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