Sheikh Ḥamad ibn ʿIsā Āl Khalīfah

king of Bahrain


Ḥamad’s childhood was spent in Bahrain, then a British protectorate. Following his designation as crown prince in 1964, he completed his education in the United Kingdom, attending The Leys School, Cambridge, and then Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot. In 1968 Ḥamad returned to Bahrain, where he participated in the founding of the Bahrain Defense Force and served as its head. He became minister of defense when Bahrain declared its independence in 1971. Ḥamad received further military training in the United States in the early 1970s. As minister of defense, he oversaw the expansion of Bahrain’s armed forces and was especially involved in the formation of Bahrain’s air force.

As emir, Ḥamad made efforts to improve Bahrain’s relations with Qatar, strained by a long-running territorial dispute over the Ḥawār Islands. The initiation of high-level official contacts between the two countries in 1999 led to the resolution of the dispute in 2001.

Ḥamad also implemented some domestic reforms, releasing many political prisoners and repealing the State Security Law, which had given the government wide powers of arrest and detention. In late 2000 he directed the drafting of the National Action Charter, which articulated the goals of establishing an elected parliament and a constitutional monarchy in Bahrain. It was overwhelmingly approved by a national referendum in 2001. In 2002 Ḥamad promulgated a new constitution that declared Bahrain a constitutional monarchy and gave Ḥamad the title of king. Although the 2002 constitution contained provisions guaranteeing Bahrainis’ civil rights without discrimination based on religion or sex, it did little to advance political reform, creating a weak parliament and leaving governing authority in the hands of the king and the royal family. Sectarian and political tension remained high in Bahrain in spite of Ḥamad’s reforms, and demonstrations by human rights activists and members of Bahrain’s marginalized Shīʿite majority occurred frequently from 2004 to 2010.

Ḥamad’s rule was challenged in February 2011 when demonstrators inspired by pro-democracy uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt began staging large rallies in Bahrain to call for political and economic reform and protest discrimination against the Shīʿite community. When two protesters were killed by police, Ḥamad gave a televised address to express regret over the deaths and vowed that the government would continue to introduce reform gradually. However, Bahraini security forces continued to violently suppress demonstrations, attracting criticism from human rights groups and some foreign leaders. In March Bahrain invited a force of 2,000 soldiers from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to help quell unrest.

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