Qatar was not a very noticeable place in the early nineteenth century. This protruding part of the Arabian Peninsula to the Persian Gulf is small in area, barren land and sparsely populated. Except for pirates and fishermen, few people have visited here.
Today's emirate of Qatar has become a symbol of wealth and status. "A piece of cloth above my head, I am the richest in the world." Qatar's oil reserves rank 13th in the world, and natural gas reserves rank third in the world, second only to Russia and Iran. The land area of the first two is 1484 times and 143 times that of Qatar respectively. Qatar's Al Jazeera is the most influential media in the Arab world. In this World Cup, Qatar spent $220 billion on investment, more than 5 times the total expenditure of the previous seven World Cups!
I believe many people are curious about how such a small country is becoming independent and maintaining independence in the Gulf region surrounded by big countries. Today we will talk about the past and present life of Qatar.
First get familiar with the situation around Qatar
, like several neighbors nearby, after the establishment of Arab Empire , it became the territory under the long-term control of the Arab Empire, and the rule from Islam completely Arabized the entire Arab Peninsula. Until the third Western Expedition of the Mongol Empire, Guo Jing's sixth son, Hulagu, expedition of the Arab Abbas Dynasty, destroyed the Arab Empire. Although the Ottomans, a branch of the Turks, soon became prosperous and established the powerful Ottoman Empire in West Asia, until the 19th century, the Qatar region was not effectively controlled by the Ottoman Empire due to its harsh living environment and small spaces.
timeline can be fast forward directly to the nineteenth century, because before that, there were mainly a group of nomadic tribes separated from Arab tribes to migrate here, settling on a very small scale, and the main way to make a living was to collect pearls in the Gulf area and sell them to surrounding areas.
Pearl trade is the earliest economic model for survival in the Qatar region, because it is too poor here, and in addition, people almost cannot find the need to settle here. Nevertheless, the population that relies on the collection of pearls along the coast is only a few hundred to thousands.
1517, the Portuguese invaded here. But just thirty-eight years later, under the attack of the Ottoman Empire, the Portuguese gave up this place where birds did not shit and continued to colonize India in the east.
In a word, the early Qatar could become a power vacuum in a sense because of poverty. The Arabian Peninsula was full of deserts and rarely visited, and there were many types like Qatar.
is completely opposite to Bahrain , which is across the sea. Although Bahrain is less than one-tenth of Qatar, due to its oasis and fertile land, it was controlled by the Khalifa tribes from the inside of the peninsula very early, and a small-scale emirate was established.
Khalifa family is still the royal family of Bahrain.
Here, let me share with you the characteristics of the surname of Arab , the current King of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Althani , in fact, his full name is Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Althani. Pay attention to these words, the first Tamim is the name of the king himself, Hamad in the middle is his father's name, Khalifa is the name of his grandfather, and the last Althani is the name of the family. "Ben" refers to the son of the name before this character is the name of the son of the name after the name. Sometimes he can also write "Ibn". Therefore, the full name of an Arab name can be seen from the names of the ancestors and the names of the family. When it comes to abbreviation, people are accustomed to removing grandpa’s name and adding father’s name and family name only after the name. The Arabs have a very high reputation rate. If you don’t add your father’s name, you will find that there are a lot of Arabs like Mohammed Ahmed and so on, which is completely impossible to distinguish.
Solving this problem is beneficial to our next reading.
Before Mohamed bin Sani came to Qatar, the current situation here was that the coastal areas adjacent to Bahrain were controlled by the Khalifa tribes of Bahrain. There are more than a dozen small tribes of all sizes that have come from the mainland in the eastern coast. With the British colonization of India in the 19th century, it became a must-pass place for the Indian Mumbai-Baghdad trade route, so the coastal residents were very happy to engage in pirate careers and make profits by attacking passing British merchant ships.
The Sani family was unknown in Qatar at this time. The patriarch Mohamed Sani led his tribe to survive in the small town of Beda on the Qatar Peninsula (today's Doha ).
