About Us
Our Story
Nurturing faith and a love of learning to inspire good deeds.
Assalamu alaikum warahmatullah, and welcome to Darul Hijrah Books.
We are a husband-and-wife team raising a young family in Aotearoa New Zealand, sharing our love of books through our online Islamic bookstore.
My love of books began long before Darul Hijrah. At the age of seven, I was reading chapter books, with a reading age my teachers put at fourteen. Books gave me the joy of getting lost in a story and seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. There is so much to learn from beneficial books, and your vocabulary grows immensely too.
That love of reading stayed with me through my teenage years and into university. After six years immersed in medical textbooks, discovering Islamic literature in my early twenties felt like a breath of fresh air. A whole new chapter opened for me: reading became a way to explore my faith, ask questions and deepen my understanding. Around the same time, I began my Bachelor's in Islamic Studies at the International Open University.
I am a second-generation Pakistani New Zealander, having grown up and trained as a doctor here in New Zealand. I bring those experiences to Darul Hijrah alongside my love of reading and Islamic learning. They shape the perspective I bring to this bookstore and my hope that others will find books that resonate with their own lives.
The early days of Darul Hijrah, when I was a first-time mum and a recent graduate of Otago Medical School. Here I am taking the first photograph to advertise our store, with our first batch of books that arrived in New Zealand.
We set up in my mum’s garden, using her freshly cut flowers and my favourite succulent. The little pink cherry blossoms, in season and fallen from her trees, felt like a gift from Allah. Little did I know how much this bookstore would teach me about running a business, marketing, logistics, website design, photo editing and, above all, patience.
A bookstore with a purpose
Since our beginnings in 2020, we have grown to offer Islamic books, learning resources and meaningful gifts for children and adults.
My husband, an engineer with a talent for IT, was instrumental in getting Darul Hijrah online. He brought the website and online store to life, helping turn my love of books into something we could share with others.
We’re also raising a young family here in New Zealand, with our children growing up as third-generation Muslim New Zealanders. Sharing books and learning resources with our own children has given us valuable firsthand experience that we bring to our children’s range. Reading is a habit, and habits are best started early.
Our purpose is simple: to help make Islamic learning part of everyday life. Whether you’re sharing a story with your child, exploring your faith or deepening your understanding, we hope you’ll find something here that speaks to you.
The Qur’an, Sunnah and Seerah are at the heart of our approach to Islamic learning. We consult a trusted scholar in New Zealand to help fact-check our work and clarify matters of Islamic knowledge. Making learning accessible matters to us, and so does taking care with the information we share.
We believe the value of learning reaches beyond the page—into our worship, our character and the way we care for others.
Our hope
We are grateful to Allah for the opportunity to do this work and for His guidance and blessings along the way. Our du’a is that Darul Hijrah becomes a lasting source of benefit for our community and a means of sadaqah jariyah—ongoing charity, ameen. Any good comes from Allah; any shortcomings are ours.
Behind every book we make available are hours of work—from choosing titles and organising shipments to preparing listings and packing orders. The prices we charge don’t fully cover the hours we put into this work—it’s a labour of love, rooted in our desire to share beneficial knowledge.
Thank you for supporting our small business and helping us continue this work. May Allah place barakah in your learning and help us put beneficial knowledge into practice. Ameen.
Curious about our name? Discover the meaning of Darul Hijrah.