Henna Your Hands at Fujairah’s Heritage Souk

Heritage Henna
One of the ten shops at the new Heritage Souk (market) in the grounds of the Fujairah International Marine Club is devoted to henna painting.

It is fitting that henna painting is part of a heritage feature as this body art has been practiced for hundreds of years in this region.

Among residents and tourists henna painting is experiencing a resurgence of interest. Women get their hands adorned with henna for holidays, celebrations and especially for weddings.

Henna traditionally was regarded as bestowing blessings (barakah) and was done to add to the festivity and joy of the occasion as well as to enhance beauty.

Fujairah Henna Painting
When I visited the Heritage Souk, Huda was applying henna to the hands of young girls. They enjoyed the experience immensely and proved that you can never be too young to get your hands painted.

The henna paint comes in two main colours. There are posters with many designs on the back wall of the souk salon from which women can select the pattern which they prefer.

Huda paints with henna from her salon but she will be in action in the evenings at the Heritage Souk and during the days when the Marine Club has competitions or is hosting cruise ship visitors.

This Friday Huda will be at the souk from 10.00am until approximately 10.00pm.

Further
At other stalls at the Heritage Souk you can see the shoosh, view other everyday things made of the date palm and meet Abdullah the shoosh maker; buy traditional souvenirs; get a professional portrait or family photo; enjoy Arabic coffee, Arabic sweets and much more.

Dr Geoff Pound

Geoff can be contacted by email at geoffpound(at)gmail.com on Facebook and Twitter.

Image: Painting a hand with henna; young girls display their hennaed hands.