In a Tweet President Ram Nath Kovind said that Nouf Marwaai played an instrumental role for legalising Yoga in Saudi Arabia. She was born with an auto-immune disease and overcame the challenge through Yoga and Ayurveda. She was awarded Padma Shree in 2018.
She is the first Saudi certified yoga instructor. She is also an entrepreneur who has been travelling between Saudi Arabia and India and founded Arab Yoga Foundation.
In an interview published by Arab News, she says “I was underweight, tired, and suffered from malnutrition due to the extreme diets they put me on for my allergies and digestive problems. Symptoms that I had suffered from were joint pain, weakness, chronic fatigue, skin rash, allergies, loss of focus, sleeping problems and stiffness.”
She started taking organic vegetarian diet and stumbled upon a Yoga book. After which she travelled to India to study Yoga and Ayurvedic medicine.
This helped her heal and become stronger. She loves traveling to India.