The story of the Gulf is one of the sea, long before it became one of oil. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, natural pearls from Gulf waters were among the most sought-after luxuries on the planet, woven into global trade networks that stretched from Basra and Bahrain to Bombay and onward to Europe’s great capitals.
Pearling shaped port towns, powered merchant dynasties and sustained entire coastal populations. In the UAE alone, pearl diving contributed up to 95 per cent of national income in the 19th century. At the industry's zenith in the early 20th century, an estimated 80,000 men worked aboard pearling vessels across the Gulf, including Emirati divers, sailors and traders. The industry’s collapse in the 1930s, following Japan’s rise in cultured pearl production, left a lasting imprint of nostalgia, resilience and cultural pride.
This maritime heritage still gleams in our Arabic word of the week, lulu’a, meaning a single pearl.
Derived from the rare reduplicative root lam-wow-lam-wow, the word’s repeating consonants mirror the pearl’s own formation: nacre layering concentrically around a grain of sand inside an oyster shell. In Arabic, lulu refers to pearls collectively, while lulu’a emphasises singular value, often used metaphorically to describe something uniquely precious.
Lulu is one of the Gulf’s most beloved and enduring names for girls, symbolising beauty, rarity and something cherished. Popular across the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the name grew out of the same cultural reverence that once placed pearls at the centre of the Gulf’s economy. Families chose the name not only for its meaning, but also for its sound, soft, luminous and easy-to-pronounce across dialects. It appears in poetry, folklore and modern media, often used to convey grace, brilliance and emotional value.
Pearling was more than economics; it also forged enduring traditions. Among them is Al Ahalla, an Emirati performing arts form recently added to Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Practised by pearl divers on long dhow voyages, it features poetry recited in collective harmony, accompanied by rhythm created through bamboo sticks known as khayzaran. Unlike other Gulf musical forms, Al Ahalla uses no drums or tambourines. Up to 60 performers gather in a circle, trading chants or reciting verses together, drawing entire communities into night-long performances that continue until dawn.
Pearls remain culturally significant not only in memory, but also in practice. The Abu Dhabi Pearls Centre, established in 2007 in Al Mirfa within the Marawah Marine Biosphere Reserve, cultivates up to 100,000 operated oysters using the local Gulf species Pinctada radiata. The centre currently harvests about 20,000 pearls annually, each taking up to five years to grow through a delicate process that involves inserting a nucleus, often a piece of oyster shell, into the host oyster. The farmed pearls are presently supplied to local academic institutions, but plans are in place to begin commercial sales imminently.
Beyond cultural and economic value, oysters themselves offer ecological promise. As Khaled Khaleel Al Hammadi, a technician at the centre, told The National, farming oysters contributes to marine purification, with each oyster filtering up to 50 gallons of water per day. Professor of Biology at NYU Abu Dhabi John Burt highlights that the biogenic reefs formed by pearl oysters are “hot spots of biodiversity”, supporting fish habitats and foraging ecosystems. A 2025 report by the Nature Conservancy further notes potential role of pearl oysters in reducing organic contaminants and metals through filter feeding. Reinforcing these environmental ambitions, the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi announced in December a freshwater pearl oyster aquaculture project in Al Faya, an expansion dedicated to culturing new oyster types.
Across the UAE, pearling heritage is also preserved through tourism. Suwaidi Pearls, established in 2004, operates as a cultural destination in Ras Al Khaimah, celebrating family maritime history, and employing local guides from Al Rams who speak with pride about their work as an extension of ancestral identity. The Maritime Museum in Sharjah has displays on pearl hunting and fishing boats, while the recently opened Zayed National Museum houses one of the world’s oldest natural pearls, called the Abu Dhabi Pearl.
These initiatives reflect a wider truth in the Gulf’s relationship to pearls: that their value is not only in their beauty, but in the endurance, community and ecosystems they continue to support.
