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The Lost Art of Lingering
What Riyadh’s Istiraha Culture Taught Me About Community There are many things I miss about Riyadh. The wide roads. The familiar skyline. The call to prayer echoing across neighborhoods. But when people ask what I miss most, my answer always surprises them. It isn’t a place. It’s a rhythm. One of my favorite rhythms of life in Riyadh revolved around weekends at the istiraha. Looking back, I don’t think I miss the istiraha itself. I miss belonging to a culture that expected people to linger. There was no carefully planned two-hour schedule. No one checking the time after coffee. No awkward moment when everyone wondered whether it was time to…
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When Everyone Speaks the Language of Invisible Work
Recently, I hosted an all-women’s pool gathering, and I cannot stop thinking about how beautiful it was. Not only because the children had fun, or because there was a giant spread of food, or because the pool was full of laughter. But because, for a few hours, I was surrounded by women who truly understood. Before the gathering even began, the invisible work was already in motion. I am so incredibly grateful to my husband and my older boys, who were gracious enough to completely give the house over to the women and girls for the day. They didn’t just step aside so everyone could swim comfortably and relax freely;…
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The Eid Al-Adha 2026 Allah Chose for Me
The Unexpected First Day of Eid There is an Eid we imagine. The one where everyone wakes up healthy. The children are dressed beautifully. The prayer goes smoothly. The food is ready on time. The family photo turns out perfectly. And then there is the Eid Allah chooses for us. This year, the two were not quite the same. On the morning of Eid al-Adha, the sound of takbir drifted through the humid air in Sharjah while I sat curled up on the downstairs sofa. A sudden stomach pain arrived unexpectedly when I woke up for Fajr, bringing my plans to a sudden halt. I had planned to be at…
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Nobody Claps for the Mother Who Remembered Everything
Nobody claps for the mother who remembered everything. Usually, they only notice the one thing she forgot. It’s the child suddenly announcing at 9 PM that they need green cardboard for school tomorrow. It’s the “Mama, did you sign this?” paper appearing exactly when everyone is already wearing shoes. But beneath those frantic moments is a vast, silent ocean of things that did happen because you remembered them: the favorite snack you bought, the way everyone’s different food preferences live permanently inside your brain, and the small emotional tensions you noticed before they ever became arguments. I don’t think most families do this maliciously. Invisible labor becomes invisible precisely because…
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The Quiet Vulnerability of Financial Dependence
Sometimes I stand holding an item in a store for far too long before quietly putting it back. Not necessarily because we cannot afford it. But because I am already mentally tired imagining how to explain why it matters. I think many women understand this feeling immediately. The small internal rehearsal. How to make the request sound reasonable enough. Necessary enough. Useful enough. Worth asking for. Especially when the thing is not pure survival. A notebook. A new prayer dress. Comfortable shoes. Skincare. An iced matcha. Containers you genuinely believe will finally organize your life this time. Tiny things. Tiny things that help tired women emotionally survive adulthood. And honestly,…
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Faith Is Also Built on Ordinary Tuesdays
I think when I was younger, I imagined faith would feel more cinematic than it actually does. I imagined spiritually strong people as calm and refreshed all the time. People who prayed every salah with perfect focus. People who read Quran peacefully for long stretches without interruption. People who woke up for tahajjud with glowing skin and emotional stability. I thought closeness to Allah would feel quiet and uninterrupted. But adulthood, especially motherhood, feels very different from that. On a Tuesday morning in Sharjah, faith sometimes looks like searching frantically for one specific white school sock while the clock is ticking and we should have left the house five minutes…
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The Secret Engine Room (a.k.a. The Side Garage)
If you walked past our villa in Sharjah,you’d see a house like many others. A front door.Shoes (mostly) lined up.A version of us that looks… organized. But that’s not the real story. If you want to understand this house—this operation—you have to walk to the side. To the place the architect confidently labeled:Garage. We don’t park cars there.We hang laundry.Rows of it. A forest of metal racks,flapping cotton,socks that have seen things. This is the Engine Room. The Law of the Sun Yes, we have a dryer. It exists.It works.It is… mostly decorative. Because I am married to a manwho looks at the Sharjah sunand sees: free energy,maximum efficiency,and possibly……
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An Example of My Jumbled Mind (The Forty-Tab Brain)
I talk a lot about having “forty tabs open,” but let’s be real—it isn’t just about being busy. It’s a survival mission that lives entirely inside my head. And look, I’m not trying to make myself sound like the center of the universe. I know, deep down, that life would go on even without me. The world doesn’t stop because a mom takes a break. I also don’t want to belittle the massive part my husband and kids play in keeping this family moving—they are the ones spinning the wheels every day. But even when the wheels are rotating perfectly, the mental load is just… there. It’s the invisible architecture.…
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The Trail I’m Leaving Behind
I really have to share why I started Barakah Roots—not as a “brand” or a project, but so you can understand why I am here, opening up my house and my head to you. I was born in 1981. I’m a child of that bridge generation—the ones who remember the silence of a house before the internet lived in our pockets. Now, it’s 2026. I live in Sharjah, managing a house of twelve. Ten children. A multicultural marriage where we are constantly translating our very souls across different languages and unspoken codes. Most days, I am the logistics officer for a small army. My mind is a Forty-Tab Brain. I’m…
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The Road to Makkah, My First Umrah and the Hijab in the Mataf
In Indonesia, Umrah is a once-in-a-lifetime dream. People save for a long time. Lots of people wait until their hair is gray and their hearts are settled. They wait until they are “ready.” But there I was in 2005. Twenty-four years old. Newly married. Carrying my first child. We weren’t flying across oceans to find the House of Allah. We were driving toward it from Riyadh. The Quiet in the Desert It was April or May—that fleeting, golden window before the Saudi summer turns the world into a furnace. We left Riyadh late, after my husband finished work, chasing the horizon into an eight-hour drive. I remember the thrill of…
