Long before Dubai taught itself to speak in superlatives – before towers muscled into the sky and motorways braided the sand – Ahmed Qassim Seddiqi lifted the back of a modest Swiss-made West End wristwatch and peered into the patient heartbeat of gears. What he saw wasn’t a product so much as a promise: engineering made human, heritage you could wind. His grandson, Mohammed Abdulmagied Seddiqi – now the company’s CEO – tells it with the easy cadence of a tale passed around the family table. “As kids we used to spend a lot of time with our grandfather, Ahmed Seddiqi,” he says. “He used to tell us the stories of when he was an employee of a shop in the Bur Dubai souk.”
This was not the Dubai you know from drone shots and dinner reservations. Back then, maybe 20,000 people called it home. Mornings drifted in on the muezzin’s call, threading through alleys of wind towers and coral-stone walls. Dhows crowded the Creek, their teak ribs creaking as sacks of rice, spices and dates slid ashore. Abra skiffs ferried news and gossip between Deira and Sharjah. Cardamom breathed from burlap, silver clanged on scales, and merchants haggled with the patience you learn from tides. Fishermen mended nets in the shade; old pearl divers told salt-bitten stories of a glitter that faded, though the pride never did. It was a city stitched from trade and grit, and that is exactly what formed Ahmed. “Our grandfather may have begun as an employee, but he worked hard to become a manager and ultimately a business owner,” says Mohammed. “We still have a replica of the original display cabinet from the first shop in which he worked. It reminds us of our origins. Hard work and humility are two core values that all future generations of Seddiqi must exhibit if they are to make it in the family business.”
If anything, it's a burden to carry our name. It's not only a privilege. You must always remember to represent the name that you carry. People respect the name and so must we.
Seventy-five years on from the moment he went it alone, what began with a dozen watches sourced from neighbouring Kuwait has grown into something that would have made the old souk blink: a portfolio of over 100 high-end brands, 70 outlets across the UAE and a new independent watch boutique in Saudi Arabia. The milestones came quickly once the groundwork was set. “The business started in 1950 and two years later my grandfather secured a contract to become the official retailer of Rolex. It was in 1960 that we got Patek Philippe, although of course we had a few other brands in between,” Mohammed says. The rule, even then, was simple enough: sell only what you can stand behind. That meant knowing the watchmakers by name, remembering which crown felt firmer, which bracelet wore softer, which movement kept its promise in the desert heat. Legend has it Ahmed adjusted straps himself, aligning metal to skin the way a tailor shapes cloth to a life. Those early days turned a counter into a covenant: if a watch was an instrument of time, it also had to be an instrument of trust.
As the city began its long sprint, the rhythm of the shop quickened too. Oil found the Gulf, ships unloaded crates with European stamps, and travellers arrived with diaries crowded by possibility. Ahmed believed in travel as a point of principle. He never made it to Switzerland himself, but he sent his two sons – Abdulmagied and Abdul Hamied – to study in that red-crossed refuge of precision and storybook valleys. What they brought back wasn’t just experience; it was relationships – door-opening, decade-spanning. With each handshake and each carefully chosen brand, a counter stretched into a showroom, a showroom into a boutique, a boutique into a network. The watches were Swiss, but the welcome – the tea, the listening, the follow-up – was unmistakably Dubai. “It’s about trust. It’s about passion. You also have to be clear with people. You have to be honest,” Mohammed says, sounding less like a chief executive and more like a man reciting the family’s catechism.
None of this happened from a safe distance. “My father, uncle, myself, my cousins, all of us, we learned the business from the bottom up,” he says. “By sweeping floors, serving tea, remembering faces, and understanding that after the sale comes the service. We believe a watch is not merely bought; it’s maintained, polished, adjusted, revived.” Today, Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons runs the largest service facilities in the Middle East, with technicians trained in Switzerland. Call it after-sales as a craft: if a timepiece is the heart, they make sure the arteries and veins get equal care. It’s unglamorous to talk about pressure tests and timing machines while everyone else is arguing about bezels on Instagram, but this is where reputations live. Decades later, customers trust not just the products, but the people behind the counters – a family name that sits quietly on every receipt.
