One of the most photographed countries recently has to be Qatar, because this year's Qatar is the host of the quadrennial World Cup, and it is said that Qatar has spent a lot of money to build a number of football stadiums dedicated to matches in order to host this World Cup, which fully shows that Qatar is a very rich country.
As a world history author, I will not introduce much about the World Cup in sports, and now I want to introduce Qatar and its history.
The State of Qatar, a country in western Asia
Qatar, a country in western Asia, the official name of the country is "State of Qatar", yes, the official name of the country is called the State of Qatar, not the Kingdom of Qatar, the Emirate of Qatar, the Republic of Qatar, etc., The territory covers an area of more than 11,000 square kilometers, the country is located on the Arabian Peninsula on the Qatar Peninsula, adjacent to the Persian Gulf on three sides, with a population of more than 2.6 million, the main ethnic Arabs, the official language Arabic, the implementation of the monarchy as the head of state and head of government of the monarchical absolute monarchy system, the monarchical title emir, the current monarch is the eighth emir of the Al Thani dynasty, Tamim al-Thani, the capital and the largest city Doha, is a very rich capitalist country, with a per capita GDP of more than 60,000 US dollars.
Qatar has no ancient history, at least for two thousand years the Arabs on the peninsula have lived a nomadic tribal life, no state entity, let alone dynastic history, around the 7th century AD was the territory of the Umayyad dynasty of the Arab Empire, and around the 16th century AD it became the territory of the Turkish Ottoman dynasty.
Qatar is located on the Qatar Peninsula
Around the 19th century AD, because of the decline of the Turkish Ottoman dynasty, and the awakening of the Arab national independence idea, the Al-Thani family with greater Qatar power launched the founding war, successfully unified all the tribes on the Qatar peninsula in 1851 AD, the family patriarch Mohammed Al Thani ascended the throne in the same year, the monarchical title Emir, in Arabic means monarch, the same level as the king, the official name is different from now, called the emirate of Qatar, usually the monarchical title is the country of the emir, They were called emirates, and Qatar formed a state entity, ruled by the Al Thani dynasty.
However, although Qatar has established a state, its territory is only a small part of the Qatar Peninsula, after all, it is a small country and widow, and in the wave of European powers establishing world colonies, Qatar can hardly do anything on the world stage.
In addition, Qatar wants to expand its territory in the Arabian Peninsula is impossible, because most of the Arabian Peninsula is the Kingdom of Najd ruled by the Saudi Dynasty, and the Kingdom of Najd later destroyed the Hejaz Kingdom ruled by the Hashemite Dynasty, almost unified the Arabian Peninsula, and developed into today's Saudi Arabia, and there was also the once powerful Aman Said dynasty on the Arabian Peninsula, so the Qatari Al Thani Dynasty was destined to be a small country in a quiet corner, or rely on foreign aid to become a vassal state.
Mohammed, the founding monarch of the Al Thani dynasty of Qatar
Sure enough, the British Hanover dynasty invaded Qatar in 1882 AD, when Britain was the richest and most powerful country in the world, established the largest colonial empire British colonial empire, the result of the invasion can be imagined, the British Hanover dynasty crushed the Qatari Al-Thani dynasty, Qatar was forced to sign an unequal treaty with Britain, reduced to a protectorate, in fact another form of colony, characterized by the preservation of the existing form of government, and the British Hanover dynasty destroyed the Indian Mughal dynasty, The situation was different when India was completely reduced to a British colony.
In the following decades, Qatar was under British control, fortunately with British protection, so it did not hurt to experience World War I and World War II, but Britain did not pay much attention to Qatar, thinking that Qatar was not worth developing and using, so until the end of World War II for one or two decades, Qatar is still a poor and backward country, modern facilities are basically nothing, many Qataris still living tribal life, to put it bluntly, a wild land.
However, poverty returns to poverty, and independence is still an irresistible historical trend. On September 3, 1971, after years of efforts by Qataris, Qatar officially became an independent country from the United Kingdom, and the official name was changed to the State of Qatar, and the Qatari monarch at that time was Ahmed, the fifth emir of the Al Thani dynasty, who made great contributions to the independence of Qatar.
Ahmed, the monarch who contributed to the independence of Qatar
There was also an episode before and after Qatar's independence, when the United Arab Emirates (referred to as the United Arab Emirates, the main component of which is Abu Dhabi, Dubai and other relatively independent monarchical emirates) was about to be formed, and Qatar was originally invited to join, but Qatar refused after consideration, and the island country of Bahrain (referred to as Bahrain), which is across the sea from Qatar, is also in a similar situation.
Qatar was still destitute when it first became independent, because it found a large amount of oil under the ground, and immediately began to develop the oil economy, in just one or two decades, Qatar because of huge oil revenues, from a poor country to a rich country, one after another majestic high-rise buildings seem to be built from the territory of Qatar overnight, the capital Doha instantly became a world-famous international metropolis, now Qatar's per capita GDP has reached more than 60,000 US dollars, in the world can rank among the top, is a veritable country of tycoons.
Doha, the capital of Qatar