For some time before 1820, due to the occupation of Napoleon on Egyptian , the status of the trade route from Mumbai to Baghdad is even more important. However, a loose sand Qatari pirates gave the British a headache. These people not only robbed British merchant ships, but also fought many wars with the Khalifa tribes in Bahrain in the north. The chaos in order caused by the war further affected Britain's trade stability.
In 1820, the British supported by strong ships and guns, and signed a document called the Comprehensive Peace Treaty with various scattered tribes in Qatar. Article 1 of the treaty stipulates: "As the signing party to this treaty, the Arabs will permanently stop looting on land and at sea." Article 4 stipulates, like parents control children, "The signing tribes... shall not attack each other." To be on the safe side, the British even asked Bahrain and Qatar ships to hang white and red flags to express their friendly attitude. So today we see the flags of the Kingdom of Qatar and the Kingdom of Bahrain are very similar.
F British people who are good at engaging in balanced diplomacy immediately came forward and handed over all the disputes to the British political garrison stationed in Bahrain to resolve (the United Kingdom is Bahrain's protector), suppressing further actions of both sides. At the same time, in order to compensate the Thani family, the British summoned the chiefs of the main tribes in Qatar to the British warship "Violence" and signed a new statement with Mohammed bin Thani in the witness of everyone. This statement is of great significance because in a sense, the statement recognizes that Qatar is independent, not belonging to Bahrain. More importantly, this statement was signed in front of most of the chiefs of Qatar, and Mohammed bin Sani became everyone's spokesperson, that is, the formal leader. The British instilled in other tribes intentionally or unintentionally the idea that Mohammed bin Sani was a Qatari dialect. The statement was signed by Mohammed bin Sani and Lieutenant Colonel Pelley, the British political garrison in the Persian Gulf. The content is mainly the tone of Mohammed bin Sani. It has a lot of content. I will excerpt a few for you to see:
. I promise to return to Doha and live in the port peacefully. (Mohamed bin Sani had previously migrated from Doha to Korhasan in northern Qatar to command the battle against the Bahrain Governor.)
. I promise that at any time, no hostile activities at sea will be carried out at any time; when disputes or misunderstandings occur, political garrison officers will be sought to resolve the issue.
. I promise to never help Mohammed bin Khalifa, or to connect with him in any way.
. If Mohammed bin Khalifa falls into my hands, I am ready to hand him over to the political garrison.
5. I promise to maintain all previous relationships with Bahrain Chief Sheikh Ali bin Khalifa, and when there is objection to any issue, whether it is monetary payment or other issues, it should be handed over to the political garrison officer for handling.
This statement gave Qatar after 1868 not only nominal independence (from then on with Bahrain), but the British would declare that the tribes of Qatari were also allowed to become the nominal leader of Qatar. Although this rule was limited to nominal, he allowed Mohammed bin Sani to obtain authority from the British guarantee, and any damage to this statement would be regarded as a challenge to the British.
So we can make Qatar independent in 1868. It cannot be said that it is formal independence because there is a big guy behind him who did not nod his consent.
is right, it is talking about the Ottoman Empire.
Ottoman Although it is called the "Sick Man of West Asia", it still firmly protects its territory under its rule. The British's actions in the Persian Gulf aroused the Ottoman Empire's vigilance. After Qatar and Britain settled the 1868 agreement, the Ottoman Empire also had reasons to interfere in Qatar. In 1869, Ottoman's newly appointed governor, Ahmed Shafik Pasha, began to intervene in Qatar affairs, trying to squeeze the British out of this region.
The quasi-second-generation patriarch of the Sani family, Jassim, keenly captured this information. The reason why he was said to be the quasi-second-generation patriarch was because his father Mohammed was still there at this time. Jassim took advantage of the intervention of the Ottoman Empire and in 1872, he accepted the appointment of the Turkish and became the governor of the Qatar region, although he did not need to pay taxes to the Ottoman Empire and did not need to receive salary from the latter. But this clever political speculation, on the one hand, brought about the Ottoman Empire's concessions to Qatar, after all, this means that Qatar belongs to the Ottoman Empire and will not be too irritating to the British.
Interestingly, when Jassim raised the Ottoman flag at his residence, his father did not agree, but the two of them were pro-English and the other pro-Austrian, which instead won an unexpected result for Qatar.
