Qatar Emir's Mother Speaks Out over Treatment of Muslims by the West

Zaha Hadid 9left) and Sheikha Moza.

THE GUARDIAN: Sheikha Moza bint Nasser al-Missned, one of most influential women in the Arab world, attacks ‘double standards’, comparing Charlie Hebdo with Chapel Hill

Muslims face dehumanisation when western countries apply double standards, the wife of the former emir of Qatar has warned in an unusual and critical public intervention from a senior royal in a wealthy Gulf state.

Sheikha Moza bint Nasser al-Missned, one of the most influential and high-profile women in the Arab world, also questioned distinctions between “moderate” or “liberal” and “conservative” Muslims and insisted that it was wrong to say that Islam was “stuck in medieval times”.

“Why is it that world leaders gathered to march in defence of Charlie Hebdo, while the Chapel Hill murders were shrugged off as a parking dispute?” she asked, in a reference to the killing of three Muslim students in North Carolina in February. She was speaking at St Antony’s College, Oxford, on Tuesday.

“At the same time we are confronted with double standards. Why is it that apologies are offered when Europeans are mistakenly killed by drones but only silence follows when innocent Yemeni and Pakistani children and civilians are killed by the same drones? Why do Muslim lives seem to matter less than the lives of others? If they matter at all. I believe this dehumanisation is cultivated through a process of Muslim-phobia.” » | Ian Black Middle East editor | Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Cheikha Moza, aux limites de "l'islamiquement correct"

LE MONDE: LE CAIRE, CORRESPONDANCE - "Comment peut-on sincèrement parler de la participation politique des femmes au Moyen- Orient où elles sont devenues un produit cyniquement utilisé pour servir de caution à des régimes dans lesquels elles n'ont aucun pouvoir réel ?". Celle qui s'exprime ainsi, en mai 2007, devant les étudiants de l'Université Rice de Houston (Texas), n'est pas une militante féministe occidentale. Celle qui se cabre, gracile à son pupitre, avec un sourire de défi, n'est autre que la cheikha Moza Bint Nasser Al-Misnad, deuxième des trois épouses de l'émir du Qatar, la seule à paraître en public.

Les Qataris ont découvert cheikha Moza à la télévision un soir de 2003, aux côtés de son époux, le cheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa Al-Thani. Devenue depuis la meilleure VRP du richissime petit émirat, elle sillonne le monde pour prêcher la bonne parole du "dialogue des cultures" et de "l'alliance des civilisations". Elle défend à longueur de conférences les intérêts de son mari, en donnant des gages de sa propre indépendance. Car au-delà de son discours consensuel, la première dame du Qatar est une personnalité complexe et ambiguë.

Son parcours est celui d'une femme traditionnelle du Golfe issue d'un milieu aisé et mère de sept enfants. Celle que ses biographes font naître au Qatar à la fin des années 1950 sans plus de précision est la fille du plus célèbre opposant à la dynastie au pouvoir, Nasser Al-Misnad, décédé en 2007. Diplômée en sociologie à l'Université du Qatar, elle est mariée à 18 ans dans le cadre d'un arrangement politique. Il a permis au futur émir de se réconcilier avec le clan des Al-Misnad qui avait été exilé au Koweït après s'être illustré dans des grèves historiques dans les années 1950. Une fois son époux parvenu au pouvoir, à la faveur du coup d'Etat de 1995, elle a su asseoir son influence au sein de la famille régnante et s'impliquer au grand jour dans la vie politique de l'Emirat. » | Cahier Géo&Politique du "Monde", daté du dimanche 20 - lundi 21 novembre 2011

Qatar: A Tiny State with Global Ambitions
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The Emir of Qatar, who is on a three-day state visit, owns large slices of London and has £50 billion in the bank – but there are clouds on the horizon. Richard Spencer reports.

Sheikha Mozah, the [sic] wife of Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Photo: The Daily Telegraph
This year, a small peninsula jutting out of Saudi Arabia into the Gulf has been the subject of a Chelsea planning row that turned into a constitutional crisis. It has bought Harrods and it has threatened to buy Christie’s. And this week its flamboyantly dressed rulers dined with Her Majesty. If you hadn’t heard of Qatar before, you certainly will have now.

Looking at pictures of the statuesque Emir of Qatar (the emphasis is on the first vowel, by the way), and his even more statuesque wife, they seem perfectly at home in London. There’s a reason for that. His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, to give him his full title, owns large parts of it. There’s Harrods, of course, but Qatar also owns significant chunks of other real estate including One Hyde Park Square, a share of Canary Wharf, the Chelsea Barracks development – whose designs the Prince of Wales asked the Emir to alter – and the US Embassy building in Grosvenor Square.

