Episode 2 | Conversation with Nushmia Khan
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Nushmia Khan is the founder of Nikah Nama and Silsila. Nikah Nama was launched in 2019 and revived the tradition of intentional and beautiful nikah contracts and has served thousands of couples over the years. Silsila, launched in 2020, is an online shop focused on reviving traditional Muslim arts in new ways.
Transcript
Ali: I'm really excited to be joined with my guest, Nushmia Khan. Nushmia is the founder of Nikah Nama and Silsila. Nikah Nama was launched in 2019 and revived the tradition of intentional and beautiful nikah contracts and has served thousands of couples over the years, including myself actually. Uh, Silsila, launched in 2020, is an online shop focused on reviving traditional Muslim arts in new ways. Thank you for joining us Nushmia. Tell us a bit about your journey and how Nikah Nama and Silsila came to be.
Nushmia: I guess I'll start by saying that I come from an artistic family. My cousins and my aunts and uncles in Pakistan, I have a lot of them who are like designers, singers, all that stuff. So I grew up around the arts and I started out my career as a photo and video journalist just because I wanted to be artistic in that way of like going out meeting a lot of people and just exploring the world and also being able to take video and photo and share that.
And I really enjoyed it until I had my first son and it just became impossible to be able to be out all day taking photos or videos while your child is at home. So at that point I quit and I really took time to sort of think about what I wanted to do with my life. And I guess it boiled down to basically how to make being Muslim a more beautiful experience and how to bring more beauty into our everyday Islamic rituals.
And so me and my mom, we just started thinking what could be the first thing we started with? And we thought about it and I actually had made like a walad nama, a birth announcement slash certificate for my son. And we thought the first place we should start maybe is actually not with birth, but with wedding contracts because the wedding contract had become this super plain piece of paper that nobody really thought about-
Ali: Google Doc
Nushmia: Yeah, Google Doc.
And actually at that time I had three friends getting divorced at the exact same time and I was trying to help them and a lot of times it would be issues about money or issues about like in-laws and boundaries and all of these things.
I would ask them, did you do premarital counseling? But also did you write down what you envisioned in your marriage or what rules you wanted to live by in your marriage contract? And every single one said, no. I realized that people only just ended up signing whatever paper the Imam gave them and I thought this would be a meaningful way for people to really think about their marriage before they got married. And one easy way to do that is to make it like this pretty thing. And I didn't mean for it to be like this Instagram thing that people do!
I meant for it like just be something beautiful that people are excited about. But it turns out that people just also want to show, which is nice that people want to show it on Instagram as well. But I hope at the same time that they're also taking that time to make this extremely important moment more... thought out and more intentional. So that's what we started with, and it was very successful alhamdulillah. I was able to run it and grow it while I had my two children.
One of the best parts about it too was that I've been interested in the Islamic arts throughout my life and, I studied abroad in Turkey and go back almost every year and I was able to take classes with traditional calligraphers, and I really appreciate the way that Islamic art is taught and has been passed down for generations, which is through, silsila through ijazah. Every single teacher learns from a master and they pass it down and they actually feel it's their amanah to teach the next student. It's most often not paid for their classes.
And there's a certain way to master it. A lot of people, they are using graphics online and they're just putting on acrylic, like real calligraphy, you have to make all of your materials by hand.
So I just, I had this huge appreciation for the Islamic art, so I always wanted nikah namas to bring that in and to support those artists. All of our designs are original art by artists and all of our calligraphy is original. So I was able to go to Pakistan and Turkey.
One of our calligraphers is in Indonesia and some are in America. And just build these relationships with these artists and come out with these first few designs and alhamdulillah, now we've served thousands of couples and it's growing really well. And so then I've started coming up with more ideas and more ways to grow.
And so actually, Silsila was the umbrella idea, Nikah Nama was like the experiment, to is this gonna work? And then Silsila was supposed to house all of my ideas insha'Allah. So then I started, I launch. The Illa website. And with that, I just, I have done a few, like one off art projects that I'm interested as I have time because I don't have as much time as I wish I would have because I did this while quitting my job.
So I'm also a mom on the other hand. But with that, I've done a few projects that I love. One of the recent ones is the Foods of the Final Prophet salallāhu 'alayhi was-salam poster, which I combined, vintage botanical prints with the Prophet salallāhu 'alayhi was-salam's favorite foods. And because I found that there was no, no sort of resource like that for people.
So I made it and it is the month of rabbi al-awwal now, so I'm enjoying looking at it right now. But anyways, all of the Silsila ideas too, they're supposed to help the Islamic experience. So I want to go into things like, I'd love to do prayer mats, and there are some people who are doing it well already.
