Get to know me

Asalamu alaykum! I'm Umm Salmaan, Maryam Musa. As a child, I was utterly captivated by all things children and child-rearing. By the age of seven, I was eagerly jumping at every opportunity to help my mother care for my three-year-old brother. By nine, I had taken over as much as she would allow, from toilet training and bath time to feeding breakfast and walking him to school.

One of my favourite shows back then was Supernanny. I would wait all week for the weekend reruns, notebook and pen in hand, taking diligent notes. I was determined to become the “Somali Supernanny.”

Then one Saturday morning, my mum called me into her room with some exciting news, she was expecting again! We were going to have a baby sister. I was overjoyed. I already loved playing with my baby cousins, but this was different, no goodbyes, she would be mine!

She was born just weeks after I turned ten, and from that moment, I was set. My family quickly saw that all my wishful talk had become a reality: I became her second mother. I went to bed early just in case a bottle needed to be made during the night, became the go-to nappy changer, and made sure the rest of my siblings didn’t disrupt Mum in the mornings. I had uniforms laid out, bags packed, and shoes lined up, all to make sure our mornings ran smoothly.

By the time I was fourteen, I had begun helping two aunties from our local mosque develop weekly schedules and routines. Hearing week after week how much their homes were improving only fuelled my passion. Lacking wisdom at the time, I eagerly started stepping in to help everyone,  even those who hadn’t asked or weren’t interested! It was a sore but necessary lesson in boundaries and discernment.

At eighteen, I began visiting several homes on weekends to support families, first by building routines and systems, then by helping teach little ones how to assist their mothers. I continued this small side job up until my final year of university. By then, I had worked with twelve families, meeting not just the children but often their extended relatives as well.

I knew from early on that, if Allah blessed me with children, I would want to homeschool. I also dreamed of creating my own curriculum. It wasn’t until my third year working in a school that I finally had the opportunity to help build a new curriculum for the whole school. It was a year-long project filled with meetings, research, and collaboration with SLT and staff; by the final summer INSET, the new curriculum was introduced across the school.

The following academic year, just as the curriculum was being rolled out, I was blessed to find out I was expecting and left my position the following May. That time on maternity leave opened my eyes to just how many homeschooling families were relying on secular, and sometimes even christian, resources due to the lack of high-quality Islamic curricula.

In 2024, in collaboration with a dear family friend, Cultivating Connections launched its first curriculum. Since the first release we have had two years filled with helping mothers in small groups fulfil their purpose as mothers and goals as teachers. It has been a truly rewarding and enlightening process that will continue to grow, in shaa Allah!

And now, in 2026, I’m excited to begin our last beta year continuing this slow and purposeful journey to help mothers shepherd and teacher their little ones to grow into productive and strong members of our ummah!