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As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in farms.
That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down.
Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents. Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world. The cheaper cultured pearls have become popular and are many times the only pearls available to the consumer.
There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from pollution.
It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.
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Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online.
Pearls
Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials.
Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated.
Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre.
A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.
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As long as pearl jewelry have been known to people, they have been a
highly sought commodity for their beauty. It's only in recent times
however that the industry has taken the hunt for the perfect pearl to
a whole different level. Today, the shiny orbs that we see on in
display in jewelry stores have actually almost always been grown in
farms.
That's a far cry from the dangerous extraction and collection methods
used before the invention of modern technology. In the past, not more
than 100 years ago, the only way to retrieve pearls was by diving in
lakes, floods and the ocean to pick them up, one at the time. The
unfortunate divers who'se job it was to do this, were often poor and
lured by the relative large sums they could get. The diver would
sometimes have to dive as deep as 100 feet on one single breath of
air. In order to preserve air and to stay submerged the longest, the
divers would hold on to heavy stones on the way down.
Naturally, this dangerous activity was reserved for the desperate or
the powerless - in many cases slaves or extremely poor peasents.
Today, this method is all but obsolete in most places of the world.
the only pearls available to the consumer.
There are however still a few isolated areas that practice this old
art of pearl diving. Some of the finest natural pearl speciments come
from the gulf of Bahrain. Here, divers still risk their health to
retrieve what are considered the top of the crop in the world. In
fact, Bahrain wants no part of the sale of cultured pearls, banned
from trade. Bahrain is one of the few places on earth that does an
active job in trying to preserve the natural habitat and waters from
pollution.
It's an interesting story and one that continues to fascinate buyers
around the world. Somehow, the beauty of the pearl grows when it's
been retrieved from the depth of the ocean.
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Buying pearl jewelry can be fun, exciting and confusing. Whether you're considering a gift of pearl jewelry for someone special or as a treat for yourself, take some time to learn the terms used in the industry. Here's some information to help you get the best quality pearl jewelry for your money, whether you're shopping in a traditional brick and mortar store or online.
Pearls
Natural or real pearls are made by oysters and other mollusks. Cultured pearls also are grown by mollusks, but with human intervention; that is, an irritant introduced into the shells causes a pearl to grow. Imitation pearls are man-made with glass, plastic, or organic materials.
Because natural pearls are very rare, most pearls used in jewelry are either cultured or imitation pearls. Cultured pearls, because they are made by oysters or mollusks, usually are more expensive than imitation pears. A cultured pearl's value is largely based on its size, usually stated in millimeters, and the quality of its nacre coating, which give it luster. Jewelers should tell your if the pearls are cultured or imitation. Some black, bronze, gold, purple, blue and orange pearls, whether natural or cultured, occur that way in nature; some, however, are dyed through various processes. Jewelers should tell you whether the colored pearls are naturally colored, dyed or irradiated.
Clams, oysters, mussels and many other mollusks with limy shells are known to produce pearls. But very few kinds yield gem pearls of jeweler's quality. The pearl is an abnormal growth of mother-of-pearl, or nacre, imbedded in the soft bodies of these shellfish. It is built up, layer upon layer, in the same way as nacre is added to the lining of the growing shell and always has the same color and luster. For example, over the country, hundreds of good-sized pearls are found each year in the oysters we eat. Unfortunately these have no commercial value regardless of whether they have been cooked or not because they are dull opaque white or purple like the shell of the parent oyster. In recent times almost all pearls of gem quality come from the oriental pearl oyster which has a bright shimmering translucent nacre.
A pearl starts growing when some irritating foreign substance such as a sand grain, bit of mud, parasite or other object becomes lodged in the shell-producing gland called the mantle. Pearls formed in the soft flesh where nacre can be added on all sides are most likely to be spherical and the most highly prized. By far the great majority are flattened or variously distorted and have little value. Size, color, luster and freedom from flaws are other essential qualities. Unlike other gems, such as diamonds, pearls have an average life of only about 50 years. In time the small amount of water in a pearl's make-up is lost and its surface cracks. Because they are mostly lime, necklaces which are worn often are injured by the acid secretions of the human skin.