But when I launched, almost all the prayer mats that we got were like made in China, like not made with any barakah at all. Like they were just made of pure polyester, which was so unfortunate because in the past, all of our janamazes, all of our prayer rugs were made by hand, made with so much love, made with so much craftsmanship.
Ali: And probably prayer and salawāt on the salallāhu 'alayhi was-salam.
Nushmia: Exactly. And they're, and like there's still being, if you go to Pakistan now, at least when I go to Pakistan, I ask, I always ask about janamazes, for the prices and they're always confused like why do I wanna see them? But they always have them and they're handmade, hand dyed, everything. And they're being sold for like 40 to $60, which is cheaper than a lot of these prayer rugs that are being sold in America that are oftentimes like made of polyester.
And so I just want to connect Muslims, especially Western Muslims, back to how Muslims used to do things in the past, which was all almost always more beautiful. So those are some of the things that I've worked on so far and I hope to, insha'Allah, do some more projects that have to do with sadaqa jāriyah, Because right now we have sadaqah projects, but they're not beautiful.
Ali: Masha'Allah. That's really cool. Were you saying earlier that, because one of the questions I wanted to ask you is if any of the designs were actually your own, since you've also been classically trained.
Nushmia: Yeah. I would say I'm more like the creative director. So I studied graphic design but I wouldn't say that I'm good at "hand art" myself. My, my mom is one of the artists for Nikah Nama. She's actually developed the watercolor art, and she actually learned it over Covid and we worked together and make the pieces.
But I actually worked with botanical artists for the Foods of the Final Prophet poster as well as an Arabic Calligrapher. And then we have Fruits of the Qur'an series as well on Silsila, and that I worked with both English and Arabic calligraphers. So I sort of put it all together, I do the graphic design part of it, and I sketch it out, show them what I want, and then they just do it.
Ali: So, you've also experienced being taught by traditional craftsmen through the ijazah and the silsila system. Can you elaborate maybe on what silsila and ijazah means for people who might not be familiar with those terms?
Nushmia: Yeah, so it basically means it's an art form that has been mastered and there's a way to master it. And when you master it, you basically get your ijazah and oftentimes that's like a diploma. So you can get, you can get ijazah and something like calligraphy. You can get it in ebru, which is marbling. You can get it in tezhib, which is illumination. It's like basically your degree in all these things. But you can also get it in tajwīd; Quran recitation. You can get your ijazah when you have mastered a certain Islamic text. So most people know the ijazah for Islamic studies and scholarship, but it also is in Islamic art as well. And you can get your ijazah in book binding. All of these different people that had mastered the way to do it. So then in order to learn it, like nowadays people when they're trying to learn art, they just go to YouTube.
But back then and even now I would say calligraphy is not something you can just teach yourself fully. You have to sitting with a teacher to do it and they teach you everything by hand and then you practice and as you work on it, you get your ijazah. And then once you have it, you can show your silsila, which is how you learned it, all the way up to a master.
So there's like one master from 300 years ago. You can show the chain. That's the silsila of who taught this student who taught this student, who taught the student up till you now. And so the name Silsila for our website is just basically trying to bring roots back to whatever we do. Because right now, unfortunately, that is completely lost.
People are just sort of making stuff up and it's not as refined. Like there are some beautiful things that self taught people are doing, but oftentimes any trained calligrapher can immediately tell what art is self taught and what art is like a master's work.
For me now, I'm not even a trained calligrapher. I took like six months and I knew it was too hard for me, but I can tell what is real and what is going to be timeless and what is like Photoshop or what is just like ProCreate or whatever.
Ali: What was the experience like, learning in this traditional way, with teachers? How did they teach you and was there more to it than just the craft?
Nushmia: It's not outright religious, but you are learning how to be with your teacher. There's so much that you're taught of adab and everything else when you're just sitting with a teacher, they're teaching you like life lessons. They'll just, like, I was able to, in my previous job, I was telling you I got to interview different types of people, one of them was Mohamed Zakariya, who is one of the most famous American calligraphers and he's teaching you calligraphy. I was watching him teach class. He's teaching calligraphy, but he's also like saying like, this is this amazing text by this scholar. And reading it and explaining it and just learning how to sit with the teacher is its own lesson in its own way.
And it teaches you a lot of patience. It teaches, it humbles you like crazy. I thought I could do it and I can say I'm a failed student. Insha'Allah one day I can try again. But you have to have a lot of patience.
