He is 42 years old, has three wives and thirteen children, heir to the dynasty that runs this extremely rich country that has made the World Cup its best showcase.
When the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hammad Al Thani, entered the Doha stadium with his 1.94 meter height and the black bisht with gold trimmings of the great Arab occasions, to inaugurate the 2022 World Cup, it was difficult to escape of his figure, known for the enormous family fortune and for promoting the reputation of the wealthy desert nation through sports. At that moment his great project came true. There he was, in the midst of the human rights controversy, opening the event that brings together the most people in the world, which has been described as the most expensive World Cup in history, the first held in the Middle East.
The Al Thani royal family is little known in the West. It does not have the thousand-year-old tradition of other Arab dynasties, it does not descend from the Prophet Muhammad, it has been in power only since the 19th century. but it distributes among its members the billions of dollars coming from the oil and gas of the nation ranked as the third largest producer on the planet.
Tamin bin Hammad took up the trill when his father abdicated in 2013. He was 33 years old
Tamim bin Hamad, 42, is the head of the royal house and the internationally recognized figure for his multi-million dollar investments. His father, Sheikh Hamad, abdicated in 2013, breaking the tradition whereby four-generation emirs rose to power in a coup. Tamim is the ninth of the dynasty and he reached the throne thanks to the fact that his older brother Jassim renounced that right. His knowledge of the West comes from his education in England where he attended prestigious institutions such as Sherborne School, Harrow School and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the same one where Prince William, heir to the English crown, also received his military training.
He has three wives and thirteen children. His father was 23. The Islamic law that governs the Qatari absolute monarchy allows having up to four wives, as long as you have the resources to support them all equally. Among the thirteen children, seven boys and six girls, the current emir must choose the successor when they come of age. The whole family spends the summer holidays together, and on luxurious yachts they often visit the island of Majorca. In 2016 they arrived in the Al Mirqab of 133 meters in length, and this year in the Al Lausail of 500 million euros.
The first time that the sheikha did not wear a veil on her head was during her visit to Spain this year
his first wife, Jawaher bint Hamad bin Suhaim Al Thani, is his second cousin, and following tradition was chosen by his mother. She serves as first lady, she accompanies him on state trips, to Spain this year, and to Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in London. He married her in 2005 and has two sons and two daughters. She is a sports fan, she supports the female athletes of her country and she caused a media stir throughout the region by not covering her head with the veil at the reception of King Felipe VI.
His second wife, whom he married in 2009 and has five children, is Al-Anoud bint Mana Al Hajri, daughter of the former Qatari ambassador to Jordan. The third and last, recognized for her beauty, is Noora bint Hathal Al Dosari, with whom he has four children.
The emir’s wives pale before the figure of their mother. She is truly an iconic figure of the royal house of Qatar. Moza bint Nasser al-Missned, the favorite among her father’s three wives, has been cataloged in the specialized press as one of the most elegant women in the world, and they have compared her charm with that of Jacqueline Kennedy. She is a doctor Honorary by five universities, including Georgetown, she moves like a fish in water on her visits to the United States and on television sets, she does not neglect the smallest detail in the interviews she grants, she has been sent by Unesco, and presides over Fashion Trust Arabia, which promotes Arab fashion. In 2010 she was ranked 74th among the 100 most powerful women in the world, according to Forbes, for his participation in the country’s social reform. She has 859K followers on Instagram, more than 900 posts, and her own website.
Wench bint Nasser al-Missned, the emir’s mother, is the iconic figure of the royal house
The emir’s sister, Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, is another international protagonist. Her hobby is art. Every year she buys works for a billion dollars, she says Vanity Fair, among them a Gaugin in 2015, and came to be named by Art Review as the most powerful in the world artistic panorama.
In this dance of millions moves the royal family in which all the children and grandchildren receive the title of sheikh, which make up about 3,000 people —others say 6,000— and only these receive 70% of the profits from the wells. oil and gas.
The family fortune is estimated at around 450,000 million dollars according to the British press, only in England it has more than 4,000 property titles, and The Guardian maintains that they own more property in London than the British royal family. There they have the luxurious Ritz and Savoy hotels, and the emblematic Harrods store. At the end of the last century, the new country showed the world the Al-Jazeera chain, the airline Qatar Airways, and the sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, which in 2005 began to operate in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Managed by the royal family, it has shares on the London Stock Exchange, Volkswagen and Porsche, Tiffany jewelers (which they sold to Bernard Arnault for 15.8 billion in 2021), the Hollywood studio Miramax, and participates in British Airways, Barclays banks and Credit Suisse, and the English Court, among many companies around the planet.
In sports, inversions are very striking. They are called Paris Saint-Germain, or sponsorship of Barca, or media players like James Rodríguez, or the World Athletics Championships in 2019, or the World Swimming Championships in 2024. And the cherry on the cake: the 2022 Soccer World Cup