Hamad was born in Doha, Qatar, on 11 January 1959 or 30 August 1959. He is the fifth son of Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani. Through his father, he is the grandson of Jabr bin Mohammed Al Thani. Jabr was a younger brother of Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani, the founding father of modern Qatar.

Between 1982 and 1989, Hamad was the director of the office of the minister of municipal affairs and agriculture. In July 1989, he was appointed minister of municipal affairs and agriculture and in May 1990, he was appointed deputy minister of electricity and water along with his post as minister of municipal affairs and agriculture, where he supervised several successful projects and developed the agriculture sector.

In 1982, Hamad married Jawaher bint Fahad Al Thani. He subsequently married Noor Al Subaie, the daughter of the former minister of education, in 1996 as his second wife.

Hamad facilitated the agreement that led to a unity constitution in Yemen in May 1990, ratified by the populace in May 1991. It affirmed Yemen’s commitment to free elections, a multiparty political system, the right to own private property, equality under the law, and respect of basic human rights. Parliamentary elections were held on 27 April 1993.

On 1 September 1992, Hamad was appointed as foreign minister of Qatar by the 8th Emir. He was retained in his post when the Emir’s son, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani came to power in a coup in 1995. Hamad played an important role in the overthrow of the 8th Emir. On 16 September 2003, Hamad was appointed first deputy prime minister while retaining his position of minister of foreign affairs. On 2 April 2007, he was appointed as prime minister, following the resignation of Abdullah bin Khalifa Al Thani; Hamad also continued to serve as foreign minister. HBJ had vast foreign policy goals for Qatar during his tenure.

Additionally, Hamad held several other key positions including member of the supreme defense council, which was established in 1996; head of Qatar’s permanent committee for the support of al Quds, which was formed in 1998; member of the permanent constitution committee, formed in 1999; member of the ruling family council, which was established in 2000; and member of the supreme council for the investment of the reserves of the state, which was established in 2000.

In 1996, he worked to settle a brief war between Eritrea and Yemen over the Hanish Islands. As part of the agreement to cease hostilities the two nations agreed, through the negotiating effort of Hamad, to refer the issue to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 1998. Yemen was granted full ownership of the larger islands while Eritrea was awarded the peripheral islands to the southwest of the larger islands. Since then relations between the two governments have remained relatively normal.

HBJ is facing a lawsuit brought on by Fawaz Al-Attiya, former official spokesman for Qatar, who says that agents acting on behalf of HBJ imprisoned and tortured him in Doha for 15 months from 2009–2011. Al-Attiya says that he was kept in solitary confinement, only let out of handcuffs to be interrogated, subjected to sleep deprivation, and denied proper access to food, water, and sunlight. Al-Attiya also alleged that he was not adequately compensated for his Qatari land that was expropriated by the state. Documents submitted by Al-Attiya’s lawyers state that in 1997, HBJ offered to buy 20,000 square meters of land from Al-Attiya in west Doha. Al-Attiya says that he refused the offer because he felt that the land was worth more than HBJ’s offer, a move that angered HBJ. He alleges that HBJ then seized the land and subjected Al-Attiya to “increasing harassment, threats, and surveillance”. A decade later in 2007, HBJ allegedly tried to have Al-Attiya arrested in Dubai. Al-Attiya then moved to Saudi Arabia in 2008 when a series of legal cases were filed against him, including one that alleged that he leaked state secrets during his tenure serving in public office. Court documents state that Al-Attiya was “forcibly taken from Saudi Arabia to Qatar” in October 2009. From then until January 2011, Al-Attiya was held in various prisons around Qatar. Attiya was told by Qatar’s assistant attorney during this time that “he was being detained at the behest of the prime minister (Hamad bin Jassim), that there was no intention to release him and that any attempt to secure release through securing a court order…would either be prevented or any such order would not be carried out”. Attiya was ultimately released on orders of the crown prince.

Hamad was instrumental in creating the peace settlement between Sudan and Eritrea in 1998. The un-demarcated border with Sudan had posed a problem for Eritrean external relations for most of the nation’s existence. He negotiated a peace settlement between Sudan and Eritrea. After the agreement was signed, relations somewhat normalized.

Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, ruling Emir of Qatar from 1995 to 2013, was the first Arab politician received by Nicolas Sarkozy after the latter’s election to the French presidency in May 2007. The French government made of Qatar under Hamad’s guidance a strategic partner, and the list of partnerships between the two states includes Total, EADS, Technip, Air Liquide, Vinci SA, GDF Suez, and Areva. France was, under the Hamad government, the primary arms supplier to the Emirate. In February 2009, under the Sarkozy government, France accorded special beyond-OCDE investment privileges to Qatar, its ruling family and its State-Owned Enterprises; one example of the privileges is capital gains exemptions in France.

He participated in mediation of ceasefire in Yemen between the Government of Yemen and the Houthi Movement in 2007. In 2010, the two parties agreed to activate the agreement after confrontations threatening the ceasefire. The mediation ended a six-year war between the two sides.

