The city of Dearborn has the highest concentration of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. Among these residents is a high number of aspiring medical workers including doctors, dentists, nurses, respiratory therapists, and other health professionals. Muslim and Arab women in these fields, who need to dress modestly out of respect for their cultural and religious traditions and beliefs, did not have clothing made specifically for them. Arab and Muslim women were put in a position between choosing modesty and their career. To address this need, Huda Abusabha founded Sakina Scrubs, and Salwa Saleh founded Nisa Scrubs.

Huda Abusabha, born in Jordan and is of Palestinian descent, worked as a nurse in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for seventeen years before arriving in Dearborn with her four children in 2017. Having been a stay at home mother with her life revolving around taking care of her children and ensuring they do well in their academics and religious learning endeavors, Abusabha was no longer the energetic nurse she once was. Eventually, Abusabha found help at Zaman International. Abusabha began her Sakina Scrubs journey as a student at Zamaan International, taking online sewing classes, career development courses, and entrepreneurship classes to develop her plan and open a business specializing in creating scrubs for Muslim women.

“I had worked as a nurse in Saudi Arabia for 17 years, where we wore modest clothing that accommodated our religious attire. I remember the first time I wore a scrub set with pants and a regular t-shirt,” Abusabha said, “I felt so uncomfortable and I didn’t want to continue my career in this attire. It just wasn’t right for me.” After joining Zamaan International, her friend, too, had considered leaving her nursing career due to the difficulties she was met with having to wear attire she simply wasn’t used to. At that point, Abusabha was inspired and used the skills she honed and established at Zaman International to push forward her business encouraging more women to fight against having to choose between career and modesty.

Among the skills Abusabha learned at Zaman International was time management as a mother of four. “Us as mothers from the Middle East, we get busy cleaning the house and taking care of the kids and we forget what we need and what we want for ourselves. So the time management classes reminded me of my own passions. I was reminded of my own value.”

Abusa bha started with creating models of the religious Muslim headscarf that accommodated wearing masks and stethoscopes. Sakina Scrubs, while still a small and growing business, has an instagram and etsy page.

Salwa Saleh, a dentist at Smile Dental,was a student at Henry Ford College and then graduated from Wayne State University with a bachelors in biological sciences. In 2017, she was accepted into the University of Detroit Mercy’s School of Dentistry. Saleh never thought of the struggles that might come with the attire she’d be wearing as a student of dentistry. Saleh found herself most comfortable in the religious wear for women, “abaya,” or skirts and dresses. Having realized that she’d have to go to school every day in a regular t-shirt and pants was daunting, so Saleh improvised.

Initially, Saleh borrowed her friend’s old scrubs which were extra large in men’s sizes and improvised by wearing that set instead of her usual size. The shirt went down to her knees and the pants were loose, but Saleh made due. It was uncomfortable and inconvenient for a job that required movement for several hours. When she had to order her own scrubs, Saleh was met with the struggle that she could only purchase from a specific place that would have the school’s logo on it. The website had very limited choices and didn’t meet her personal criteria.

After encountering numerous struggles trying different solutions and replacements, Saleh decided to purchase a pair of pants and two shirts. Saleh sent the shirts to a local seamstress and had one shirt cut in half and attached it to the first shirt to create a longer and more modest look that would suit Saleh’s personal preference. While it was efficient and met her personal needs, Saleh looks back and questions the style she settled for. On top of that, Saleh had to deal with the comments she’d receive as the only student in her dental school dressed so peculiarly. “I’d get a lot of comments like, ‘Oh why’d you do that?’ or ‘Oh, how interesting.’ and I felt embarrassed, but, nonetheless, I didn’t care because I was more comfortable. At the time I didn’t really care about how it looked or what people thought, but knowing the person I am now I wouldn’t wear that again. However, I am only saying that because now my perspective has changed and I actually have a lot of options.”

Saleh and her partner later decided that they’d take matters into their own hands and start a business to create designs for scrubs which are not only convenient but stylish and modest for all those who were met with the same struggle. Trying to balance and choose between their religious modest preferences and their dream to achieve their career goals. It began when Saleh made a religious pilgrimage, and while in Saudi Arabia, searched everywhere she could for a fabric that could be used to bring the vision of scrubs she had into a reality. Unfortunately, Saleh came back to America empty-handed, but faith was not lost. She felt there was true promise and potential in her endeavors and did not quit.

