The Watch Repairmen of Doha

New York Times

12-02-2025

At the century-old Souk Waqif here, dozens of watch repairmen spend their days maintaining luxury timepieces and doing more mundane jobs like replacing the batteries in digital watches.
Most of these workers and others like them — who tailor traditional Arab clothing, craft cultural accessories and do thousands of service jobs — are immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries. In Qatar, they make up nearly 90 percent of the emirate's population of almost 2.7 million.
'I had no experience with watches when I first came here,' said Mohamed Fahim Shakoor, who immigrated from Sri Lanka 30 years ago. 'But I was willing to learn, and the owner took a chance on me.'
The owner of Taj Jewelers and Watches, Faris Hajazi, immigrated from Saudi Arabia, and said he had given jobs to many immigrants over the years.
Part of the Community
Amid the sounds of chiming clocks inside and the calls for Muslim prayer outside, Mr. Shakoor and another repairman were minding the Taj shop in the cavernous ground floor of the Ramada Old Town building, adjacent to Souk Waqif, on a recent evening.
The business opened in the mid-1990s, around the same time that Mr. Shakoor, now 59, arrived in the region. His fellow employees taught him how to repair mechanical watches, he said, noting that many of them had since returned to their native countries. But he has remained in Qatar — even though his wife and children are still in Sri Lanka, and he can visit only a few times a year — because the job ensures that he can provide for them in a way he cannot at home.
And Mr. Shakoor said he now felt like part of the community. 'Sometimes we have families come in together,' he said. 'We had one regular customer recently in his 20s who came in with his grandfather, who had an old pocket watch we repaired.'
His colleague, Abdul Bari Rahmatallah, 52, has worked at the business for five years, but he repaired watches for more than 30 years in his native India. He said he had noticed quite a difference in watch service between the two countries: Many Qatari customers not only own more than one watch but also expect fast service and are willing to pay for it.
'Sometimes it takes other shops a long time to repair watches, especially if they send it off to Switzerland for repairs, which can take a month or more,' he said. 'But our customers can bring us a watch, and a few days later we can have it back to them. We get lots of recommendations that way.'
Yet he fears that the tradition of personal service that the company provides — as well as the arts of mechanical watch repair — is not being handed down in this part of the world in the same way that they are in, say, Europe and East Asia.
'Younger people here aren't learning about watches,' Mr. Rahmatallah said. 'In India, it's the same. Older men like us are doing the work. We try to recruit, and I would like to train younger people. We also don't know of any watch repairmen who are training their sons, for example.'
On a recent day, Mr. Rahmatallah was working on a Rolex GMT Master II from the 1980s. With a headband holding his loupe firmly over his eye, he dissected its interior. The balance wheel was broken.
'If that stops, everything stops,' he said.
He anticipated that the repair would be a four-day job, and noted that the customer, a watch collector, was a regular who appreciated the Taj's quick turnarounds.
But, 'I do get a lunch break,' he said with a laugh.
Mobile Service
For Iftikar Hussein, 70, attracting customers who need watch repair is all about being visible.
'I knew a little bit about watch repair in Pakistan, but I learned most of it here,' he said, referring to several watch shops around Doha where he worked after immigrating to Qatar in 1981.
He struck out on his own about 25 years ago: 'I had a little shop inside the souk, but I decided to be outside for better exposure. I see everything here.'
Mr. Hussein was referring to his wooden booth, which, at about four feet wide and six feet tall, looks a bit like a carnival popcorn stand. He has used every bit of space, with drawers overhead and under the counter that are chock-full of watches, batteries and repair tools. And it has four wheels, so he can position the booth anywhere he thinks business will be best, and move it indoors during the searing heat of summer.
On a recent day, Mr. Hussein had set up shop in an open-air market near the souk and was sitting on a slightly tattered office chair while potential customers shopped for spices, jewelry and snacks around him.
'My work is mostly replacing batteries on digital watches and polishing many kinds of watches,' he said. 'I'm really doing more cleaning than repairing. Sometimes the spring just needs some oil.'
Mr. Hussein is known around the souk for his love of vintage watches. To prove it, he pulled two pocket watches, each more than a hundred years old, from plastic containers stored in the booth.
'Sometimes the tourists or residents from Europe bring these to me because it's much cheaper to repair here,' he said. 'If I can easily access the missing parts, I repair it. If it needs a special part, then I send them to another repair shop. I'm their first point of contact since there are so many shops in a huge area.'
Meeting the Challenges
In the nearby Gold Souk, a series of meandering streets lined mostly with whitewashed buildings whose windows display ornate gold jewelry, the Time & Tune shop prides itself on being able to repair the most challenging watch and clock problems.
The company was founded in 1962 by a Pakistani immigrant named Mohammed Iqbal who initially used a small kiosk, much like Mr. Hussein's. Now it has a showroom stocked with many makes of watches and a repair workshop at the rear. Nadeem Fazal Iqbal, the eldest son, is a co-owner with his brother, Farooq Iqbal; they both have studied at the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Educational Program, best known as WOSTEP.
With a team of five technicians and two salesmen, the business can handle a variety of requests about watches and even clocks, which Nadeem Fazal Iqbal called a rarity in Qatar. It has equipment such as the Greiner Waterproof Checker Junior, used to test watches' waterproof seals, and a Witschi Q Test 4000, which can test the timekeeping accuracy of quartz watches and clocks.
'We also do repairs for high-end clocks, including grandfather clocks that take some time to repair, that really utilize the machinery we have here,' he said. 'Our company is about bringing dead watches and clocks back to life.'
Mr. Iqbal also stressed that the company had built up a different approach to customer service than repair shops in the lavish malls north of the old city and the huge resorts along the Persian Gulf.
'Time & Tune offers a more neighborly approach to watch repair, and I think a lot of Qataris and expats here want that,' he said. 'So much of the gulf region is huge malls with corporate brands, but the souk here is a place where people come to have dinner, stroll and shop among locally owned shops.'