Haute Qatar: Sheikha Moza’s Glamour Masks Doha’s Vices

Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser is revered as a champion of education, sustainability, fashion, and art. The glamorous female face of the Qatar regime — and the mother of its current emir — presents herself as a modern face of a traditional, conservative Gulf state. 

Yet behind her polished exterior lies a much darker reality: Sheikha Moza exemplifies Qatar’s strategy of using progressive initiatives to obscure its role in regional instability. Unfortunately, First Lady Jill Biden succumbed to this ruse on Saturday during a trip to Qatar, where she praised Sheikha Moza. 

After thanking Qatar for its “leadership” and “vital role” in the world at the Doha Forum, an annual gathering of world leaders in Qatar, Jill Biden said, “I appreciate Her Highness Sheikha Moza’s leadership in an area we both deeply care about: education.”

What Biden may not realize, however, is that Qatar and the United States invest in education for dramatically different reasons.

Sheikha Moza is the co-founder and chairwoman of the Qatar Foundation, a non-profit that the Qatari royal family established in 1995. The foundation’s flagship initiative is Education City, a sprawling academic campus in Doha that houses satellite branches of six American universities. The Qatar Foundation promotes Education City as a hub for learning and innovation. Yet the campus contributes to the foundation’s deeper role in Qatar’s global influence campaign. Often, that influence comes in the form of promoting radical Islamist rhetoric and ideology.

Take the case of Georgetown University. Georgetown opened a campus in Education City (GU-Q) in 2005. Last year, GU-Q launched a conference series to convene “scholars, policymakers, diplomats, and government officials” to ponder “a wide range of global and regional issues.” But the latest installment of the so-called Hiwaraat (“Dialogues”) conference series, which took place in September 2024, featured the likes of Wadah Khanfar, the former managing director of Al Jazeera. In May 2024, Khanfar praised Hamas’ massacre of October 7, 2023, and, according to unverified reports, also served as a local Hamas operative in Africa during the 1990s. 

And Qatar isn’t reaping only political influence from its partnerships with American universities. Texas A&M’s contract with the Qatar Foundation states that the foundation “own[s]the entire right, title, and interest in all Technology and Intellectual property developed at TAMUQ,” which includes projects involving cutting-edge scientific research. In February 2024, Texas A&M announced that it will close its Qatar campus by 2028, stating that “the core mission of Texas A&M should be advanced primarily within Texas and the United States.” 

For Doha, championing education is not simply an act of altruism. It is a strategic weapon that corrupts American institutions while whitewashing Qatar’s image. Qatar also exercises this strategy outside the realm of education, sinking its wealth into global causes that enhance Doha’s reputation, particularly through Sheikha Moza’s various roles at the United Nations.

Since the late 1990s, Sheikha Moza has held several UN positions, including UNESCO’s special envoy for basic and higher education, and ambassador to the UN’S Alliance of Civilizations. These appointments have helped her bolster Doha’s international reputation while shielding the emirate from critique for its controversial and problematic activities.

For example, Sheikha Moza eulogized Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar — the architect of Hamas’ October 7 slaughter — in a little-noticed tweet days after his death. Under the leadership of her son, Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Tamim Al-Thani, Qatar has pumped more than one-billion dollars into Hamas run-Gaza since 2012, all while sheltering the terror group’s senior leaders.

Meanwhile, Qatar has perpetuated human rights abuses at home. The US State Department’s 2023 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Qatar noted “credible reports of: enforced disappearance; arbitrary arrest; political prisoners; serious restrictions on free expression,” and “extensive gender-based violence.”

Sheikha Moza’s patronage of the arts and fashion is another facet of her deceptive public persona. She is often seen wearing haute couture — with specific alterations to meet Qatar’s modesty rules, of course. She is also the honorary chair of Fashion Trust Arabia, which describes itself as “a non-profit organization that provides financial support, guidance and mentorships to emerging designers from across the MENA.” 

At the royal wedding of Jordan’s Prince Al-Hussein bin Abdullah II in June 2023, Sheikha Moza wore a vintage Valentino evening coat paired with satin Valentino pumps. In September 2023, she donned a sleek, haute couture Valentino gown while meeting with the first lady of Turkey. These outfits elicited adulation in acclaimed fashion magazines. What the glamorous photos don’t show, however, is that Mayhoola, a Qatari investment firm tied to the royal family, is the majority owner of Valentino.

Indeed, as with education, luxury fashion is an outlet for Qatari economic largesse. Mayhoola also owns French fashion house Balmain. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund — the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) — purchased British luxury retailer Harrod’s in 2010 for 1.5 billion pounds, and once owned approximately 10 percent of luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co. QIA sold its Tiffany shares in 2021 to Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) — the French fashion conglomerate in which Qatar holds a 1.03 percent stake.

Sheikha Moza’s curated image is a masterclass in public relations. Through her efforts, Sheikha Moza serves as a Trojan horse for Doha’s adversarial and hostile agenda. The contrast between a nation presenting itself as a beacon of progress and reform while engaging in corruption, perpetuating regressive policies, and embracing terrorism is stark. Washington should regard the Qatari government accordingly.

Natalie Ecanow and Mariam Wahba are research analysts at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow them on X @NatalieEcanow and @themariamwahba.