The music of Qatar is based on sea folk poetry, song and dance. Traditional dances in Doha are performed on Friday afternoons; one such dance is the Ardah, a stylized martial dance performed by two rows of dancers who are accompanied by an array of percussion instruments, including al-ras, tambourines and cymbals with small drums. Other folk instruments include the oud and rebaba, both string instruments, as well as the ney.
Khawr al Udayd, is a settlement and inlet of the Persian Gulf located in Al Wakrah Municipality in southeast Qatar, on the border with Saudi Arabia. It is known to local English speakers as the "Inland Sea". In the past it accommodated a small town and served as the center of a long-running territorial dispute between Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani and Sheikh Zayed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan. At the present, it is a major tourist destination for Qatar.
The culture of Qatar is strongly influenced by traditional Bedouin culture, with less acute influence deriving from India, East Africa and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. The peninsula's harsh climatic conditions compelled its inhabitants to turn to the sea for sustenance. Thus, there is a distinct emphasis placed on the sea in local culture. Literature and folklore themes are often related to sea-based activities.
The Al Qasimi is an Arab dynasty in the Persian Gulf that rules Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah, today forming two of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates. They are one of the longest reigning royal families in the Arabian peninsula.
Doha is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khur, it is home to most of the country's population. It is also Qatar's fastest growing city, with over 80% of the nation's population living in Doha or its surrounding suburbs.
Qatar is an Islamic state with multi-religious minorities like most of the Persian Gulf countries with waves of migration over the last 30 years. The official state religion is Sunni Islam. The community is made up of Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and small groups of Buddhists and Baha’is. Muslims form 65.5% of the Qatari population, followed by Hindus at 15.4%, Christians at 14.2%, Buddhists at 3.3% and the rest 1.9% of the population follow other religions or are unaffiliated. Qatar is also home to numerous other religions mostly from the Middle East and Asia.
Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is the sister of Qatar's ruling Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and daughter of the country's Father Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his second wife Moza bint Nasser Al-Missned. Al-Mayassa was declared the most influential person in art on Art+Auction's top-10 list and ArtReview's Power 100, and prominently appears on the Time 100, and Forbes' The World's 100 Most Powerful Women. She was listed in the 'Top 100 most powerful Arabs' from 2014 to 2017 and 2021 by Gulf Business. Al-Mayassa serves as Chairperson of Qatar Museums, and it was reported by Bloomberg that her annual acquisition budget on behalf of the organization is estimated at $1 billion.
The Qatari-Bahraini War, also known as the Qatari War of Independence, was an armed conflict that took place between 1867 and 1868 in the Persian Gulf. The conflict pitted Bahrain and Abu Dhabi against Qatar. The conflict was the most flagrant violation of the 1835 maritime truce, requiring British intervention. The two emirates agreed to a truce, mediated by the United Kingdom, which led to Britain recognizing the Al-Thani family of Qatar as the semi-independent ruler of Qatar. The conflict resulted in wide-scale destruction in both emirates.
Hasan Tawfiq was an Egyptian poet, literary critic and journalist. He belongs to the third wave of the Arabic and Egyptian literary movement known as "The New Poetry." A major part of Tawfiq's poems consist of free verses. Tawfiq was known in the Arab world as a journalist and in Egypt he worked for some time as editor-in-chief of the Ar-Raya journal. Tawfiq wrote articles for the "Culture" section of the Qatar-based Ash-Sharq journal. The literary alias of Tawfiq is "Magnoon al-Arab." It derives from a Middle Eastern tragic love story, Majnun and Layla.
Al Raya is an Arabic daily newspaper published in Doha, Qatar. It is semi-official newspaper of the country and is one of the five leading Qatari dailies. As for Arabic dailies published in the country Al Raya is among the three major newspapers along with Al Sharq and Al Watan.
Al Arab was the first Arabic daily following the independence of Qatar. It was printed between 1972 and 1995 and was relaunched on 18 November 2007 as an e-newspaper which is based in Doha, Qatar.
Al Sharq is an Arabic pro-government daily newspaper published in Doha, Qatar. The paper is one of the three leading Arabic newspapers in the country in addition to Al Raya and Al Watan.
Piracy in the Persian Gulf describes the naval warfare that was prevalent until the 19th century and occurred between seafaring Arabs in Eastern Arabia and the British Empire in the Persian Gulf. It was perceived as one of the primary threats to global maritime trade routes, particularly those with significance to British India and Iraq. Many of the most notable historical instances of these raids were conducted by the Al Qasimi tribe. This led to the British mounting the Persian Gulf campaign of 1809, a major maritime action launched by the Royal Navy to bombard Ras Al Khaimah, Lingeh and other Al Qasimi ports. The current ruler of Sharjah, Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi argues in his book The Myth of Piracy in the Gulf that the allegations of piracy were exaggerated by the Honourable East India Company to cut off untaxed trade routes between the Middle East and India.
The mass media in Qatar relays information and data in Qatar by means of television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines and the internet. Qatar has established itself as a leading regional figure in mass media over the past decade. Al Jazeera, a global news network which was established in 1996, has become the foundation of the media sector. The country uses media to brand itself and raise its international profile.
Nasser Al-Othman is a Qatari journalist and author. He formerly directed the Culture and Arts Department, a now-defunct governmental agency which supervised Qatar's cultural development. He also served as editor in chief of daily newspaper Al Raya and has been attributed with the creation of Qatar's first radio station.
Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari is a Qatari diplomat and politician. Dr. Al-Kuwari serves as State Minister with rank of Deputy Prime Minister. He is currently President of Qatar National Library and was formerly the Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage of Qatar (2008-2016). He was previously the Ambassador of Qatar to France, the United States, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the UN. Dr. Al-Kuwari was a candidate in 2017 election of the Director-General of UNESCO. He is married and the father of three children.
Kaltham Jaber is a Qatari writer and poet. Considered a pioneer among women writers in the country, she was the first Qatari woman to author a collection of short stories, doing so in 1978. This feat also made her the first Qatari woman to publish a major work. She teaches in the Department of Social Sciences at Qatar University.
Qatari literature traces its origins back to the 19th century. Originally, written poetry was the most common form of expression, but poetry later fell out of favor after Qatar began reaping the profits from oil exports in the mid-20th century and many Qataris abandoned their Bedouin traditions in favor of more urban lifestyles.
Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press is a publishing house based in Doha, Qatar. The press was initially managed by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC and was founded as Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) in 2008 until its transition into HBKU Press in 2015. HBKU Press is part of Hamad Bin Khalifa University which is under the wider community of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. It publishes titles that serve both an international audience as well as the larger Arab community publishing fiction, non-fiction, young adult and children's literature, and academic titles. They highlight local Middle Eastern and Qatari narratives and also translate books from other foreign languages into Arabic.
Gamal Kotb. He is an Egyptian visual artist who is famous for his drawings that associated to literary works by a number of Egyptian writers.
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