Ali: So you mentioned that your family is heavily engaged in artistic traditions. Was that kind of how you started meeting and forging connections with these calligraphers across like different countries and even continents or is there a story behind each one of your collaborators?
Nushmia: Yeah, actually, well, I would say it started out- my sister and my brother-in-law are students of Mohamad Zakariya. So that's sort of how I got into it and learned a little bit about it, but most of the calligraphers and artists I've actually found, and I've met them all alhamdulillah in person now, but it all started from Instagram where I started and I looked for, I found a few names and from there with our first few products, I just started searching.
And even the ones in Pakistan, I've met all of them, even though I first met them on Instagram. When I went to Pakistan, I met with them and I worked with them. So that is one benefit of social media meeting all of these interesting and very talented artists, and a lot of them, the ones in Pakistan, like we have especially, I guess it's just because I'm from there, I feel like we have such a strong connection and it's like a lifelong relationship insha'Allah.
Ali: What's the process when you have a new idea for a print. I know, I think some of them are reproductions, but some of them are also kind of originals. How does it go from being a product of the singular calligrapher to a print all the way to sending it out to people?
Nushmia: Um, so for the reproductions, basically you have to retrace everything and graphically retrace everything, and then you have to figure out what format you're going to print it. And it gets very technical. Like some printers want this format and some screen printers want that format. So you have to, it's a lot of technical stuff that you have to go through, but it's worth it because then in the end result it looks really awesome.
And then for some of these new ideas that I've had, it takes so long. Reproductions are easier. Coming up with a completely new idea, you just have to, it's like mood boards upon mood boards. I think for the Final Prophet poster. I have like hundreds of different versions of it. And even just where should this fruit go? Where should that fruit go? And then also research like a lot of research because I was so worried I would be missing one food or how it would be spelled; the transliteration. And that was the hardest part. And then just putting it all together, getting everything scanned, making sure it was the highest quality, making sure that the colors were the best.
So it's just a lot of that.
Ali: Yeah, it's definitely a lot of care and research that's put into these prints. I remember like looking on the side and it just goes over the history and even about certain styles. Was that a lot of stuff that you had already known or were you learning a lot more about this kinda on the way?
Nushmia: Oh I've totally been learning on the way. I mean I did study graphic design in my degree in undergrad, but I wouldn't say I'm a full graphic designer. I'm half self-taught , even though I'm saying that self-taught is not all the way, but I'm like, you can be a self taught Photoshop person. . So yeah, I've been learning a lot on the way as well, but I was taught and I was taught even with our marketing and everything, like I take all of the pictures. I made the website and that was all because I've learned how to do this myself. This is what I studied. And then for Nikah Nama, a lot of times I want to do more designs that I would be interested in, but a lot of it is actually, it sways with what the bride wants and what the current trends are. So they always want white or gray or like light colors and we're trying to do like bright red and like all these like more, I don't know. We just are we, we have certain constraints because we know that what colors weddings and nikahs usually are, but having the constraints is also good because it makes us creative in its own way.
The hardest part about Nikah Nama is just the logistical aspect of it because we have customers all over the world who are often getting married within one week. It's like one week in Australia, how do we deliver to you as quickly as possible? So that was a really big learning curve and shipping and all of that stuff was a lot to learn.
Ali: We talked a little bit about your teachers in terms of the craft, but do you have any other mentors that really helped you along the way? Just learning aspects of the business maybe that you weren't as good at before or maybe complimented your strengths in some way. Or some other aspect.
Nushmia: One mentor that is coming to my mind right now is Ahlam Seyed. She just started her own business. It's called Min Nas, which is a oud business where she sells, or no, it's bakhoor, sorry. They sell Yemeni bakhoor. Like the smell.
And she has just been somebody who has helped me throughout. I love starting things and then figuring it out. I figure it out through the process. Like I got my first order before I even knew how to ship for Nikah Nama, and I just remember going to the post office and be like, okay, what box do I use? Like I love learning along the way. So she came to me, our, our warehouse is in my basement and she just was like, what is this?
Cause I just had like piles of boxes and I was overwhelmed and she just basically made me professional. I would say it's always good. I wish I actually had more entrepreneurial friends out there to help you and guide you. Especially, one of my biggest things is marketing. I think that that's one of the hardest parts about being a Muslim entrepreneur today.
Like you have to be on all of these social media formats that you don't want to be on like TikTok and instagram reels. And I completely was against it when I first, when it first came out, I was like, I just don't wanna do it. I'm just gonna do what I'm gonna do. But it forces you because everybody else is doing it and it's hurting us right now. But then you learn.
