Interview with Mama Africa Shea Butter Co-Founder

Show Notes

InshaAllah we will always try our best to share the sources for what is discussed during the episode. Please find the sources below.

• @ time: 32:00

  Mama Africa Shea Butter & The Hijab Spot

  Sources:
  • Instagram accounts

• @ time: 00:00

  - OPENING CLIP - Because with the shea butter it may have sounded like it was super easy to just say 'Okay I'm gonna go out there'... I would come home and like have so much rejection that I would just walk in defeated. My husband would give me that speech where he's like, 'You know... It's their loss.'

  Sources:
  • Asmahan Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 00:24

  - PODCAST INTRO - Assalaamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakaatuh. Welcome to 'The Halal Hustle' where we talk about Halal Business, Halal Entrepreneurship, and share stories about Halal Hustlers who are striving towards their place with Allah in the Here-after, by taking the 'Means' in this Dunya.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 00:38

  - EPISODE OUTLINE - In shaa Allah on this episode I'm gonna be sharing with you an interview that I had with someone who is near and dear to my heart. My big sister. In this interview she shares her story on how she went from being a university student studying in North America to a wife, a mother of two beautiful healthy children barkallah feehum, and beyond all of that a business owner. And even within that, a salesperson. The fundamental pillar of every business is selling. Whether it be a product or a service a business needs to facilitate the sale or the exchange of goods for another good. That's how it works but we don't really talk about it enough. How do sales take place? Well my sister went from having very little experience prior to being such a hustler that she's able to now sell a variety of products and looks at the market from the perspective of will this sell. In this interview she shares her tips and tricks and talks about what she's currently working with and going through. It's such a phenomenal story and I love it I love her and I'm really excited to share with you. So in shaa Allah. Bismillah. Here's the interview.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 02:08

