“The amazing thing about Islamic fashion is that it’s so flexible. Islamic clothing is a culmination of all of our modest cultural clothing together; it’s a mix of all of our cultures that we bring from various countries. ”

I was driving down my neighborhood on this little street at night time. I spent the past 6 months looking for a retail location that I could afford, and everything was too expensive. That night I’d given up hope. I drove to my local coffee shop and had a cup of coffee. I was walking down the street, really sad. And I just happened to see a ‘for rent’ sign in the window of a store. I called the person and we set up an appointment to meet up. The next week, we signed the lease. It was really amazing and that's when I got the focus to start Maqbool Clothing. 

The amazing thing about Islamic fashion is that it’s so flexible. Islamic clothing is a culmination of all of our modest cultural clothing together; it's a mix of all of our cultures that we bring from various countries. 

When you put in the effort, you realize that you can bring change to an entire community. Our store was in a neighborhood that was gang affiliated, had a liquor store across the street, and it was an abandoned ghost town. But when our store opened up, it brought light back to the street. There was a church across the street from us that was abandoned for 8 years, so I kept calling the number on the building. After a year, they called me back and said they wanted to sell it. The community got together and purchased that church and converted it to a masjid. Then the liquor store was being sold, so we jumped in and made an offer, and we made it a halal restaurant. Slowly the Muslim community started moving back into this area. Because of the masjid, there's a lot more people coming in and praying. All these Muslim businesses started to pour into the street and now it looks like a Muslim country. I base the success of my business on having one sole intention: I'm doing this because I feel like the sunnah of wearing modest clothing is disappearing. I genuinely feel like it was that one intention that was a catalyst for all these other successes. Whether it's my own business, the masjid, or all these other new Muslim businesses, it was that one good intention where it all started from. Our actions are based on our intentions.