In 2007, Hamad helped organize the Lebanese national dialogue and the peace agreement between various Lebanese political groups to end the worst internal fighting in Lebanon since the civil war of 1975–1990. In an attempt to resolve a broader political showdown that had paralyzed the country for 18 months, Hamad summoned the Lebanese government and Hezbollah-led opposition to Qatar for talks. He declared an agreement sponsored by the Arab League to deal with the Lebanese crisis. In the agreement the parties pledged, “to refrain from returning to the use of weapons or violence to realize political gains.” The Lebanese government furthermore committed itself to introduce a new electoral law designed to provide better representation in the country’s sectarian system of power sharing.

A May 2008 diplomatic cable sent by then U.S. chargé d’affaires in Doha, alluded to a dispute between HBJ and the Qatari intelligence officials over a Qatari senior bank official imprisoned for 6 months over his role in funding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the al-Qaeda mastermind of September 11. The senior bank official was Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy who financed KSM while working at Qatar Central Bank.

In 2009, he assisted in the settlement agreement between Sudan and Chad. The civil war in Chad began in December 2005. On February 8, 2006 the Tripoli Agreement was signed, which temporarily stopped the fighting. However, hostilities resumed after two months, leading to several new agreement attempts and a final settlement between the two parties in 2009.

In 2009, Hamad participated in brokering a peace agreement to end the conflict in Darfur (“The Goodwill and Confidence Building Pact”) between the government of Sudan and Justice and Equality Movement. The pact also opened up to the rest of factions in Darfur.

The US embassy to Doha claimed, in a cable disclosed in December 2010 by WikiLeaks, that “Sheikh Hamad (HBJ) told then US senator John Kerry that he had proposed a bargain with the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, which involved stopping broadcasts in Egypt in exchange for a change in Cairo’s position on Israel-Palestinian negotiations, and that ‘we would stop al-Jazeera for a year’ if Mubarak agreed in that span of time to deliver a lasting settlement for the Palestinians.”

In 2010, he led the mediation efforts that resulted in the signing of a peace agreement between Djibouti and Eritrea to settle their border dispute and thereby paving the way for broader peace talks to end the six-year conflict in the region. According to the negotiated peace declaration, the two parties pledged to give peaceful means a “strategic priority to settle the conflict in Darfur”, and to take the required measures to create “an opportune environment to achieve a lasting settlement”, including the halting of “inconvenience to the displaced and ensuring the flow of relief aid”. The parties furthermore committed themselves to prisoners swap and the release of those who were detained due to the dispute.

In November 2010 he launched the Humanitarian Appeal 2011 in Doha, together with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The initiative is set to help improve the living conditions for millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world.

On 25 June 2013, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani abdicated as Emir of Qatar, and on the next day, 26 June, Hamad resigned from office. Some have questioned whether this was because the new emir pulled him from his post after realizing how much power HBJ had amassed. He was replaced by Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani as prime minister and by Khalid bin Mohammad Al Attiyah as foreign minister. On 3 July, Hamad was also relieved from the post of deputy head of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). HBJ’s involvement in so many positions and organizations in Qatar led to questions over his capability to address Qatar’s issues with extremism and terrorist financing, a concern for many western nations who deal with Qatar.

In June 2014, HBJ acquired 80% of Heritage Oil, which was listed as a London exploration and production company. At the same time, he was listed as a “Counsellor” at the Qatari embassy and as such was privileged to legal immunity under the 1961 Vienna Convention. Article 42 of this convention states that “a diplomat shall not in the receiving State practise for personal profit any professional or commercial activity” thereby disallowing the acquisition in which HBJ engaged. The stake, valued at £924 million and dated April 30, 2014, transferred to a “wholly owned subsidiary” of Al-Mirqab Capital, an investment company privately owned by HBJ and his family. HBJ’s lawyers maintain that the fact that the company was listed in London is not sufficient evidence to determine that Article 42 had been violated.

At a 2015 speech at the Chatham House, a London-based think tank, HBJ warned the Israelis, reminding them that they are surrounded by 400 million Arabs, saying “you have the upper hand now but you are surrounded. Accept the 1967 boundaries, the two state solution. Your superiority will not last forever. Solve (the Palestinian question) and terrorism is defused.”

In May 2015, Hamad purchased Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O) for $179.4 million including fees, a record price for a painting at auction. He also owns a super-yacht, the Al Mirqab, worth $300 million.

In November 2016, Pakistani Prime Minister produced a letter from Hamad bin Jassim to claim that the properties identified as owned by his daughter in Panama Leaks are actually are result of a settlement that happened in 2006. The letter was mostly based on hearsay and soon after the first letter second letter was produced which tried to cover up holes left in the first letter. The properties were purchased by Sharif family from 1992–1996 through off shore companies Nescoll and Nielson. The beneficial owner of those four flats is Maryam Nawaz (daughter of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif) according to leaked Panama papers. If the court calls Hamad bin Jassim to stand as the witness to prove the worth of his letter, he could be sent to prison for lying. Pakistan will definitely imprison frauds who could help making black money white. It is alleged that Hamad bin Jassim’s companies got lucarative LNG deal worth billions of dollar with Pakistan through his connection with Nawaz Sharif. Hammad bin Jasim was even mentioned in Panama case decision and was praised by justice Khosa who used this information to base his opinion and give one of the historical verdicts in Pakistan.

In November 2017 an investigation conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism cited his name in the list of politicians named in “Paradise Papers” allegations.