  - INTERVIEW - 02:08 Jamal: Assalaamu Alaykum. Welcome! Welcome. Alhamdulillah. You know I got my big sister here on an episode you know, telling her story I'm excited alhamdulillah. Thank you for coming on. 02:18 Asmahan: Wa alaykum Assalaam wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakaatuh. No problem, it's a pleasure. 02:24 Jamal: Alhamdulillah. All right. So I know the story we talk a lot and it still amazes me maa shaa Allah. BarakAllah feeki. You know I'm so... I'm so proud of you and I look up to you like in so many aspects and ways because you went from... You know us growing up in Canada and you know North America and stuff to... Now you're living in Africa right. That's wild it's kind of whoa moment. How did that happen? How did you like... how did you end up there for everyone that doesn't know your story? 02:54 Asmahan: Okay. Okay so I mean we lived together and yeah for the most part I was just caught up in the North American lifestyle. Where you just kind of do what everyone else around you is doing. I wasn't really on my Dean or anything and then one of my friends may Allah forgive her for all her sins and protect her from the punishment of the grave and the Hellfire. Aameen. 03:27 Jamal: Aameen, aameen, aameen. 03:28 Asmahan: One of my best friends passed away and I don't know it was kind of a weird moment where as soon as she passed away... I was there with her. So as soon as she passed away I just kind of stood up and walked away from her body and something in my head just said I'm moving to Africa. I don't know I just kind of made a decision in that moment that I didn't want to be in North America anymore. I wanted to be you know in a Muslim country and I wanted to be married... And within about three months, three four months I was on a plane to East Africa. 04:17 Jamal: SubhanAllah. I remember that time it was uhh... It was... it was surreal like it seems like so... you know so little time has passed since then but Alhamdulillah. Maa shaa Allah. BarakAllah feeki. You know the way that you handled it and how you've continued to handle yourself is... is something that's you know very admirable and may Allah preserve and increase you. Aameen. And you know may Allah have mercy and forgiveness towards her and make things easier for her family in everything. Aameen. 04:47 Asmahan: Aameen. 04:49 Jamal: You know since then alhamdulillah. maa shaa Allah. You know my brother-in-law he's doing. Alhamdulillah. May Allah preserve and increase you guys Allah has blessed you with two beautiful healthy children. May Allah preserve and increase them and make them you know a benefit to both of you for this life and the next. Aameen. 10:08 Asmahan: Aameen. 05:09 Jamal: But not only did you you know, get married not only did you move to East Africa, you started a business but if I'm not mistaken like I guess we're at the count of two now right? 05:22 Asmahan: mhmm... Yeah I guess. A very small second one. 05:27 Jamal: [laughter]. Humble. humble. Alhamdulillah. May Allah increase it. Aameen. But uh yeah... The first one. Right, you started... You and your husband together you started Mama Africa Shea Butter. 05:41 Asmahan: mm-hmm. 05:42 Jamal: How exactly did that come about because I know you and you studied journalism in school? This is a pretty big flip. 05:50 Asmahan: yeah. So when I came here I guess I should just start off by saying that me and my husband have never thought about being business owners but in Africa it's a little different. I don't want to speak for all of Africa but basically in Hargeisa Somaliland, it's a little different because the wage for a regular job for the most part is pretty low. So he could picture doing that and then when he decided to get married he decided to open up a cafe. So we did the cafe thing for five years and it wasn't the most successful cafe but maa shaa Allah he was very determined to see it through for five years. That was the timeline that he gave himself and then within those five years as you mentioned we had kids. So with my son, my firstborn... His pregnancy. My son... I became more aware of the products that I was using on my skin and how they would affect the baby during my pregnancy. 07:11 Jamal: m-hmm 07:12 Asmahan: Soo. I started looking for natural skincare products and I tried to a couple things and then I came across shea butter and I basically fell in love. and then SubhanAllah after I had my son he developed eczema at about six months and shea butter was actually really amazing for his eczema. 07:39 Jamal: Alhamdulillah. 07:40 Asmahan: So it was like something that I had to have. Alhamdulillah. So I had to have it with me in my suitcase when I came back to Africa. I gave birth to him in Canada and then I brang the shea butter with me to Africa and that's how my husband tried it for the first time and then we all started using it as a family and we had a hard time finding it over here so eventually my husband decided to be the supplier in Hargeisa. 08:16 Jamal: Wow. Alhamdulillah. I like that though how you guys started using as a unit you know these are family things. This is what we do. 08:24 Asmahan: Yeah we're a big shea butter family. 08:27 Jamal: Alhamdulillah. And so since then you guys have progressed and not only do you sell it in Hargeisa but you also sell it in Mogadishu, Somalia and then you recently you started selling it in in stores in Kenya as well right? 08:40 Asmahan: mmm-hmm Alhamdulillah. 08:42 Jamal: Alhamdulillah. Steady growth. May Allah preserve and increase it. Aameen. 08:46 Asmahan: Aameen. 