Hussein

For more information on ussein, visit Britannica.com.

View more Literature & Language videos

Hussein ibn Talal (born 1935) became at the age of 18 the king of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a strategic central state in the Middle East. He was regarded in the West as a moderate Arab leader.

King Hussein, born in Amman, was the scion of the illustrious Hashemite family from which the Prophet Mohammed sprang in the sixth century. His great-grandfather Hussein ibn Ali and his grandfather Abdullah were leaders of the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. The latter was also founder of the modern state of Jordan, originally called Transjordan. Hussein's early life is described as happy but the family's lifestyle was not elaborate. They lived in a modest villa in what was still an unspoiled desert kingdom.

The young Prince Hussein attended primary and secondary schools in Amman, Egypt, and England, after which he was a student at Britain's Sandhurst. At Sandhurst he learned military principles and attitudes that helped in future years with his own Jordan Arab Army, which in turn became a key to his longevity on Jordan's throne. The most important formative influence on the prince, though, was his grandfather King Abdullah, who was his tutor and guide. From him Hussein learned both respect for tradition and openness to change. Crown Prince Talal, Hussein's father, suffered from schizophrenia and the King took a special interest in his grandson Hussein, the only member of the family King Abdullah believed could rule Jordan.

When Abdullah was assassinated in the Haram al-Sharif mosque in Jerusalem in 1951 Hussein was at his side, and the memory of that event would affect his personal attitude toward danger as well as his view of the significance of Jerusalem. Following the assassination Talal, Hussein's father, was crowned king, but he was removed by the Jordanian parliament within a year due to his mental illness. After a brief regency in 1953 Hussein took the constitutional oath as king. In the 1980s he became the longest ruling head of state in the world.

"The King and country were alike - young, inexperienced, poor and uncompromising" wrote John Newhouse in the New Yorker. The young Hussein inherited a country which was extremely poor, filled with refugees, and subject to the political turmoil that was characteristic of the Middle East. Considered a pawn of the West, the young king spent the early portion of his reign just trying to survive in a time when Arab nationalism was thriving. For Jordan, the results of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war were threefold. The West Bank of the Jordan River and its Palestinian population were included in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; hundreds of thousands of refugees from other parts of Palestine found their way to Jordan; and the state of Israel was created on Jordan's western border. Within this context King Hussein faced challenges to his throne emanating from disgruntled citizens, from radical Arab nationalism and interference from neighboring Arab states, and from occasional conflicts with Israeli military forces in Jordan's West Bank. With the key support of the army, which was recruited from Jordan's tribes, and other loyal political leaders, King Hussein and his regime were able to consolidate control by the late 1950s, although they still faced periodic challenges. Despite political tumult and tensions, King Hussein's regime made strides in building up the country's social and economic infrastructure - most significantly in education, which paid off in the following decades.

The 1967-1970 period was undoubtedly the most threatening to King Hussein's rule. In 1967 King Hussein along with Egypt and Syria fought the Six Day War against Israel and was defeated. For King Hussein the defeat was a severe setback, because Jordan lost the West Bank which, despite its small size, contained half the country's people, a little less than half of the economic activity, and the important religious shrines of East Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Equally important, this defeat gave rise to the Palestinian guerrilla movements. Initially they attacked the state of Israel, which would retaliate by hitting their camps in Jordan. In 1970 the guerrillas turned their attacks on the government of Jordan. At the same time a Syrian tank force threatened the country's northern border, creating a second front which Jordan's military had to defend. With diplomatic support from the United States King Hussein won on both fronts, but not without considerable death and destruction, particularly in Amman in the struggle with the Palestinian guerrillas.

