Hussein I of Jordan

King Hussein I of Jordan, 1997

Hussein bin Talal (Arabic: حسين بن طلال Husayn bin Talāl) (November 14, 1935 – February 7, 1999) was born in Amman to Prince Talal bin Abdullah and Princess Zein al-Sharaf bint Jamil, of the royal Hashemite family. At the time of his passing, he was the longest serving executive head of state in the world.

Upon the assassination of his grandfather, King Abdullah, and the medically-necessary abdication of his father King Talal, Hussein was proclaimed King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on August 11, 1952. A Regency Council was appointed until Hussein’s formal accession to the throne on May 2, 1953, when he assumed his constitutional powers after reaching the age of eighteen, according to the Islamic calendar.[1] During his reign, he gained wide acclaim for moving Jordan and its Arab neighbors toward peace with Israel. [2]

Of great significance to Muslims throughout the world, the late King Hussein was also the forty-second generation direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.

His Majesty King Hussein bin Talal, the father of modern Jordan, will always be remembered as a leader who guided his country through strife and turmoil to become an oasis of peace, stability and moderation in the Middle East. Among Jordanians, his memory is cherished as the inspiration for Jordan's climate of openness, tolerance and compassion. Known to his people as Al-Malik Al-Insan ("The Humane King"), King Hussein established a legacy that promises to guide Jordan for many years to come. [3]

Personal life

Hussein's life and philosophy were so intricately tied to his lineage and his nation that he cannot be studied without considering both his immediate family and his extended family of Hashemites.

Immediate Family

Hussein was born in Amman on November 14, 1935, to Prince Talal bin Abdullah and Princess Zein al-Sharaf bint Jamil. Hussein had two brothers, Prince Muhammad and Crown Prince El Hassan, and one sister, Princess Basma.

After completing his elementary education in Amman, Hussein attended Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt, and Harrow School in England. He later received his military education at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England.

Early in young Hussein’s life, on July 20, 1951, his grandfather King Abdullah was assassinated at al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. A Palestinian extremist, fearing the king might negotiate a peace with the newly created state of Israel, opened fire on Abdullah and his grandson as the pair walked into the mosque for Friday prayers. Abdullah was killed, but the 15-year-old Hussein pursued the gunman. [4] A medal his grandfather had recently given the young Prince Hussein, and which he wore at his grandfather’s insistence, saved Hussein from the assassin’s bullet. [5]

Hashemite Family

The Hashemite royal family is interwoven into the life of Jordan, having established the modern state in 1921. It is impossible, therefore, to understand the fabric of Jordan’s modern history without some knowledge of the royal family. [6] Rulers of the holy city of Mecca for over seven hundred years (ending in 1925), Hussein's family claims a line of descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad and Ismail, son of the biblical prophet Abraham.

"We are the family of the prophet and we are the oldest tribe in the Arab world," the king once said of his Hashemite ancestry. [7]

During the Great Arab Revolt of 1916, King Hussein’s great-grandfather, Al-Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and King of the Arabs (later he also became known as King of the Hijaz), led the liberation of Arab lands from their domination by the Ottoman Turks. After freeing the lands of Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, Syria and the Hijaz, Sharif Hussein’s son Abdullah assumed the throne of Transjordan and his second son Faisal assumed the throne of Syria and later Iraq. The Emirate of Transjordan was founded on April 11, 1921, and became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan upon formal independence from Britain in 1946. [8]

Hussein bin Talal was born in Amman, the capital city of the newly formed Transjordan. He was the grandson of Transjordan's emir, Abdullah bin Al-Hussein. His parents were Abdullah's son Talal and Talal's wife, Zein al-Sharaf bint Jamil.

Hussein was ten years old when Transjordan gained its independence from Great Britain and became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, with his grandfather Abdullah as its first king.

Marriages and Children

King Hussein married four times, though he was never married to more than one wife at a time, which his Muslim beliefs would have allowed, had he desired.

