Grounded by the water
For curator Alya Mohamed Al Mulla, there is a timelessness to Sharjah’s historic heart.
By Catherine Mazy
Sharjah has undergone great transformation in the past half a century, and for a certain generation of Emiratis born during that time, those changes occurred in lockstep with their personal evolution. Few parts of Sharjah have seen the scale of change—and of conservation—as Sharjah Creek. Alya Mohamed Al Mulla, curator of Sharjah Art Museum, grew up near the beach in the 1980s and 1990s, and the road along the Creek “was the route to go anywhere you wanted, whether school or visiting someone or to Dubai,” she says.
The neighbourhood has changed a lot, she notes. “I’m happy that they’ve revived the old feel and the old area with structures that are restored. There’s a timelessness to it. It’s called the Heart of Sharjah, which is perfect. It was and it still is.”
Al Mulla’s father, who grew up in the Heart of Sharjah behind Bank Street, often points out places from the past or reminisces about how close the houses were and how everyone knew each other. The house still stands next to Souq Al Arsah, bearing a plaque with her uncle’s name.
Like him, Al Mulla remembers when the souqs were “wide open. Before air conditioning and the streets were [still] sandy.” Her family, like many in Sharjah, knew the souqs, especially Souq Saqr, would have the essentials that sometimes couldn’t be found elsewhere. “If you know where to go, you can find exactly what you want,” she says. Growing up, her family would come on Fridays, and, especially at summer’s end, “we would come here to get things you could only find here. A white hijab or sport shoes. There was the excitement of a new school year and new things.”
Because Sharjah has developed so many other areas, the competition for visitors today is greater. “I am based here and work here, but many other locals don’t frequent this area as much,” Al Mulla says. “They don’t come for the Creek and the water. You have to have a purpose to come. I feel sad about that. They are missing a lot.”
Al Mulla is proud that Sharjah Art Museum and the other cultural spaces in the neighbourhood give people that purpose with their many events and exhibitions. Restaurants, with cuisines from around the world, draw them too. They line up for the bread at Al Ghaznawi Bakery, across from the Old Souq Post Office. And the Tiffany biscuit factory across the water often perfumes the air with sweet scents.
During a three-month internship at the Guimet Museum in Paris, Al Mulla would walk along the Seine. “To be near water brings me joy,” she says. On returning home, she realised “this strip along the beach and along the Creek, it’s something that brings me peace. I feel grounded.”
Al Mulla still lives down the beach road from Sharjah Creek and takes it twice a day to go to work, sometimes on foot. “I love the commute,” she says. “It’s the most beautiful part of the day. It makes me look forward to work. I love seeing people starting their day, walking, jogging, riding bikes. The buses picking up kids in the morning and dropping them off at the end of the day. At the Creek, you see people meditating or doing yoga, ladies talking in groups. Farther down, towards the museum, shopkeepers are sweeping their shopfronts. It’s a peaceful start to my day.”
Photograph by Siddarth Siva
