author - oman observer

There are moments when keeping up with the news starts to feel like a burden. One headline leads to another and before long, everything feels uncertain. Conflict, disruption, instability. They build...

Oman is a country of layered traditions, where celebrations shift subtly from one village to another. What may seem uniform at a distance reveals, up close, a rich mosaic of practices shaped by...

This week’s heavy rains across Oman have once again followed a grim and familiar pattern. Following flash floods triggered by intense rainfall, numerous deaths had been reported with search...

For anyone walking through Muscat during these evenings, there is a quiet sense that life is unfolding without disruption. This everyday calm has become a subject of conversation in its own right...

The past two weeks have been particularly challenging for many people across the Middle East, but perhaps none more visibly than travellers. As tensions across the region escalated, uncertainty spread...

As soon as the traffic lights turn red and vehicles come to a halt, a group of young volunteers steps onto the road. To an observer, the movement appears almost choreographed. They fan out swiftly but...

Across the Middle East and the wider Gulf, the atmosphere has shifted and this week has been particularly challenging. Conversations are shorter. Brows are furrowed. Plans are made with an asterisk....

In Oman, iftar has long been the emotional centre of Ramadhan. It is the pause at the end of a long day of fasting, the quiet sip of water, the first date, the gathering of family around a table that...

Just before sunset, outside a neighbourhood mosque in Oman, the lawn begins to transform. Carpets are rolled out in long, careful lines. Plastic bottles of water are stacked in neat rows. Small boxes...

If this is your first time in Muscat during Ramadhan, you might make a common mistake. You might assume the city slows down. It does. But only during the day. After sunset, Muscat rearranges itself....

Ramadhan changes the clock. Nights stretch later, meals shift and energy comes in waves. Movement doesn’t need to disappear for a month; it simply needs to align with fasting rather than fight it....

Over the past three years, Ramadhan dining across the Gulf has quietly shifted from something simple into something planned, packaged, and often performative. Iftar is no longer just about breaking...

I found myself in a peaceful, charming café just as the winter light began to soften, turning the garden at Dhellah Cafe into a warm, green hush. It sits in Hujrat Al Sheikh in the Wilayat of Wadi Al...

Every now and then, a story goes viral not because it’s extraordinary, but because it taps into a blind spot many people don’t realise they have. What may have started as casual content: a joke, a...

In the Wilayat of Bidiyah, Al Sharqiyah North Governorate, far from the country’s malls, mountains and mainstream tourist routes, a garden has been quietly rewriting how people experience nature....

Each year, the Interior Design & Furnishing Expo quietly reinforces its position as one of the Sultanate of Oman’s most relevant platforms for design, furnishing and creative exchange. Now taking...

In the early months of winter, when Oman’s air turns crisp and the countryside begins to soften into green, an unexpected ritual unfolds in Barka. Families arrive in steady streams, children clutch...

Hot springs have long existed at the intersection of nature and civilisation. For centuries, societies have built rituals, architecture and healing traditions around geothermal waters. Today, that...

There are parts of Oman where the land still remembers how people once moved through it. Before asphalt, before four-wheel drives, before destinations were pinned on digital maps, there were trails...

Progress used to be easy to spot. It came with cranes on the skyline, new highways cutting through mountains, or shiny buildings rising from empty land. Today, it often arrives quietly — through an...