Ali: It's been a pain point of mine.
Nushmia: Yeah, yeah. You learn and then you find a way to make it not as soul sucking as it can be. And I think that's a really difficult aspect of, that's one of the hardest parts of my business for me now.
Marketing in a way that's not soul sucking.
Ali: Have you thought of expanding and maybe delegating things or maybe have you started to?
Nushmia: I think you can do that, but I feel like TikTok and Reels, it's supposed to be very personal. It's supposed to be like the entrepreneur telling you what's going on. That's what I've seen. And I also, living in America I sort of get like photographers block here. In Pakistan or when I'm overseas I could shoot all day long and come up with creative ideas and content, but I'm just like how am I gonna make suburbia look beautiful or interesting?
Ali: You can't.
Nushmia: Yeah, you just can't do it and it just like you, I don't know. So insha'Allah, Allah makes it easy for me.
Ali: Let's get a timeline. How long have you been working on this project? From its inception to now?
Nushmia: Uh, I would say the end of 2017 was when we first had the idea of Nikah Nama and then the umbrella of Silsila. I didn't have a name for it back then, and then I spent one entire year just talking to artists, coming up with prototype designs. And by the end of 2018 is when I launched, so that would be almost four years ago.
And then in 2020, almost the end of 2020, I launched Silsila as well.
Ali: It actually has not been that long.
In this Islamic arts space, what do you see as gaps that you feel need to be filled or things that you'd like to tackle at some point. Or maybe you'd like somebody else to tackle because it's a need you see is there, but it's not really within your wheelhouse or your ability to right now.
Nushmia: I feel like there is a big need in educating the average Muslim about Islamic art and the traditional arts and everything else.
That's been what I have seen and I just don't know if I can even tackle it because I just think that a lot of people, they don't understand and they want something big and flashy and whatever. Not just a Nikah Nama, but some big flashy art piece for their home and they're not looking like, is this person trained? What is their motive? Like when you see calligraphy, I've seen this one calligraphy with like woman's red dress intertwined with Arabic Quranic verses and I'm just like, this guy is not trained. I mean maybe it's fine because he has abstract artwork. But I just think calligraphers of the past would be like, what is this.
I dunno. I think there's just a lot of educating that needs to be done. So that's a challenge that I wish I could tackle. But sometimes I just don't know if it could be tackled.
Ali: You're trying to preserve a tradition and I think a lot of people today, maybe they don't, either they don't see the value in tradition or they don't even have a concept of it or like they don't pay attention to it.
It's just like, oh, this looks cool.
Nushmia: This is pretty and shiny and would look nice on their wall. You want them to develop more of a taste. So I would love, that is one big gap. I would love if there was more of an appreciation. And I think that there is, I think that a lot, there is a lot more appreciation of Islamic art, with the Prince's School of Islamic Art, there's Deen Arts Foundation, there are a lot of new organizations coming about that are teaching more about Islamic art. And so insha'Allah maybe that will help, people learn more . And then, I don't know what else. Actually, four years ago when I started, I would say there was all these gaps.
Like we don't have basic things we need but I, alhamdulillah, I feel like in the aesthetic side of being a Muslim, actually a lot of those gaps are being filled. You can find beautiful tahsbees now. You can find beautiful prayer mats now. You can find a lot of these things, but I would say that it's in the rituals that a lot more could be done like if there was something for when somebody dies. If there was more resources, more products that helped make it a more seamless experience when somebody's born, when somebody takes shahada. We're working on a "shahada nama", a shahada certificate that you give when somebody converts and it's like something that they can look at and remember that I did this on this day and it's a big deal and I should cherish it forever.
Ali: It's kind of a rebirth certificate. I really like that idea actually.
Nushmia: Oh, thank you. So things like that.
Ali: In the short term, and maybe in the long term, where are you hoping to take Silsila and Nikah Nama?
Nushmia: For Nikah Nama, we have a contract that was written by a scholar, but I want to make it, I would love to have a printed version that we can offer customers and to make it more robust, maybe add a few more resources for it and a few more designs.
So, and Nikah Nama, we always want to come up with more designs to keep it fresh. For Silsila I'm confused. I don't know I could go so many directions. We have a partner who makes handcrafted beautiful kohl that's all natural made by women in Morocco, by hand. And so we started selling that, which is different. Most of the stuff is print, but I'm trying to branch out because the whole idea was – I wanted to start with print, but to sell anything that could make the experience, and that is a big sunnah to wear kohl. I'm confused about where to go. Sometimes it's like whatever is practical and easy? Or should I be a risk taker and do something more difficult?
