

What intrigues me the most is the fact that her art photos and videos is a depiction of multiple issues concerning her identity. Far from fashioning faith and clothing, the passion seem to lie within art, the freedom to express ‘dark’ aesthetic visions of life. We can see this by the quotations, photos and videos that questions identity in a very ‘dark’ tone.

Shahirah Elaiza is famous for her blog ‘Colours of my life’. From the posts that she puts in her blog, we can see of her passion in Islam and fashion. She expresses her passion for fashion stemming from her family background of designers. She sees Islam as a way to rediscover her identity and thus we can see the numerous expressions of faith and fashion in her blog entries. Based on the photos and articles that she has posted on her blog, we can see that she identifies faith as the main feature of her thoughts. Fashion, food and other aesthetic musings are a product of her obsession with fusing religion and expressing creativity. It could also mean that when it comes to identity, her passion to connect to others that differ from her stems from the feeling of alienation from the societal norms in Malaysia. It could also be a way to show individuality of fusing the faith and fashion together.

She expressed her desire to use her blog to connect with other people because she would like to find a common ground between herself and other who differ in terms of race, religion and culture. It seems that she has managed to reach her goals. The lists of geographical locations of her readers are listed via a small program and list is phenomenal. Some of the list of countries are Tanzania, Portugal, Republic of Macedonia, most Islamic countries, Trinidad Tobago, Georgia, Latvia, Slovakia, Croatia, Cyprus, Chile, Israel, Palestine, Senegal, Malta and the list goes on. She openly asks her readers to contact her via email for any feedback and it took her less than twenty four hours to respond to my email.

The last blogger is known as Maria Elena and she is famous for her blogs ‘peliks’ (weird). In her blog she discusses all contemporary issues including faith and fashion. In her latest entry on food, she starts her post with the recitation of prayers. Her fashion statement can be seen via hijab videos that she has posted online in YouTube along with other videos concerning youth related issues. She is a twenty three year old engineering student and there are more than twelve thousand readers who follow her blog. For a young woman who is not a celebrity in Malaysia, she draws a considerable influence for other young women in Malaysia.

Hence, this does mean that her fusion of faith and fashion gain a sizeable resistance among other Muslims especially men. In one of her recent post, she addresses one of her followers who has resorted to criticize her usage of the English language as the language of ‘Dajjal’ (anti-Christ). This follower also argues that she has brought down the dignified status of hijab. It is interesting to see how a twenty three year old Muslim woman responds to such a confrontation. She say, “ps: rather than you do this cursing here and there, why don’t you take the wudu' and pray to calm you down? didn't think of that, did you? teeheheee!” Again, the dichotomy of faith between traditional and modern is blurred when there are multiple forces of identities taking place within an individual. This is further developed in an urban society that places a lot of value on individuality of expressing one’s clothing preferences.

Based on these three women, we can see that although they differ on the choice of clothing style, it is apparent that they have expressed their individuality with the inclusive of faith as one of the factors pertaining to fashion. There lie so many contradictions within their blog entries, pictures, videos and quotes as they blur the typical notion of culture and politics within the framework of Islamic dress codes.

CONCLUSION

Susan Okin’s contestation of feminism raises a picture of young Muslim women being victims of patriarchal structures within religious institutions. Without denying that patriarchal structures exists in most societies, she argues that women in the West are better off because they are given the liberty to decide what kind of lives they wish to pursue for themselves. Following this line of argument, if certain Muslim governmental institutions do not dictate what women choose to wear, as in the case of Malaysia, then gender studies within the feminist movements among Muslims in Malaysia must begin to allow and respect their ‘sisters’ stance on clothing preference even when contradictions lie within those choices. These contradictions are a result of understanding the dressing choices as one dimensional: modesty vs. fashionable, traditional vs. modern and so forth. We must begin to realise that these choices and preferences in clothing is more complex than that and looking at identity is a good starting point to tackle those issues.

There are those who argue that women who have chosen to opt for a veil, hijab or niqāb as not being liberated. However, when they are part of the educated, westernized and pro-modernity as we have seen from the case of my research, Emma Tarlo’s book and Annelis Moor’s article, they are considered as confused women who do not understand the what modesty means in Islam. Neither way can go right for those who have opted for a hijab, veiling or niqāb and the question remains, ‘Why aren’t women given the liberty to choose what they want to wear, be it from those patriarchal structures of religious institutions or the feminist ‘sisters’ that seem to define liberation within their understanding of Islam?’

Secondly, it is interesting how consumerists (young Muslim women) attitudes pushes suppliers to feed their demand of clothing preferences which seeks to combine both faith and fashion. In an article titled Addressing the Muslim Market: Can you afford not to?, it is argued that marketers must address the need of consumers who are seeking to combine faith as an integral part of its identity (Kearney, 2007). This seems to push the notion of stereotyping young Muslim women as westernized, modern and thus reject traditional notions of hijab in one box, and another box filled with young Muslim women who are traditional, suspicious of modernity and accepts the hijab that has been defined by cultural understanding of Islamic dress code. Thus, the individuality aspects of understanding religious traditions have therefore challenged the understanding of Islamic dress codes for women to produce diversity in clothing styles. Emerging this diversity with the need to express one’s creativity in a post-modern/ ‘liquid society’, it has given birth to the trend of fashioning clothes as part and parcel of one’s religious identity.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. T. Kearney (2007). Addressing the Muslim Market: Can You Afford Not To? (taken at 3.17pm at 13.03.2011 from http://www.atkearney.com/index.php/ Publications/addressing-the-muslim-market.html).

Bauman, Z., Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Modernity, Blackwell Publishers Ltd: Oxford, 1995, pp. 80-82.

Boyle, K. (2010). Fashion Week: Is Modesty Back. The Washington Post (taken at 3.09pm 13.03.201 from http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guest voices/2010/09/fashion_week_is_modesty_back.html).

Cohen, H. & Nussbaum, 1999, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Susan Moller Okin with Respondents, Princeton University Press.

Hookway, N., ‘Entering the blogosphere’: some strategies for using blogs in social research, Qualitative Research SAGE Publications: Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore, vol. 8(1) 91-113, 2008.

Kossaibati, J. (2009). Hijab Style. Vogue.com (taken on 13.03.2011, 3.15pm

from: http:// www.vogue.co.uk/news/daily/090408-arabian-fashion-week.aspx).

Jones, S., AoIR ethics working committee, Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee, 2002. (Taken on 01/05/2011, 3.01pm from: http://aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf).

Moors, A., “Islamic Fashion” in Europe: Religious Conviction, Aesthetic Style, and Creative Consumption, Encounters 1, 1: 175-201, 2009. (Taken on 01/05/2011, 5.29pm

from http://sites.google.com/site/anneliesmoors/publications-1/muslim-dress-and-fashion).

Moor, E. b., Muslim Fashions Special Double Issue, Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture, Berg: Oxford, 2007.

Snee, H., Using Blog Analysis, Realities Toolkit, ESRC National Centre for Research Methods, July 2010. (Taken on 01/05/2011, 2.52pm

from http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/realities/resources/toolkits/blog-analysis/).

Snee, H., Web 2.0 as a Social Science Research Tool, Report on behalf of the British Library, 2008, (Taken on 01/05/2011, 2.54pm

from: http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/bldept/socsci/socint/web2/web2.pdfOpens in new window).

