Colombo/Dubai: When Ibn Battuta arrived in northern Sri Lanka, the ruler of the Jaffna kingdom presented him with pearls more beautiful than any he had seen in his life.
The famous Moroccan explorer’s ship reached Puttalam in September 1344, and he spent a few days on the island, entertaining the king who was interested in his travels, and visiting the peak of Adam, a mountain revered by Muslim pilgrims as the site of the Footprint. First man and prophet.
Ibn Battuta recorded and detailed the voyage in his “Travels”, focusing much of its attention on pearl reefs and pearl hunting – one of the main revenue earners for the Jaffna king’s treasury.
He wrote in his memoirs that the gems he received as a gift were “wonderful pearls, the largest and most beautiful pearls in the world!”
But he was not the first Arab visitor to the island.
Those who arrived in Sri Lanka centuries before Ibn Battuta were the ones who developed pearl fishing, and who raised the gems made from the mollusk, the island’s most valuable aquatic resource.
Abdul Rahim Jesmil, development officer at Sri Lanka’s Department of Archaeology, whose research focuses on the history of Sri Lankan Muslims, estimates that the first Arab visitors to the island arrived in pre-Islamic times, around the 3rd century BCE.
At that time, trade with the island was entirely in the hands of Arabs who came mainly from the Arabian Peninsula and parts of Mesopotamia.
“They came in search of spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and white pepper,” Jesmil said.
“When they stayed here, they found that some parts of the island’s sea were full of pearls … They changed their occupations to pearl diving.”
Pearl diving has been practiced for thousands of years and was a major source of wealth in ancient times for many communities in the Arabian Gulf. Men from these regions would spend months on expeditions at sea during pearling season, while families would wait for them on shore and perform rituals to protect them.
When Arab traders arrived in Sri Lanka, they immediately recognized the wealth of its pearl beds and explored the island’s northwest coast.
Pearls were initially found mostly in oysters in the Gulf of Mannar, off the towns of Mannar, Chilaw and Kalpitiya.
They were highly prized among the elite of ancient Rome, where chroniclers in the 2nd century AD recorded how they were brought by chartered ships across the Indian Ocean or by caravans.
As the industry grew in importance and expanded over the centuries, divers also began to explore the pearl-rich areas south of the bay.
“They found new locations from Beruwala to Hambantota, which runs from the west coast to the south,” Jesmil told Arab News, adding that the industry was so lucrative that many Arab pearl traders settled in Sri Lanka and married local women. Took. Mostly from Tamil communities who were involved in his business.
While little is known about any remaining artifacts documenting the presence of pre-Islamic traders from the Middle East, such evidence is abundant after the arrival of Islam, especially as Arab influence also influenced culture and religion. entered the field of
“The first mosque in Sri Lanka was built by these Arabs… The Al-Abrar Mosque is a monument of Arab culture,” Jesmil said, referring to a mosque in Beruwala that was built in 920 AD, the oldest remaining. and is widely considered to be the first-ever mosque in Sri Lanka.
Manuscripts from later Europeans indicate that until the 19th century the collection, processing and trade of pearl shells from the sea was dominated by Arabs and Tamils, who were considered to be the best divers.
For a century, the pearl fishery was under the control of the Portuguese, who settled with the coastal communities in Mannar. During that time, the industry reportedly employed around 50,000 people. When the Dutch expelled the Portuguese in the mid-17th century, they increased this to 200,000 workers.
It was under another colonial power, Britain, which took over a century later that pearl fishing began to struggle. The waters, which for more than two millennia used to be one of the most abundant sources of natural pearls in the world, began to lose their oyster colonies.
After a series of failed attempts by the British to revive the industry, it suffered a final blow in the 1920s with the introduction of cultured pearls by the Japanese.
Some pearl hunting continued after Sri Lanka’s independence, but today it is almost extinct.
While Sri Lanka is still a renowned jewelry producer, the gems that once graced it are no longer in the limelight.
Rijan Nazir, chief executive of the annual FACETS Sri Lanka International Gem and Jewelery trade show in Colombo, said the pearls used by local artisans are rarely native.
“Pearl fishing in Sri Lanka is a dying industry, the gems have been removed,” he said.
“We get pearls from Japan and Australia.”