King Hussein's first wife was seven years his senior, the beautiful Dina bint Abedelhamid, a distant cousin. She was a graduate of the University of Cambridge and a former lecturer in English literature at Cairo University. After one year of marriage and the birth of a daughter, Princess Alia in 1956, King Hussein and Queen Dina were divorced.

In 1961 Hussein married his second wife, a British army officer's daughter, Antoinette "Toni" Gardner. She was renamed Princess Muna, but because she did not convert to Islam she was not named queen. They had two sons, Prince Abdullah and Prince Feisal, followed by two daughters, Princess Zein and Princess Aisha. The couple divorced in 1972. Their eldest son ascended to the throne upon his father's death and is currently known as King Abdullah II of Jordan.

In 1972 King Hussein married his third wife, Alia Toukan. They had a daughter, Princess Haya (who is married to Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai), and a son, Prince Ali, as well as an adopted daughter, Abeer Muhaisin. In 1977, tragedy struck the family when Queen Alia was killed in a helicopter crash in Amman. Queen Alia International Airport in Jordan is named after her.

The following year, King Hussein married his fourth and final wife, American-born Lisa Halaby, who left behind her Western lifestyle and converted to Islam. The king named her Queen Noor al-Hussein, "the light of Hussein." They had two sons, Prince Hamzah and Prince Hashim, and two daughters, Princess Iman and Princess Raiyah. Their fairy-tale romance endured for more than two decades, until the king's death in 1999. [9]

Public Life

Ascension to the Throne

On July 20, 1951, King Abdullah I traveled to Jerusalem to perform his Friday prayers with his young grandson, Prince Hussein. He was assassinated by a gunman at the instigation of Colonel Abdullah Tell, ex-military governor of Jerusalem, and Dr. Musa Abdullah Husseini, on the steps of one of the holiest shrines of Islam, Al-Aqsa Mosque. The assailant shot at Hussein, but the young prince is said to have been saved by a bullet fortuitously striking a medal that his grandfather had recently awarded him and insisted he wear.

On September 6, 1951, King Abdullah’s eldest son, King Talal assumed the throne. He held this position until the Jordanian parliament forced his abdication a year later, when he was determined to be mentally incapacitated. He was then quickly replaced by his eldest son, Hussein, who was proclaimed King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on August 11, 1952. A Regency Council was appointed until King Hussein’s formal accession to the throne on May 2, 1953, when he assumed full constitutional powers after reaching the age of eighteen, according to the Islamic calendar.

"At seventeen, I knew the end of a dream," Hussein later wrote in his memoirs. "I would never be a schoolboy again." [10]

Reign

Throughout his long and eventful reign, Hussein worked hard at building his country and raising the standard of living of each and every Jordanian. He had inherited an economy with few natural resources and a populace that had just absorbed a large number of displaced Palestinians following the 1948 creation of the state of Israel. [11] He concentrated on building an economic and industrial infrastructure that would compliment and enhance the advances he wanted to achieve in the quality of life of his people. [12]

The Six-Day War

Under pressure from Jordan's rapidly growing Palestinian population, King Hussein made what many historians believe was his biggest mistake: He joined forces with Egypt in the Six-Day War against Israel in 1967, despite the grave warnings of his military advisors. Israel soundly defeated its Arab opponents in that war and Jordan lost the West Bank and east Jerusalem, Islam's third-holiest city, to its Jewish neighbor. Joining the war may have saved Hussein from the wrath of his Palestinian subjects, but its cost was tremendous. The West Bank was Jordan's top agricultural region, and the war cost the king his entire air force and fifteen thousand troops.

Five months after the war, Hussein helped draft U.N. Resolution 242, which called on Israel to return those occupied territories in return for an Arab guarantee of its right to exist within secure borders. The idea of "peace for territory" in the Israeli conflict was born.