Tarlo, E., Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith, Berg: Oxford, 2010.

http://ladygagamelan.tumblr.com/ (taken on 03/05/2011 at 10.30am)

http://peliks.blogspot.com/ (taken on 03/05/2011 at 10.30am)

http://shaelaiza.blogspot.com/ (taken on 03/05/2011 at 10.30am)

[1] Restrictions were imposed due the requirement of participating in the swimming suit or bikini section. Malaysia has therefore opted to allow ‘Islamic’ beauty pageants where those sections were removed.

Sumayyah in progress....

2011-05-10T13:30:00.013+01:00

I find myself wondering about the word forgiveness and how it fits into letting go. Sometimes, I find myself dreaming about things that has happened in the past. Is this normal?

Anyway, I recently conducted a workshop with my friend Aaina on the Khalifah Method developed by Prof. Mahdi. The beauty about teaching, is that you find yourself exploring the stuff that you are teaching in the 1st place. One of the key things to change our behaviour is to address our inner speech. It seems that we humans decide on what we do according to what we say to ourselves. There is a theory behind this and if you are interested to know more about the Khalifah Method, just drop me an email or comment.

Our inner speech, interpersonal communication and physical environment based on our past learning experience is a construction of our personality. Hence, to be a better Muslim, I have to learn to confront the deep deep past experiences of life that I have kept so far behind.

I keep them locked in a place where I don't have to confront them. But what happens when I don't confront these issues, especially ones that have scarred me emotionally? They come out in other forms, using my subconscious mind. Truth is, as much as it is painful, for me to become a better Muslim and thus forgive and let go of all my past baggage, I have to confront them.

Ok so here goes my 1st confession. I am only dealing with one today. heheh too much can be very difficult for now. Here it comes.....

My high school experience was so painful. I was an outcast. hehehehe... So honestly, even though I went to TKC, the thing that I learnt most from this painful experience is, I just have to learn to accept that I am weird. While most people were busy scoring, I was failing in everything. I remember being alone in most situations, friends laughing behind my back and I remember a particular person making fun of another kid who befriended me. Kesian Fuza, a girl made fun of her because she was my friend... I was really hurt and I guess even up till now I feel weird around these girls who use to make fun of me. Don't get me wrong, they are nice girls. They were just not that sensitive to other people's feelings in high school. Oh well, it was high school so which one of us girls (even me) can truly admit that we did not hurt (intentionally or unintentionally) another person's feelings?? Susah kan??? hehehhee....

When I look at myself now, I am surprised to see how far I've come. I tend to come last or second last in my batch, but check out the irony now. The Director of my graduate school, Dr. Hussein has even encouraged me doing a doctorate research during my presentation in front of everyone even before me finishing my masters, all praises go to God. Ok on normal circumstances this would not mean crap, but for this particular occasion, it meant so much to me. Me, doing a doctorate??? Seriously, I sometimes feel like I am dreaming with the opportunities that Allah has given me.

Secondly as an outcast in school, it was challenging for me to bring my ideas across. I was failing in my subjects, but I had the drive to pursue for stuff that I was passionate about. This was really challenging! So growing up I was obsessed with reading books on leadership and management. How can I make people believe in what I believe? Can you spot something in my last sentence??? hehehhee... Let's look at it closely:

HOW CAN I MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE IN WHAT I BELIEVE?

Only now I see how selfish my intentions were. Even though as time passed, my capabilities to communicate effectively with people have excelled from the previous outcast that I was in school, my intentions were not. I was engrossed with leadership and management because I wanted people to believe in what I believed.

Something else happens when a woman comes to the age 30. We begin to accept who we really are and deal accordingly with the pressures to please other people! So only now am I beginning to grow comfortable with the weird Suma and accept that weird Suma has a lot of potential if she begins to concentrate on her strengths and stop apologizing for her weaknesses. And to do this, I have to forgive the people who have hurt me, and most of all forgive myself for all the failures and for not knowing any better.

Now in relation to other people, I want to help people discover their dreams. I want to be part of the support network that people can count on when they need help in achieving their goals. I am done leading with my vision, I am now starting to see that I can do a lot more by serving others instead of finding ways how others can serve me. I can safely say that I am learning to be comfortable as the supporting actor instead of the lead role ;-). Glory to God, all praises to God, there is nothing worth worshipping but the one true God, God is truly the Greatest.

The Meaning of Success

2011-03-27T09:03:00.030+01:00

Salams everyone,

It has been so long since I last wrote in. The reason for this is because I took a sabbatical leave from Zyra and decided to do my Masters in Dundee, Scotland. Anyway, I have decided on my dissertation and my supervisor has given me the green light. She gave such an encouragement that it took me surprised. She said that it is an interesting topic and I should publish my work. Wow, to me that is a big deal since I am not really the academia type! hehehe....

So are you guys ready, the topic for my dissertation is:

Faith, Fashion and the Internet: Fashion blogging among young Muslim women in Malaysia.

What so you guys think??? I'm super excited about it... hehehe.... But anyway, that is not the point of this sudden urge to write. I have discovered something so so so powerful. This is why I decided to put it in the blog. Ok so it began like this.

A couple of months ago, I was confused. I identified 4 things that I am super passionate about. They are:

Faith - my relationship with God;
Fashion - OMG I love making dresses its crazeeeeee. I'm drawing dresses while my lecturers are explaining infront;
Politics - no matter how much I try to stay clear of it, I'm so drawn to it, and it is drawn to me! hahahhaa... It's a love hate relationship. Can't live with it, can't live without it;
Helping others - When Baba and Salman passed away, I found this group called YMP and they were a bunch of supportive people who allowed me to channel my depression to a productive action of helping others. So now I am a core believer in peer support groups.

So I made my istikharah prayers in full hopes that God will guide me to the right path. In hopes that He will make me focus on one which would be most rewarding in this world and the hereafter. And guess what, ALL doors seem to open more! So I was super confused :-(....

Coming back to now, a couple of days ago I started to sort out the people who I wanted to interview for my dissertation. They are:

1. Aimie Habban in http://aimfordsky.blogspot.com/;

2. Adriani in http://adriani-a.blogspot.com/;

3. Honeypokapoka in http://honeypokapoka.tumblr.com/;

4. Lady Gagemelan in http://ladygagamelan.tumblr.com/;

5. Maria Elana in http://peliks.blogspot.com/; and

6. Shahirah Elaiza in http://shaelaiza.blogspot.com/.

These girls are amazing subhanallah. I sincerely believe that they are making an impact to women like me, it is truly inspiring to see Muslim women who can embrace faith and fashion. Suddenly a question crept into me. Looking at how they are, I asked myself, "Am I successful like them?" I am 29, and next year I will be 30. What have I actually achieved? I asked this question constantly. This small voice in me is the one motivating me to seek for success. Reading biographies of people who have achieved so much even before they reach 30 was a way of comparing their life to a small time girl like me who, oh well let's face, hasn't achieved much. I wondered so much how success would feel like. And then I began to feel sorry for myself. Negativity hijacked the best of me and I was on a spiral circle of pushing myself down.

I decided the negativity is too much and instead decided to thank God 1st thing in the morning when I wake up. I made a promise to always thank God for giving me one more chance to live my life. One more chance to do better than what I did yesterday. One more chance to see the beautiful sun coming up..... Subhanallah. You have no idea how things start to change.

OMG I realized the success that I wanted was already at my fingertips... God is so giving to me. He gives and gives without me even realizing it. The feeling of negativity came because I defined success on the terms of someone else's life. So ofcourse I realized that I was chasing success based on what someone else has defined it. In truth, I am living my life doing exactly what I want and subhanallah I am so grateful because I am so passionate about what I do. Here's a sneak peak of my life.

