QATAR: The Sheik Steps Down

Miserable little Qatar (pop. 35,000), a sun-seared knuckle of sand and stone jutting into the Persian Gulf, was a latecomer in the Middle East oil boom. But when oil poured out in 1949 and the gold started pouring in, wizened old (69) Sheik Ali bin Abdullah bin Qasim Al Thani had no trouble adjusting his spending habits to those of the other sheiks of Araby.

At Doha, capital of Qatar (pronounced gutter), gaudy pink, green and gold palaces sprang up around the huddle of malodorous mud hovels; one vast pile, reserved for the visiting heads of state, was equipped with air conditioning and window curtains operated by pushbuttons; the outside walls of the Sheik’s own palace were studded with bare light bulbs that went on by night even when the Sheik was away, which was more often than not.

Cars for Jewels. Discovering Switzerland, Ali took to spending summers near the Alps to beat the heat (around 120° from April to October) at home. To get there, he chartered airliners for himself and his retinue, which was so large that it spilled out of the Sheik’s palatial villa on the shores of Lake Geneva into hotels near by, where the damage to furnishings one season amounted to $20,000. And when the cool weather arrived up north, the whole entourage would flee across the Mediterranean to Ali’s magnificent mansion on the heights above Beirut, purchased from a Saudi sheik for a reported $1,000,000.

Foreign merchants awaited his trips with anticipation, for the aging Sheik was a generous man. When Saudi Arabia’s King Saud went to Qatar for a royal visit laden with gifts in the form of bags of precious stones, Sheik Ali reciprocated by presenting Saud with 16 automobiles, one with gold fittings.

But as Ali’s generosity grew, so did his debts (about $14 million at last count) with Doha’s local bankers; he just could not make ends meet, even though he got $12.5 million from Qatar’s $50 million annual oil revenue. Soon Qatar’s anxious bankers were backing young (30) Sheik Khalifa bin Hamad, Ali’s nephew, who thought he was in line for the throne, and was pressing the old man to step down. The British, who watch over Qatar as a protectorate, took a hand when they detected signs of simmering insurrection among the Sheik’s long-suffering subjects.

All Expenses Paid. Last week the rheumatic old man yielded. Calling in the family council of 400 Al Thani males, the Sheik abdicated in favor of his son Ahmed, 40. But word was passed that all the decisions in the new regime will be made by Khalifa as new Crown Prince, who is determined that more of the state’s revenues will be channeled into public-welfare projects. Celebrating, the Al Thanis feasted on lamb and rice, and Qatar’s bankers and merchants flocked in to congratulate the old man, and wish his successor well. Everyone was happy when the new advisory council agreed to pay old Ali’s debts out of state revenue and give him an annual pension big enough to continue his travels abroad, provided he cuts his retinue to a mere handful of servants and wives.