From 1967 through 1973 Jordan's economy suffered greatly as a result of the fighting and punitive actions on the part of some radical Arab regimes. In the post-1974 oil boom, however, Jordan's fortunes improved significantly. Jordan's trained population and loyal military performed valuable services for the Arab petroleum producing countries for which they were well paid. The king and his brother, Crown Prince Hassan, also sought and received grants and concessional loans from the same countries. The infrastructure built in the 1950s and 1960s allowed these funds to fuel economic expansion. Not only were there rapid advances in socio-economic development in the 1970s and 1980s, but also King Hussein allowed his people personal and economic freedom in an environment of civil order. Neither of the Hashemite monarchs, however, has allowed extensive political freedom or participation. Apparently to fill this void, King Hussein recalled parliament in 1984 after a ten-year hiatus.

Another major theme during King Hussein's reign was his difficult search for peace with Israel in the context of a realization of the just rights of the Palestinians. In the aftermath of the 1967 war with Israel he was the chief Arab negotiator in the formulation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 which stipulated the principle of exchange of territory for peaceful relations with Israel as well as the inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war. In 1972 the king followed up on this resolution with a proposal for a United Arab Kingdom which would be composed of East Jordan and the West Bank, the latter of which would enjoy local autonomy under the Jordanian crown.

In 1974 Hussein surrendered leadership in negotiations over the West Bank and Jerusalem to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which was recognized by the Rabat summit as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Consistent with this position, he refused to participate in the autonomy talks envisaged by the Camp David agreements of 1978, which had in fact been rejected by the PLO. But when Egypt and Israel signed a subsequent peace treaty in 1979 Jordan became the first Arab nation to cut diplomatic ties with Egypt.

President Ronald Reagan's Middle East peace initiative of 1982 was similar to a combination of Resolution 242 and the Hussein 1972 proposal. In the following years, King Hussein worked at realizing the 1982 initiative through talks and negotiations with American, Arab, and Palestinian leaders. But peace remained elusive.

In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which was prompted by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, King Hussein remained neutral initially, but eventually supported Saddam Hussein. After Iraq's defeat, King Hussein's relations with surrounding nations and the West were strained.

In the mid 1990s Hussein relinquished his strangle hold over the government and permitted political parties to field candidates in the first multi-party elections since 1956. Another crucial change in Jordan's relations with its neighbors occurred in 1994, when Israel and Jordan ended their 46-year state of war with the signing of a peace treaty. After the signing of the historic treaty, Hussein admitted that the Six Day War of 1967 was a mistake. However, the road to peace was not smooth, especially after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's prime minister. Rabin's successors chose not to honor all of the peace accords and this caused Hussein much anger and loss of face within his own country.

King Hussein is married to his fourth wife, Queen Noor, the former Lisa Halaby, an American citizen. They had two sons and two daughters. Previously the king had seven children (plus one adoption) from three earlier marriages.

Further Reading

There are one biography and one autobiography of Hussein, respectively, Peter Snow, Hussein: A Biography (1972), and Hussein, King of Jordan, Uneasy Lies the Head (1962). A more recent, comprehensive book on Hussein's kingdom is Peter Gubser, Jordan: Crossroads of Middle Eastern Events (1983). Hassan bin Talal, Crown Prince of Jordan and brother of Hussein, wrote a perceptive book explaining the Hashemites' thinking and accomplishments which is titled Search for Peace (1984). Other noteworthy books which deal with Jordan and King Hussein are P. J. Vatikiotis, Politics and the Military in Jordan (1967); John B. Glubb, A Soldier with the Arabs (1957); and Benjamin Shwadran, Jordan: A State of Tension (1959).

King Hussein of Jordan

Hussein ibn Talal was proclaimed king of Jordan after his father had been declared mentally unfit, on this date in 1952. He was 16 years old. Hussein took the throne after his grandfather, Abdullah I, modern Jordan's first king, was assassinated by a Palestinian extremist during a visit to Jerusalem. Hussein fostered a moderate pro-Western policy in his kingdom. In 1994, under his reign, a peace treaty was signed between Jordan and Israel, declaring a state of non-belligerency. King Hussein died in 1999 of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Previous:	Hugh Lofting
Next:	If today is the first day of Hanukkah, why was the first candle lit last night?

