At the beginning of this century, Qatar's settled population was 27,000; by the mid-1980s it had grown to over 350,000 (Lorimer 1908–15, vol. 2: 1532; Qatar, Central Statistical Organization 1987:10). From a sleepy pearling village, Doha had become an ambitious capital of shining buildings and palm-lined boulevards. Oil was at the heart of this change. By mid-century Qatar's dependence on oil had replaced its earlier dependence on pearling. Oil production rose rapidly, from 2000 b/d in 1949, the first year of exports, to a peak of 570,000 by 1973 (el-Mallakh 1979:41). In the late 1980s Qatar was exporting about 250,000 b/d.

As in Kuwait, important domestic political transformations accompanied oil, key among them the emergence of new groups, new coalitions and new state institutions. Qatar's pre-oil economy and society resembled Kuwait's in its dependence on pearling and the ruler's consequent dependence on the merchants; but it also had important differences: a weak trade sector and a concomitantly weak grouping of merchants. These differences had political consequences. Oil's broad impact was the same; its revenues prompted similar economic, social and political policies wherever they occurred. But variations also emerged, within the constraints set by oil, as a result of the pre-oil differences. In Qatar these variations produced a ruling coalition in which the Shaikh far more thoroughly dominated the merchant community, and in which he ruled in a more troubled alliance with his large and often contentious family.