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Dubai: Hafsa Lodi reflects on faith and womanhood in debut novel 'Turbulence'
Having lived in the US, UK and Canada, Lodi, who will be speaking at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, uses her cross-cultural experiences to reflect on the questions many women carry
- PUBLISHED: Wed 21 Jan 2026, 1:21 PM
- By:
- Zenifer Khaleel
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At 34, Dubai expat Hafsa Lodi’s life story is defined by geography, curiosity and quiet transformation. Raised in the US, she moved to Dubai at the age of 14. This shift deeply influenced her worldview and writing. Dubai has remained her home for nearly two decades, with formative interludes abroad: three years in Toronto completing a BA in journalism at Ryerson University, followed by a year in London pursuing a master’s degree in Islamic Law. These cross-cultural experiences continue to inform the layered perspectives found in her work.
The first spark
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Lodi’s earliest memory of writing is delightfully telling. At 12, while living in California, she wrote an essay to convince her parents she was responsible enough to own a pet cat, and it worked. That small victory planted a seed of creativity. Years later, IB English in high school sharpened her love for analysing literature, themes and poetry. But it was her first magazine internship, writing trend reports, that sealed her path. Journalism, she realised, was not just something she enjoyed, it was what she was meant to do.
The idea for Turbulence came from a single news story in 2020: a Nigerian woman who gave birth mid-air on a flight from Dubai to Lagos. When Lodi became pregnant months later, and was planning to travel for childbirth herself, that story resurged with unnerving intensity. The fear of going into labour on a long-haul flight became the novel’s emotional ignition point. Once she devised the narrative "trigger" for her protagonist Dunya’s early labour, Lodi worked backwards, constructing the life that led to that suspended moment in the sky. One of the first chapters she wrote ultimately became one of the book’s final scenes.
The power of choice
In many Middle Eastern societies, marriage and motherhood are often viewed as inevitable milestones rather than deliberate choices. Lodi approaches this theme with nuance. Dunya’s path is shaped by her mother Sherry’s cautionary experience, one that discourages her from following tradition blindly. This freedom from expectation makes Dunya’s eventual choice of marriage and motherhood more complex, and more intentional. Rather than portraying these roles as either burdens or prerequisites, Lodi explores why women may gravitate toward them even when they are not raised to see them as the default.
While Turbulence is set partly in privileged spaces, it does not shy away from examining the emotional labour women perform—often unseen and unacknowledged. Lodi notes that this invisibility is global, not regional. Dunya’s burden is not physical toil but psychological weight: insecurities, inner dilemmas and quiet resentment that simmer beneath the surface of her roles as wife and mother.
A central thread in the novel is the idea that love and doubt can coexist without contradiction. For Lodi, it was essential to normalise this tension. Dunya loves her son fiercely and wants the best for her children, yet she is acutely aware that her choices and her position within the household will shape how they perceive women. Motherhood, in Lodi’s telling, is a constant balancing act between care, consciousness and selfhood.
The unspoken word
Lodi hopes Muslim women in the region and the diaspora will see themselves reflected in Dunya’s questions. The novel grapples with familiar negotiations: attractiveness versus modesty, warmth versus authority in parenting, and practising a faith that is rooted in tradition yet timeless in its wisdom. These are not abstract debates, but lived realities for many women.
Giving voice to thoughts women are often taught to silence came with its own challenges. For Lodi, the greatest risk was presenting faith in overly simple terms. Through Dunya, she explores Islam as a space of colour and complexity, embracing both the grey areas and the illumination they can bring. Surrounding Dunya with friends and mentors of differing views allows her faith to evolve through dialogue rather than dogma.
Known for her non-fiction work on modesty and identity, including Modesty: A Fashion Paradox, Lodi turned to fiction for the freedom it affords. Turbulence is not autobiographical, and that distance allowed her to imagine complex, imperfect characters. Through Dunya’s worldview, she unpacks generational biases and quietly examines aspects of Gulf life—particularly in the novel’s second half, set in an unnamed expat hotspot.
Writing for both regional and global audiences carried an undeniable sense of responsibility. Themes of prayer, hijab, women’s spaces in mosques and Islamic feminism run through the novel, but Lodi resisted the pressure to make Dunya a model of perfection. Instead, she allowed her protagonist to be messy, flawed and searching to learn, love and question her faith along the way. Relatability, not idealisation, was the goal.
Some of the book’s most memorable moments happened behind the scenes. Lodi’s favourite writing refuge was Talise Spa, while much of the editing took place mid-flight, a fitting coincidence for a novel largely set on a plane.
What next?
Early advance copies drew generous praise. UK based Islamic scholar Dr Sofia Rehman called the novel "quietly provoking, intimate, brave and deeply humane", while Iranian- American novelist Marjan Kamali described it as "heartfelt". Not all feedback was glowing. One US literary agent dismissed the manuscript as too "introspective", a criticism Lodi embraced. Introspection, she insists, was always the point.
The experience of writing Turbulence has left Lodi eager for more fiction. She currently has three novels, each about one-third complete, waiting patiently in the background. Between creative ambition and raising two young children, she knows the timing matters. When the moment is right, those stories, too, will be ready to take flight.