Adli Yacubi

A space for remembrance, reflection, and rooted storytelling

A Door Opens: The Story Behind Rabbānī Creative Studio

What began as sketches and fragments grew into a space that felt less like a business and more like a miḥrāb — a quiet recess where work turns into worship, and creativity becomes a form of prayer. Rabbānī Creative Studio was never just about design; it was about facing what matters most.

August 12, 2025
The Stormborne Sisters: A Karoo Creation Tale

In the Karoo, three koppies rise like ribs from Mother Earth’s chest — storm-sisters who absorbed a comet’s grief and became stone. This is their myth. Their vanishing. Their voice beneath the silence.

August 4, 2025
Before Three Sisters: A Road Interrupted, A Heart Opened

“Some roads answer us back. Even in silence. Even before Three Sisters.” Before we reached the landmark called Three Sisters, something else shifted — a pickup turned into a homecoming, and memory took the wheel. This is a story of roads interrupted, hearts opened, and how a boat hitched behind us became a vessel for…

August 4, 2025
The Garden of Words

Before Rafiq ever dropped his first scroll, there was a garden of words — planted in silence, grown in love. This is his origin soil.

July 31, 2025
The Keffiyeh Is Mightier than the Cape

In Gaza, not all superheroes fly. Some livestream truth. Some carry bleeding children. Some send plastic bottles filled with rice. And some — like the mother stirring a pot that is almost empty — hold the line with nothing but dust and devotion. This post is not about comic books. It is about subverting myths,…

July 30, 2025
The Boy Who Waved Back: Remembering Riefaat Hattas of Manenberg

He was the boy who waved from the embassy window, the brother who made us laugh at rallies, the servant who built bridges inside City Hall as he once did on the streets. Riefaat Hattas carried the scars of struggle — but also the joy of belonging, the courage of standing out for justice, and…

July 26, 2025
Between Distance and Closeness: Walking the Path of Al-Fātiḥah

Al-Fātiḥah is not only recited — it is lived. This reflection invites the reader to walk each verse across the terrain of the body, mind, and heart. From the right brain’s imagination to the atria of the heart, the Opening Chapter becomes a sacred map of presence and return. Inspired by a teaching from Shaykh…

July 20, 2025
A Word That Wounds and Wakes Us: Rethinking “Coloured” in the Age of Memory

A reflection on the word “Coloured” — its pain, its power, and its place in memory. This essay challenges state labels, honours creole ancestry, and reclaims identity through the sacred dye of remembrance.

July 20, 2025
Our Inheritance: The African and Islamic Civilisations That Shaped the World

Discover the hidden contributions of African and Muslim civilisations to science, education, culture, and daily life — from algebra and surgery to universities and the fork itself.

July 20, 2025
The Mother Tongue of Tasbih: Afrikaans, Islam, and the Echoes of Resistance

“Os wiet dat ’n taal is ook ’n houvās.” We know that a language is also a holding — like a salomie wrapped in a roti: not to preserve perfection, but to keep the inside warm. Spiced, sacred, messy, surviving. This blog is my offering — a prayer for our tongue, our tasbīḥ, and the…

July 18, 2025