Halal Hands: A hand up for finding Muslim-friendly services

Tired of searching all over the web for Muslim-friendly goods and services? A new UK-based website aims to put an end to your search woes. The brainchild of 31-year-old Sarah Gulfraz, Halalhands.com showcases over 20,000 Muslim-approved businesses in one place. 

From weddings and takeaways to bookshops and makeup artists, you can now find and be connected to businesses all over the United Kingdom, including Scotland, Ireland and more remote areas. 

Halal Hands allows users to search for businesses by name, location or keyword tag, with advanced filters to help users locate exactly what they’re looking for. The site also provides users with company addresses and contact details, plus the ability to rate and share reviews on Facebook, Twitter and email. 

Gulfraz explained that she came up with the idea two years ago when she became frustrated at not being able to find what she needed online. “I thought that if I was having that problem, then others were probably having that issue too.” 

The Halal Hands founder and CEO then set about collecting data from all over the country to collate the United Kingdom’s first comprehensive Muslim services database. 

“Eventually I had to hire two more [employees], one to help with marketing and another to maintain the database, which needs constant updating.” 

The site is free-to-use and offers free-of-charge basic company listings as well as paid-for premium listings that provide higher visibility and more interactivity.

Currently restaurants and takeaways comprise 40 percent of the site’s listings, but Gulfraz said she is reaching out to more varied sectors such as wedding services. 

The mother of two left her day job as a college lecturer three months ago to work full-time on Halal Hands.

“There’s such a demand for this site, even more than we anticipated. We reached around 16,000 monthly page views this year and decided to re-launch the site in June 2016 to accommodate the growing traffic levels.” 

Gulfraz said that she has managed to grow the site despite a lack of government funding. She explained that there is currently no Islamic institution that provides loans to fledgling businesses in the United Kingdom.

“I've found it very hard to pay for the developmental and employee costs which were necessary to get the project up and running.” 

She also told My Salaam that, as a Muslim woman in entrepreneurial technology, she is a first mover. “Most Muslim businesswomen operate in retail or personal care; those in the Muslim technology business tend to be mostly young men who aren’t used to collaborating with women.”

Gulfraz said she would continue to scale up the business despite the challenges. She intends to integrate several new features into the website and its upcoming app, including one-click direct order takeaways and restaurant bookings.

The CEO also plans to build a comprehensive resource for British Muslims that will include a calendar for different types of events relating to business, networking, family, Islam and marriage.

Once the site is established and consistently profitable in the United Kingdom, Gulfraz plans to expand into other European countries that have a significant Muslim population, including France and Germany.

While Halal Hands currently collates Muslim information from across the United Kingdom, the CEO said, “it is up to the customer to investigate the company and check [whether] it conforms with their specific religious and cultural requirements.”

As her website notes, “Since the Islamic world hasn’t established a universally agreed-upon definition of what it means to be halal, we have included all businesses which claim to follow halal principles in the Halal Hands directory. It is then up to the consumer to make their own judgments on which establishments to use.”