Before oil, there were pearls. For centuries, Bahrain’s wealth, its trade routes, its grand houses and its songs all came from what divers brought up from the seabed in the warm waters north of Muharraq. The Pearling Path is the route that ties that history together; a 3.5-kilometre walk through the old lanes of Muharraq that connects the houses, shops, mosques and majlises where the pearl economy actually happened.
It is one of three UNESCO World Heritage sites in Bahrain, and the only one you can walk in its entirety on foot.
The path links 17 houses in Muharraq, three offshore oyster beds (known as hayrat) and Bu Maher Fort at the southern tip of the island, where the diving boats once set sail. UNESCO inscribed the site in 2012 under the title Pearling, Testimony of an Island Economy. It is recognised as the last complete example of a pearling economy left anywhere in the world, which is why the buildings, the beds and the departure point are treated as a single connected site rather than a list of individual landmarks.
Pearl diving in Bahrain stretches back roughly to the second century CE and ran as the island’s main industry right up until the 1930s, when Japan perfected cultured pearls and the natural pearl market collapsed almost overnight. At its peak, the Gulf pearl trade supplied most of the world’s pearls, and Muharraq, then Bahrain’s capital from 1810 to 1923, was the centre of it.
Almost everyone in the city was involved in some way. There were the divers themselves, who spent three to four months at sea on the bawanish (the pearl diving ships). There were the nukhadas (dive captains), the tawash (pearl merchants who sold to buyers from India and Europe), the boat builders, the rope makers, the provisions traders and the healers who treated divers for eye and skin ailments when they came home. The houses on the path belonged to all of them, and the difference between a merchant’s home and a diver’s home tells you a lot about how the wealth was distributed.
Each restored house on the path has its own story. Beit Al-Alawi was the home of a provisions trader who stocked the ships. Bader Ghuloom’s house belonged to a traditional healer. Beit Fakhro was a pearl trader’s, with views toward the sea where he would watch for the ships coming home. Bait Al-Jalahma is laid out with a central hafiz where the women of the household gathered, often for months on end, while the men were away at the beds.
It’s worth slowing down. The houses are small, the rooms are intimate, and the detail in the coral stone construction is part of what UNESCO singled out for protection.
At the southern end of the island, Bu Maher Fort sits right on the water. This is where the diving fleet departed each season, and it’s where families would gather to say goodbye and, if all went well, to welcome them home. You can reach it by a short boat ride from the Bahrain National Museum, which is a nice way to start the path rather than end it. Tickets cost around BHD 2.
The Pearling Path is free to walk. The main Visitor and Experience Centre, designed by Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati, sits near Suq Al Qaysariyyah and is open from Wednesday to Monday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, closed Tuesdays. The full route takes around two to two and a half hours at a comfortable pace, longer if you stop to go inside the houses, which is the whole point.
Wear comfortable shoes, bring water, and go early in the morning or late afternoon. Muharraq’s alleys hold the heat, and the path is better enjoyed when you can take your time.
For more information: pearlingpath.bh | +973 17298777
READ MORE: A Guide To Exploring Souq Al Baraha: Steeped in Bahrain’s Traditional Spirit
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