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Qumar is a fictional Middle Eastern country in the television show The West Wing. It is an amalgam of standard stereotypes about the Middle East including oil wealth, radical Islam, state-sponsored terrorists, and the oppression of women.
It is a absolute monarchy, ruled by a dictatorial sultan and his family.
The nation was first introduced in the third season where it was mentioned as a close ally of the United States, but one that badly mistreated women. After the September 11th Attacks it became the main venue for the show's terrorism subplots. Qumar was described as being a home for and financial supporter of the fictional Bahji terrorist group. The end of the third season saw the President order the assassination of the Qumari defence minister Abdul Shareef on evidence he was a terrorist. At the end of the fourth season, the United States bombs several terrorist training camps in the country after the kidnapping of Zoey Bartlet.
The only Qumari character other than Shareef to have appeared on the show is Ali Nassir, the Qumari ambassador to the United Nations.
Maps in the background of some scenes have shown Qumar to be occupying a section of the Persian Gulf coast, on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz from Oman, which in real life is Iranian territory.
Qumar is an amalgam of the worst elements of Saudi Arabia, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and Iran. No country in real life has laws as harsh as those the show gives Qumar. No country allied with America is known to harbour terrorist training camps.
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