Like I would love to go back to Pakistan, work with craftsmen. I would love to do traditional Pakistani janamazes. I would love to do traditional clothes, even for children, especially for men. I don't think there's enough.
Ali: Even amongst the sustainable clothing efforts, there's so few things for men.
Nushmia: Oh, really? Yeah. And so I have two sons and so I love going to Pakistan and working with tailors to make their clothes. So I'm just like, that could be amazing.
I love going back to Pakistan because it grounds you in a way America makes you feel like you have nothing and that, I don't know, you just are so appreciative of all you have. So when I go back to Pakistan, you just are like, wow, I have everything and I should just be focusing on giving back. So one way that I would love to give back, I dunno, I would love to give back in humanitarian efforts, but make them beautiful.
Even just small things that Muslims used to do. They used to, like, if you look at Turkey as well, there was so many awqāf and so many ways that people would give back. One of them was gardens, that's a sadaqa jāriyah, to plant a tree, plant a garden, plant a fountain. I would love to do that in the Muslim world and do it really nicely.
And because people always want to give back. They don't know a way or they wanna wait, like maybe if a parent passed away or something to plant a tree in their name, make a garden in their name. And that would be a real dream to do that. But it's sort of out there and big and I would have to learn how to make a non-profit and stuff.
Or I could just do these easier projects that. Like clothing and stuff like that. They're not even easy, but a little bit easier. So we'll see insha'Allah.
Ali: Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, seems like you were kind of well placed for it too, being in a family of artists and having these connections. It's almost like Allah was pushing you in that direction.
Nushmia: Yeah. Yeah. That's what you realize. You're like, we have enough, if you're living in America and you have food on your table, you have more than most of the world. So it's the chance to give back and I just feel like I would feel so happy doing it.
Ali: Are you looking to hire anybody or to maybe expand in a particular area but don't know much about it yet?
Nushmia: One of the things that I want to do, because I am looking at the humanitarian side, is we need to start a non-profit, a 501c3. So if anybody who knows who I can ask for help for this, because my mom, she works with me, but she has basically started a non-profit in Pakistan called Hasanāt. And so we need to be able to get American donors. So if there's anybody who can help us do that, I have to start working on it. Because as soon as we have that, it will make some of these ideas that I want to do for Silsila much more easily possible. Cause I have people, I have artists, I have people who can help me make water wells and I have people who can do all these things, but we just have to formalize it.
Ali: Is there something that you feel like you didn't get to talk about that you'd like to?
Nushmia: The one thing I would advise anybody else if they're starting some, a business, an Islam-focused business, is to always have good company and have good intentions. I don't know, I'm feeling really blessed. Right now I live in Pennsylvania and the Al Maqāsid community and it's Rabbi al 'Awwal and I feel so blessed to be here right now because every night we're having a mawlid and every night we're getting together and doing salawāt, and I feel so lucky. And it just keeps you focused on what's the most important, and it's amazing being here. It has given me time and focus. Over here you have rich people, poor people, everybody altogether. You cannot tell the difference between anybody and everybody has so much adab with each other, alhamdulillah. So having that has just given me a lot of support. And so just good company is always important.
Ali: Yeah.
I think that's definitely very, very true. So I think we can close off with a du'a and then call it at night, hopefully.
Alhāmdulillahi Rabbil 'Ālamīn. Ar-Rahmāni r-Rahīm. Praise be to Allah to Whom we can never do justice with our praise and His peace and salutations on our Prophet Muhammad salallahu 'alayhi was-salam. Ya ar-Rashīd, ya al-Hadī. Oh the One Who guides to the path and the One Who guides along the path. Guide us towards intentions that are pure and works that please You. Ya al-Qadīr, ya al-Matīn. Oh the Most Capable, the Steadfast. Please increase our capacities to do more and greater works and keep us steadfast in our endeavors. Ya al-Karīm, ya al-Rāfi. Oh the Most Generous, the Elevator of Ranks, accept our good works and put barakah in all of our endeavors, and let it be a means of expiation and elevation for us in this world and the world beyond this one. Ya al-Ghafūr, ya al-'Afūww. Oh the Oft-Forgiving, the Effacer of Sins, forgive and efface our shortcomings and our mistakes. Ya Allah please put barakah in Silsila, in Nikah Nama. Please bless our artists and craftsmen and help us continue and maintain these traditions. And to beautify our places of worship and our homes.
