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House of Khalifa آل خليفة
Royal house
Lesser coat of arms of Bahrain
Parent house	House of Utbah
Country	Bahrain
Founded	1766; 258 years ago (1766)
Founder	Khalifa bin Mohammed
Current head	Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa
Titles	King of Bahrain Emir of Bahrain Hakim of Bahrain Crown Prince of Bahrain Sheikh

The House of Khalifa (Arabic: آل خليفة, romanized: Āl Khalīfah) is the ruling family of the Kingdom of Bahrain. The Al Khalifas profess Sunni Islam and belong to the Anizah tribe. Some members of this tribe joined the Utub alliance which migrated from Najd in central Arabia to Kuwait, then ruled all of Qatar, more specifically Al Zubarah, which they built and ruled over before settling in Bahrain in the early 17th century. The current head of the family is King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, who became the Emir of Bahrain in 1999 and proclaimed himself King of Bahrain in 2002, in fact becoming a constitutional monarch.

As of 2010, roughly half of the serving cabinet ministers of Bahrain were members of the Al Khalifa royal family, while the country's Prime Minister, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, is also from the Al Khalifa family and is the son of the current King.

History

Bahrain fell under the control of Ahmed ibn Muhammad ibn Khalifa in 1783, following the defeat of Nasr Al-Madhkur who ruled the archipelago as a dependency of Persia (see Bani Utbah invasion of Bahrain). Ahmed ruled Bahrain as hakim until 1796, but was based in Zubarah (in modern-day Qatar) and spent summers in Bahrain. Ahmed was the first hakim of Bahrain and the progenitor of the ruling Al Khalifa family of Bahrain. All of the Al Khalifa rulers of Bahrain are his descendants.

Ahmed had four children. Following his death in 1796, two of his sons, Salman and Abdulla, moved to Bahrain, and co-ruled it as feudal estates and imposed taxes on the indigenous Baharnah population. Salman settled in Bahrain Island and Abdulla in Muharraq Island, each ruling independently. The Al Khalifa soon became split into two branches, Al-Abdulla and Al-Salman that engaged in open conflict between 1842 and 1846. The Al-Salman branch was victorious and enjoyed complete rule of Bahrain. Until 1869, Bahrain was under threat of occupation by various external powers including the Wahhabis, Omanis, Ottomans, Egyptians and Persians, yet the Al Khalifa managed to keep it under their control. The Al-Abdulla branch continued to be a cause of threat until 1895. Today, Abdulla ibn Ahmad Al Khalifa descendants live in Qatar, while Salman ibn Ahmad Al Khalifa's descendants live in Bahrain.

List of Al Khalifa rulers of Bahrain

Since 1783, the Al Khalifa have been rulers of Bahrain:

Family tree

Ruling Family Council

Decisions pertaining to the Al Khalifa family, as well as disputes between family members are arbitrated by the Ruling Family Council (Arabic: مجلس العائلة الحاكمة). The council attends to internal family disputes particularly those related to appropriation of land, sale of real estate and other properties. Members of the ruling family are not allowed to refer these or other disputes to ordinary law courts.

Relations between the political leadership and the rest of the "rank and file" members of the Al Khalifa ruling family have been formally managed by the council since 1932. However, on the eve of the 1973 parliamentary elections, then the Amir Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa issued a decree restructuring the Ruling Family Council to become a formal organ of the state, and giving the administrative head of the council the rank of minister.

The Ruling Family Council is chaired by King Hamad, its deputy chairman is Mohammed bin Khalifa bin Hamad Al Khalifa, and the director general is Ibrahim bin Khalid bin Mohammed Al Khalifa.

The King appoints the members of the board of the Ruling Family Council as recognised representatives of various kingship lines and factional alliances within the Al Khalifa family.

Transcription

Al Khalifa is commonly mistranscribed al-Khalifa. The Al (آل) written with the long (madda) alif is unconnected to the following word and means house, in the sense of family or dynasty, and is not the definite article particle al- 'Al' can also mean 'of'.

Cabinet ministers

As of 2024, 4 out of 25 serving cabinet ministers of Bahrain were members of the Al Khalifa royal family.

• Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Prime Minister, The Crown Prince, and Deputy Supreme Commander
• Shaikh Khalid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, Deputy Prime Minister
• Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, Minister of Interior
• Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Finance and National Economy

Notable people

• Shaikha Dheya bint Ebrahim Al Khalifa, royal family member and President of the Riyada Group of Companies

Controversies

The King of Bahrain, King Al Khalifa was responsible for attacks on protesters during the Arab Spring. He and the Bahraini government were condemned both locally and overseas. He later enlisted the help of nearby Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

See also

• List of Arabian Houses

Notes

1. The year the family settled in Zubarah. The first ruler from the family took over in 1783.
2. Inter-Al Khalifa conflicts within Bahrain began in 1828 and lasted until 1869.

References

1. "History of the Ruling Family of Bahrain". Archived from the original on 10 November 2010. Retrieved 10 October 2010.
2. Bahrain Shia demand cabinet change, Aljazeera.net, 5 March 2010
3. Baumgartner 2008, p. 20.
4. Khuri 1980, pp. 24–31.
5. Littlefield 1964, pp. 6–7.
6. Farah 1985, p. 87.
7. ^ Abdulhadi Khalaf. Contentious Politics in Bahrain, From Ethnic to National and Vice Versa. The Fourth Nordic Conference on Middle Eastern Studies: The Middle East in a Globalizing World, Oslo, 13–16 August 1998. Archived from the original on 6 August 2011. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
8. Dominic Moran (7 February 2007). "Sectarian tensions simmer in Bahrain". International Relations and Security Network. The trio's relationship to their primary political support base, the wider royal family, is managed by the Family Council.
9. Hassan Ali Rahdi (2003). Judiciary and Arbitration in Bahrain: A Historical and Analytical Study. BRILL. p. 130. ISBN 978-90-411-2217-9.
10. "HM King Hamad Chairs Ruling Family Council". Bahrain News Agency. 30 March 2011. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
11. "Royal Order No. 23 of the Year 2004 on the Appointment of the Deputy Chairman of the Ruling Family Council". Official Gazette of the Kingdom of Bahrain. 22 May 2004. Archived from the original on 3 August 2012.
12. "Amiri Order No. 69 of the Year 2000 on the Appointment of the Director General of the Ruling Family Council". Official Gazette of the Kingdom of Bahrain. 20 December 2000. Archived from the original on 4 August 2012.
13. "Cabinet". Government of Bahrain. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
14. "Bahrain mourners call for end to monarchy". 18 February 2011.

Works cited

• Baumgartner, Andreas (October 2008). Bahrain – a showcase for political reform in the Middle East? (PDF) (MSc thesis). University of Vienna. Retrieved 2 June 2014.
• Farah, Talal Toufic (1985). Protection and politics in Bahrain, 1869-1915. American University of Beirut. ISBN 978-0-8156-6074-3.
• Khuri, Fuad Ishaq (1980). Tribe and state in Bahrain: The transformation of social and political authority in an Arab state. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-43473-5.
• Littlefield, Richard E. (1964). Bahrain as a Persian Gulf State: With References to Its Relations with Great Britain and the Province of Al-Hasa (MSc thesis). Beirut: American University of Beirut.

External links

• Bahrain: The Ruling Family of Al Khalifah, A. de L. Rush, Archive Editions, 1991
• Cabinet of Bahrain
• Genealogy of the Al Khalifa
• Rulers.org – Bahrain List of rulers for Bahrain
• "Royal Family of Bahrain Website". Royal Families of the World. Archived from the original on 5 August 2019. Retrieved 17 January 2020.

v t e Monarchs of Bahrain
Ahmed bin Muhammad bin Khalifa (1783–1796) Abdullah bin Ahmad Al Khalifa (1796–1843) Muhammad bin Khalifa Al Khalifa (1834–1869) Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa (1869–1932) Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa (1932–1942) Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa (1942–1961) Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa (1961–1999) Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa (1999–present)
Succession to the Bahraini throne

• House of Khalifa
• Rabi`ah
• Bahraini monarchy
• Arab dynasties