From our Archives: Today's Highlights, August 11, 2006

---

Hussein I (hʊsān', -īn'), 1935-99, king of Jordan; educated in England at Harrow and Sandhurst. He ascended the throne (1953) after his grandfather Abdullah I had been killed (1951) by a Palestinian extremist and after his father was declared (1952) mentally unfit to serve as king. The target of more than a dozen assassination attempts, Hussein generally espoused a moderate pro-Western policy that brought him into conflict with leftist leaders in other Arab countries as well as with Palestinians in Jordan. He maintained his throne largely through the support of the British-trained Arab Legion and the fierce loyalty of the Bedouins of E Jordan. Despite a generally moderate stance toward Israel, he led Jordan into the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, as a result of which Israel occupied all Jordan W of the Jordan River (the West Bank). This loss intensified the conflict between Hussein and the Palestinian guerrilla movement, and civil war erupted in 1970. Hussein was victorious and strengthened his rule, but at a 1974 Arab summit meeting he agreed to relinquish any claim to the West Bank to the Palestine Liberation Organization. During the Persian Gulf War, Hussein was isolated internationally when he refused to join the coalition against Iraq. Subsequently, however, he played a role in encouraging peace negotiations between Arabs and Israelis, and in 1994 he signed a peace treaty with Israel. He was succeeded by his son Abdullah II, an army officer he had named crown prince only weeks before he died.

Bibliography

See biographies by N. Ashton (2008) and A. Shlaim (2008).

1935 - 1999

King of Jordan, 1952 - 1999.

Hussein's rule indelibly stamped the fabric of socio-economic and political life in Jordan, to the point that in some people's eyes Hussein and Jordan were inseparable and almost synonymous for over four decades. Hussein ibn Talal was born in Amman on 14 November 1935, to Prince Talal ibn Abdullah and his wife, Zayn al-Sharaf. Talal was the son of Amir (Prince) Abdullah I ibn Hussein of Transjordan, and grandson of Husayn ibn Ali (Sharif) of the Hashimite family of Mecca. Hussein was a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, representing the forty-second generation after the Prophet. His grandfather Abdullah started instructing the young prince in statecraft at an early age. Following then-King Abdullah's assassination in July 1951, Talal, who suffered from schizophrenia, reigned only thirteen months before being replaced by seventeen-year-old Hussein in August 1952. Only after reaching his eighteenth year (according to the Islamic calendar) in 1953 did Hussein formally begin his rule.

Despite the family's lack of worldly goods - they could not even buy him a bicycle - Hussein enjoyed a broad but abbreviated education. In Amman, he successively attended a religious school and Kulliyat al-Matran (the Bishop's School); this instruction was supplemented by special tutorials in Arabic and Islam. For his middle preparatory years, he was enrolled in the prestigious Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt, where he broadened his world view. During this period, the Middle East and Jordan were experiencing momentous events. In 1948, when Prince Hussein was thirteen, Israel was created, and the Arab armies attacked, fighting until 1949. They were defeated, but Transjordan gained possession of the West Bank and absorbed a major
wave of Palestinian refugees. In 1950, when Prince Hussein was fifteen, the West Bank was formally joined to the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan.

In 1951, this succession of events began to directly affect the young prince; on 20 July, King Abdullah was assassinated by a disgruntled Palestinian. While his father, Talal, temporarily ascended the throne, Prince Hussein was moved to England to join his cousin, Crown Prince Faisal II ibn Ghazi of Iraq, at Harrow, an elite school for future leaders of Britain and the British Empire. On 11 August 1952, King Talal was constitutionally removed from the Jordanian throne due to illness, and the crown was passed to his eldest son, Prince Hussein. Since he had not yet reached his majority, the young King Hussein was transferred to Sandhurst, the British military academy, while a regent ruled in Amman. In May 1953, King Hussein returned to Jordan and assumed the throne. Despite dire predictions for his political survival - the young king ruled a small country in the midst of a turbulent Middle East - he ended up ruling far longer than any other king of Jordan. By the time of his death in 1999, he had come to symbolize modern Jordan.

