It was maritime custom to lead a ship after marriage as young men were not allowed due to young age to guide the ship. Nevertheless, Shaikh Ahmed approached his uncle and fired. After Rahmah sensed his end might near and having heard his slave called ‘Tarar’ was killed, he took his eight year old son Shaheen and went to the inner galley of his ship. He used the charcoal from his hookah to light up the gunpowder keg. Within seconds, he killed himself and his son and blasted into smithereens that scattered at sea. He died in his ship "Al-Ghatroushah" in 1826, in a sea battle against the Al-Khalifa ships. Rahmah lit the gunpowder kegs with his eight-year-old son by his side, killing all of his men and the Al-Khalifa men that were raiding his ship, preferring to die by his own hand than to die by the hands of Al-Khalifa. Rahmah's legacy lasted long after his death; in the 1960s Charles Belgrave wrote of how old men in the coffee shops throughout the region would still talk of his exploits.