It has been just a year or so since I started wearing the abayas, as I had written in my previous post. Alhamdhulilah.
Needless to say, AZ and I have done a lot of abaya shopping.
Many times, we have come to realise that there are very limited places
that we can go to buy them. At most other times, the abayas can also be very
pricey. AZ and I always wonder… how many sisters would actually rather shop for
other clothes rather than spending on abayas… which can at times hit prices as
high as $200?
Reaching towards the end of last Ramadan, we both made a niyah – that we
should start an online business selling abayas at very affordable prices.
We prayed a lot towards this, and started groundwork on making our dream
possible. Allah (S.W.T) made many aspects of our challenging journey easier on
many instances. We found reliable suppliers, who were supportive of our small
orders. They did their best to meet our miminum order quantity needs and other
requests.
What AZ and I enjoyed more on this process was coming up with the online
platform for our new business – our website. For a long time, AZ and I would always
talk about starting our business in the future which can bring both our skills –
his creative design and IT skills and my writing ability – together.
Alhamdhulilah, Allah (S.W.T) made that dream come true too with this
business.
We also wanted to choose a name with lots of barakah, and honestly,
Al-Barakah Abayas was the first name we both thought of together. Nevertheless,
we brainstormed and came up with several other names. Of these, we shortlisted
seven. From there, we decided to ask our mothers to choose a name from these
(without telling them what we had in mind.)
And Masha-Allah, they both chose the same name too.
With this, AZ worked on the design of our logo, which incorporated ‘Bismillahirrahmanirahim’
into it, and I came up with tagline. Elegance… With Modesty…
Green is our colour theme. We
chose green because green is a colour that we think of when relating a hue to
Islam.
"Greenness"
is mentioned several times in the Quran, describing the
state of the inhabitants of paradise.
Reclining on green Cushions and rich Carpets of beauty
— Sura 55,
verse 76
Upon them will be green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade, and
they will be adorned with bracelets of silver; and their Lord will give to them
to drink of a Water Pure and Holy.
— Sura 76,
verse 21
And with these, Al-Barakah Abayas was born. Alhamdhulilah.
When our abayas arrived, each beautiful in its own way, we named them too. In pretty Muslimah names that depict what they look like. A gold-beaded abaya is named Mazneen (which means shining of gold) and so on. Most of our abayas have names that mean beautiful, elegant, etc.
We eventually decided we also had to tap on Facebook too for our business.
Alhamdhulilah, business has been good. Sisters in our friends’ and
relatives’ circles have been giving us some good support. Some sisters have
also become our customers through Facebook.
AZ and I are now looking to bring in new abayas in time for Ramadan and Eid.
We hope you would give us your support too.
In-Shaa-Allah.
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