Warning: Some of what i have discovered might come as a shock to you!
Dear Friends,
On the topic of Responsibility vs. Accountability, where does blame lie when you get mis-sold a product (i.e. not authentic or original), but neither the buyer nor the seller is any wiser?
This almost happened to me when I was the buyer in the transaction and the product in question was Zam Zam water for our business ONCE UPON A DUA
Not many know this, but when we first started Once Upon a Dua we actually wanted to send out free bottles of Zam Zam water as a Thank You gift with every order. Actually the first idea was planting an olive tree in Palestine for every order, but we had to scrap that idea (story for another day).
The purpose of our free gift with every order was to surprise and delight our customers, and we had 3 objectives in mind. It had to be;
- Different but impactful
- Unexpected yet sincere
- Meaningful and from the heart
Why? Because everything we do here at Once Upon a Dua is with love, from a place of love. It forms the core identify of who we are as individuals (myself and my wife/business-partner Jayda Zaman) and forms the core identity of our company values.
So I felt we found the perfect gift with the Zam Zam idea, like the one’s you sometime see being gifted at weddings, but with the ONCE UPON A DUA touch of course 😘
But what happened next came as a bit of a shock and a surprise!
Background: Despite being a small business owner one thing me and Jayda Zaman love to do is try and support other family-owned SME’s by giving them business, especially one's where the owners are Muslims, because we believe in benefitting, supporting and growing the Muslim eco-system. Furthermore, if these business do well then they too can give more back in the form of sadaqah and zakat (charity) insha-Allah. It's a beautiful win-win situation for everyone serving a higher purpose.
So with the Zam Zam gift bottle idea, rather than go direct and source the water straight from Saudi Arabia (KSA) via a trusted and licensed company, I thought I would approach businesses who were already offering this as is a product based service here in the UK, and there were plenty that already did from what i saw. Some had even gone as far as creating their whole business model around this concept, creating their own brand label with the claim that their Zam Zam water was bottled at source.
So what went wrong?
Coming from a corporate world of investment and financial services where I’ve spent over a decade of my career in, doing thorough due diligence checks in business is something that I always did and advocate for. Furthermore, as a business-owner I simply could not live with making a claim on assumption nor by putting responsibility on someone else to get it right without doing my own checks also. I needed to be sure for myself, because if there was one thing people knew me for was my trust & honesty, and i wasn't about to compromise on these values, not now not ever!
In the case of Zam Zam, i wanted assurances the water i was getting was 100% authentic beyond mere words of assurance, so that i could give my customers the same assurance with absolute certainty. It wasn't enough for me that my supplier was another Muslim business owner and all i had was their words to go by an nothing else.
What if they didn't know, didn't care to know, or were just too trusting of their supplier and failed to verify the authenticity of the Zam Zam? What if it was a fake? And this is where the conundrum lies. If neither the buyer nor the seller knows the authenticity of the product being sold, where does blame lie if it's a fake? It seems like as Muslims we tend to let our guards down and become too trusting when the seller is another Muslim or another muslim owned business enterprise.
Honesty and integrity is something we stand by, and safety and quality is something we don’t compromise on here at ONCE UPON A DUA. If we were going to gift our customers Zam Zam water (even if it was for free), naturally I wanted to be 100% certain it was authentic because legacy brands are built on trust, credibility and the values they represent.
Now having done my own prior due diligence checks into sourcing Zam Zam directly from KSA (and here's where i made an interesting discovery), I wanted to make sure my UK ‘seller/supplier’ was credible and that their source was credible even if they were buying from another 3rd party supplier, and this is where things started falling apart.
Warning: Some of these things might come as a shock to you!
For context, I approached a number of UK based Muslim business owners selling bottled Zam Zam water with a business proposal making it clear I was on the market for a supplier who could provide me with small and/or large glass bottles of Zam Zam in large quantity. I thought they would accept and appreciate my business given that it was a service they already provided, but it all started going wrong when I started asking questions about the authenticity of their Zam Zam with some even taking offence at my questioning.
Some decided to ignore me and stopped communicating. Others pointed me to their website FAQ (if they were online based), without engaging in any dialogue even though I was another business looking to make wholesale orders from them. Finally, there were those who simply said, “I asked my supplier and they assured me it was authentic and they are Muslim so I have no reason not to trust them”.
It seemed like none of these businesses could give me a legitimate or credible answer. I was shocked! How could they operate their business and not do their own homework. How could they deceive Muslims like that? How is it even possible that no one's questioned this before or called these businesses to account?
So here's why you shouldn't just assume or be too trusting of any brand/ company even if they claim to be muslim owned (or not), look very professional or are well branded and packaged. And be especially wary of businesses where the identity of the owner/ seller remains a mystery, because they never like to show their face or any face for that matter. Where's the accountability if you don't even know who you are buying from and all you have is an email correspondence address to go by?
For reference in the case of Zam Zam, I learnt very early on during my own due diligence investigation that the Saudi government restricts the export of Zam Zam water. In fact, it is one of seven items that they have exclusively banned for commercialisation and export from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
For those seeking Zam Zam outside of Saudi Arabia, your only legitimate channel to get Zam Zam is during pilgrimage, or from a friend, family or relative returning from Hajj/ Umrah as they are allowed to bring back a limited quantity for personal use.
So if it’s illegal to export Zam Zam water for commercial purposes out of Saudi Arabia, how then are these businesses here in the UK and elsewhere operating and making the claim their water its bottled at source, or 100% authentic, and is their business even legitimate? I'll let you decide on that one.
For now, I hope this post serves not just as a warning, but a reminder also, that just because the seller is a Muslim (or not) don’t be too trusting of these companies, and don't be afraid to ask the difficult questions. It's unfortunate that not every business operates on the same principals and values as we do, and not everyone can be as thorough as we are.
ONCE UPON A DUA - we don’t compromise, and neither should you!
