Think Qatar today and the likely image is that of oil, gas, modern luxury, desert scenes and successful hosts of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. This picture is a far cry from the Qatar of yesteryear when pearls, glorious pearls, were the country’s main source of income.

So think Qatar, and you can think pearls.

It is Qatar’s pearling history that now makes me appreciate why granny’s pearls are so precious and why Doha’s series of iconic man-made islands are named The Pearl.

Pearls were the bedrock of this Gulf state’s economy going right back to at least the 1700s and almost up until oil and gas were discovered here in the late 1930s and early 1940s.   

And so, pearls are to Qatar what coals are to Newcastle in the United Kingdom.

Synonymous.

Thankfully, while the natural pearls are no more, Qatar’s pearling heritage lives on in public art, museums, cultural festivals, the names of places and the stories of the local people.

Treasures from the sea – Qatar’s pearls

Pearls were a luxury item. In fact, pearls still are, especially if you are seeking a pearl necklace like the one granny wears.

Pearls are rare – or at least they were, until the new cultivated pearl industry came along in the 1930s.

Before then, the pearls of the Gulf region were apparently unrivalled on the world market. There were large pearling sites in neighbouring Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and in Manama, Bahrain.

(Coincidentally, I recently read The Pearl Sister, which is partially set in Broome, Australia, and was once also a thriving pearl centre.)

It is in Qatar, however, that the largest intact pearling settlement has been found. It was discovered by archeologists back in the 1950s. The site is presently being excavated at what is a UNESCO world heritage site called Al Zubarah.

In its heyday, this coastal settlement was home to as many as 10 000 people and goes back to at least 1760. It, along with the neighbouring Al Zubarah fort, is well worth a visit.

It will also help you appreciate why Granny’s pearls are so precious.

Why pearls are special

The short answer to why pearls are special is that these precious iridescent gems are:

• Rare

You need about a ton of oyster shells to find 3 or 4 quality pearls, or about 10 000 shells to find one pearl, and then it may not be of the highest quality.

In case, you didn’t know, a pearl bead is only formed if an “irritant”, such as a grain of sand, finds its way into the mollusc of an oyster shell.

Oyster shells also only grow these “by chance” pearls in certain conditions – mainly warm saltwater seas or freshwater lakes and rivers.

And, in the past, diving for real pearls was:

• Dangerous

Pearl divers

Back in the day, for up to a four-month stretch during Summer, hundreds of wooden boats called dhows headed out to sea to harvest oyster shells in search of pearls.

The tawanish (pearl merchants) would hire the lowliest employees – slaves from Africa and Asia, as well as some of the local Qatari Bedouin – to dive, sail and work as “pullers”.

By all accounts, it was a hard and dangerous life.

Divers would have to free dive to extreme depths – sometimes up to about 15 metres – and gather as many oyster shells as possible without ascending too quickly via a rope and suffering from the “bends”. This meant holding your breath for up to two minutes, and having to contend with shark, swordfish and barracuda attacks.

Life wasn’t much better on board the small sailing vessels. The crew was restricted to a diet of fish and forced to conserve fresh water when daytime temperatures could reach 50C. They stayed at sea for months at a time.

And, all to meet the growing demand of the European and American markets.   

Qatar’s remaining pearl diver

Saad Ismail Al Jassim is Qatar’s only surviving pearl diver, although all Qataris have relatives who were pearl divers.

At 88, Saad is a living legend.

He has a shop in the main street of Souq Waqif, Doha’s popular traditional market.

It is here that he will regale you with his stories of yesteryear … of the baskets the divers hung around their neck, of the stone-weights, the nose clips, the beeswax to plug the ears and the stirrups used, of the long days and the reliance on others for your welfare.

End of the pearling era

The pearl industry began to wane in the 1930s with the cultivation of artificial pearls in Japan.

The smaller and then the larger fishing and pearling communities went into decline and eventually the supporting homes and villages were completely abandoned.

The population of neighbouring Bahrain, for example, with its economy also based on the pearling industry, dropped from 100 000 in 1908 to less than 90 000 in 1941.

Not only were farmed pearls easier to grow, they cost a tenth of the price of a natural freshwater and seawater pearls.

Heritage of pearls

The Qatari people have not forgotten their heritage.

The government is intentional as part of its Vision 2030 for the country in entrenching the local culture, including its rich pearling history.

You can see this in its public art, the street names, the hosting of cultural and heritage exhibitions and workshops, and the naming of the city’s upmarket The Pearl.

There is even an educational institution known as the Pearling Season International School in Doha.

Cost of pearls

Today’s cultivated pearls can range from QAR100 to QAR10 000 for an Akoya pearl necklace. A strand of flawless South Sea pearls may cost you even more.

Or you can get a fake pair of earrings which are glass, ceramic, shell or plastic with the appearance of real pearls for next to nothing.

But you will know they are not the real deal because they lack the genuine iridescence and the missing layers of nacre of a real or even a cultivated pearl.

It apparently requires the use of X-rays, to reveal the inner nucleus of the pearl, to be able to tell the difference between the real and farmed pearl.

But in all likelihood, if your granny is well into eighties, she wore, or handed down, the real deal.

Hold on to these pearls

They came at a high cost from both a monetary and labour perspective. Countless lives were lost during the pearl boom.

Pearls today

Pearls can still be bought in Qatar today – and indeed, they’re on my wish list. I do know they won’t be the real deal. They will be pearls farmed from afar.   

The real ones I will view in the National Museum of Qatar or at other exhibitions or collections in Doha.

But I would like a precious keepsake to remember my time in Qatar – and the men who were part of the oldest profession in the Gulf, pearling.