At last, after all of her struggles Saleh got her hands on a material she was satisfied with and believed it would work well to bring her visions and designs to a reality. Once she was able to create the scrubs she wanted that she, herself, was comfortable in, both functionality and modesty, she began selling her scrubs online. At first, Saleh said, “it was a small project we’d been working on. We were initially just selling some scrubs online as well as hijabs for the hijabis in the medical field that needed the functionality that came with the headscarf. Like using a stethoscope or a mask.”

Next thing Saleh knew, her scrubs were selling quickly and they gained enough customers to be motivated to open an in person store, Scrubs Avenue. Saleh’s business gained more attention and positivity than she’d initially expected.

When Nisa Scrubs was still an online website, one of Saleh’s very close friends came through for her and modeled her first designs for scrubs and hijabs. Bana Abassi, a former student at the Henry Ford College respiratory program and now a respiratory therapist, was one of the very first models to model for Nisa Scrubs. Abassi was more than happy to step up for her friend as she’d also modeled for previous modesty companies. “I had modeled for other companies before Nisa Scrubs and also did lots of advertising for other websites and businesses. So people saw that, and one of the people whose attention I caught was in fact, a dentist. She messaged me directly on instagram asking me to model for her company. I also connected her with other local models that I knew and got them to model for Nisa Scrubs as well.”

Abassi was a huge help and became an iconic inspiration to get other local models to come through for Saleh’s business and model for her scrubs. Abassi not only modeled for Nisa Scrubs and connected Saleh with numerous other models, but she also played a large part in widespread advertising and marketing using her platforms to support Nisa Scrubs. Even as Abassi has stepped down from her modeling career, she still remains a large supporter of Nisa Scrubs, helping them with their marketing, advertising, social media editing, and photography.

In Abassi’s words, “Saleh struggled with the scrubs she had to wear and had a dream of opening up a business where she could make modest clothing for the hijabis in the medical field. Especially since, here in Dearborn, we have so many hijabis struggling with being able to stay modest because of their jobs. Like we used to go to these regular scrubs shops and get these oversized scrubs and we looked so silly. So Saleh was like, ‘You know what? I want to make clothes that are more appropriate and actually look good.’ Now, here we are.”

As Saleh opened up her business, she initially lost a lot of money. Abassi observes, “But that’s just business, right? She lost a lot of money in the first year and then eventually she started gaining as her influence grew.” Saleh is now adding so much more to her collection than just scrubs; there are hijabs that are not just for medical wear but also for any hijabi to purchase. Nisa Scrubs also provides crocs, hijabi magnets, and other accessories.

Abassi says, “I loved modeling for her because it was a way to inspire other hijabis to be proud of their modesty and to make it easier for them and the hijabis in the medical field to preserve their modesty despite the hardships. It was so nice being able to help her out and influence others to do the same.”

Another model who was introduced to Nisa Scrubs by Bana Abassi was Abassi’s fellow classmate from her HFC respiratory program, former Henry Ford Early College student and Media Editor at the Henry Ford College Mirror News, Zynab Al-Timimi, who is now a respiratory therapist student at the University of Michigan, Flint. After Abassi stepped down from her modeling career, Al-Timimi. started hers with Nisa Scrubs as Abassi’s replacement.

“I had always wanted to model and when I saw the opportunity at Nisa Scrubs after Bana recommended me, I was more than happy to do it. I loved being able to see others on social media platforms encourage, not just hijabis, but girls everywhere to love their modest clothing. Growing up, I was the kind of girl who you’d never see wearing a dress or skirt. However, now seeing that even the abaya is more widespread and accessible as well as ‘trendy,’ I was inspired. And that is what led me to model for Nisa Scrubs and inspire girls who were like me to indulge more in their modesty rather than disregard it because it isn’t widely accepted.”

Nisa Scrubs and Sakina Scrubs can be found online and on instagram.