08:47 Jamal: So tell me a bit about your role. How did you... How did you kind of get into it? 08:52 Asmahan: [chuckle]. So when my husband decided that he was gonna find a way to bring shea butter into Hargeisa and sell it. My role was just to support him and then the shea butter got here and the funny thing is... like we thought that this was something that everyone couldn't wait to get their hands on. 09:23 Jamal: yeah. 09:24 Asmahan: Because we loved it so much and we were just so naive in thinking that... Yo we're about to bring the hottest product to Hargeisa and these people aren't even gonna know what hit them. 09:31 Jamal: [Laughter] yeah yeah. 09:34 Asmahan: I swear like it was soo crazy and then we got it. We had all this shea butter and the first couple days it was like... My husband would get dressed and would go to the stores and like show these people like... Yo look what I got. I got the best thing ever... Everyone was like 'what the hell is that?' Is that a cooking ingredient? Like they were not impressed at all. 10:00 Jamal: [laughter] Allahu Akbar. 10:01 Asmahan: So... Yeah. So he'd come back home and I'm like 'how'd it go? How'd it go?' and he's just like... maa shaa Allah he's a very very positive, optimistic, person and what amazes me till this day was every time he got rejected he would look at them and feel sorry for them you know. 10:19 Jamal: Maa shaa Allah. BarakAllah feehu. 10:24 Asmahan: Because he'd be like 'they're loss' you know and I'm like we're failing out here. We've got all this shea butter what are we gonna do with it? So then that's when my role kicked in. The role that I did not know I had was to get up every day in the afternoon and take my daughter with me at the time she was like I think six months. 10:44 Jamal: a-hmm. 10:45 Asmahan: So I'd get up every day and we'd get dressed and leave the house and I'd carry her on one arm because the roads are crazy. There're no strollers here and then I'd carry this big bag of shea butter in the other hand and I'd walk into any establishment where I can find women and basically tell them in my very limited Somali that I had a product that I wanted to show them. And then maa shaa Allah people here are just like so in love with anything new and they're so willing to sit down and listen or see anything that you present to them that's new. So Alhamdulillah I would just tell them 'Hey I got something here I want to show it to you.' Most of the people are really curious and that's basically how I introduced most of our customers in the beginning to shea butter. Just walking around and trying to sell it to them hand-to-hand. 11:47 Jamal: Wow SubhanAllah. So not only like you know you're selling it but you had to educate them first like you had to say - Hey this is the product. This is what it is. 11:56 Asmahan: Yeah... And I don't speak Somali. 12:00 Jamal: That's wild. Like wow! SubhanAllah. It boggles my mind like just the way... because a lot of people they have a natural fear towards sales and cold calling and you know the fear of rejection and you're doing it in a totally new place you know with a different like a huge language barrier and a brand new product you're not even selling what they know. 12:22 Asmahan: Yeah. 12:23 Jamal: SubhanAllah. It still boggles my mind. I'm like man... Every time I think I'm like I got to get to that level. I gonna have to get my sales game up to that in shaa Allah. So this is where it gets like kind of amazing. Is that you you started doing this and you didn't plan on doing it but it was just like... Hey this is what I gotta do to help out the hustle... But you didn't stop there, you went to another venture. It's like hey I could sell something else. I got another new product and you started selling hijabs. What was the transition there? How did that happen? How did you decide to start selling hijabs? 12:59 Asmahan: Uhmm... My husband would say I basically abandoned my first baby which he calls shea butter and I just... He would say I just switched hustles on him but that's not really what happened. So basically you know I put in my hours, my hard labor of carrying the baby on one hand and shea butter in the other hand walking around and then Subhan Allah it started to sell itself. So I really didn't have to go around and show it to people because we got into a lot of stores and we developed an online presence and word-of-mouth which is basically like the most amazing thing in any Somali country. Word of mouth. 13:51 Jamal: Yeah. 13:52 Asmahan: That started to do its job and someone was telling someone who was telling someone and yeah it started selling itself alhamdulillah. 14:03 Jamal: Alhamdulillah. 14:04 Asmahan: and then I dont' know I just... I mean I love the Mama Africa shea butter business and I support my husband one hundred percent but I guess I just wanted to have something for myself. 14:23 Jamal: mm-hmm. 14:24 Asmahan: just just to know that... because with the with the shea butter it's like we're a team and we have to discuss everything and we have to agree on how the label looks and then you know obviously we're a married couple. So sometimes maybe we're not getting along and we still have to you know communicate about this business which is fine alhamdulillah. 14:48 Jamal: Alhamdulillah. 14:49 Asmahan: I just always wanted to just have something that was just mine. So yeah I... I've always liked the idea of having different colors in every hijab and different materials and I noticed that in Hargeisa... I almost feel like there's just one main whole-seller who sells the same hijabs to every store here and you just see all the girls wearing the same hijabs and just to be clear some people call it Shaylas. 