Moza bint Nasser

Early life and education

Sheikha Moza is the daughter of Nasser bin Abdullah Al-Missned,a well-known opposition activist and former head of the Al-Muhannada confederation of Bani Hajer. Born in Qatar, she spent much of her childhood in Kuwait during her father's exile following imprisonment for political activities and defiance against the policies of the deposed emir Ahmad bin Ali Al Thani. Nasser returned to Qatar with his immediate family in 1977, the same year Moza married Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the heir apparent of Qatar.Sheikha Moza is the second of his three wives.

Sheikha Moza received a BA in Sociology from Qatar University in 1986, and holds a MA in Public Policy in Islam from Hamad Bin Khalifa University. She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2003. She also holds honorary doctorates from Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon, Imperial College London, and the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

She has had a major role in the opening of US universities in Education City in Doha. Dubbed, “The woman behind Doha’s Education City” as part of Qatar’s soft power strategy on Western universities.

According to a Los Angeles Times investigation published in July 2020, Sheikha Moza's son Khalifa bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was accepted to the University of Southern California (USC) as a transfer student from the community college Los Angeles Mission College after she met USC president C. L. Max Nikias in 2012 in Los Angeles, California, at the behest of USC trustee Thomas J. Barrack Jr.

Areas of work and philanthropy

Sheikha Moza co-founded and chairs the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), which was set up in 1995. She has dedicated her efforts to advancing education reforms in Qatar through the QF. This non-profit organization was established by her husband the same year he assumed the role of emir. Sheikha Moza established Education Above All in 2012, aiming to make education accessible to marginalized children globally.

Sheikha Moza has been vocal in advocating for the protection of education in warzones, and Protect Education in Insecurity and Conflict (PEIC) was established under the auspices of Education Above All with the aim of promoting and providing education to children living in areas of conflict and war. After Qatar advocated for the establishment of 9 September as the International Day to Protect Education from Attack, established by unanimous resolution of the UN General Assembly, Sheikha Moza has spoken at each observance of the Day: online in 2020 and 2021, at UNESCO in Paris in 2022, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2023, and in Doha in 2024.

Sheikha Moza has acted as chairperson of Silatech since 2008, chairperson of the Arab Democracy Foundation, and founded the Supreme Council for Family Affairs in 1998. She was vice president of the Supreme Education Council from 2002 until 2012 and was made UNESCO's Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education in 2003, a position she resigned in November 2023, because of UNESCO's silence about the plight of Palestinian children. In 2002, she and former emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani opened the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. She is a member of the Board of Overseers of Weill Cornell Medicine. and chairperson of Sidra Medical and Research Center, a high-tech women's and children's hospital in Doha. She also endowed this medical center with $7.9 billion.

In 2007 and 2010, Sheikha Moza was listed as one of the '100 Most Powerful Women' by Forbes. She was also listed in the 'Top 100 most powerful Arabs' from 2013 to 2017 by Gulf Business. In 2011 she placed second on the Vanity Fair International Best Dressed Women's list, and in 2015 she was named in the Vanity Fair International Best Dressed Hall of Fame List. According to Vogue, she has customised haute couture designs to fit Qatari modesty rules. She has been involved with Fashion Trust Arabia (FTA), launched in September 2018, which focuses on womenswear designs.

She has said that she is not a feminist. Her EEF, Education Above All program requires non-Qatari female students who wish to study to provide a "signed consent letter and undertaking by family guardian (allowing EAA to access and confirm private information of the family)."

In 2010, she played a key role in the campaign to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. She denies the accusations of Qatari corruption in the FIFA world cup process.

In 2020, A book, called, Pregnancy and Miscarriage in Qatar: Women, Reproduction and the State, published the changing role of women in Qatari society and analyses how Qatari women navigate the competing expectations placed upon them, in which Sheikha Moza played an essential role in reflecting the nation as a centre of Arab modernity, availing themselves of the new opportunities in work, politics and public life.

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