5.00am - Wake up and thank God, pray and read Qur'an.

6.30am - Make juice

7.00am - Paula Abdul excercise

8.00am - Geri Yoga

9.00am - Get ready to go to school

I am doing my Masters in Islamic Studies so I have learnt about the Qur'an, Hadiths, Politics, Gender in Islam and now I am doing my dissertation in Fashion. Hahahhaa... where an earth can I learn Islam like this???? Mashallah....

I manage a support group under ALMISS (student body for Al-Maktoum) and we meet once a week. It has been 5 weeks and mashallah I can see the improvement in my group, including myself.

I also help out a political party here. The opposition ofcourse, duh! hahahhaa... I'm not fully on board with one party cause I support all political parties in Malaysia, especially DAP. I really think they (DAP) stand for the values that is closest to my heart for now, even when they do not come under the Islamic party in Malaysia. And without God sending us Anwar Ibrahim, most Malays like me will never challenge the societal norms that UMNO has propagate. Alhamdulillah for Anwar Ibrahim. May God always protect and bless him and his family.

I also try to take dietary supplements, talk to my family via skype and go for hot chocolate and walks with friends on some days... I also try to set aside as much money as I can to help any members of my family who needs it. I really think that my money might not be mine actually. I think they are just given to me to manage it so I can make meaningful things with it. Like giving it to people who need it (and seriously charity starts from our parents, and then to our families and then to others), saving for my business, etc....

So anyway after taking a closer look at my life, OMG I realized something. I am living my life just as I want it. I am doing things that I love and what I am on about not achieving success??!!! Why do I obsess on the goal when the truth is I am enjoying and feeling lucky that I am given the chance to live my life exactly how I intend. Goals are great, they act as an aim, but they are not the fun bits. The fun and meaningful bits is in the act of living my life daily doing exactly what I love.

Dr. Stephen R. Covey says that if we want to achieve something, we have to start with identifying our principles and values. And then from there, we should change our habit! Yes, our habits make up or carve our way to our goals and aims. So now, I am going to focus on the gift of TODAY. All my efforts are going to focused on creating meaningful habits such as meditation and prayers for God, exercise, researching and writing on faith and fashion, running my support group, sharing my knowledge with others and helping any political party to stand up against any political party in Malaysia that aims to dominate and remain in power for whatever reasons (I am vowing to always protect the underdog! hahahhaa...). This is the real deal and the meaning of success to me now. Now I think I am successful, not because I am better or I stand out, but because I am learning to define success on my terms. My terms of success for now is:

Being grateful to God for being able to fight for a better TODAY;
Creating meaningful habits;
Enjoying the actions of those habits; and
Being content with being me....

I hope this post can help others out there who are trying to find the meaning of success... Glory to God, all Praises to God, There is no god but God, God is the Greatest!

P.S.: I've started to brush my teeth 3 times a day! Yea!!!! The prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) says, "If I had not found it hard for my followers or the people, I would have ordered them to clean their teeth with Siwak for every prayer." I'm a long way from brushing it 5 times a day (cause we have to pray 5 times or more in a day). But I'm on the way! ;-)

Zyra's Spring/ Summer

2010-05-06T22:37:00.008+01:00

As you all know, I wanted to make my Spring/ Summer collection as feminine and as sweet as possible. My inspiration was the beautiful setting of Jane Austen's novels. I have also brought the waist line up so the dresses would not have be tight to make the our bodies look slim and tall. I hope I have achieved my objectives :-)

There are still other dresses that I did not include in this post, so I hope you guys don't mind browsing on my company's website. Do click here.

Tell me what you guys think, ya.

Thanks!

Online Tutorials

2010-04-24T06:59:00.005+01:00

My partners had a fantastic idea on making online tutorials on how to use the products that we sell. Mashallah, after this video tutorial, our customer size grew rapidly and the exposure that we have had since putting ourselves on youtube has been tremendous for the growth of our sales. I would recommend my fellow entreprenuers to consider using this effective medium to improve their sales.

As you guys can see, this was done unprofessionally! hahhaa... I mean, we did it in Zai's bedroom and the back drop was her white bed sheet. We used just another digital camera that could record videos but alhamdulillah, with Zai using her tricks on editing, she managed to make the video bearable to watch! hahaha.. Thanks Zai. And my other partner Kyra, I don't know how she did it but she looked like a professional model. I mean, she could just sit there and have the same expression all throughout the video recording. There were so many instances where we had to stop and rerecord because we made so many blunders and we couldn't stop laughing. hahahha.. One of my best memories with Zyra was making this video. It was hilarious!!!

Zai also made me realize that Zyra's business depend highly on our facebook page and now we've add youtube videos on our marketing belt. What a wonderful combination for us and we have seen the results that came out of it. We make our weekly Sunday trips to the flea market to meet our customers face to face but I am hoping we could increase our videos so our customers could see more of us explaining our products at the choice of their time and venue :-)!

Prayers

2010-03-29T18:44:00.014+01:00

It has been 3 months since I started to sell my dresses.

It has been 1 year and 3 months since I started planning to start my own business.

It has been since I was 6 that I knew that I wanted to grow up and dress like princesses.

For all the things that I have been through in life, I am baffled by the journey that it has taken me to. I know the road is still very far ahead for me, yet I cannot help but to feel that I am right where I belong. Making dresses for women like myself has been a very liberating experience for me.

Somewhere along the way, I have found out that I am my own worse enemy. There is a battle within myself that I am waging, and that is = DO I HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?

Yes, that is the ringing noise at the back of my head that keeps on interfering with my passion to pursue what I love doing. Our own insecurities are like dark shadows that follow us through the dark corners, just waiting to creep up to overtake and overpower ourselves.

This constant battle has brought up the worse in me when I let it control me, and it ends up with sleepless nights such as these. And, I have found that the only thing that has calmed me down is by making prayers to God. Yes, of all the money that I have spent on therapy, it seems that the best thing is called a prayer, and this is the only thing I need. One direct line with my Creator. Because He constantly reminds me that I am only a human, and that the result of attaining success is something that belongs to His dominion. The best that I can do is to patiently persevere and be consistent. Yes, CONSISTENT. That is the 2nd highest attribute (after honesty) that I wish to instill in my character. Not grand gestures, but small consistent steps are fine with me, all praises to God.

So I hope this post lets you know what lies deep in the heart of a housewife who decided to pursue after her passion. Accepting rejection is becoming a norm, and failures, as we know it shall come before me in forms that I will not anticipate. But I tell myself, fear not, for God is always listening, and He is All-Knowing. Nothing happens without His will, so trust in God Sumayyah, and really embrace the hikmah that comes with every lesson in life.

The Purple Cow

2010-03-26T06:07:00.007Z

I've just learnt something so profound, that I would like to share this knowledge with all of you. Since I have just started to embark myself into business again, I have had to change my attitude towards it because of the failure that I have gone through before.

Failure, as I have come to know it, is part and parcel of learning. I have embraced it as my teacher in life, that reminds me that life is a journey of exploration. Nothing is constant except for God. I am judged by my ability to strive as honestly as I can. How merciful is my Creator, God is the Greatest.

So although I am an advocate of this new knowledge that I have learnt, I also am a student so I stand to be corrected. But here is why I think this knowledge is so profound. You tell me if this is profound to you all too :-).

