Mubarak Al-Sabah  Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah (1837 – November 28, 1915) () "the Great" was the seventh ruler of Kuwait from May 18, 1896 until his death on November 28, 1915. Mubarak ascended the throne upon killing his half-brother, Muhammad Al-Sabah. Mubarak was the seventh ruler of the Al-Sabah dynasty. Mubarak was also the father of two rulers of Kuwait that succeeded him, Jaber and Salim, from which the Al-Jaber and Al-Salim in the Al-Sabah family branches originated respectively, and is the paternal ancestor of all successive rulers and prime ministers of Kuwait. Sheikh Mubarak signed the Anglo-Kuwaiti Treaty with Great Britain on November 23, 1899, pledging himself and his successors not to receive foreign agents or representatives or to cede or sell territory without the approval of the British government, with this agreement, and the guarantee it represented in Kuwait and the Al-Sabah family, he is regarded as the founder of modern-day Kuwait. German explorer, Hermann Burchardt, photographed Sheikh Mubarak in 1903, in what is now an iconic photograph. Mubarak was born into Kuwaiti's powerful al-Sabah family in 1837 son of Sheikh Sabah II Al-Sabah (r. 1859-1866). Once he was older Mubarak served primarily as the cavalry commander of the Military of Kuwait in many operations, including several Ottoman campaigns; most notably: 1871, 1892, and 1894 campaigns into Hasa, Qatar, and southern Iraq. For his long service Mubarak received the title istabl-i amire payesi, “(Rank of) The Grand Equerry of his Imperial Majesty” in August 1879 for a campaign into Qatif and southern Iraq. He was given four more Ottoman honors as reward for his services in the Qatar campaign, though the value of his contributions are disputed. Although Mubarak was widely known for his ties with the British after his ascension to sheikhdom in 1896, he did have interactions with the British as early as 1863 when he met Sir Lewis Pelly, British political resident of Persia who went on many diplomatic missions around the region, and in 1883 when he was sent on an Ottoman diplomatic mission to Bahrain. On May 8, 1896 Mubarak's half-brothers, Muhammad and Jarrah, were killed by him, enabling Mubarak's assumption of the Kuwaiti throne. Most scholars believe that Mubarak assassinated his half-brothers, but the details of the assassination vary widely.