About hikma

Our story

Hikma was born from the desire to reintroduce personal and collective rituals into our daily lives. Our brand is imbued with heritage and botanical wisdom. This wisdom has led us to create products that enhance our wellbeing.

As herbalists, we understand the tradition and science of pure botanicals and how to formulate them for a better way of living. Inspired by both knowledge and legacy, our products are expertly developed in small batches with formulations that are backed by science and stripped back to the basics. This process allows our plants to shine through.

We create our products with the intention to empower you to reclaim your well-being. They are an invitation to slow down and are the opposite of a quick-fix, they are designed to be incorporated into your daily practices; they are luxurious reminders to reconnect with yourself in a busy world. Each product serves a true purpose and always has a holistic approach to wellness at its core.

Hikma is the preservation and celebration of rituals, the remembrance of our collective stories and traditions, and our return home: to ourselves and to our connection with the Earth.

We founded hikma in Dubai after bonding over our mutual passion for plants and need to connect to our heritage through nature.

Our desire to feel empowered to better care for ourselves and for our families led us to explore regional options for holistic care. As we further connected with the region and its long history of using botanicals for their healing properties, we decided to put our formal training as herbalists to good use and thus hikma was born.

Everything we produce at hikma is built on the innate wisdom of plants. Our focus is primarily on plants that are indigenous to the region as that is where our ancestry lies. Through these native plants we aim to remember our collective wisdom, rituals, and ceremonies.

We created hikma based on our own needs and what we hoped to see in the world: a well-being solution that allows us to reconnect with ourselves, our traditions, and ultimately the Earth.

Meet your herbalists

Growing up in Canada, plants have always played an integral role in Mahdiah’s life. Whether it was taking part in foraging, traditional hunting and fishing, growing food, whale watching, and camping, her childhood was spent immersed in Canadian nature. With a background indigenous to both Canada and North Africa, the indigenous perspective on the sacredness of the natural world acted as a bridge between the multiplicity of her cultures.

Having grown up in the Islamic Sufi tradition, the concept of seeking balance through the infinite wisdom of the natural world (hikma) profoundly shaped her understanding of health and wellbeing. Over time, she felt a calling to build something that honored that belief and that preserved the knowledge that was rooted in both nature and the traditions of her ancestry.

Combined with the family practices and teachings she picked up along the way, Mahdiah initiated her formal herbal studies a little over 15 years ago in Quebec, Canada, at FloraMedicina, and more recently through the Herbal Academy. After completing an M.Sc in Environmental Sciences, she has gone on to learn, work, and live in diverse habitats including Cuba, West Africa, and now the UAE. Her work has seen her specialise in the fields of sustainable food systems, climate change mitigation, and renewable energies for well over a decade. This expertise, fused with the knowledge she has developed as a certified herbalist, is incorporated in each of hikma’s thoughtfully-crafted formulas.

Shereen was born and raised in London to Iraqi parents and arrived to herbalism as a way to reconnect with the earth as well as her Iraqi and Kurdish ancestry. Her childhood was infused with folk remedies passed down from her Iraqi grandmothers, and although she grew up in an urban environment, she always felt drawn to wild nature.

Passionate about the unifying bond between humans and the earth, she is curious about therapies that encourage natural healing. She has always had a deep connection with music and sound.

Shereen is currently studying for a degree in Master Herbalism with the College of Naturopathic Medicine in London, under the teachings of Peter Jackson Maine. She has trained in sound healing with Cherub and Tim Wheater (a direct student of Don Conreaux) in the UK. After completing training in holding sacred circles, she moved on to study regenerative gardening with Rishi Kumar, Soil advocacy with Kiss the Ground and has completed “Wounded healer training” with Adriana Rizzolo and "Awaken: A sacred journey to the sacred feminine" with Kristen Appenrodt. Shereen is passionate about food and is a Cordon Bleu trained chef. All of these modalities have shaped her approach to creating formulas for hikma.

Our values

At hikma, our holistic approach provides a gentle modality to support our innate ability to heal through the wisdom of plants. There is immense power in reappropriating control over our own health and wellbeing, and we believe in herbalism as a tool to do just that. hikma is a reminder of the bond between humans and nature; we believe that when we are connected to ourselves that we are connected to the earth.

About herbalism

Herbalism is the tradition of studying and using herbs for their healing properties. Plant-based medicines are made from differing combinations of plant parts e.g. leaves, flowers or roots. Each part can have different medicinal uses and the many types of chemical constituents require different extraction methods.

Trained Herbalists treat a wide variety of conditions. They focus on treating the whole personal - physical symptoms and emotional health. Herbalism is suitable for people of any age, including children, who respond especially well to the gentle actions of herbs. Each patient is treated as an individual – a Herbalist recognizes that no two patients are the same.

How we formulate our products

Formulation is the process by which herbalists mix plants together to create something even more powerful than each herb alone, for a specific purpose or client.

At hikma, we understand the energetics and the phytochemical makeup of the herbs — and how they can complement and balance each other. That is the key to creating the most potent formulations that really allow the herbs to live up to their full potential. Just like people, herbs work better when they’re in community, supported and balanced by others that offset what they may be lacking.

We often use something called organoleptics to understand not only the effects and affinities of the individual plants we’re working with, but also the balance that’s required in the final product. Combining herbs that complement and balance each other creates synergy, meaning the final product is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Our tinctures are made up of potent and concentrated plant extracts in a base glycerin. Our bodies absorb this liquid form of plant medicine quicker, making them fast acting. Our tinctures utilize multiple extraction techniques to maximize their potency, including:

• Combining glycerin and water extracts in a very specific ratio to ensure a very wide array of phytochemicals make it from the herbs into the product.
• Utilizing heat extraction for the glycerites which draws phytocompounds that cannot be extracted at room temperature.
• Utilizing very specific water extraction techniques that are dependent upon each different herb, for the purpose of preserving the natural essential oils from the plants and other volatile compounds

Sustainability

We believe that we are interconnected with all life on Earth. Because of this belief, our approach is rooted in sustainability; our aim is to foster and support practices that are regenerative and create a symbiotic ecosystem that protects both the land and the plants.

The suppliers we work with are thoughtful custodians of the earth: they care for the soil and use regenerative farming methods that nourish rather than deplete the land. By supporting communities and growers that follow this ethos, we are able to create products based on a reciprocal relationship with the land rather than its commodification.

By honoring and documenting the numerous properties of the plants we use, we help to preserve the diversity of our plant world and ecosystems.

We’re passionate about the ingredients that go into each of our products and where they come from. Our respect for nature is the reason we strive to always source plants ethically and sustainably. By partnering with local organic farms and independent traders, we can ensure that every single essence in our products is high-quality, skin-safe, and adheres to our stringent guidelines for human and environmental health.

hikma’s products are expertly developed in small batches with formulations that are stripped back to the basics—allowing our all-natural ingredients to shine.

You can learn about each of our ingredients here

hikma’s community is based on connection: connection with nature, with ourselves, and with each other. Our aim is to create a space for curiosity and learning, and to give back to our community by providing resources and opportunities for connection, growth, and to experience an approach to well-being that is rooted in herbalism. We invite you to be a part of that community by connecting with us here.