Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Twelve years ago, when she opened the doors of Scrib­bles and Quills In­de­pen­dent Book­store, there were qui­et ques­tions about whether peo­ple still read and whether an in­de­pen­dent book­store could sur­vive in a dig­i­tal age. Radeyah Ali showed up any­way. What be­gan in 2014 as a deeply per­son­al refuge has since grown in­to a lit­er­ary home for read­ers across Trinidad and To­ba­go - a space built on in­ten­tion, rep­re­sen­ta­tion and com­mu­ni­ty care.

A trained le­gal pro­fes­sion­al who learned busi­ness in re­al time, Ali nav­i­gat­ed doubt, slow sea­sons and scep­ti­cism with con­sis­ten­cy and faith. Dur­ing Ra­madan es­pe­cial­ly, her work be­comes an ex­ten­sion of her spir­i­tu­al dis­ci­pline - guid­ed by ser­vice, in­tegri­ty and pur­pose.

Q: What in­spired you to es­tab­lish Scrib­bles and Quills Book Store, and what gap did you see in the lit­er­ary land­scape that you felt com­pelled to fill?

A: Scrib­bles and Quills In­de­pen­dent Book­store was born out of my pas­sion for lit­er­a­cy and love for the writ­ten word; it was my es­cape and has since be­come a per­son­al­i­ty on its own, big­ger than my­self in the last 12 years.

In 2014, when Scrib­bles and Quills was es­tab­lished, there was a need in the book­store in­dus­try to have a space where read­ers felt wel­comed, seen and un­der­stood, which was, at that time, in great con­trast to the clin­i­cal, one-size-fits-all ap­proach book­stores dis­played at that time.

Scrib­bles and Quills of­fered some­thing new, a re­prieve where read­ers could en­gage in a more per­son­alised and tai­lored book­store ex­pe­ri­ence.

As a woman build­ing a busi­ness in the book in­dus­try, what chal­lenges did you face in the ear­ly stages, and how did you nav­i­gate them?

It is im­por­tant to me, as a woman, to be self-suf­fi­cient and in­de­pen­dent. One of the chal­lenges I faced since 2014, in the ear­ly days of es­tab­lish­ing Scrib­bles and Quills, was the naysay­ers. Peo­ple would ask me if peo­ple still read, if I have any cus­tomers and why I was show­ing up at the store with seem­ing­ly no cus­tomers. Hon­est­ly, it took a lot of men­tal for­ti­tude to ig­nore all the neg­a­tiv­i­ty and con­sis­tent­ly show up for Scrib­bles and Quills for the past 12 years to build it to what it is to­day. Peo­ple have told me in the past that I am “lucky” to be run­ning a book­store. But I don’t think those peo­ple un­der­stand the re­al­i­ty of run­ning a busi­ness.

Per­haps still, the hard­est chal­lenge wasn’t ex­ter­nal, but it was in­ter­nal. Self-doubt. Fear of fail­ure. The weight of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

What car­ried me through was faith, con­sis­ten­cy over mo­ti­va­tion and re­mem­ber­ing that im­pact is not al­ways im­me­di­ate.

Build­ing in the book in­dus­try as a woman re­quires both soft­ness and steel. You must care deeply about sto­ries and com­mu­ni­ty, while al­so un­der­stand­ing mar­gins, strat­e­gy, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

The ear­ly stages taught me that en­tre­pre­neur­ship is not just about sell­ing books; it is about build­ing en­durance.

You have to love what you do, and hon­est­ly, my cus­tomers find me. Book peo­ple will al­ways be at home and feel that sense of be­long­ing at Scrib­bles and Quills.

Ra­madan is a time of re­flec­tion and dis­ci­pline for Mus­lims. How does ob­serv­ing the holy month in­flu­ence the way you ap­proach your work and lead­er­ship?

Ra­madan deep­ens my sense of in­ten­tion­al lead­er­ship. It is a month that calls me back to dis­ci­pline, re­flec­tion, and ac­count­abil­i­ty; not just spir­i­tu­al­ly, but pro­fes­sion­al­ly.

Fast­ing height­ens my aware­ness of how I use my time, en­er­gy, and words. As a busi­ness own­er, that trans­lates in­to more mind­ful de­ci­sion-mak­ing. I be­come more de­lib­er­ate about what I pri­ori­tise, how I speak to team mem­bers and cus­tomers, and how I struc­ture my day. It sharp­ens my fo­cus on what tru­ly mat­ters rather than re­act­ing to every ur­gent de­mand.

