A Magical Island
Cultural entrepreneur and podcaster Ahmad Alrashid loves the bustle of Dubai, but to recharge his mind he heads to Al Noor Island.
By Catherine Mazy
Photograph by Natalie Naccache
“There is nothing exceptionally special” about Abu Shagara, admits Suheyla Takesh, curator at Barjeel Art Foundation. Yet, this neighbourhood in central Sharjah, largely built in the 1970s and 1980s and bounded by King Faisal, Al Wahda, King Abdul Aziz and Al Estiqlal Streets, holds a special place in her heart because of its lifestyle and above all the people.
“When you’re growing up in a place, you grow to love it,” she says. It was only when her colleagues were working on the book Building Sharjah with Barjeel founder Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi that she discovered the area is home to a number of modernist buildings. The Government Buildings, previously called Sandgate Low Rise Housing, is a gated community that was home to Sharjah TV personnel for a while. The Bottle Building and the Mahmoud Al Mana Building date to the mid-1970s.
“If I’m honest,” she says, “growing up I was almost oblivious to the architecture.” Abu Shagara instead was a banquet of delights, starting with the original Feras Sweets, behind the Day to Day on King Faisal Street. Takesh went there often in the 17 years her family lived in Abu Shagara; it wasn’t far from Choithrams supermarket.
Founder Mohammed Hanoun would turn Feras Sweets into a UAE-wide chain, but in the early days, his family ran the original location. “It was the dad and his sons, and we would always see them working,” Takesh says. “Feras had the best kunafa in town.” She describes the Nablus sweet in loving detail: “a layer of cheese covered with hair-like dough. There’s another type that has a semolina dough on top. It was special, something Palestinian families might have at celebrations, or Eid.”
For Ramadan, the Hanouns would set up a tent and make the little pancakes for katayef—customers would buy bundles of the pancakes to stuff at home with mixed nuts or cream before baking them. “You could watch them making katayef in the street in this little tent,” Takesh says.
Making treats in the street was a feat in densely populated Abu Shagara, where shoppers and cycling children jostled with buyers and sellers of used cars—once one of the biggest used-car markets in the Middle East.
“There were often cars beeping, people speaking loudly,” she says. “A lot of times, the streets were blocked because somebody wanted to sell a car and would stop to speak with a shop owner.” Used-car offices dominated the street-level storefronts, their inventory eating up the available parking places, and then some.
Residents “would be lucky to find a parking spot. You might spend 40 minutes looking. In the final few years we lived there, some parking lots were created for residents. We were so happy about that. We had two places.”
The heavy traffic on narrow streets “was a good training ground for my driving. I could drive anywhere after Abu Shagara,” Takesh says. The car market moved to Al Ruqa Al Hamra in 2016. Passing through later, “when I saw how many parking spots were available, I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she says.
For years, jostling cars meant that Abu Shagara residents usually found it easier to do their errands on foot. Besides, everything a person could need was nearby—bakeries, supermarkets, salons, stationery shops, travel agencies and more, a “richly textured” variety that reflected residents’ diverse backgrounds—and that intensified when the car sellers were replaced by even more businesses and cafés.
“That kind of variety was really great and I now realise was quite special,” she says. Mostly family run, the businesses stayed the same for years. Next to Choithrams is a photo studio where Takesh’s family would go. Just a few years ago, she went back for a photo for a visa. “The man recognised me and said, ‘you were THIS little,’” she says. Such familiarity is precious in a big city and, she declares, “something I really love.”