Hussein was married four times during his long reign. His first wife was Dina bint Abd al-Hamid (1929 - ), a distant and older cousin from Cairo. They married in April 1955 but divorced eighteen months later. In May 1961, Hussein married the daughter of a British military attachè, Antoinette Avril Gardiner (1943 - ), who assumed the name Princess Muna. This union too ended in divorce in 1972. In the following year, the king married a third time, this time to a Palestinian named Alia Baha al-Din Tuqan (1948 - 1977), from the prominent Tuqan family of Nablus. In February 1977, Queen Alia (also Aliya) died in a helicopter crash. In June 1978, the king married Elizabeth Najeeb Halaby (1951 - ), an Arab-American who became Queen Noor (also Nur). He had a number of children by his marriages. His marriage to Dina produced a daughter, Aliya (1956 - ). His two sons by Princess Muna are Abdullah (1962 - ) and Faysal (1963 - ), along with two girls, Ayisha (1968 - ) and Zayn (1968 - ). Hussein and Queen Alia produced a girl, Haya (1974 - ), and a son, Ali (1975 - ). Finally, his children with Queen Noor were two boys, Hamza (1980 - ) and Hashim (1981 - ), and two girls, Iman (1983 - ) and Rayya (1986 - ). In 1976 he also adopted a daughter with Queen Alia, Abir (1972 - ).

Hussein's rule may be divided into three major historical periods. The first twenty years were marked by crises and threats to the throne originating from inside and outside the country: street riots stimulated by radical Arab nationalism; challenges from his own prime minister in 1956 and 1957; destabilization by larger and stronger Arab states; and the devastating loss of the West Bank to Israel in the Arab - Israel War of June 1967. Soon after, in 1970, the Palestinian guerrilla organizations challenged Jordan in a bloody civil war known as Black September. Nonetheless, while relying on his loyal military to survive, the king helped put in place the bases for development.

The second phase, starting after the Arab - Israel War of October 1973, is distinguished by quieter internal political conditions, more rapid development fueled by funds (direct grants, loans, individual remittances) derived from the petroleum boom in neighboring states, and improved relations with most of Jordan's Arab neighbors. It was a relatively less radical, regional atmosphere. Despite his problems with the Palestinians and his frequently strained relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its leader, Yasir Arafat, the king came to be a respected leader in most Arab capitals. Indeed, he hosted two Arab summits - 1980 and 1987 - in Jordan.

The third phase is dominated by the end of the Cold War and the alteration of regional relationships. In a sense, Hussein's historical July 1988 decision to disengage Jordan politically and administratively
from the West Bank, in response to the pressures from the first Palestinian Intifada (uprising) that started in 1987 and the clear lack of Palestinian support for continued Jordanian rule, was a precursor to these changes. More important was the withdrawal of the Soviet Union as an active player in the region (1989 - 1990), and the United States's dominance in areas of its perceived interests. The resulting polarization of the Arab world and the Gulf Crisis of 1990 and 1991 and ensuing war left Jordan (at the time allied politically with Saddam Hussein's Iraq) and a few other poor Arab states politically, economically, and regionally isolated. Finally, following significant anti-government protests in April 1989 in areas that comprised the "Hashimite heartland" that were so important to his rule, Hussein initiated a significant democratization process and called for the first general parliamentary elections in the country since 1967. Political parties were legalized, political exiles allowed to return, and press freedoms were expanded. Leaders from all political streams wrote a national charter, which defined the general principles for the country's political life. A special general congress made up of 2,000 representatives ratified the document on 9 June 1991.