"The king was among the first leaders to realize what it meant to lose part of the territory," said another former prime minister, Taher Al-Masri. "He was able to reduce the negative implications." [13]

Black September

Hussein (right) with U.S. president Jimmy Carter in 1977

After the 1967 war, the Jordan-based Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) continued to attack Israel, threatening to depose the king if he interfered.

In September 1970, the month Palestinian radicals would come to call Black September, the 34-year-old monarch ordered his army to drive the PLO out of the country. Syrian troops came to the aid of the Palestinians, while Israeli soldiers massed across the border.

When the fighting finally ended, the Palestinian radicals had lost. And although Hussein remained popular at home, the Arab world largely isolated him throughout most of the 1970s. In 1974 Arab leaders declared the PLO "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," taking away Hussein's role as spokesman for the West Bank's Palestinians.

In 1978 he was excluded from the Camp David summit between U.S. president Jimmy Carter, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin. A year later, he denounced the accords in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. That position helped re-establish the friendship he and his country needed with other Arab leaders. But the king and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were never able to reconcile, and Hussein finally renounced Jordan's claim to administrative and legal control of the West Bank in 1988.

Madrid Peace Conference

In 1991 Hussein played a pivotal role in convening the Madrid Peace Conference, and providing an "umbrella" for Palestinians to negotiate their future as part of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.

Peace with Israel

While working towards Arab-Israeli peace, Hussein also worked to resolve disputes between Arab states. During the 1990-1991 Gulf War, he exerted vigorous efforts to peacefully effect an Iraqi withdrawal and restore the sovereignty of Kuwait. [14]

Hussein always walked a tightrope between his Middle Eastern neighbors and Western powers. "He's between Israel on one side, Iraq and Syria on the other," former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said. "He knows that the Palestinians have tried to overthrow him on a number of occasions, so he has to navigate with extraordinary delicacy." [15]

In July 1994, under pressure from the United States, Hussein signed an agreement with his old adversary, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, ending hostilities between the two countries. A year and a half later, he traveled to Jerusalem to bury his new friend, shot down by an Israeli opponent of peace. [16] Hussein gave a powerful speech in the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin:

My sister, Mrs. Leah Rabin, my friends, I had never thought that the moment would come like this when I would grieve the loss of a brother, a colleague and a friend - a man, a soldier who met us on the opposite side of a divide whom we respected as he respected us. A man I came to know because I realized, as he did, that we have to cross over the divide, establish a dialogue, get to know each other and strive to leave for those who follow us a legacy that is worthy of them. And so we did. And so we became brethren and friends.

The 1994 treaty between Jordan and Israel was a major step toward achieving a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Vision of Progress

File:King Kigeli V of Rwanda meets with King Hussein.jpg

King Kigeli V of Rwanda (right) meets with Hussein in 1967

Conscious of his own mortality, the king began to change the nature of Jordan's government. Long opposed to communism, he authorized multi-party elections for 1993 and allowed political opposition and religious conservatism for the first time in years.

The year he turned 57 and survived his first bout with cancer, Hussein said he had to establish political institutions—democracy, pluralism, and respect for human life—that would allow the country to outlive the only monarch most Jordanians had ever known. [17]

On the human level, the numbers speak for Hussein’s achievements. While in 1950, water, sanitation and electricity were available to only 10 percent of Jordanians, today these reach 99 percent of the population. In 1960 only 33 percent of Jordanians were literate; by 1996, this number had climbed to 85.5 percent. Hussein always believed that Jordan’s people are its biggest asset, and throughout his reign he encouraged all—including the less fortunate, the disabled, and the orphaned—to achieve more for themselves and their country. [18]

Though Hussein did many controversial things during his reign, he was loved and appreciated by the Jordanian population for his accomplishments.