Ra­madan al­so re­in­forces em­pa­thy. Ex­pe­ri­enc­ing hunger and phys­i­cal re­straint cul­ti­vates com­pas­sion, which di­rect­ly in­flu­ences how I lead, whether in­ter­act­ing with my book­store team, en­gag­ing with fam­i­lies, or sup­port­ing au­thors and com­mu­ni­ty part­ners. It re­minds me that lead­er­ship is ser­vice.

The month em­pha­sis­es in­tegri­ty and ih­san, ex­cel­lence with sin­cer­i­ty. That prin­ci­ple guides how I cu­rate books, host events, and build com­mu­ni­ty at Scrib­bles and Quills. I am re­mind­ed that work is not sep­a­rate from faith; it is an ex­ten­sion of it. Con­duct­ing busi­ness eth­i­cal­ly, sup­port­ing lit­er­a­cy, up­lift­ing lo­cal voic­es, and cre­at­ing a wel­com­ing en­vi­ron­ment be­come acts of in­ten­tion, not just op­er­a­tions.

Ra­madan al­so teach­es bal­ance. Man­ag­ing a law prac­tice and a book­store can be over­whelm­ing, but Ra­madan forces me to slow down, re­assess, and align my work with pur­pose rather than pres­sure. It be­comes less about pro­duc­tiv­i­ty for its own sake and more about mean­ing­ful im­pact.

In that way, Ra­madan doesn’t pause my lead­er­ship; it re­fines it.

In what ways has your Is­lam­ic faith shaped your en­tre­pre­neur­ial jour­ney, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to re­silience, ethics, and ser­vice?

En­tre­pre­neur­ship is in­her­ent­ly un­cer­tain. There are sea­sons of growth and sea­sons of strain, and trust me, over the past 12 years, I have ex­pe­ri­enced both. Is­lam has taught me sabr (stead­fast pa­tience) and tawakkul (plac­ing trust in Al­lah af­ter ex­ert­ing ef­fort). That bal­ance has been crit­i­cal. I work dili­gent­ly, make strate­gic de­ci­sions, and car­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty se­ri­ous­ly, but I al­so un­der­stand that out­comes ul­ti­mate­ly rest with Al­lah. That per­spec­tive has helped me en­dure dif­fi­cult fi­nan­cial pe­ri­ods, slow sales cy­cles, and the emo­tion­al weight of man­ag­ing mul­ti­ple busi­ness­es with­out los­ing hope or in­tegri­ty.

Eth­i­cal­ly, my faith pro­vides a non-ne­go­tiable frame­work. Trans­paren­cy, fair­ness, ho­n­our­ing com­mit­ments, and con­duct­ing busi­ness with­out ex­ploita­tion are not op­tion­al; they be­come acts of wor­ship. Whether I am pric­ing books, col­lab­o­rat­ing with lo­cal au­thors, sup­port­ing schools, or in­ter­act­ing with cus­tomers, I am guid­ed by ac­count­abil­i­ty to Al­lah first. Prof­it mat­ters, but it can­not come at the ex­pense of prin­ci­ple.

Ser­vice is per­haps the most defin­ing in­flu­ence. Is­lam teach­es that the best of peo­ple are those most ben­e­fi­cial to oth­ers. That be­lief shapes how I see Scrib­bles and Quills, not mere­ly as a re­tail space, but as a com­mu­ni­ty hub. Sup­port­ing lit­er­a­cy, cre­at­ing safe in­tel­lec­tu­al spaces, up­lift­ing lo­cal voic­es, shar­ing free books as part of the IQRA Project and en­gag­ing in char­i­ta­ble ini­tia­tives are ex­ten­sions of faith. Busi­ness be­comes a ve­hi­cle for im­pact.

Re­silience, ethics, and ser­vice are there­fore not ab­stract ideals in my jour­ney. They are spir­i­tu­al com­mit­ments. My en­tre­pre­neur­ship is not sep­a­rate from my Is­lam; it is shaped by it, dis­ci­plined by it, and sus­tained through it.

Fast­ing while man­ag­ing a busi­ness can be phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly de­mand­ing. How do you struc­ture your days dur­ing Ra­madan to main­tain bal­ance and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty?

Fast­ing while man­ag­ing a busi­ness re­quires in­ten­tion­al struc­ture. Dur­ing Ra­madan, I ap­proach my days with greater strate­gic dis­ci­pline rather than sim­ply try­ing to “push through.”

