High-level marriage reflects personal element in Saudi-Bahrain relationship

The recently announced marriage of King Abdullah’s daughter Sahab to King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa’s son Sheikh Khalid, is highly unusual. Al-Saud women marry outside the wider family extremely rarely, and then only to trusted or established families like the Sudeiri. Genealogists canvassed by GSN said it was possibly the first time the daughter of a Saudi king had married into another royal family since an episode in the late 19th century when the Al-Saud were forced to give a female member to the Al-Rashid family. However, there have been high level marriages between the Al-Maktoum and Al-Khalifa/Al-Thani.