15:24 Jamal: Okay. 15:25 Asmahan: so yeah. I just... I saw an opportunity to bring something new to the people here and alhamdulillah it worked out. 15:34 Jamal: alhamdulillah. So you you figured out how to I guess manufacture the product or get the product there and then you went about selling it the exact same way you did with the shea butter? 15:45 Asmahan: yep! hundred percent. 15:47 Jamal: [laughter] . Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. so.. 15:51 Asmahan: and you know what... I just wanna say something because with the shea butter it may have sounded like it was super easy to just say 'Okay I'm gonna go out there'... I would come home and like have so much rejection that I would just walk in defeated. My husband would give me that speech where he's like, 'You know... It's their loss.' Any time I saw something and someone says no you don't take it personal if you have a good product and they don't want it's their loss... And basically the 'you don't take it personal' line helped me a lot and when I started selling the hijabs I was already used to getting rejected. 16:35 Jamal: a-hmm 16:36 Asmahan: So it was just a lot easier selling hijabs because first, I didn't have to explain the product. It was very obvious this is a hijab and you guys all wear them I just have nice ones. So it basically sells itself. 16:53 Jamal: Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. so were there any specific challenges like... because... although you know you're selling right... that was the main thing that was consistent but it was a different business so what were some of the challenges when you switched to selling hijabs because you were doing that all yourself. Your husband wasn't really involved in it. right? 17:14 Asmahan: yeah so one of the biggest challenges I would say is realizing that now we have two businesses and one might be cutting into time for the other. So that was a challenge and then basically... So when I when I first got the hijabs my plan was to open up a store. I just wanted to have a nice store with every hijab, hijab accessory that you could possibly imagine in one place. Like a one-stop shop and then when I looked around I saw that the city wasn't doing so well and businesses were really slow so my husband was like, 'hey I don't think it's a good time for you to open up a store. Why don't you just try selling them online?'. 18:17 Jamal: m-hmm. 18:18 Asmahan: so I just had a bunch of hijabs that were supposed to go into a store and they're just sitting at home and a lot of hijabs. So that was that was a struggle but alhamdulillah once you start moving them the inventory gets smaller and then I was like okay time to buy more but alhamdulillah. So basically the advantages of not having the store that I had planned to have is I make more profit. I don't have to worry about overhead. I don't have to worry about the stress of like being there for certain hours and running a store and you know all of that. I create my own hours so then it's a little hard selling online and you have to put in a little bit more work when you're looking for your customers but yeah those are the only struggles really. Other than that it's been really easy I mean alhamdulillah its been going really good. 19:21 Jamal: Alhamdulillah. One of the things that I know for at least for myself like where I look at you and it's like wow can you step up my game is on your social media. Like you use a lot of like you know Instagram and stuff to market when you have different products and even for like Mama Africa Shea Butter it's... I always see it all the time, you know I try to like and support and stuff but uh what... how has that kind of made it easier for you? 19:49 Asmahan: I mean... like this is The Halal Hustle so we're gonna be honest. When it comes to the social media aspect of running a business it's... It has its benefits and it's kind of not so good at the same time. 20:08 Jamal: m-hmm. 20:09 Asmahan: Obviously you reach a bigger audience. Now SubhanAllah. It literally allows you to run your business online. You can promote it. You can pick which regions you want these pictures and videos to be seen in. So that part is really really amazing and really cool but then... So obviously when you're selling something like natural skincare or any type of skincare or let's say the hijabs. Obviously the audience that we're selling to for the most part... I mean we want to reach as many men as possible but women are the majority of the people that buy our product. 20:50 Jamal: Right. 20:51 Asmahan: We're like at one thousand followers alhamdulillah but now you got one thousand women following this Instagram page and then obviously you have to follow people back and so that's kind of a test as a married couple.. 21:09 Jamal: yeah yeah. 21:10 Asmahan: Yeah so that's... That's a little... That's that's a little tricky and then I mean I talked to you in the beginning about this but I was... When I first started I was very like, I don't want to use pictures of people's faces even though that's like the smartest way to sell a product is to show real people wearing these things. I didn't want to do that because I don't know how Allah would like that. I'm guessing that it's probably not the best way to do it. 21:49 Jamal: uh-huh. 21:50 Asmahan: So yeah lately that's been a struggle too because you're just like... Okay with the shea butter you can you can market skincare products and not show too many faces. You know usually when we show faces its of our customers that are happy posting their reviews or whatever but with hijabs... Like in the beginning I'll just throw my hijabs on the table and just take pictures of them and yeah they're nice hijabs but like people need to see it on someone. People want to see someone wearing the hijab for them to be like... 