As malls redrew the shopping map and print ads ceded to glass façades and social feeds, the family adapted without losing their tempo. They curate more than they stock, matching clients with watches that fit not only their wrists but their stories. A young entrepreneur marks his first deal with a stainless-steel sportswatch; a father celebrates his daughter’s graduation with a delicate piece that catches the light like hope. Sometimes the choice is a chronograph that will never see a racetrack; sometimes it’s a simple three-hander that will outlast trends and the news cycle. Either way, Ahmed’s original lesson – sell trust – keeps coming back, steady as a balance wheel.
It also comes with a certain weight. “Building the name of Seddiqi wasn't done in a day or two,” Mohammed adds. “It took the company 75 years to reach where we are. If anything, it's a burden to carry our name. It's not only a privilege. You must always remember to represent the name that you carry. People respect the name and so must we.” It’s an unfashionable sentiment in an age of quarterly sunsets and personal brands, but it tracks. The romance is nice; the responsibility can be heavy; the work is the point.
As for luxury becoming its own language in a city with a skyline to rival New York’s, the Seddiqi family has chosen to talk about culture. In 2015, they opened the doors to an idea called Dubai Watch Week. Less a fair than a platform, it’s a place where collectors meet watchmakers, where novice questions sit comfortably beside expert debates, where the craft is both demystified and celebrated. For its tenth anniversary, the event moved to Burj Park, in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa – Dubai’s minaret of ambition – and the free-to-attend, non-commercial gathering has become one of global horology’s most influential consumer-facing moments. “It’s a platform that allows collectors, clients, decision makers, brand owners, CEOs to all be together under one roof, discussing, enjoying and exploring the watch industry,” explains Mohammed. During a panel this year, Abdul Hamied Seddiqi, chairman of Seddiqi Holdings, put it baldly: Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons isn’t merely a retailer; it’s a partner to watch brands. Mohammed elaborates with the kind of memory that makes lawyers twitch and romantics nod: “The relationship we have with most of the brands we work with is based on a close relationship, a friendship. I've witnessed with my own eyes how my father and uncle signed brands with a gentlemen’s agreement and a handshake. Many of these brands have been with us since well before my time. That is a true partnership – one in which you work with love, integrity and honesty. That's the difference between a retailer and a partner.”
Of course, it hasn’t all been plain sailing. Markets rise and dip, tastes swing, and the rarest references become trophies on unpredictable tides. The watch world can froth like a cappuccino – loud, frothy, then gone. The house held its course by returning to fundamentals. Invest in people and service. Double down on relationships with maisons whose histories are etched in bridges, barrels and hairsprings. Teach staff to hear not just what a client wants, but why. In rooms lined with loupes and case openers – and, yes, hope – they kept doing what they’d always done: make promises and keep them.
Which is how the name now sits comfortably on the threshold between yesterday and tomorrow. It points to boutiques where light falls on ceramic bezels and enamel dials, and to service desks where watchmakers coax life back into heirlooms. It points to panels where artisans explain how a tourbillon fights gravity, and to quiet moments at counters where a watch becomes a milestone. Above all, it still means what it meant in 1950: time and trust, preferably together.
Stand in one of their stores and close your eyes. The city’s rhythm filters through – the hush of corridors, the murmur of conversations, the click of clasps, the soft, meticulous tick that means everything is working as it should. Somewhere behind the counter, a young associate adjusts a strap with the care that would have made the founder smile. Outside, Dubai moves quickly – as it always has, as it always will. Inside, the heartbeat of a watch keeps steady time, and with it, the story of a family that learned how to listen. Not the loudest luxury, perhaps, but the kind that lasts.