I be­gin with suhoor and prayer, which sets the tone men­tal­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly. Ear­ly morn­ings be­come my most fo­cused work win­dow. I pri­ori­tise high-cog­ni­tive tasks like le­gal draft­ing, fi­nan­cial re­views, strate­gic plan­ning, or im­por­tant cor­re­spon­dence dur­ing the hours when my en­er­gy and clar­i­ty are strongest.

Through­out the day, I be­come more se­lec­tive about what tru­ly re­quires my at­ten­tion. Ra­madan sharp­ens my abil­i­ty to dis­tin­guish be­tween ur­gent and im­por­tant. I re­duce un­nec­es­sary meet­ings, stream­line de­ci­sion-mak­ing, and del­e­gate where ap­pro­pri­ate. At Scrib­bles and Quills, that means en­sur­ing op­er­a­tions are or­gan­ised in ad­vance, and team mem­bers are clear on ex­pec­ta­tions so the day flows smooth­ly.

En­er­gy con­ser­va­tion is al­so in­ten­tion­al. I pace phys­i­cal move­ment, stay hy­drat­ed dur­ing non-fast­ing hours, and pro­tect my sleep as much as pos­si­ble. Even small ad­just­ments like batch­ing tasks, min­imis­ing mul­ti­task­ing, sched­ul­ing lighter com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment in the lat­er af­ter­noon, make a mea­sur­able dif­fer­ence.

Spir­i­tu­al­ly, the five dai­ly prayers an­chor my sched­ule. They nat­u­ral­ly cre­ate paus­es for re­cal­i­bra­tion. In­stead of see­ing them as in­ter­rup­tions, I treat them as struc­tured re­sets that help me re­turn to work with greater clar­i­ty and com­po­sure.

Most im­por­tant­ly, Ra­madan re­frames pro­duc­tiv­i­ty for me. It be­comes less about out­put vol­ume and more about barakah (bless­ing), mean­ing­ful, fo­cused work done with sin­cer­i­ty. That mind­set shift re­duces burnout and keeps both my lead­er­ship and well-be­ing aligned through­out the month.

What mes­sage would you like to share with young women — es­pe­cial­ly Mus­lim women — who as­pire to start busi­ness­es while stay­ing true to their faith and per­son­al val­ues?

My mes­sage to young women, es­pe­cial­ly Mus­lim women, is this: you do not have to di­lute your faith to ex­pand your am­bi­tion.

Your Is­lam is not an ob­sta­cle to en­tre­pre­neur­ship; it is a com­pass. It gives you struc­ture, bound­aries, and a moral frame­work that many peo­ple spend years try­ing to de­vel­op on their own. Let it guide your de­ci­sions rather than view­ing it as some­thing you must ne­go­ti­ate away in or­der to suc­ceed.

You will face pres­sure and be asked to com­pro­mise, to move faster than you are ready, to mea­sure suc­cess on­ly in fi­nan­cial terms. An­chor your­self in­stead in in­ten­tion (niyyah). If your busi­ness is built on ser­vice, in­tegri­ty, and ex­cel­lence, you are al­ready op­er­at­ing from strength.

Re­silience is es­sen­tial. There will be slow sea­sons, fi­nan­cial strain, doubt, and fa­tigue. Faith teach­es you sabr (pa­tience/ stead­fast­ness) and tawakkul (trust in Al­lah af­ter ef­fort). Work strate­gi­cal­ly. Plan wise­ly. Seek men­tor­ship. But un­der­stand that out­comes are not en­tire­ly in your con­trol and that truth can be free­ing rather than fright­en­ing.

Do not un­der­es­ti­mate the pow­er of eth­i­cal lead­er­ship. In a mar­ket­place dri­ven by speed and vis­i­bil­i­ty, qui­et con­sis­ten­cy, hon­esty, and fair­ness stand out. Your rep­u­ta­tion will be­come your most valu­able as­set. Do not wait to feel fear­less. Courage of­ten comes af­ter ac­tion. Start where you are, with what you have. Pro­tect your prayers. Guard your char­ac­ter. Build com­pe­tence along­side con­fi­dence.

You can grow a busi­ness and re­main prin­ci­pled. You can pur­sue suc­cess and re­main mod­est. You can lead and re­main soft-heart­ed.

There is no con­tra­dic­tion be­tween faith and am­bi­tion when both are root­ed in sin­cer­i­ty.