Eldest son of Brunei's 29th sultan marries 'commoner' in gold-domed mosque

Prince Abdul Mateen, the heir of the wealthiest royal family on the northern coast of Borneo island in South East Asia and his fiancee is part of an Islamic marriage ceremony followed by a 10-day celebration in the oil and gas-rich island sultanate.

Prince Abdul Mateen, the tenth and the eldest son of Brunei's 29th sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, has tied knot with a 29-year-old 'commoner' Yang Mulia Anisha Rosnah.

The heir of the wealthiest royal family on the northern coast of Borneo island in South East Asia and his fiancee is part of an Islamic marriage ceremony followed by a 10-day celebration in the oil and gas-rich island sultanate.

The marriage was hosted inside a gold-domed mosque in the capital Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei, which apparently has 1,788 rooms, as per Agence France-Presse.

Mateen serves as a helicopter pilot in the Brunei Air Force.

Bolkiah, the eldest son of Sultan Sir Haji Omar Ali Saifuddin, pursued his higher education from the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst town in England.

Prince Mateen's bride is the owner of a fashion brand and co-owns a tourism business. According to multiple media reports, she is the grandchild of one of Bolkiah's key advisers.

Prince Mateen's cinematic looks and his social media following helped him earn the title 'hot royal', as per AFP. While he is unlikely to ascend the throne, his involvement with his father on certain significant international diplomatic events including King Charles and Queen Camilla's coronation and Queen Elizabeth's funeral in 2022, has brought his name to the limelight as a key personality in Asia and worldwide.

Brunei benefits from extensive petroleum and natural gas fields. In 2017, Brunei celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Sultan Bolkiah’s accession to the throne.

With a total area of 5,765-sq km, Brunei has a coastline of about 161 km along the South China Sea and is bounded on the North by the South China Sea while it is surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak on all the other sides.

As of 2023, Brunei has a population of 4,84,991 people wherein and as per the 2019 United Nations data, immigrants make up approximately 26 per cent of the total population in the island region of South East Asia.