Abdul Jabbar

Inherited belongings arrive without warning and without a manual. A relative passes away, an elderly parent downsizes overseas, a family home is cleared after decades, and suddenly there are carpets, furniture, framed photographs, China sets, and boxes of papers sitting in a Dubai apartment that was not designed to hold any of it. The emotional

Nobody Tells You About the Gap There is a period that almost every first-time arrival in Dubai goes through that nobody really prepares you for. You have landed, you have somewhere to stay, but your permanent home is not ready yet. Or you are in a short-term furnished rental while you figure out which community

The Equipment Is Not the Problem. The Space Is. A lot of Dubai residents built home gyms during the pandemic years and never fully dismantled them. A set of dumbbells here, a bench there, resistance bands in a drawer, a folded treadmill wedged behind a door. It made sense at the time. Now it occupies

The Shift That Happens Every June The end of the school year in Dubai is not a gradual wind-down. It is a sudden, concentrated transition that hits all at once. Within the space of a week or two, children are home full-time, uniforms are redundant, sports kits are done for the season, and every room

Something has shifted in how a growing number of Dubai residents think about their homes. The assumption that bigger is always better, that the goal is always to upgrade to a larger apartment, is quietly giving way to a different kind of logic. One that prioritises location over size, quality of daily life over square