Recently when I went to a Social Entrepreneur talk, I met with a very inspiring and interesting woman called Whitney Keyes. All praises go to God, she has recommended a book for small businesses for me to read. Its called = The Purple Cow by Seth Godin. I'm listening to his audio and I cannot help but to learn so much from this man on how to run my business. I shall just summarize some of the things that is applicable to me, but I would recommend this book for anyone who is looking to start their own business on how to approach marketing in this day and age. Do read his book as my summary does not do justice to the knowledge that he has given to me.

For small businesses like mine, I've often wondered how can I break into this huge profitable market of Malaysia? How can small businesses like mine afford to do marketing which has big advertisement budgets? Do you guys think about that too? Like how can I buy airtime on TV? How can I get a picture of my products on the billboards? How to do I get the word out to my customers, that Zyra is here for them? Is there a chance for small companies to succeed when my competitors' marketing budgets are so HUGE? And guess what, there is!!!!!

Here is how.

I have to invest my time and effort in creating "REMARKABLE" products and services!

During the time of our parents, products and services are catered for the mass market and that's why advertising is for everybody. Nowadays the market is moving to: a product for everybody is a product for nobody. The reason for this is, consumers nowadays are not filling their purchasing needs, but fulfilling their purchasing wants. There are so many competitors of products and services available that a customer now can have the upper hand and choose a product that is tailored to their exact need, which inevitably becomes their wants. For example, everybody needs a toothpaste. So we all know we have Colgate. BUT... I also want a toothpaste that does not have harmful ingredients such as Sodium Fluoride (rat poison). Yes, Colgate puts rat poison in my mouth. Yucks! (There are a lot more harmful ingredients like Saccharin, Sodium Lauryl Sulphate but this is not the time and place) I have become a consumer who stay away from mass produced products because mass produced products have spend millions on advertising and have failed to perfect its product.

Nowadays, products that stand out are products that are created out of passion because I, as an entrepreneur will be obsessed in creating a remarkable product. I'm not there yet, I know that. But I am obsessed with it. I have a passion for dresses for women like myself, so I am obsessed at creating dresses for women in hijab. As you can see, I am constantly challenging myself to invest in:

quality even when it will take a financial toll at not only my business, but also my personal pockets; and
time.

I would like to create a product that is so remarkable to my customers that it overwhelms them into thinking = MY GOD THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE THAT CAN PROVIDE A SOLUTION TO MY UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES. So instead of investing the money that I get from my business in advertising, I'm gonna invest it in Research & Development of my dresses.

So, how do I get the word out to my customers when I have invested in creating products that are remarkable?

There are 4 types of consumers out there:

Innovators;
Early Adopters;
Majority; and
Laggers.

Innovators are:

People who like to have things 1st!;
Don't necessarily need it, but they just want to be the 1st in experiencing them; and
i.e. People who sit in runway shows.

Early Adopters are:

Folks who actually benefit from using my products;
maintain an edge over people by seeking new products/ services; and
sizable, and willing to spend money.

Early and Late Majority:

Don't necessarily yearn for new products but if enough of the peers try and talk about it, they are likely to follow;
big and profitable;
really good at ignoring you because they have problems that they find more significant that what your product solves and do not want to invest time to listen to you; and
often don't even listen to the innovators because they like protocols and systems as safety that new products rarely offer.

Laggers are:

Adapters, they adapt to the way things are. They do not use something new, and use something that is so old that what they use is obsolete or is not available any longer;
i.e. people who buy cassettes when people are buying CDs.

So honestly my fellow readers, which type of a consumer are we? hehehe...

I must spread the idea of my product like a virus.

People like me must design a product that is so remarkable, that it will attract the early adopters, flexible and attractive enough so those adopters will have an easy time spreading the idea of my product to the rest of the curve (early and late majority). These people are called Sneezers.

Sneezers are:

Key spreading agents of ideas;
experts who tell their friends and colleagues about a new product on which they are perceived as experts;
Launch and maintain ideas; and
Often early adopters.
i.e. expert in Islamic Fashion = Jana Kossaibati

My market is small, and so just a few sneezers can get me talked about to the masses. If my innovation of the product and services is really good, it will (if God willing) migrate to the majority. So I have to remind myself, that most successful products are engineered to be successful from day 1. That means, I have to make sure that my strategy is a smart engineered one that fits exactly to my niche.

I am not saying Ads don't work, YES THEY DO. I just agree with the author in that ads come like a hurricane, it sweeps everyone which in the end causes a lot of wastage. Just take a look at their budgets :-)

Sad truth is, when people don't buy my products, it is because:

No money;
No time; or
Don't want it.

In the old days, marketeers target consumers. Nowadays, its the consumers who choose whether to listen to me. The secret to Google Ads are that they are relevant and presented to a person who is likely to act on them.

So now I know, it is useless for me to advertise to anyone except for interested sneezers with influence. So the real need for advertising is to go to where consumers go to when they are looking for help and be at a place where they can find me! :-)

The beauty about this concept is, chances that I have to advertise to a sneezer is rare, so the rest of my time and money can be used in investing in my product so it is so useful, so interesting, so noteworthy that the market would want to listen to what I want to say.

Here is what I want my customers to know:

I am committed to making clothing that is custom sized to your unique body so you will never come in my shop and feel frustrated that you can't find your sizing;
I am committed to find new ways to improve the quality of my garments so what you wear lasts for some time;
I am committed to design for women in hijab who loves to wear dresses and not look like "grannies" wearing over sized tents; and
I am always listening to you (my customers), because what you say by far matters more than me appealing to the public in general. So, I am all ears to you and I am not afraid of criticism from people in general because they do not matter to me!

Islamic Clothing Today

2010-03-25T11:34:00.005Z

Here is a very good report by a good writer in the U.K. on the Islamic clothing today. To anyone who is looking to venture into this market, do take good consideration on what this Jana has written. This information was given to me for free, so I want it to also benefit my dear sisters who are looking to start their own muslim fashion line. Do click on the article to read her full report.

"A couple of weeks ago, I put in a request for Hijab Style readers to let me know what they thought of the current Islamic clothing industry, as part of a post I wanted to write about the topic. I am very grateful for everyone's responses which can be found here; they echoed a lot of my own thoughts and so it's good to know I was on the right lines!...The following is the result of personal research and reader's opinions on today's online modest and Islamic fashion options: The growing number of brands and websites catering to modest dressers from around the world is increasing rapidly, and never before has there been so much choice available. Or so it may appear."

DO YOUR MARKET SURVEY!!!! :-) If you have trouble on how to do it, don't worry. You can always email me and I will be more than happy to help. Always listen to what the customers need. Provide solutions for your customers. And it really helps when you are passionate about what you are selling. I know some people enter into business because they just want to make money. But the truth is when you have the passion for the products that you are selling, you can make "Remarkable" products and stand out from the crowded market place that we currently have.

Watch out for my next post. I have found a fantastic knowledge on how to break into the market without excessive budgets on marketing = almost free! What we retailers need to concentrate is to invest in our products so that it is so outstanding that it will overwhelm our customers :-)

Spring/ Summer

2010-03-15T04:23:00.006Z

Spring is here and summer is coming soon :-).

This is the best season for me as a designer.

Whenever I think about Spring, I think of all the flowers popping up here and there, when green leaves starts to flourish again. Birds will start chirping, and the breeze that comes with spring brings the sweet scent of hope.

How can I not love Spring to Summer.

This really inspires me to do some thinking into my next collection. Me and my partners have taken some time out till April to put on our thinking caps and start planning for our next season's pickings.