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An ex-Muslim psychiatrist is attacked for apostasy.   .headwafasultan { background-color: #336699; color: #ffffff; font-weight: bold; padding:2px;}.borderwafasultan{ border:1px solid #003366;}.bordercolorwafasultan { background-color: #336699;}.rowwafasultan { background-color: #ffffff;}.row1wafasultan { background-color: #ffffff;}.row2wafasultan{ background-color: #efefef;}.rulewafasultan { background-color: #cccccc;}.spacewafasultan { background-color: #ffffff;}  | | Wafa Sultan | .headelisabetheaves { background-color: #336699; color: #ffffff; font-weight: bold; padding:2px;}.borderelisabetheaves{ border:1px solid #003366;}.bordercolorelisabetheaves { background-color: #336699;}.rowelisabetheaves { background-color: #ffffff;}.row1elisabetheaves { background-color: #ffffff;}.row2elisabetheaves{ background-color: #efefef;}.ruleelisabetheaves { background-color: #cccccc;}.spaceelisabetheaves { background-color: #ffffff;} Wafa Sultan's new book A God Who Hates, her first in English, is more subtle than the title suggests. That probably doesn't make her any safer. The recipient of daily death threats, Sultan moved with her husband to a new address, under a new name, the day before the October book release. But the nuance of her dissection of Islam does make the book more compelling than a standard polemic. Now a California-based psychiatrist and writer, Sultan spent her first three decades in her native Syria. A God Who Hates is a memoir of her slow-motion divorce from Islam, escape from dictatorship and immigration to the U.S. Though she had loved words and books since childhood, her family wanted her to study medicine and in any case free speech was out of the question in Syria, so it was only after she moved that she began to pearl strand gain prominence as an Arabic-language writer. Her new book is also a psychological analysis of the origins of Islam and an inquiry into the nature of God. Her conclusion: Islam is rotten in its very foundations and a danger wherever it spreads. That kind of position raises skepticism among tolerant Americans, even--or especially--secular ones. Those of us who subscribe to no religion tend to see them all as similarly irrational. Sure, Islam is full of bizarre and oppressive dictums, but aren't the Bhagavad Gita and the Torah, not to mention the Bible? And didn't Christianity manage to move beyond the Inquisition and the Crusades, suggesting hope that Islam can move beyond its most violent and attention-getting extremists? Moreover, Islam has within it reformers and scholars, peace-seekers and feminists. Why decry the religion as a whole? Wafa Sultan takes us back to the very beginning. Born in a terrifying desert environment where survival dictated raiding or being raided, Islam, she argues, is rooted in fear. Humans create their gods, and so humans who are afraid create a god who can slay the things that frighten them. Hence Muslims created a god who is not only "the Compassionate" and "the Merciful," but also "the Compeller," "the Humiliator" and "the Harmer." "All these are attributes they bestowed upon their ogre and subsequently internalized in an attempt to pearl strand wholesale merge with their ideal," Sultan writes. At some point it stops mattering whether god is a human invention, because his influence is real. This has a direct bearing on the kinds of governments that end up existing in modern Muslim societies, Sultan argues. Western geopolitical strategists tend to define Baathist Syria as secular, as they did Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The point of that argument back in 2003 was to suggest that Hussein was unlikely to ally with religious fundamentalists like al-Qaida. On a purely political level this was probably true; Hafez al-Assad, the current Syrian dictator's father, really did crush the Muslim Brotherhood. But Sultan suggests that the very reason dictatorship--secular or otherwise--can prevail in a place like Syria is Islam. In a telephone interview she said, "I believe that dictatorship in our Islamic countries is the product of Islamic teaching. I believe that Mohammed was a dictator."
Sultan also draws a direct connection between Islam's roots in visceral fear and the oppression of women in many Muslim countries. The god who hates, she says, specifically hates women. It's probably not a coincidence that some of the great feminists of the Muslim world started out as doctors. I'm thinking of Egypt's Nawal al-Sadawi and Bangladesh's Taslima Nasreen, but Sultan, too, has done her time in hospitals. Doctors see all the horrors kept private in the name of decency and respectability and, more often than not, religion. As a medical student in Aleppo, Sultan worked in a gynecological clinic where she saw constant evidence of domestic violence and rapes by male relatives; the patients were typically seeking abortions or hymen repair to hide the evidence and avoid punishment.
Somehow, though, this more benign description of Sultan's commute to work captured just as much about the place she lived: "It was nerve-racking and exhausting to be in any public place any day of the week, if you were a woman." Sultan's observation of Aleppo in the late 1970s is an accurate description of most Muslim Arab big cities today--and a good many other places. Which brings us to the weakness of her argument. This is an absorbing book, full of Dickensian details like her habit of plucking Lebanese newspapers from the trash as a little girl just so she could read. Ultimately, though, it blames Islam for sexism and many other ills, often in sweeping terms. This leaves us with no explanation for the systematic human-on-human horrors inflicted elsewhere in the world. In Sultan's view, humans created the Muslim version of god, but that god is now so powerful that once he gets his clutches into a person or a society he is nearly impossible to pearl jewelry Chian escape. I'm more optimistic: If humans created him, they can change him too.
Sultan is right, though, that fear is on the march, that the "ogre" she describes has come to America. A slew of U.S. publishers first knocked on her door in 2006, when she received a flurry of attention for saying "Be quiet! It's my turn!" to a Muslim clergyman on Al Jazeera. She didn't have a book ready then. When she submitted a proposal two years later, enthusiasm had waned and some publishers told her they feared Muslim reaction. (St. Martin's Press ended up buying it.)
It's not a unique publishing tale these days. Yale University Press recently decided to withdraw all images from a new book, The Cartoons That Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, also published in October, about the Danish caricatures of Mohammed first printed in 2005 that aroused violent global protest. (Yale omitted not only the caricatures but several previously published historical and artistic images.) And in 2008, Random House canceled publication of The Jewel of Medina, a historical novel about Mohammed's wife by Sherry Jones, saying in a statement that it had received "cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment." It was published in the U.S. by Beaufort Books.
The fear is here. For trying to explain it's logic, Sultan now has to bow to it too.
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