Death

Hussein was an active man who enjoyed skiing, tennis, riding motorcycles, driving race cars, and flying airplanes. His other hobbies included ham radio and surfing the Internet. He was also a heavy smoker, which may have contributed to the health problems that plagued him in the 1990s. In 1992 he had a cancerous kidney removed. In 1997 he underwent two more operations to treat prostate and lymph gland problems. In 1998 he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of cancer. He spent six months in the United States, undergoing chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. He returned home to Jordan on January 19, 1999, piloting his own plane, and was welcomed by jubilation from his subjects, who believed he had been cured. He died of complications related to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on February 7, 1999. [19]

During his reign, Hussein was the target of as many as twelve assassination attempts. In 1957 army officers attempted to overthrow Hussein because they considered him overly sympathetic to the West. The following year, Syrian jets intercepted Hussein's plane and tried to force it down. He called this incident "the narrowest escape from death I have ever had." In 1960, Jordanian palace officials working for Syria admitted they had tried to kill Hussein by poisoning his food and putting acid in his nose drops. Hussein always managed to survive, and in time he became a respected voice for peace in the Middle East. [20]

The day after the king's death, his body left his home, which he had named the Door of Peace Palace after the peace he forged with Israel. All five of his sons were in close attendance. An honor guard of Bedouin troops accompanied the casket of the 63-year-old monarch on a 90-minute procession through the streets of the capital city of Amman. An estimated 800,000 Jordanians, many of them weeping, braved icy winds to say farewell to their leader. Hussein's widow, the American-born Queen Noor, stood in a doorway surrounded by other royal women dressed in black with white scarves. In deference to Muslim tradition, the royal women did not participate in the formal funeral devotions.

Attending the king's funeral were more than 40 kings, presidents, prime ministers, and other world leaders, and an even larger group of former leaders and other dignitaries. It was the largest gathering of royal and political leaders since the funeral of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. In a show of unusual political diversity, leaders of radical Arab states were side by side with officials from western democracies.

President Bill Clinton and former Presidents Bush, Carter, and Ford represented the United States, a longtime ally of Jordan. Their presence reflected Hussein's long and usually warm relationship with the United States going back to the Eisenhower era. The funeral also brought bitter enemies together from the Middle Eastern countries of Syria, Palestine, and Libya. The Czech and Russian presidents were also in attendance.

Ordinary Jordanians grieved for their king. Christians, who make up about eight percent of Jordan's four million people, flocked to churches. Black flags flew outside homes, and shops and businesses were shut in mourning.

Two weeks before Hussein's death he had changed his will and the Jordanian Constitution in order to appoint as his successor his eldest son, the 37-year-old Abdullah. Accompanying him as he received the visiting dignitaries was his father's brother, Hassan, who had been the heir apparent since 1965. [21]

His Legacy

Hussein’s commitment to democracy, civil liberties and human rights has helped pave the way in making Jordan a model state for the region. The kingdom is internationally recognized as having the most exemplary human rights record in the Middle East, while recent reforms have allowed Jordan to resume its irreversible drive to democratization. In 1990 Hussein appointed a royal commission representing the entire spectrum of Jordanian political thought to draft a national charter. Today the National Charter, along with the Jordanian Constitution, serves as a guideline for democratic institutionalization and political pluralism in the country. In 1989, 1993 and 1997, Jordan held parliamentary elections that were accredited internationally as among the freest and fairest ever held in the Middle East. [22]

A king turned peacemaker and philosopher, Hussein bin Talal will be remembered as a man who matured with his country, and helped foster peace in a region torn by conflict. [23]

Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, had this to say of Hussein:

It's one thing to be committed to peace as a strategic option. It's another thing to infuse that peace with the humanity, with the warmth, with the notion of cooperation and normally sayings that the king did. That was unique. No one else in the Arab world has done that. [24]

Writings

The life of Hussein has been the subject of numerous books. He himself was the author of three books:

• Uneasy Lies the Head (1962), about his childhood and early years as king,
• My War With Israel (1969), and
• Mon Métier de Roi [25]

External links

• A Living Tribute to the Legacy of King Hussein I - official Royal Jordanian memorial website

• Slide Show - Personal Tribute Page

Credits

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