Forum on Al Khalifa in Qatar Peninsula broadens horizons at Four Seasons Hotel, Bahrain

The Kingdom of Bahrain recently hosted a key forum that highlighted significant historic facts related to the sovereignty of lands in the region, specifically focusing on Zubarah territory located on the western coast of the Qatar peninsula. Organized by the Bahrain Centre for Strategic and International and Energy Studies (Derasat), the forum was titled “Al Khalifa Rule in the Qatari Peninsula: History and Sovereignty” and shed light on the rule of the Al Khalifa family and their sovereignty on the Qatari Peninsula in the 1700s. The one-day event included three main discussions, which were “Al-Zubarah, Capital of Al Khalifa in the Qatari Peninsula and the Islands of Bahrain”, “the Rebellion on the Al Khalifa Legitimacy in the Qatari Peninsula” and “the Qatari Invasion of the Dibal in 1986”.  A wide range of well-known historians, politicians and intellectuals in the Gulf region attended the forum, which underlined the rule of the Al Khalifa family on the Qatar Peninsula and how they established their presence in Zubarah, which subsequently became a major trading hub in the Arabian Gulf and a center of influence and strategic importance.

Derasat Board of trustees, Chairman Dr. Shaikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa affirmed in an interview with Bahrain Now on the sidelines of the forum that it focuses on an important historical phase of the Arabian Gulf region, which is the Al Khalifa rule and their sovereignty on the Qatari Peninsula since the establishment of the Al Khalifa State in the Zubarah in 1762. “The forum reveals truths and highlights the achievements of the Al Khalifa rule on the Qatari Peninsula and the Islands of Bahrain. The Al Khalifa State, with Zubarah as its capital, fulfilled crucial internal and international duties and made history whose echoes still reverberate now and will always be present. The forum also highlights key issues, shedding light particularly on the family tree (genealogy) of the Al Khalifa dynasty, their movement from the Arabian Peninsula to the Qatari Peninsula, the establishment of the Al Khalifa State which won the allegiance of the tribes in the region,” added Dr. Shaikh Abdulla. Six recommendations were announced by the end of the forum, including:

1. The establishment of a specialized committee to lay bare the crimes of the oppressive Al Thani occupation of the sovereign Bahraini territories in different international arenas and debunk any attempt to falsify facts or erase them from the historical annals.
2. Take the necessary steps to reinstate rights to the descendants of people who were disposed and displaced by the Al-Thani rulers in 1937, targeting the inhabitants of Zubarah, particularly the Al-Naim tribe – which amounts to warm crimes, invasion and forced displacement in light of the international law which stipulates in its provisions material and moral compensation.
3. The acts perpetrated by the Qatari regime to change the facts on the ground in the Zubarah and the remove the material heritage represent a universal humanitarian crime which has no statute of limitations.
4. The Qatari regime shall put an end to all hostile acts against the Kingdom of Bahrain, through support terrorism, media campaigns and selective naturalization, pay compensation to the families of the innocent victims and the damaged infrastructure and stop looting national resources.
5. Calling on national educational, media and cultural institutions to focus more on the Al Khalifa rule on the Qatari Peninsula, which represents a core part of Bahrain’s national history and source of pride.
6. Calling on researchers, scholars and specialists to exert more efforts in their historical researches to enrich Gulf and Arab and international libraries with detailed and thorough studies that focus on the Rule and Sovereignty of the Al Khalifa Dynasty of the Qatari Peninsula, which represented then a successful model for the establishment of a viable and thriving modern state.