For this coming collection, I am inspired by pastel flowery cotton. I'm thinking of Jane Austin's novels with lovely ribbons to match the dresses.

I also love Kimonos and how they wrap around the body. Maybe I'll introduce some stretchable cottons :-) and its spring, so let's have cream as our earthy tones. Something that is also classy. Hmmm....

I also think that Spring is the time to get that old sneakers out from the cupboard and take a stroll down the park to enjoy nature that is bursting with energy. Will definitely design a dress that goes with sneakers and (here are some secrets :-) out in the open) a hoodie!

My workstation in progress

2010-03-03T14:33:00.004Z

I can't wait to renovate my study room to include a desk where I can do my sewing and drawing. I'm currently planning this room to be like a small office for me. It has:

Proper cabinets for sample of fabrics and other sewing stuffs for me to work on;
A desk for my sewing machine;
A desk for my laptop and my printer/ fax (this I have);
White board on where I could trash our my ideas;
Some nice curtains that I plan to sew them myself :-);
An iron and an ironing board (this I have);
A comfortable chair that has wheels so I can easily move between those 2 desks; and
I want the room to be white and neat so my ideas could flow easily.

My first Sewing Machine

2010-03-03T13:50:00.006Z

TA DA!

When I decided to go and get myself a sewing machine, I find this journey in Malaysia as usual, a rather challenging one! :-) This is because comparatively to the States, we Malaysians pay so much for a sewing machine. Plus the specifications on the sewing machine in Malaysia are not as good as the ones from the States. One of the things I am so grateful for is INTERNET! hahahha.. Once i started to compare prices, I definitely opted for the ones that got the best reviews ofcourse.

As usual, my online shopping would be from Amazon. I find Amazon so easy and user friendly. Plus, I love the reviews by the customers on the products. It really tells me how good the merchandise is. So as I was browsing through all the sewing machines, I found this to be the best

Brother CS6000I 60-Stitch Computerized Free-Arm Sewing Machine with Multiple Stitch Functions

This was because it had the perfect functions and it was within my budget. My hubby ofcourse paid for it :-). He is so supportive mashallah. I bought it in 2008 and it cost me USD179.99 which is RM610. Wow right?!! Something like this would easily cost me over RM2000 and that would be a basic Singer without any cool functions like this one!

I got my high school friend Ida to help me out with this. Mashallah bless her. May God reward her better. She got her friend from her Uni in the States to ship them over for me for free! Isn't that a blessing :-) I suggest you guys do the same. Get some of your Uni friends who study overseas to help out.

Guide for me...

2010-03-03T12:06:00.009Z

One of the toughest and personal struggles that I have within my soul (jihad) is to have this character of being an honest person. But this is a struggle that is worth embarking and I am positive that I can make it should I make a conscious effort to try.

There are so many reason for this.

"Verily, honesty leads to righteousness and righteousness leads to the pleasure of God, Most High. Lying leads to licentiousness and licentiousness brings about the anger of God" Bukhari, no. 6094; Muslim, no. 2607

Honestly is one of the defining characteristics of a believer. The Prophet (peace be upon him) mentioned that a Muslim can be many things, but he cannot be a liar*.Hence honesty is one of the indispensable provisions we must take along for our journey to God.

Lying destroys the ethical ideal that our religion is predicated upon. Once an ideal is gone, all the actions that are associated with the attainment and maintenance of that ideal become meaningless. That is why a Muslim cannot be a liar, for one who lies constantly has no higher ethical standard and only looks for the means to advance his or her interests. If lying serves to advance those interests he or she readily resorts to lying. Such an approach to life is the essence of hypocrisy, for a hypocrite is a person who lives a lie.Thus we find that no one is more subject to the anger of God than the hypocrites. God mentions in the Quran, Surely the hypocrites will be in the lowest level of Hell (4:145)

Now how does this fit into my life as a business women. In truth, it is so hard for me to bite my tongue every time I feel the urge to even exaggerate. But here are fantastic sayings from our beloved prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to guide me as a business women:

"The best kind of profit is that of the traders who do not lie on talking, do not break their word on giving promises, do not betray others when entrusted by them, do not flatter on selling something, or criticize on purchasing something, and if somebody owes them something, they do not press him to pay, and if they owe something to others, they do not procrastinate in paying" (Al-Asbahani and Al-Baihaqi).

I want, I want and I want. Please Allah, make it easy for me to attain such characters. I shall make these as my goals on how to manage my business Zyra, inshallah.

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was reported to have said, "Traders will be raised up as wicked people on the Day of Judgment, except those who fear Almighty Allah, do good, and are truthful" (At-Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Ibn Hibban, and Al-Hakim). Hence, fear of Almighty Allah, good deeds, and truthfulness save traders from Hellfire on the Day of Judgment.

There is also another hadith to the effect that there are three persons whom Allah Almighty will not look at on the Day of Judgment; among them, according to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is "a man who takes an oath falsely that he has been offered for his goods so much more than what he is given" (Muslim).

So here are some guidelines for me to run my business:

Trade must be in lawful things only. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) cursed ten people concerning intoxicating drinks. Among them are the one who presses the fruit or grain from which they are made, the one who carries them, the one to whom they are carried, the one who serves them, and the one who sells them. Moreover, a man came to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) with a bag filled with wine as a present to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). But the Prophet said, "Allah forbids intoxicating drinks." The man said, "Then I will sell it." The Prophet replied, "He Who forbids drinking them also forbids also selling them." The man said, "Then I will give it as a present to the Jews." The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "He Who forbids drinking and selling them also prohibits giving them as a present to the Jews." The man said, "What then should I do regarding it?" The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "Go and spill it on Al-Batha’(a valley between Makkah and Mina)" (Al-Humaidi in his Musnad).
There must be no fraud or deception. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was reported to have said, "He who deceives us is not of us" (Muslim);
There must be no hoarding. "He who hoards goods (until the price rises) is sinning" (Muslim and Abu Dawud) - I only found out as I am writing this. I think I need further explanation on this;
Sellers are not to promote their goods by swearing falsely. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) described the false oath as "ghamous," i.e., leading the one who takes it to sinning in this world and to Hellfire in the Hereafter;
Traders should not exploit the people's need and make much more profit at their expense by raising prices higher than their already-fixed value determined by the government. Raising prices in this way is considered a crime, as it causes hardship to many people whose income is limited and whose standard of living is low. In this regard, it was reported that Ma`qal ibn Yassar, on his deathbed, said to the people round him, "Help me to sit so that I talk to you about the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)." Then he said, "I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) saying, 'Allah Almighty has vowed to throw in Hellfire on the Day of Judgment he who excessively raises prices at the expense of Muslims.'" The people said to Ma`qal, "Have you really heard this from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)?" He replied, "More than once or twice" (Ahmad, At-Tabarani, and Al-Hakim).
Traders are to purify their wealth by paying zakah on it; and
Business is not to be time-consuming for Muslim traders at the expense of their religious duties towards Almighty Allah and their fellow brothers and neighbors.

Last but not least, I will leave with this one hadith that motivates me the most:

"An HONEST AND TRUSTWORTHY MERCHANT will be with the PROPHETS, the TRUTHFUL, and the MARTYRS" (At-Tirmidhi).

*Muhammad Zakariyya al-Kandahlawi, Awjaz al-Masalik ila Muwatta al-Imam Malik (Damascus: Dar al-Qalam1424/2003), 17:507, no. 1800.