A long-term trend in the king's rule was his moderation and centrism. After times of internal threat to the regime, he did not execute the challengers. Some were sent to prison or exiled, but in time many were brought back and given positions of some authority. Nor did Hussein follow radical or overly conservative social, economic, or cultural policies. His relations with the Arab world follow a similar pattern. As the leader of a small state, Hussein followed a strategic policy for the survival of his country by consistently trying to maintain acceptable ties with some of the strong Arab states; this policy has not always met with success as, for example, during the post - Gulf War period, when his Iraq policy was considered ill advised. Throughout his rule, Hussein was resolutely pro-Western, even when that stance cost him dearly. Finally, he was long convinced of the need to reach a diplomatic resolution of the conflict with Israel. Drawing upon a history of good Hashimite relations with Zionist and Israeli leaders, and as a result of the disastrous loss of the West Bank in the 1967 Arab - Israeli war, Hussein tried to keep Jordan out of the ongoing Arab struggle against Israel. Jordan became the second Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, in October 1994. Throughout the mid and late 1990s, Hussein remained involved in the faltering yet ongoing peace process between Israel and the PLO. He even left his cancer treatment in the United States (see below) in October 1998 to participate in the Wye River conference convened by U.S. president Bill Clinton.

Hussein took one of the most dramatic political moves in his long reign literally just two weeks before he died. A heavy smoker, Hussein was diagnosed with renal cell cancer (of the kidney) in August 1992. After successful surgery, he returned to Jordan the following month to a tumultuous hero's welcome. In July 1998, Hussein was again diagnosed with cancer, this time non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph glands. After seeking treatment in the United States on 14 July, he returned to Jordan on 19 January 1999, announcing that he had been cured. He then made a decision that stunned his country: He replaced his brother, Prince Hassan (also Hasan), with his eldest son, Abdullah II ibn Hussein, for the post as crown prince and heir apparent. Hassan (1947 - ) had been the crown prince and close confidant of the king since April 1965, yet he and Hussein eventually disagreed over who Hassan's successor should be: one of his sons, as the constitution states, or one of Hussein's own sons. This and other problems caused a rift between the two brothers, something magnified (so reports stated) by the political maneuverings of some of the royal wives. Hussein's sudden and dramatic decision was also surprising given that Abdullah was not one of the king's sons who openly had been groomed for leadership. In the early 1990s, Hussein's choice seemed to be Prince Ali, eldest son of the late Queen Alia, whereas by the late 1990s the king's attentions seemed focused on Prince Hamza, the first son born to him and the reigning Queen Noor. The move also carried significant political import both domestically and internationally, given that Abdullah had no practical political or diplomatic experience, whereas Hassan's resumè was extensive.

Hussein suffered a relapse and returned to the United States on 26 January, the day after the dramatic announcement that Abdullah was the new crown prince. When treatment failed, he flew back to Jordan in a critical state, and died on 7 February. Jordanians were devastated. His funeral was a huge diplomatic gathering attended by a host of world leaders and fellow monarchs, including U.S. president Bill Clinton, former presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush, Russian president Boris Yeltsin, French president Jacques Chirac, and Prince Charles and Prime Minister Tony Blair of the United Kingdom, among others. The funeral also brought together a host of Middle Eastern leaders, including those from countries not having diplomatic relations with one another. Among these were Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Ezer Weizman of Israel, President Hafiz al-Asad of Syria, President Husni Mubarak of Egypt, and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. Hussein was buried at the royal palace cemetery in Amman, next to the tombs of his father and grandfather.

Bibliography

Gubser, Peter. "Hussein ibn Talal." In Political Leaders of the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa: A Bibliographical Dictionary, edited by Bernard Reich. Westport, CT, and New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.

Hussein, H. R. M. King. Uneasy Lies the Head: The Autobiography of His Majesty King Hussein I of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. New York and London: Heinemann, 1962.

Jureidini, Paul A., and McLaurin, R. D. Jordan: The Impact of Social Change on the Role of the Tribes. New York: Praeger, 1984.

Lunt, James. Hussein of Jordan. New York: Macmillan, 1989.

Massad, Joseph Adoni. Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

Satloff, Robert B. The Troubles on the East Bank: Challenges to theDomestic Stability of Jordan. New York: Praeger, 1986.

— PETER GUBSER
UPDATED BY MICHAEL R. FISCHBACH

Quotes:

"We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not make glory, and singing in the dark does not dispel fear."

See words rhyming with "Hussein."

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)