HIKMAT WEHBI PODCAST

She turned thirty in Madrid, and the next morning her parents called to tell her it was cancer. Shayma Sabry sits down with Hikmat to talk about everything that came before and after that call: the twenties she spent trying to earn love, the relationships her trauma chose for her, the man who loved her while she was bald, and why she refuses to stop talking about it. A candid conversation about tu...

Faris spends ninety minutes saying exactly what he believes about Islam in the modern world, and invites Hikmat to push back. They start with extremism and who actually has the right to speak for religion, then test it against questions the Prophet's era never faced: cryptocurrency, organ donation, brain death. From there it moves to evolution, the UAE as a Muslim country leading the world, wh...

Yasmine Sarwat never planned to work. She was the perfectionist student, then the mother who wanted everything around her just right — her clothes, her children, her home. Work was not on the list. Then came five years of a rare nerve disease doctors call the suicidal disease, and an open brain surgery in New York she was terrified to agree to. She came out of it with what she calls a second life,...

Dr. Marwa Eid was in middle school when a teacher asked the class what they wanted to be. She answered without thinking — a doctor. She still can't explain why. The teacher told her: your responsibility is heavy, may God be with you. Seven years of medical school followed, and a run of specialties that never quite fit. Then she moved to the UAE and found cosmetic medicine and dermatology. A co...

Dr. Dina was the first person in her family to enter medical school — Kasr Al-Aini, Cairo University, no mentor, no guidance, no one to ask. She wanted to be a pediatrician. Then one night shift, at 22 years old, ended that plan permanently. Fourteen years after graduating, she has three clinics in Egypt, eleven years in aesthetics, and a seat as key opinion leader for one of the biggest injectabl...

Majda was an engineer — electrical and computer, honors degree, master's on a corporate scholarship, managing the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey for an international company. Good salary, good companies, no passion. In March 2025 she gave social media one year. Twelve months later: 1.5 million followers, and her first podcast — this one. A masterclass in the things nobody teaches you. Wh...

Riaan was broke, on drugs, and sleeping on people's couches in Cape Town. Soleen was stuck in an interior design career she hated in Dubai. They met through an Instagram story, talked for seven months without meeting, and told each other "I think I'm going to marry you" before they'd ever been in the same room. In this episode — the airport no-show, the 100-dirham wedding rin...

From a kid who grew up touching poverty in a Lebanese village to the man who says he's "monetized spirituality" — this is not your typical finance conversation. In this episode, Charbel Khoury talks about what money does to your soul — how a hobby dies the moment you get paid for it, how seventy hours on a motorcycle with no music gave him more clarity than any boardroom, and how a c...

From a girl who covered her mouth every time she smiled to the woman teaching an entire generation how to stop apologizing for who they are — this is not the conversation you'd expect from a content creator with two million followers. In this episode of the Hikmat Wehbi Podcast, Waed Qasem doesn't just talk about self-love — she talks about what it actually costs to get there. The beauty s...

From Egypt to Everest to Denali — the story of a woman who climbed the highest peaks on Earth and still couldn't outrun the question: "why aren't you married?"In this episode of the Hikmat Wehbi Podcast, Manal Rostom doesn't talk about summits the way you'd expect. She talks about the bus accident that almost killed her at nineteen, the guilt that pushed her toward God, a...

From Syria to Ukraine to Dubai — the story of a woman who spent 37 years proving she was enough, and the moment she decided to stop. In this episode of the Hikmat Wehbi Podcast, Dr. Roula Al Shahadat returns for a very different conversation. Not about clinics or injections this time, but about the person behind them: the girl who left home at two, the woman who wore strength like armor because no...

From a small salary in Dubai to a Netflix reality show, the story of a self-made Indian entrepreneur who built a business empire, earned the title Mr. Golden Visa, married after a ten-minute decision — nearly divorced on camera — and chose to stay and fight for his family when walking away would have been easier. In this episode of the Hikmat Wehbi Podcast, we sit down with Dyuti Parruck — Mr. Gol...