But home is more than buildings: it is about history, relations and community, and on all of these, this country also passes with flying colours.

The emirate’s history started with Britain: it is how it came into being. While many of the Gulf emirates, from Dubai to Kuwait, were once protectorates, the al-Thani family has particular reason to be grateful. The British, always with an eye to making new friends for sound strategic reasons, intervened in the middle of the 19th century in a regional feud involving the ruling family of neighbouring Bahrain. We employed a local merchant to negotiate a settlement. Out of the settlement, somewhat mysteriously, was formed a new statelet; its name was Qatar. The negotiator, one Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani, became its ruler. His descendants have run the place ever since.

Hardly surprisingly, the ties with Britain remained strong, even after independence in 1971. Good relations were maintained when, like many Gulf princes, the Emir trained at Sandhurst – always a good place to learn the art of international contact-building, as well as international warfare. He cemented the family’s place in the British establishment by giving his son a traditional public-school education. Because of its record in taking well-connected foreign pupils for whom English was a second language, he chose the West Country school Sherborne for the boy who is now the Crown Prince. The family grew to love the place, nestling amid the hills and honey-coloured hamstone cottages of Dorset. So the Emir did what any self-respecting monarch would do: he paid it to set up a branch back home, and Sherborne School Qatar opened last year. Read on and comment >>> Richard Spencer | Thursday, October 28, 2010

Prince Philip and the Sheikha

MAIL ONLINE: He is a mere eight months shy of his 90th birthday. But when it comes to the art of flirting, there is little doubt Prince Philip can still put a younger man to shame.

The Duke of Edinburgh enjoyed a playful exchange with the statuesque wife of the Emir of Qatar during her state visit to Windsor Castle.

Glancing at a collection of memorabilia from a trip to the Arab state in 1979, the Duke said to his glamorous guest: ‘It’s quite a long time ago. You weren’t born then, were you?’

Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al-Missned, who was in fact born in 1959, answered with a coy smile: ‘Yes, I wasn’t born.’

The Duke also appeared to pay her curvaceous figure an admiring glance as she entered a state banquet with her husband. Philip, you old flirt! The Duke turns into Prince Charming as he meets the statuesque first lady of Qatar >>> Fay Schlesinger | Wednesday, October 27, 2010

A View from the Top of Qatari Society: Sheikha Mozah Speaks to Ian Black
Photo courtesy of The Guardian
THE GUARDIAN: With freedoms and opportunities unavailable elsewhere in the region, the people of Qatar have no need of extremism, Sheikha Mozah of the Gulf state tells Ian Black

Sipping sweet Arabic coffee from a delicate porcelain cup, one of the most influential women in the Middle East is pondering the challenges of reconciling globalisation, identity and tradition, explaining how one small country is facing its future - and how to build bridges between civilisations.

Walter Bagehot, the 19th-century British constitutional thinker, would have recognised what he called the "mystique of monarchy" in Sheikha Mozah, the consort (and second of three wives) of the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. But alongside the visible trappings of power, wealth and style, there is a remarkable sense, too, of intellectual rigour, of a woman thinking hard about youth, education and the troubled relations between Islam and the west.

Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned is unveiled and unusual - a sociology graduate and force for modernisation on the edge of a deeply conservative peninsula. Her high-profile role at home is matched by regular appearances abroad: hence her visit to London this week to receive the prestigious Chatham House prize for international relations, with Prince Andrew on hand at a City banquet to present it.

The difficulty for Qatar, she explains in a wide-ranging conversation at her discreetly opulent Surrey mansion, has been to advance socially without being swept away on the homogenising tide of global change.

"We were confused. Our youth were very close to losing their identity," she says. "We needed something that could be acceptable to young minds and also be part of our heritage and culture."

The emirate is a lucky little place. Its oil and gas reserves generate a whopping per capita annual income of $63,000 (£32,000), placing it among the world's wealthiest countries. The capital, Doha, is a booming cityscape of cranes, glittering towers, five-star hotels and shopping malls. All that is serviced by an army of expats who far outnumber the 250,000 Qatari natives, whose grandparents lived in a world of pearl-divers, falconry and camel racing.

The Qatar Investment Authority is close to buying Sainsbury's, and Qatar Airways is a byword for luxury. There is enough spare cash to spend an enviable 2.8% of GDP on research and development.

"The physical landscape has changed but the real difference is in people's minds, in their style of thinking," says Sheikha Mozah. "Pride and confidence allow them to be open to the rest of the world without hesitation. Now they feel they are part of this process [of change], and they feel responsibility. If you want to achieve a prosperous society, you need that. And I like to think we have achieved that." The satisfaction guarantee (more) By Ian Black

Mark Alexander