We have said before that the British only needs to maintain the stability of Qatar to ensure their trade stability. I have read a lot of historical information. Before oil was discovered, the British had no idea of controlling Qatar at all. After all, there is no raw materials or market here. When it comes to garrison, the British prefer the Bahrain next to them.
Zubara region has always been an ally of the Kingdom of Bahrain
Qatar has maintained a certain vague political independence in this way.
I have to say that the Sani family is too good at political speculation. The various operations of Qatar that we see today in the international field are not achieved overnight.
After dealing with the British and Ottoman Empires, Jassim began to strengthen his control over Qatar. At that time, northern Qatar was controlled by another Naim family, which always swayed between Qatar and Bahrain and acted as an ally of Bahrain many times. With the help of Bahrain's power, the Naim family took Zubala as their base and continuously expanded their power in north .
1878, Mohammed died, and Jassim was the result of the flag of the second-generation leader of the Sani family. Also in this year, the Naim family attacked the Sani family's ships at sea, and war broke out between the two sides. At this time, the Sani family had the Ottoman Empire as ally, while the Naim family had Bahrain as ally. Funny thing is that the Ottoman Empire believed that this was an internal matter of Qatar and would not interfere. The British were deeply afraid that Bahrain's intervention would affect the maritime order in the Persian Gulf, so they suppressed Bahrain's intervention. So the Naim and Sani were watching around and suddenly they found that there were only two families left on the battlefield, and none of the helpers invited by both sides came.
When Ibn Saudi Arabia was fighting everywhere on the Arabian Peninsula, its influence once threatened the Qatar region. In order to prevent Qatar from becoming a victim of Ibn Saudi ambitions, Comrade Jasim of the Sani family took the initiative to express his respect to Saudi , and in 1902, he officially converted to Saudi Arabia to believe in Islam Wahhabi, winning temporary security for Qatar.
When by 1913, the Saudi family led by Ibn Saudi Arabia had basically gained a foothold and proposed new territorial claims for the Qatar generation, which had affected the survival of Qatar. In this case, Jassim's son, Abdullah bin Jassim, the third-generation leader of the Sani family, chose the least, and finally signed a formal treaty with the UK in 1916, which marked that Britain officially became a protector of Qatar. The expansion of Saudi Arabia is actually France's sphere of influence, so this choice avoids conflict between the two.
Judging from historical results, the United Kingdom is really a well-deserved protector of Qatar.
Now, it is not a coincidence that the Sani family was able to successfully establish their own dynasty in Qatar. After all, the rise of the Sani family has many obstacles, but every dilemma is successfully resolved by the Sani family. The Sani family successively resolved the threats from Britain, local tribes, Bahrain Khalifa tribes, the Ottoman Empire, and Saudi Arabia, and repeatedly retaliated, taking advantage of the contradiction between Britain and the Ottoman Empire. The contribution of the second-generation leader Jassim here is an indelible contribution. We can summarize this way. The first-generation family leader Mohammed built a portrait of Qatar, and the second-generation family leader Jasim turned Qatar into reality.
Therefore, the Qataris chose Jassim as the founding father of Qatar and regarded his birthday as the National Day of Qatar. In fact, it is also to strengthen and consolidate the Qataris' sense of national identity through publicity and commemoration of Jassim.
The success of the Sani family is summarized as follows:
First, the long rule of the two generations of Sani family leaders, the first generation of family leader Mohammed led his tribe to Doha in 1848. From 1848 to 1913, the Sani family maintained long-term stable cohesion and coherence of foreign policies under the long-term management of Mohammed and Jassim. The stability of the family provided a reliable support for its unification in Qatar.
Second, a stable settlement, the Arabs actually like to migrate very much, just like the Sani family came to Qatar from the inland, but since they came to Beda (Doha), the Sani family has been living steadily in the Beda area, which makes the rule of the Sani family here very traditional and reliable. The controversial opponents were either defeated or migrated away.