From a hobby filming cars on weekends to the biggest automotive voice on the planet, the story of a radio presenter who bet everything on an industry that didn't exist yet — turned down $100 million — and rebuilt her entire life after a 22-year relationship collapsed overnight. In this episode of the Hikmat Wehbi Podcast, we sit down with Alex Hirschi — better known as Supercar Blondie — for a...

From a small town in the south of the Netherlands to sold-out stages across Europe, the story of a shy Moroccan-Dutch girl who turned a 30-minute studio joke into a multilingual anthem streamed by millions — and never looked back. In this episode of the Hikmat Wehbi Podcast, we sit down with singer Inez for an honest, disarming conversation — not just about music, but about identity between two cu...

From Ukraine to Dub, the story of a doctor who built an aesthetics empire from scratch and created the "Dubai Injection" that shook the market and rattled her competitors. In this episode of the Hikmat Wehbi Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Roula Al Shahadat for a candid, different kind of conversation — not just about aesthetics, but about building a brand, the courage to tell the truth, a...

Farah is an Algerian-born content creator and reality-TV personality who rose to prominence as the breakout star of an Arabic reality dating show, and has since channeled that fame into a platform built almost entirely around young women. Raised by her mother in the UAE after her parents divorced when she was five, she traces much of her worldview back to that childhood — convinced that nearly eve...

Reema is the founder of Tigre Rosa, a luxury Italian-made high heel brand positioned at the intersection of craft, faith, and feminine empowerment. After leaving her father's firefighting company to pursue a passion she'd held since childhood, she spent two years traveling between Milan and Florence to develop handmade heels embedded with healing stones, each representing the body, mind, a...

Comedy is not always born from confidence. Sometimes it comes from fear, failure, rejection, depression, and the things we are too embarrassed to say out loud. In this episode, Dubai-based comedian and creator Sundeep Fernandes talks about his journey from Mangalore to corporate life, from open mics to viral sketches, and from self-doubt to finding his voice through radical honesty. A conversation...

Reena is a Dubai-based makeup artist, beauty entrepreneur, and content creator with deep expertise spanning artistic and cinematic makeup, bridal beauty, skincare-led product development, and social media strategy, positioned as one of the more authentic and self-made voices in the Gulf beauty landscape at the intersection of craft, faith, and modern personal branding. After beginning in a small,...

Karma is a Dubai-based branding and marketing executive and public speaker with deep expertise spanning corporate leadership, brand strategy, emotional intelligence, and personal development, positioned as one of the more articulate regional voices on the intersection of authenticity, culture, and the modern marketing landscape. After years inside multinational corporate environments — including f...

Majd is a Syrian content creator and digital storyteller who built his career by combining a lifelong passion for art with an unshakable belief that talent alone is never enough — it must be paired with vision, discipline, and a refusal to stay comfortable. After growing up in war-torn Syria, where he taught himself to draw through YouTube tutorials, built his first lighting setup from cardboard h...

Luca is the host of Luca's Insight Track, one of the leading podcasts in the UAE, and a public speaking coach who works with executives, founders, and corporate leaders across the region. After two decades in the corporate world — culminating in a CEO role at a major media agency — he made the bold leap to walk away at the height of his career, choosing authenticity over title and freedom over...

Salem is an Emirati entrepreneur and seasoned contracting expert who built his career by combining over two decades in the construction industry with a deep-rooted commitment to Emirati identity, culture, and national pride. After spending nearly ten years living in the United States and witnessing firsthand the absence of the warmth, generosity, and rooted belonging that define Arab life, he retu...

Amira Elmaghraby is an Egyptian digital influencer and media analyst who built a massive online brand by combining her professional broadcasting background with the profound psychological resilience she gained from overcoming a severe childhood stutter. After rigid societal and religious conditioning forced her to question her reality, she used her esoteric "out of the Matrix" philosophy...

Paola El Sitt is a Lebanese digital influencer and entrepreneur who built a massive online brand by combining her marketing education with the strong survival skills she learned from the women in her family. After Lebanon's economic crash forced her to move to Dubai, she used her "bulletproof mindset" to start over and grow her business across the Middle East. Today, she inspires ove...