New Delhi

Today, Saudi Arabia has some 10,000 trained Yoga practitioners and there are Yoga centres in even the smallest of the cities and towns, including Mecca and Madina, the citadel of Islam.

This happened due to the efforts of Nouf Marwaai, whose health issues as a child got her into this ancient Indian holistic practice and eventually changed her life.

Acharya Nouf Marwaai, as this 38-year-old Saudi woman is officially known, is the Czarina of Yoga in one of the most conservative Islamic countries. It was due to her relentless efforts for 15 years that Yoga got official recognition as a holistic sport in the Islamic Kingdom four years ago.

Nouf Marwaai received Padam Shri from president Ramnath Kovid

Nouf Marwaai was awarded Padam Shri by India in 2018 for her contribution to popularizing ancient Indian Yoga in Saudi Arabia.

Nouf says she stumbled upon Yoga through a book that her father had brought from an overseas trip. It got her interested in Yoga and she tried basic asanas at home. Nouf was detected with an autoimmune disease after which she had to leave school and study and home. Yoga gave her relief.

Ten years later she bought a more comprehensive book from a Jeddah bookstore and then she went full time into its practice; made India her second home to learn and become a certified Yoga trainer. Her passion for yoga and her efforts to make people realize the benefits of Yoga made the Saudi Kingdom give it legitimacy.

“I have the honour of being the first certified yoga instructor of yoga,” she says. Though Yoga was not banned and yet there were prejudices against its practice, so she knew only an official recognition will help her make people take to it and save her from threats and intimidation of the conservatives.

Nouf Marwaai practising Yoga at her home

Nouf Marwai’s struggle to make yoga popular among ordinary citizens on Saudi soil has always made headlines. She heads the Arab Yoga Foundation and is also a member of the International Yoga Foundation.

Yet she remembers her years of struggle when she had to endure the taunts of society for her love of yoga that had cured her of her auto immune disease.

"I was harassed and received hate messages," he said. According to Marwai, it was impossible to teach yoga in Saudi Arabia five years ago. Nawf Marwai has also taught yoga to hundreds of women and has trained many to do so.

Surprisingly, yoga is still misunderstood by conservative factions. Sometimes it is also interpreted as the act of witches. Others feel one might end up practising Hindu religion.

Bodor Hamoud, a student of Nof Marwai, says she receives messages on social networking sites asking her if she has become a Hindu or renounced her religion. “I know that yoga has nothing to do with religion, it is just a form of sport or exercise,” she says.

Nouf Marwaai with PM Narenadra Modi after receiving Padam Shri

Nouf says Yoga has been a positive change for Saudi women. They got rid of their physical and mental weaknesses. It has changed the lives of many women and girls. According to Ayat Saman, a 32-year-old medical professional, she had been suffering from a condition called fibromyalgia for many years that had left her bedridden. She couldn’t do anything because of the pain, but yoga changed her life.

She says she felt emotionally free after Yoga.

Today, she says Yoga has become so popular among women and there are Yoga studios in even smaller towns like Taif.