Third, it is the power vacuum in Qatar. Before oil was discovered, whether it was the small tribes halfway or the Western powers from outside, they did not have too much desire for this land. The residents who came here either wanted to collect pearls or rob the merchant ships at sea. Therefore, it provides an opportunity for the rise of the Thani family.
Fourth, intervention by the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire. The Sani family used two sides to get along with the United Kingdom and the Ottoman Empire and sought protection from both sides to offset the interference of both sides in Qatar, thereby consolidating their position in Qatar. This policy of the Sani family remains Qatar's foreign policy tradition. Going closer to a stronger foreign country to protect one's weak position is a policy tradition that Qatar is still too late to this region's long history and has been proven to be.
Whether it is the treaty signed on the "Vigilance" in 1868 or the protection agreement signed with the British in 1916, the signing parties were the Sauni family and Britain, not Qatar and Britain. This gives a great suggestion, that is, the Sauni family is Qatar, and the two are one. This suggestion creates a legal basis for the authoritarian rule of the Sauni family that has continued to this day.
Before the discovery of oil, Qatar mainly relied on pearl collection and fishery to make a living. However, in the 1920s, Japan from the far east, artificial pearl farming appeared in Japan. This method was cheaper, and there was basically no difference between artificial pearls and natural collection. Therefore, the international pearl prices plummeted, and Qatar's traditional pearl collection industry was hit by a huge impact.
From the 1920s to After World War II, although the British had already begun to exploit oil in Qatar, most of the profits of were monopolized by the British and had nothing to do with the locals. The third-generation leader of the Sani family, Abdullah , originally refused to sign an oil concession to BP , but the deterioration of the economy has seriously threatened Abdullah's viability. In 1935, the Qatari chief even had to pledge his house in order to get a loan of 17,000 rupees. If this continues, either the Sani family will be eliminated, or the Sani family will be eliminated.
It was in 1935 that Abdullah gave up his position and he charged 400,000 rupees in the British, twenty times the money he got from mortgaged the house. Six years later, the amount increased to 700,000 rupees per year. Abdullah was resurrected in full blood.
But we still need to know another angle. The plunge in pearl prices, coupled with the subsequent impact of World War II, made the already unlucky Qatar economy worse. Although the brothers in the Gulf region were living a bad life during this period, Qatar was far behind them. In 1940, the population of Qatar decreased to only 16,000. Doha became a small fishing village scattered on the coast. Houses were dilapidated, flies flew around and dusty. Locals had to drink water to get water two or three miles away.
and the wealth of Qatari people today are simply one in the sky and one underground. By 1944, the number of fishermen in Qatar dropped from more than 60,000 twenty years ago to about 6,000. The deterioration of the living environment has caused many people to leave Qatar and repeat the migration habits of their ancestors.
From 1925 to 1949, Qatar entered a period of severe economic recession, known as the "year of famine", a large number of families and tribes migrated, and the pearl pickers and buyers suffered a devastating blow, the Sani family and the tribe managers who remained in a Qatar with a small population.
has to admit that the benefit of following is that the migration of tribes greatly reduces the resistance to rule faced by the Sani family, and also makes the future rule of the Sani family more powerful in Qatar.
After 1949, with the need to rebuild the economy after World War II, the demand for oil began to gradually increase, and a large amount of oil income poured into Qatar. Although the Qataris only received the lowest income from the oil industrial chain , for Qatar, which has less than 20,000 people, survival is no longer a problem.
948, something happened in Qatar, which had a profound impact on the future political situation in Qatar.
This year, the crown prince of Abdullah, the third-generation Sani family leader, his beloved son Hamad died of illness. Abdullah, 77, had to reconsider the issue of his heirs, and his other son, Ali bin Abdullah, was finally appointed as the new crown prince. Because Abdullah demanded to share more profits from the oil trade, with the support of the British, in 1949, the new crown prince Ali launched a coup, forcing the old man to abdicate early. However, as part of the agreement, Ali was also forced to agree that in the future, Khalifa, the son of the Crown Prince Hamad, who died, would inherit the position of chief of his son Ahmed.