'Oh okay that's a nice color. That would look good on me' or 'she's wearing that material... Oh I didn't know you could wear that material like that I'm gonna go buy that.' You know. 22:34 Jamal: yeah. 22:35 Asmahan: So that's what lately I've just been like kind of wavering. I'll like post somebody and then I'll feel like crap after I post them like... Yaa Allah forgive me this is probably not the best thing that I could be doing and then I get a couple messages of people wanting to buy it and I'm like... 'Ahhh this formulas working.' So that's my struggle right now. I'm really trying to figure out exactly how I want to sell these hijabs and how I want my social media presence to be in the most halal way. 23:08 Jamal: Right. Nah that's... Definitely social media I know for a lot of people it's viewed as like... 'Oh it's a fitnah.' and you know a lot o... A lot of tests and difficulty comes from it. 23:19 Asmahan: yeah I... One hundred percent. I still like... As somebody who's trying to run a business like... I still think social media is the devil. one hundred percent. 23:29 Jamal: [laughter] . No I completely understand. So You know what you're trying to work on and improve in terms of you know keeping it halal or you know making sure that there's barakah in it. What is it that from a business standpoint that you guys are working on next? Whether it's you know you talking about for the 'Hijab Spot' or for 'Mama Africa shea butter'. What's uh... What's coming out down the pipeline inshallah? 24:00 Asmahan: Okay. So for Mama Africa Shea Butter basically right now. Alhamdulillah we've grown our followers and now from looking at other people's pages like... We do our research from looking at other successful pages that are selling similar products. People like videos. So we're trying to start doing tutorials on how people can use the shea butter or how they can use the African black soap... And basically show them different recipes if they want to make a whipped body butter or if they want to make a hair lotion or a body scrub. They can use the african black soap to make shampoo and then we also want to in shaa Allah start... Because we're basically pushing in in this country... We're pushing... Not just in this country but we're just pushing the fact that hey natural skincare tops any type of skincare with a bunch of chemicals and fragrances in it right. 25:09 Jamal: right. 25:10 Asmahan: So if we're pushing that then we also want to talk about the harmful ingredients that are in other products. You know what I mean. Just to raise more awareness on why they should switch to natural skincare and what these harmful chemicals in the other products could do to their bodies and their skin and stuff like that. So that's another step that we're trying to take in shaa Allah. 25:38 Jamal: In shaa Allah it goes smooth. 25:41 Asmahan: Yeah and then for the hijabs... Basically in the beginning... You know I'm still learning about business and stuff like that so in the beginning I was just like... Okay I bought the hijabs for this much and now I want to sell it for this much and I make my profit. You know what I mean. 25:59 Jamal: Right. 26:00 Asmahan: But then you got a whole house full of hijabs and like how long is it going to take to move all those hijabs you know. So now alhamdulillah I'm constantly just trying to whole-sale them. So I don't mind doing the retail whenever I go somewhere and people want to buy some hijabs or they message me or whatever... But I'm just trying to get rid of them and move them faster. I've opened up my mind to the idea being a wholesaler. 26:28 Jamal: Okay. I see. There's always a challenge of you don't want to be sitting on a whole bunch of inventory. 26:33 Asmahan: Because there's a lot of tailors here that can make things that you want them to make but it works a lot better when it's on a smaller scale. 26:44 Jamal: right 26:45 Asmahan: Because this is... These are man made items so obviously there's gonna be mistakes. It might not be the same tailor making it. So there's differences and then you know if you, if you look at things that are made by a machine it's just a lot more cleaner, a lot more... I don't know I don't want to say... It's not better quality but it's just... 27:11 Jamal: Like consistent. 27:12 Asmahan: Its just easier to get a machine to repeat the same thing over and over. Yeah so that was the most difficult part like just getting the whole tailor thing figured out. But alhamdulillah. 27:25 Jamal: Alhamdulillah. All right. I don't want to keep you for too long. I have two more questions. The first one being... You know there's a lot of ways that you could hustle, I'm curious what are your thoughts on this hustle because you... I mean you may have chose it or the hustle kind of chose you. Are you are you happy with it? Is it fun? 27:44 Asmahan: Yeah! alhamdulillah. I really really love the Mama Africa Shea Butter number one. Like... It's just cuz it's something that we were so passionate about so in love with as a product and just to know that right now we're living in a country where so many people, so many women are using harmful bleaching chemicals on their skin and like it's so amazing to know that you brang a new product or a product that not many people knew about to a country and like you started a movement. You know, like... Hey let's let's switch it up, let's start taking care of our skin, let's get back to our natural skin color. So that I love, I love. I just gotta figure out the whole fitnah social media part / aspect of it but alhamdulillah I love shea butter and I'm so excited. We added African black soap and I can't wait to see what else we can come up with in our product line. And then with hijabs... Yeah it's just... To me easy money. 