By Lakshana N Palat
Pearls are said to form when raindrops laced with moonlight fall into the sea and are swallowed by oysters. It’s a calming, poetic belief that melds in well with those who look for a little magic in the mundane whenever they go. Other myths of pearls trace back to deities of love, born from the sea foam as tears of pure joy. It challenges the saying ‘but pearls are for tears’. Tears can represent the most vibrant form of exhilaration too. The tales of pearls will tell you.And some say, pearls belonged to the drink of Egyptian queen, Cleopatra.It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not: It just conveys the weight and power of pearls, transcending time for over centuries. A sign of joy. Power, wealth. Prosperity. It’s a sign of unity, as Abdulla Rashed Al Suwaidi, a pearl diver and the founder of Suwaidi Pearls, the world’s only Arabian pearl farm. “It has a precious position, and it can unify us,” he says.And after visiting House of Pearls by Suwaidi Pearls, tucked away in Al Rams, at the foot of the Al Hajar Mountains in Ras Al Khaimah, you begin to breathe in the history of it all on the floating pearl farm. In the quiet of it all, you hear the stories of pearl divers from over hundreds of years ago, and relive those moments from their lives, a world where GPS, google maps and the paraphernalia didn’t exist—just actual maps..From passion to $50,000 payouts: Inside UAE’s booming gaming scene.A legacy beneath the surfaceOn the guided tour, we step back in time to an era when the Arabian Gulf was known for one thing: pearls. For the unversed, the pearling industry brought prosperity to the UAE from the late 19th century to the early 20th century and was built on a foundation of skilled craftsmanship, from shipbuilding to navigation. At the heart of it all was the most demanding task: The pearl diving voyage, a gruelling four-month expedition that took place each summer.As Abdulla Rashed Al Suwaidi says, before the oil boom, it was all pearls. That’s what Arabia was known for. The earliest mention in historical records dates to 1590 AD, courtesy of Gasparo Balbi, a Venetian jeweller, merchant, and traveller. He mentioned ‘Dibai,’ as a place known for the best and most beautiful pearls. Even the famed Ibn Battuta, a traveller, explorer and scholar had once described the process of pearl diving in his works. He had written: “The diver, when he is ready to dive, puts over his face a covering made of shell and masks of this shell a sort of thing like scissors, which he fastens on his nose, then ties a rope around his waist and submerges. They differ in their endurance of under water, some being able to stay under water for an hour or two hours less…”As he describes: When the diver reaches the bottom of the sea, he finds the shells there, stuck in the sand among small stones and pulls them out by hand, cuts them loose with a knife that he has for that purpose and puts them in a leather bag slung around the neck. And when Othman Al Balooshi, tour guide at Suwaidi Pearls stands in front of us, showing the nose clips and woven bag, you see what Ibn Battuta What Battuta saw centuries ago now lies in front of us, preserved in time..The method of pearl divingThe divers would sling the basket ‘al dean’ around their neck, tie a rock weighing 8-10 kilograms around their ankle and dive.The pearl diving season spanned from April to June. Divers set sail in traditional wooden boats called jalboot, home to about 20 men for months at a time. Each had a role: the captain, the ghais (divers) dressed in black, the haulers who pulled them up, and the young apprentices, some as young as 14—training for the day they would dive too.As our guide tells us, the work and tasks were delegated. The Ghais would descend to the seabed, relying on just their lung capacity. The clip was placed around their nose to block water, and they would spend hours, hunting for oysters. Around 30-50 dives would be made in a day.Usually, more haulers would be assigned on deck, and if a hauler became sick, another one would be assigned to take over. They were also assisted by trainees, boys who were usually not older than 14. Sometimes younger boys were invited to stay on the boat and were trained to become divers too..Life at seaThe daily rhythm began before dawn with prayer, followed by dives, short breaks, more dives, and then dinner at sunset. A bowl of water was shared by all. It was grueling work—exposure to saltwater could lead to lasting injuries, even blindness.Still, the promise of livelihood kept them going. Over time, divers and traders came from India, Iran, Yemen, and other parts of the Arab world. Goods like rice, spices, and textiles were exchanged. While Mumbai became the global polishing hub, the Gulf, especially Dubai and Abu Dhabi, became essential links in the pearl trade. Eventually, Arab merchants asserted dominance, cutting out intermediaries and dealing directly with French, British, and American buyers..‘Pearls are what we are known for’Pearls are more than heritage, they’re a part of an identity. Oil may have reshaped the modern UAE, but pearls shaped its soul.It’s in the stories of the poets, the old storytellers, pearl diving more than anything else, as Abdulla Rashed Al Suwaidi says. It’s what the UAE is known for. “Look at the writings of the old days, from 350 BC, the sailor Nearchus, who came to the Gulf. The only thing he mentioned apart from the mountains and the gulf, was pearl diving. And it was carried on by Pliny the Elder, Ibn Battuta, whenever they mention the Gulf, they mention pearl diving. They mention agriculture of course, but they always come back to pearls.”As he says, “When you ask me what pearls mean to me, as an Emirati who has lived here, it’s what we are known for, thousands of the years. Oil is recent. Industrial projects are recent. But pearls are a part of our culture, storytelling and business. It’s not just important only for me, but for everyone here, who has lived in this beautiful land.”Pearl diving in its traditional way might not persist as such, and there is now a different way of harvesting. Yet, Abdulla Rashed Al Suwaidi finds beauty and power in the old traditions. There’s something powerful about the idea of pearl diving itself, as he says: “I want to take younger people to see the bottom of the ocean, and see the beauty of the oysters. A person, putting a noseclip, and submerging himself into the sea, to me, is a pearl diver, even if he doesn’t find any pearls. Breaking the barrier of fears, of trying to do something that has been practised for around 1000 years, is something else.”