The lineage of the Sani family
Ali's abacus is that there are still two generations of people to manage, and the future nephew Khalifa may not be able to inherit the position of his own son Ahmed. But unfortunately, Khalifa is an awesome figure. After Ahmed ascended the throne in 1960, he liked to travel around the countries and lived in Europe for many years. All the things in the country were entrusted to his cousin, the crown prince Khalifa.
Khalifa has become the king of Qatar who does not actually have a title.
So in 1972, Khalifa took advantage of his cousin hunting in Iran, launched a coup, and ascended the throne and became the king of Qatar.This operation set a precedent for later generations. 23 years later, Khalifa was ousted by his own son, Crown Prince Hamad bin Khalifa. The crown prince rebels the king, and his policies are still the same after he comes to power, which is very incredible. Maybe it's because I'm worried that my father will live too long and can't wait to ascend the throne early.
Fortunately, this kind of coup is not bleeding. The new king comes to power, and the old king goes abroad to support his old age. Maybe he can still return to his country to spend his old age when he is old. So it has no big impact on the country.
In 2013, the seventh-generation leader of the Sani family, and of course the seventh-generation king of Qatar, Hamad, voluntarily retired and gave the country emir to his son Tamim, which is the current King of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
1971, with the partition of India and Pakistan in and Egypt leaving British control, the Gulf region became less important in the British defense. As early as 1968, the British announced that they would give up control of the Gulf countries in the next three years, of course, limited to political control rather than economics. Later, Qatar and Bahrain joined the major alliance formed by seven other emirates. Due to opposition from domestic tribes, Qatar eventually withdrew from this alliance, which eventually evolved into the current UAE. Then in 1971, Britain gave up its political control over Qatar, and on September 1, Qatar held its founding ceremony, becoming a sovereign and independent country. (In fact, without the oil economy, the British were too lazy to invest too much energy in Qatar.)
After Qatar became independent, the nationalization process immediately started, but due to the national strength issue, this nationalization progressed quite slowly. It was not until the outbreak of the Fourth Middle East War in 1973 that it brought opportunities to the nationalization of Qatar's oil.
In October 1973, the Fourth Middle East War (also known as Yom Kippur War ) broke out. In order to fight Israel and its supporters (I won’t name who it is), the angry Arab countries launched an oil embargo on Western countries and raised the price of crude oil from $3.011 to $10.651, while the national oil price quadrupled in the following five months, triggering the worst global economic crisis since World War II.
Occupy oil giants suddenly found that they were no longer facing any country, but a group of Arab leagues holding the card of life and death of oil. During this crisis, the oil countries in the Gulf region have basically nationalized the oil companies with the support of the alliance!
Then Qatar began a rapid stage of oil industry development, using oil revenue (natural gas revenue in the 1990s) and Qatar achieved industrial renewal. The small thatched huts in the past were replaced by skyscrapers, and various infrastructures were built. With the prosperity of Qatar, Qatar people enjoyed free medical and educational conditions, and a large number of foreign workers also flocked to Qatar (I don’t know what those people who migrated thirty or forty years ago felt).
According to the latest data, Qatar, with a total population of 2.658 million, only 15% of Qatar have Qatar's citizenship, accounting for 398,700. Most Qataris do not need to work because most of the jobs are handled by foreign workers. In 1960, Qatar enacted a law to grant citizenship only to those living in Qatar before 1930 and their descendants. In 1964, all industries and enterprises in Qatar must be at least 51% of the shares of by Qatar, so we don’t have to worry about Qatar being diluted and controlled by foreign workers.
Doha night view
. Qatar in the new era continued to continue his ancestors' foreign policy. On the one hand, it maintained a neutral policy in regional affairs and maintained contact with various factions of Middle East . Doha is the only place where guests can be visited by Israel, Fatah , Hamas and even Taliban . Qatar plays an important role in regional affairs.On the other hand, Qatar adhered to the foreign policy of Mohammed holding Britain's thighs, and was close to the United States internationally, relying on the protection of the United States to exert its influence in regional affairs.
Since this article mainly talks about the rise of Qatar, there is no discussion on the current analysis of the political situation in Qatar. In short, we know that the West needs Qatar, and Qatar also needs the West, but Qatar belongs to the Arabs.
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