28:57 Jamal: [laughter]. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. and definitely one thing that I you know I want to add is... That you know with any hustle at least from what I've seen you make mistakes, just like any Muslim when they're living life they make mistakes and you know you make dua and you ask Allah to forgive you and you try to correct yourself but it's a process. There's never you know... 'oh I did it perfectly from the get and I'm perfect the entire time.' Otherwise we'd be the Rasool Allah ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam which we're not. 29:24 Asmahan: Yeah. 29:25 Jamal: So it's always a process and in shaa Allah you know things will become easier and Allah will make it easy for you guys to correct and improve and you know figure everything out if there's you know stuff that you need to figure out along the way in shaa Allah... But the last thing I want to ask is about your 'Hidden Halal Hustle'. What is it that you're working on as a Muslim you know towards your Deen... What you what are you working on improving? 29:52 Asmahan: My Hidden Halal Hustle hmm... My hidden Halal Hustle right now would be like obviously I want to be the best mom that I could possibly be. 30:09 Jamal: m-hmm 30:10 Asmahan: But I feel like it's a little easier to do that because Allah made it so that you love your kids unconditionally and you have way more patience when it comes to your kids then you do for any other human being in this world. So in shaa Allah I want to be a better mom. But if I could see what my hidden halal hustle would be it would be being a better wife for sure. 30:35 Jamal: alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. that's dope! 30:41 Asmahan: Yeah it's really hard but like I just I want to be more patient and more understanding, less hypocritical critical... Stuff like that in shaa Allah. 30:52 Jamal: in shaa Allah. may allah preserve and increase you and you know make us all better spouses for our significant others. Aameen. 31:03 Asmahan: Aameen and and yeah like you said I know I'm probably making a lot of mistakes but in shaa Allah. I pray that Allah forgives me for all my sins... Me and my husband in whatever we're doing with our businesses and he just guides us in the right direction and makes us strong enough individuals to choose what is halal over what is profitable. Aameen. 31:32 Jamal: Aameen. Aameen. Definitely. Honestly, that's a huge test. I know for myself and you know any ventures that I've taken there's always the temptation of - well is this the best thing to do islamically but it may be the better thing to do when you're thinking about it just you know from a business standpoint and there's always the temptation. 31:53 Asmahan: Yeah there is. It's so real. 31:55 Jamal: But alhamdulillah. JazakAllah khair I really appreciate you sharing all of this stuff with me and obviously me and you are gonna keep talking and if there's new developments in shaa Allah I'll be sure to uh you know ask you to spend your time and come back on the the show. 32:13 Asmahan: Anytime Little brother. 32:15 Jamal: [laughter] all right jazakAllah khair. Assalaamu alaykum big sis. 32:18 Asmahan: wa alaykum Assalaam.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription
  • Asmahan Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 32:22

  - CLOSING REMARKS - So there you have it. An interview with one of the co-founders of Mama Africa Shea Butter and my big sister. Alhamdulillah it was great talking to her and definitely one of the things that I continuously learned from talking her is that you have to get out of your comfort zone you got to get comfortable with the uncomfortable. I completely stole that line but the point remains the same. In shaa Allah I'm gonna keep hustling and working hard on my sales game and you should too.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

• @ time: 32:58

  - EPISODE OUTRO - To share your stories and to get in touch with us for more information you could follow us on Instagram or Twitter using the handle _thehalalhustle or you could email us at info@thehalalhustle.com. For all the information and resources for this episode and to find out more about Mama Africa Shea Butter and her hijab business check out the show notes on our website thehalalhustle.com . Alhamdulillah this has been great and I'm super excited for next time. In shaa Allah until then... Assalaamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakaatuh.

  Sources:
  • Jamal Ahmed - Audio Transcription

Please note that that all information related to Islam in this podcast is intended to be without a position. Although we strive to provide factual information (from the Qur'an and Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ‬) that is taken from an authentic source, we are not scholars nor students of knowledge. Therefore, please understand that our mistakes are not intentional. We are not a valid source for finality regarding any matters pertaining to Islam.