Abbas Hamza arrived in Kuwait at the age of eighteen with a ticket and a dream. He built a business, faced the sudden loss of his enterprise during a time of regional crisis and built it again. Fifty years on, he runs it with his two sons in the country he chose to make his home. In this article, he shares how he did not lose hope in spite of losing everything.
By the time I accepted that the shop was gone, the fire was already climbing through the complex.
It was August 1990, in the early days of the Gulf War. That morning, I had rushed back to retrieve our passports and whatever cash remained in the drawer. There was no time to stop. Then I stood and watched the fire consume the business I had spent 10 years building.
I had come to Kuwait with nothing. I knew what it took to begin again.
I arrived in 1976, aboard the first flight of my life, an EgyptAir plane out of India. I was 18. Before I understood anything else about Kuwait, I felt how hot it was, and how far it was from home.
My brother, who had already settled there, was waiting at the airport. In a place where I knew no one, his familiar face was a welcome sight.
Rooms were scarce, and money was tight. I lived on very little, paid close attention to everything around me, and learned.
My brother introduced me to the import trade, connecting buyers with manufacturers overseas. I learned that business rests on relationships: earning people’s trust and keeping your word.
In 1980, my brother and I opened a garments and textiles shop. My first independent deal was a small shipment of men’s clothing from China. The order was small, but it did not feel small to me. When it arrived, and I saw the goods stacked beneath a sign bearing my name, the business finally felt real.
Just as I thought life was coming together, the war took away everything.
I left Kuwait not knowing if I would return. When I eventually returned, after liberation, and stood in front of the burned shop, I did not cry. Everything inside me was quiet. The shelves were gone, the stock had disappeared, and years of hard work had turned to ashes.
My brother-in-law and a few friends came to help me clear out. In the years that followed, as the country repaired itself, the government extended compensation and support to damaged business, including mine.
The business grew into retail alongside the wholesale, and my sons came of age to join me. They had always spent time in the shop with me since they were young, especially during the school holidays, so they already had an idea of what to do.
Their joining brought on knowledge I never had the privilege to learn, including that of modern systems and retail, for a growingly digital market.
What took longer to pass on was the other kind of wisdom, the sort you only gain through experience. How to sit out a slow season without losing your nerve. How to wait. When we disagree now—and a father and two sons in one business will indeed disagree—we talk it out, and the distance between my years and their instincts has turned out to serve us.
Back in 2017, we opened a new department store, and I handed its management to my elder son. He ran it well and modernised how we worked. During the pandemic, I was in India due to travel restrictions, and in Kuwait, my sons ran the business entirely on their own. They kept it going, and they went further, starting our first online sales. That decision opened a whole new avenue for us, one we are still building on today.
Looking back, I think three things held everything together: honesty, fair dealing, and caring for the people around you.
These are the values I was raised with. Losing everything and rebuilding changes the way you look at uncertainty. I tell my sons to be prepared, stay calm, and remember that difficult times never last forever.
People sometimes ask what keeps someone going after losing everything. For me, the answer is simple. You begin again with faith, with the people who stand beside you, and with gratitude for the place that gave you the chance to start over.