**Articles are taken from:

"Treaties for the Seekers of Guidance" by Al-Muhasibi's Risala Al- Mutarshidan and translation commentary & notes by Zaid Shakir; and
Guide for Righteous Merchants:

Fatawa Issuing Body : Islam Online
Author/Scholar : Yusuf Al-Qaradawi
Date Of Issue : 25/Sep/2005
click here to go direct to the link.

Wealth

2010-03-03T10:03:00.007Z

Since my last post on entrepreneurship, I wonder if you notice that I talked a lot about the concept of wealth. And how it has changed since I started to have my own business. But I didn't go further by critically looking at wealth and how it effects my spiritual being.

I am a Muslim and every single journey that I choose to embark must have its spiritual reasons. As I look to the concept of wealth that I have posted, I cannot help but to feel like it was a half baked attempt. And then I knew why. I realized that my conclusion has not been conclusive because it did not entail the spiritual meaning of wealth. So what is this wealth?

In truth, this is the best definition of wealth....

Ibn Mas'ud said, "Be pleased with what God has proportioned out for you and you will be the wealthiest of people."

Pleasure with the Ordainment of God is one of the greatest guarantors of security and happiness.

Wealth and poverty, by Islamic standards, has nothing to do with material possessions, it is based on contentment and discontentment. If you are content with what you have been blessed with, you are wealthy. This is because wealth is not the possession of abundance, WEALTH IS FREEDOM FROM NEED.

And that is why, God is Al-Ghani (one of the 99 names of God is The Self Sufficient) and He is the wealthiest because He is free from all needs. We read in the Quran, O people! You are in desperate need of God. As for God, He is free of all needs, worthy of all praises. (35.15) Hence if you posses very little and do not need any more, you are wealthy. On the other hand, if you posses much, but you are unsatisfied and in need of increase, you are improvised.

God is All-knowing, All-Forgiving and Most Merciful. May He continue to correct, forgive and guide me to the straight path. Amen.

Entreprenuership

2010-02-25T06:34:00.017Z

One of the things that I enjoy in my work is my conversations with my partner Zai. This usually happens after our meeting with someone or when we are stuck in traffic hahaha. So I had an epiphany lately.

I was born in a family where money was easily accessed. All I had to do was ask, if it wasn't from my dad, it would be from my mom. God has blessed us in such a way that it has been beyond our imagination. Imagine this, when my friend's fathers were busy choosing a sports car or a superbike to go with their mid life crisis, my father was busy choosing which bell helicopter or planes that would go with his airline. I'm not saying it was peaches and cream all the time, but financial wealth was abundance (all praises go to God). When I asked dad, "Baba, what do you do?". My dad would give me his proudest smile and say, "I'm a business man."

So as I grew up, I had the highest regard for him because without fail, he has provided for our family and naturally I too wanted to be a "business man/woman".

As an entrepreneur, the headache that I get is from building my company, and much (not all) of the company's growth is bringing income $$$ to the company, i.e. in my case, selling my dresses and shawls. So as you all can imagine, the bulk of my concern for now is how can I make more income for my company? Everyday, I try to think and look for ways to do this. But here is where I realize something.

When I was working as an employee, I would look forward to getting my paycheck at the end of the month. I would think of ways how, where and when to spend the money that was as a result of the work that I have provided for the company. I saved a little but to be honest, most of the money that I earned were going out and not keeping it in. And because I know I will be getting money at the end of the month, I took up a car loan so I could drive comfortably and so forth... What I didn't realize is, I was living in DEFICIT. Getting my paycheck every month has in fact given me a false sense of security.

Now comparatively as a business owner, to be honest I spend so little that for the 1st time in my life, my sports shoes started to flap! In business, I am forced to thoroughly justify each spending decision for Zyra as a necessity for the growth of the company. This change in mentality has shifted my attitude towards my personal expenditure. But on most cases, I just do not spend that much time thinking about spending - it has shifted towards how to create wealth. How merciful is God that he has allowed me to journey on this path.

Before, when I was an employee, it didn't make any sense to me how some people could have so much wealth. How do they do it, and isn't it a big deal that they could buy all the things that I wanted but couldn't afford? It makes perfect sense now when we see entreprenuers worth millions and billions of dollars. It is how we decide to treat WEALTH. Do we choose to work to spend or do we choose to build wealth? And to be honest, having a lot of wealth is not such a big deal to me anymore. Just because we concern ourselves in building wealth, it does not mean that we are better off then people who don't. It just means we treat wealth differently.

Even so, at the end of the day, everything that I own is on loan from God. Even my business, if I am not careful, can give me a false sense of security. I will one day justify all my actions to my Creator, the Most Merciful which includes i.e. me justifying why I just had to buy that Gucci bag. Crap... For what He gives, He can easily take back. As mere mortals, our ability is to just strive to be the best that we can be as His humble servants.

Hijab Style Exclusive: Zyra Interview

2010-02-25T06:19:00.004Z

by Jana Kossaibati.

Today, Hijab Style brings you an exclusive interview with Sumayyah Nasar, founder of the Malaysian clothing brand Zyra. Sumayyah writes all about her ventures over at her blog Love to Dress. Read on to find out more about this Muslimah designer!

Jana: Tell us a little about yourself and your brand.

Sumayyah: I am Sumayyah, a simple housewife from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia who is very much passionate about dresses. I had the burning desire to express my creativity and at the same time earn an income that is suitable to my life style. So about a years ago, I decided to take this idea seriously and met 2 amazing individuals who had the same passion, and by the grace of God, Zyra was born. Zyra is a retail clothing company that specializes in elegant and modest dressing for urban women age ranging from 25-35. We have a unique objective which is to inspire women to embrace their femininity.

Jana: Do you feel that blogging about your business experience has helped you form a rapport with your customers?

Sumayyah: Yes, I feel that it has. It helps my customer to identify the brand to the person who is actually running the company and the direction to where it is going. My customers could also follow my journey of ups and downs in setting up your own business.

Jana: What has been the biggest challange so far in setting up your business?

Sumayyah: The biggest challenge that I am facing in setting my own business is to run my business as honest as I can. This is very much a spiritual journey that I have chosen to embark into. As a Muslim, I am very much inspired by our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his wife Khadija (may Allah be pleased with her) and how they ran their business. He was an honest business man and this is the most challenging character that I am trying to instill in myself. There are many instances where I have to remind myself that everything done should be so in a way that pleases God and everything comes by the grace of God. Because of this, I feel the struggle within my soul in balancing the act of selling and the way I have chosen to do things in a certain manner.

Jana: What do you think makes the Malaysian clothing market different to other Muslim countries?

Sumayyah: For a start, Malaysians are such colourful bunch of people. We thrive on mixing all sorts of colours together. Also, even though we are Muslims, Malaysians are actually quite open minded when it comes to what we choose to wear. This is because when Islam came to Malaysia in the 15th century, our king embraced Islam by choice and not compulsion. We have therefore retained our cultural heritage but emphasized the values that the Quran and our beloved prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) brought. So in general, Malaysians are quite open to new styles and they cherish that freedom as well. For that, I am thankful that Malaysia is a Muslim country that allow women the liberty to choose what they want to wear.

Jana: You've teamed up with Zyra Chic who sell hijabs, what have you found were the advantages of this over setting up on your own?

Sumayyah: This was a strategic move by me because Zyra Chic has started before and they had a customer base that was in my market segment. They had a fantastic website and their hijab was complimentary to my dresses. I was also very much inspired by my 2 partners who were very hardworking and I wanted to work in a team so that I can learn to manage better. They have given me a learning platform on how I could build my company to include other products and thus to expand my company organically.

