{"id":537404,"date":"2026-07-12T07:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T07:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/537404\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T07:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T07:12:10","slug":"former-emir-of-qatar-sheikh-hamad-bin-khalifa-al-thani-dies-at-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/537404\/","title":{"rendered":"Former emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, dies at 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

Qatar’s former emir, who revolutionized Qatar<\/a> out of its Bedouin<\/a> background to a regional powerhouse, has died at the age of 74, the nation’s Amiri Diwan, its top government body, said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani ruled Qatar from 1995 to 2013, before abdicating to his son Sheikh Tamim, the current leader of the gas-rich Gulf country<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The Amiri Diwan announced the death of HH the Father Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani on Sunday morning. May Allah have mercy on his soul and grant him the best reward for what he achieved for his homeland and nation,” the Diwan said.<\/p>\n

Sheikh Hamad had elevated Qatar’s global profile through, in addition to other factors, its successful bid to host the 2022 soccer World Cup<\/a> tournament.<\/p>\n

The US-allied state is small, with more than 2.5 million people, but is the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, a global investment powerhouse and heavy hitter in Middle East diplomacy and international media.<\/p>\n

Sheikh Hamad handed power to his son, the then crown prince, in June 2013 in a rare abdication by a hereditary Gulf Arab ruler, to try to ensure a smooth succession. He himself had overthrown his father in a bloodless coup in 1995.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Qatar’s former emir, who revolutionized Qatar out of its Bedouin background to a regional powerhouse, has died at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[132794,35319,83420,42,43,1823,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-537404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-emir-sheikh-tamim-bin-hamad-al-thani","tag-gulf","tag-gulf-states","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-qatar","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}