UAE's rich history of pearl diving.

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00:00I think for us, pole diving, without pole diving, we are nothing.

00:21Because this is not my saying, this is not my belief. If you look at the

00:25writing of the old days, look at like 350 BC. The sailor who came because of Alexander invaded

00:36Persia, he sent Nogares to discover the Gulf, which was very mysterious to them. The only thing

00:44that he mentioned in this Gulf was the terns, the mountains, the mouth of the Gulf, and the only

00:53activity he mentioned is pole diving. And carried on by Blini the Elder in the Roman, the Persian,

01:00Muslims, travellers, Al-Idrisi, Ibn Battuta, Al-Masroodi. Whenever they mentioned the Gulf,

01:07they mentioned the activity of pole diving. Nothing other than that. Yes, they report some

01:14agricultural activities, herding, Frankensteins of Oman, and things like that. But always,

01:20when it comes to the Gulf, they mentioned poles. They have nothing other than the poles.

01:26Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has made this land very hot and arid, but gifted with the underwater

01:36precious pole that in comparison with other poles, let's say for India, or Ceylon, or China, or anywhere

01:44in the world, it was the best, the most shiny, the most beautiful, and colorful as well. When you ask me,

01:50what does this pole mean to me, as an Emirati, as an Arab, and a person who lived in this,

01:57born and I hope that I'm gonna die in this land, is that pole what we are known, what we are known for

02:03thousands of years. Oil is so recent, the industrial projects are so recent, it's because of the wisdom

02:14of the people who actually genetically linked to the pole diver and pole trader in this country.

02:20So if you look at, for example, Sheikh Zayed, the model of the UAE, the father of the UAE,

02:25the east of his poet, he mentioned pole, and he referred poles to the deepest poles, or those who

02:37have a great manner and nobility, always he referred to that. This, you know, a person living with us

02:46today, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, he and his poet also celebrated

02:52poles as a sign of a beauty and a precious things. So this is a part of our culture. If you go to

03:00poet, if you go to the business, if you go to the culture, if you go to the storytelling, if you go to

03:05the talents, it's own referring to pole diving, nothing other than that. So it's not important only for me,

03:15it's important for everybody existed and lived in this beautiful land. The method of pole diving,

03:24and I really wish that one day I can take young people, adults and even elderly to see the bottom

03:32of this and to see the beauty of the oysters and create some sort of an institution to train people,

03:38or to at least connect them. I mean, a person who will put a nose clip and drop down under the sea to

03:45the bottom using a stone and reach to the bottom is to me a pole diver, even if he didn't get a pole,

03:51an oyster. Because breaking the barrier of the fears by trying to do something that has been

03:59practiced and ritual for thousands of years, why not? That's one thing. The navigation tool,

04:04the traditional navigation tool. Yesterday we have a GPS, we have a different technology,

04:09but actually this whole technology was because of this finding by Arabs. Take for example Ahmed bin

04:17Majid, a navigator who was born in the 15th and 16th centuries and he'd been studying all navigation

04:27and he had put a lot of books about navigation that helped the French and the Italian to come up

04:32with a new technology nowadays. You know, the morals and values of the diver and trader and the captains,

04:41how to manage, you know, this was like a corporate, a boat with a 15 people minimum to 90 people

04:48maximum in some cases. It's like a corporate sailing on the sea for one reason, to collect oysters and to

04:55get the poles. And these poles are so valuable that it's pay off and with a margin and a profit.

05:01Not only for the boat crew member, but also for the trader who travel with it all the way to India,

05:08and sometimes to Persia and to Europe. So it was a really blessed product. And if you look at it,

05:21why it's blessed? It's mentioned in the Holy Quran. It's mentioned in the Bible. It is mentioned in the

05:27Torah. Even when the Hindus and Buddhists teaching the old philosophy, Paul has a precious position.

05:36In all religions, we celebrate something. I always say peace is five letters and it's so controversial.

05:45And pearl is five letters, but so loved and adored by all of you. I believe pearls can unify us. That's why I

05:52try to make this place to make us coexist together. They have some sort of a tolerance. Left our

05:59differences, religion, culture behind. Let's come celebrate something that a human has been,

06:05you know, you know, adoring for thousands of years. This is a common gem. That's why they call it

06:12the pearls of wisdom.

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