Jana: Finally, any words of wisdom for budding entrepreneurs?

Sumayyah: Firstly, don't be afraid to start and when you do, be persistent even if it is a small step. Positive thinking helps A LOT! Look for a mentor, but if you can't get one, then a partner or a close family member or a friend who can support you. For me, it was my husband. He gave me a lot of positive support when I was struggling to start and continue to push me to strive in my efforts. This is what I am most thankful for.

Secondly, at the end of the day, this is a business venture. There is no point in producing something that people are not going to wear. I am always learning to balance my creativity to produce a product with business management. As an entrepreneur, my biggest responsibility is bringing income for the company so the company can continue to grow.

Lastly, the most valuable experience that I have learnt is - it's OK to make mistakes!

Crossroads

2010-02-25T03:52:00.014Z

Since I started selling my own dresses and my partner's shawls, I have come to a realization that me and my partners have tap into a market that is untouched and is just waiting to be capitalized by entreprenuers.

Whether we would like to admit it or not, there is a number of young urban Muslims in Malaysia who are western educated and are in the search of their identity. Unfortunately, the Malays (and I include myself in this equation) have devised their own destruction by allowing one political party to rule Malaysia called the UMNO (United Malay National Organization) which actively propagates "Malay Supremacy" and it disgusts me just thinking about it. The reason for this is, after I have learnt about Islam, the thought of judging a person based on his race is in direct conflict with the Quran and the sunnah of our beloved prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Islam has taught me to rise above petty propaganda brought by men and learn to see humanity as one big community that depend a lot on compassion and mercy to one another.

Anyway, when me and my partners started selling to this niche of ours, we found out that our company's growth has accelerated far greater than what we have anticipated. It seems that we have caught the right crowd and match it to the right kind of product, how blessed are we mashallah (all praises go to Allah). But here is where me and my partners have to decide.

We are now currently facing a problem with production. The purpose of us setting up the company, was not just to sell, but we had further objectives which includes products with quality. Currently, me, Zai and Kyra are focusing on creating our own products. We are now left to decide on whether we continue to settle to be at the mercy of our partnering tailors with quality that we are not so pleased with or we would invest in having the technical expertise ourselves (in house tailors who produce Zyra garments).

In truth, we have a friend of ours who supplies his fantastic inner scarves 'anak tudung kyra' and that is our best seller. This anak tudung kyra is expensive comparatively with other products of ours, but it seems that our customers cannot get enough of it. The thing that strikes me the most is, this product stands out the most when it comes to quality. And to be honest, products with quality will speak for itself.

So now me and my partners are at a crossroads. It's either we:

continue to expand our range of products by including more ready made garments by our suppliers & our own designs made by our panel of tailors; or
invest time and money in educating myself in 'Pattern Drafting & Making' and build Zyra's own team that produces the garment 100%.

Now if we decide to go with option 1, we would make a lot of money now. No seriously - A LOT!

If we go with option 2, we would have to invest money and time in education which will lessen our ability to expand the company now - in terms of our financial growth.

I may regret this half way down the line when I am broke hahhahaa, but I am leaning towards option 2. At the end of the day, I feel that quality carries more weight. The fees of the course is another to consider. RM14,000 for a year of diploma, yikes, so expensive! But what is that compared to the sales that I will be making after this? This education could very well save my company from being one of those who sell garments for the sake of selling. NO - I want to challenge myself further by producing garments that is known for its quality.

I see my company's future so bright that its as if I can reach it already. I see me and my parters having our own cozy office where we discuss on our company's production line for each season, marketing, business development and much more. I see us having one huge space where we have a fantastic bunch of individuals who produce quality garments for us.

Now I would have to wait and see what my partners think. I trust my partners would guide me to make good decisions and they will make decisions based on the company's betterment. And at the end of the day, even if things do not work out, eehhehe, this is when it pays off to put your trust in God, ONLY GOD KNOWS BEST. If this is good for me, in this world and in the hereafter - May God make it easy for me. If not, keep it away from me. Ameen.

What do you guys think? What would you guys do?

Chia

2010-02-23T08:35:00.025Z

This entry is very personal to me. As I ponder to where I am now, I can only give thanks to God for sending me one very profound individual to guide and support me.

One of the best advice that I can give to others who are in the pursuit of their passion, is that it pays off having that one person that can give you the guidance and support that you need. It could be a professional relationship, which is what we call a "mentor". Other times, it could be that special family member or friend who is always pushing us to be better.

For me, it is my husband Chia. When I first started, he was that one person who believed in me. Till today, he continues to motivate and inspire me to continue on striving for my dreams.

This is a story of a special ordinary man - Chia.

I met Chia unexpectedly. He was a friend of someone who I used to love oh ever so dearly. But alas this was an unrequited love and we all know how these things end - in devastation when one decides to face reality. But you know God, He is ever so merciful to us mere mortals. Chia was the man who delicately picked up the pieces of my broken heart and gently placed them together again, till it was better than what it was before. 3 months after he confessed his heart to me, he got down on his knees and proposed me to be his life partner. To be honest, I accepted his proposal because I longed for a man to love me.

I only fell in love with Chia after we got married. We have been married for nearly 3 years, and only after I got married, I know how good it feels to love someone and be loved in return. I can only speak based on my experience, but I have never felt the love of a man when he choose to take you as his wife. The honor that God gives to women in marriage is by far significant then any one of my ex - boyfriends could have given.

As soon as he wakes up, he gets ready to work while I keep snoring away hahaha... Then we'll make our morning prayers together and he'll kiss me before he goes off to work. He gives me his biggest smile and tells me to have a good day. He'll call me during his lunch break and occasionally texts me. Then he comes home just before the sun begins to set, we have dinner and we'll do our maghrib prayers together. I will lie on his folded feet while he makes his dhikr. He'll finish by giving me a kiss and another one of his smiles. We'll watch telly together while he continues to do his work on the laptop. We'll talk about how our day went and how we felt about things. We'll make one last prayer together and then we'll prepare to go to bed. Just before he sleeps, I'll ask him how he fell in love with me. And every night, it will be a different story. I look forward to this part of the day. Some days we would fight, but on most days, things are on a routine...

But to be honest, there is nothing extraordinary about what he does. But in those little acts lies great compassion, strength and humbleness making him far greater than any man I have ever met. Everyday, this man goes to work to provide for me and comes back home to spend time with me. This is as close to heaven that I can ever feel. He continues to motivate me to do better and he believes in me when others don't. He stands by my side and is my greatest strength in dealing with life. How profound it has been for me to understand that TRUE COURAGE and STRENGTH LIES IN THE HEART OF MEN WHO ARE HONEST AND RESPONSIBLE TO HIS FAMILY.

My choice to marry him has been the best decision that I have made in my life. All praises to God for sending someone who has made my life on this earth a meaningful one. May God bless his soul and reward him far better in this world and the hereafter.

Celebrity Endorsement

2010-01-16T01:59:00.016Z

My company Zyra has identified Facebook and several other avenues as a our marketing strategy. There are indeed payments involved in these avenues but they are trivial and I am a big believer in advertising as a crucial element of success. This is a believe I have learnt based on my previous businesses attempts.

When it comes to advertising for small timers like me, the main stream media still look like miles of journey ahead. This is because of the advertisement fees that are involved in the main stream media. I am taking about thousands of dollars xxk, oh mon dieu! So here is our strategy.

