Founded around the year 1760, Al Zubarah is a coastal and fortified city located on the northwest coast of Qatar, about 105 km away from Doha in the Al Shamal Municipality. The historic city, former trading post, and fishing port of the Persian Gulf reached its peak in the 18th and 19th centuries. The name “al Zubarah” which significates the “high ground” refers to the height of its land. It is a historic city that is currently uninhabited. Established in the middle of the 18th century by Kuwaiti merchants, the city developed into one of the largest trading centers in the region and was specifically renowned for the pearl trade. Al Zubarah was engaging in trade with the Indian Ocean, Arabia, and Western Asia.
Thanks to a layer of desert sand most of the remains of palaces, mosques, souks, patio houses, the harbor and its defensive walls, a canal, protective walls, and cemeteries, as well as huts of fishermen were saved. Near the city, a fort known under the name of Qal’at was protecting the city’s wells, necessary to provide the inhabitants with fresh water. The walls of the fort were according to some sources fabricated and put together by merging and blending overlapping raw pieces of coral stones, specifically limestone, with a mortar and a pestle specifically conceived for grinding mud. The fort has a protective roof that was jury-rigged by utilizing compressed mud. The roof endows shade and coolness for the ones inside the fort. The fort’s roof was also erected for the soldiers who would patrol and traverse the surrounding areas for enemies. The fort has three, gargantuan yet superbly conceived corners, each having massive, circular towers on top, which are geared with diverse varieties of Qatari-style defenses, with the fourth one as the most picturesque corner, as it has a rectangular tower with exquisite triangular-based ledges with slits that are called machicolations.
The Al Zubarah fort, was built in 1938 under the oversight of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani. This site has a great historic value as it is one of the only Arabian sites that have conserved a complete structure and therefore is able to portray the pearling and trading tradition of the Persian Gulf in the 18th and 19th centuries.