We decided to go with a celebrity endorsement. It gives me great pleasure to tell you guys that we are working to get a Malaysian celebrity to endorse Zyra. I happen to meet this celebrity by chance during the Islamic Fashion Festival (for those of you who have been following my blog, you would know who I am referring to :-)) and she has expressed her interest in what I was wearing that night. These are some of the things that I am looking at:

She will wear our dresses designed by me for local and international awards and events that gets publicity;
She is a big fan of changing styles when it comes to heejabs, so our colorful and constant renewal of ways to style them would feed her thirst for fresh new trends;
Her manager shall mention my brand when it comes to any write-ups about her;
She could give testimonials to my company and strengthen my brand to my niche;
She could give free publicity to my brand that is still new in the Malaysian market; and
Future advertisements on prints or videos.

There were a few things that I had to consider before I decided to go on board with this person.

I had to ensure that her manager is someone that I could work with and we (me and her manager) would make a good team in achieving both our objectives;
She is someone that would not create a publicity 'faux pas' stunt such as the 'Tiger Wood' charade that is currently taking its toll on all the brands that are sponsoring him;
That she is able to communicate effectively to my niche that my brand helps her by giving her the confidence to express herself fashion wise; and
She is naturally beautiful as to wear Zyra gracefully.

It was crucial that I recognize that celebrity endorsement is not the only element of success. It only stand as one of the avenues for me to get my brand out there. My customers are smart and educated, hence I would have to ensure that my product is of quality. But at least a celebrity endorsement would get my brand out there for my niche to try my product once! And this is a shot that I do not want to screw up.

After that, it all depends on how good my product is, how efficient I am when it comes to delivering the products and the after sales services. These elements at the end of the day will, (if God willing) ensure the level of success that I hope to achieve, wouldn't you agree?

For a newbie like me, this is by far the best marketing move I can hope to achieve for my 1st year in the fashion industry. I am determined to get this signed 'black and white' between my company and the celebrity for a duration of 1 year. Hmmmm... exciting stuff right, peeps??? :-)

Anyway, here are some ideas on how I could capitalize on my celebrity venture.

Its Time To Start Selling

2010-01-03T17:03:00.018Z

This weekend, I had the small feeling of ecstasy of delivering my dress to my 1st customer. Actually, my dresses shall only launch inshallah next week, but I have some very very supportive friends who put all their trust in me and decided to order my dresses in advance. Am I not the luckiest girl in the world?? Er, ya ha! Plus my husband has been super supportive by driving me here and there since he has been on leave for a week. I had so much fun having hubby at home helping me out with my business. Lately I feel really blessed and this business has not been stressful as when I was running Knowledge and Arts Tour for YMP, so I think I have found something that I love doing, without the stress :-). Now that is super for me!

My first customer was my friend good Ashaari, and he bought one of my dresses for his mom as a birthday present. This is me delivering the dress to his house...

I really know the importance of packaging because I enjoy buying products that are gift wrapped. It's like a little present to myself! So for my business, I decided to invest a bit in packaging and I hope my customers would love this, inshallah. My husband took me out for a dinner to Sake Sushi to celebrate, which ended up with him celebrating a bit too much by stuffing himself like it was an "all you can eat" buffet! hahaha...

And here is a sneak peak of my dresses. I have six in total, but I do want Zyra customers to see all of them first hand :-) so I will only be showing 2 of them here. We shall have a professional photo shoot on Tuesday and I hope the pictures will turn out good.

I have been wearing my dresses for this past 1 week for a test run to see how people would react to it. So far, I've had very interesting glances from ladies from both malays and chinese :-) so I know that my designs are unique to the Malaysian market. If I play my cards right and do proper PR and marketing, I could be setting a trend of women in heejab wearing cotton dresses, inshallah. Initially I wanted to do black abayas, but I felt like this did not reflect the muslim identity of Asian Muslims, hence I changed the material and infused Asian elements into my dresses. The market survey that I did gave me a picture of the problems that Malaysian muslim women faced and surprisingly they were similar to mine!

I am glad that I didn't mass produce my product, and that each dress is tailored to my customer's personal body measurements. This gives me an extra edge compared to my competitors and I managed to ensure that my products are competitively priced as well. I really hope that this will be a real hit to my niche so I can expand to other segment of the market.

Now my concern is to see how well I can do to reach my sales target. I cannot express how exciting it is to start your own business and see how quickly things can turn around when we choose to be focused on what we want. It did take me a year to do some market research on this passion of mine and whist I was busy preparing a timeline for this business, I realized something. The best feeling that I have ever felt, is being able to achieve targets that I have set for myself. Hence you are already happy when things materialize, and the money that comes with your goals materializing is just the cherry on top of the cake!

Oh just to add on one more note, I find the program Tricky Business on TVIQ, Astro so inspirational. When I see other young entreprenuers facing problems and finally overcoming it, I feel that it is so much more interesting than any other programs on TV. I wonder if there are any Malaysian producers who would consider doing such a project?

Proper Planning Keeps the Troubles Away

2009-12-04T03:58:00.047Z

This post is one of the most important elements in running your own fashion line. At the end of the day, this is a business! It is more thrilling for me to reach my sales target than one night of an applause at the end of a fashion show. To feel the thrill of another person wearing my product is "YES, I've made it!"

By the way, I have attempted business before and have failed. But I only see the failure as a friend that is preparing me for something bigger to come. Failure does not mean stop. It just means - take a different route. And you only fail when you stop appreciating and believing in the abundance of wealth that God has given to mankind.

So here are some tips to help you start. I shall include links to the internet websites that has templates for you to download.

First and foremost - HAVE A BUSINESS PLAN! Do not try to work your way around this. This process of writing it yourself will make you think about all of the aspects of your business. This is where you can put on your thinking cap and for see all the trouble waters ahead. I am not saying you can predict the future, but this exercise does give you good practice on seeking practical solutions. Please make an effort to write one.

Secondly, Marketing Plan gives you an idea on how you want to achieve your SALES FORECAST. This sales forecast acts like a sales target and these sales target will motivate us to work harder. It therefore, keeps our objectives clear when we have other opportunities that strays away from our initial plan. Your sales target will be so important as an entrepreneur because without you achieving them - you will kill your own business. Why is this the case? Because as an entrepreneur, the bulk of your work will not be designing your line, but it will be "bringing the sales" in.

Thirdly, is your financial analysis and they are the CASH FLOW, PROFIT & LOSS, BALANCE SHEET and BREAK EVEN ANALYSIS. Yes, this sounds like a whole lot of mumbo jumbo crap for now, but trust me, after you finish your business plan, you will have an "aha" moment when you realize that the 'cash flow is the two most critical words'* in your business plan. In actual fact, your whole business plan is a justification of how these figures came into being. I have to confess, it took me days to understand it completely and that was with the assistance of an accountant friend 'Jaeh'! But I am so proud of myself and conquering this fear has given me the complete understanding on my business' blood line. How can you deny the importance of this?!

Fourthly, no matter how good your planning is, you need a good executioner. I mean who is going to execute these plans?! This is when a GOOD TEAM makes a whole lot of difference. All praises to Allah for giving me two business partners who are honest and dependable - Kyra and Zai. Even if you do not have the opportunity to have business partners because you choose to opt for an employee, that is still ok and in some cases better. It all depends on the resources that are available to you. Main thing is to invest in human capital.

I hope my experience can give you a preview on the journey to producing your own fashion line. I am still learning and I'd like to say that in most cases, most help came unexpectedly and it came from none other the the grace of Allah :-).

*The Fashion Designer Survival Guide by Mary Gelhar p. 35