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Queen Noor of Jordan biography

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Quick Facts

  • NAME: Queen Noor of Jordan
  • OCCUPATION: Queen
  • BIRTH DATE: August 23, 1951 (Age: 60)
  • EDUCATION: National Cathedral School, The Chapin School in New York City, Concord Academy in Massachusetts, Princeton University
  • PLACE OF BIRTH: Washington, District of Columbia
  • ZODIAC SIGN: Leo
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Best Known For

Queen Noor of Jordan is the last wife and widow of King Hussein of Jordan. American by birth, she worked to better the use of Jordan's educational resources.

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Synopsis

American by birth, Queen Noor of Jordan (b. August 23, 1951 in Washington D.C.) is the last wife and widow of King Hussein of Jordan. She was queen consort of Jordan between 1978 and 1999. Upon her husband's death (1999), she became the queen dowager of Jordan. She is the current president of the United World Colleges and an advocate of Global Zero, an anti-nuclear weapons proliferation campaign.

Early Life

Royalty. Born in Washington, D.C., on August 23, 1951, the Queen of Jordan was originally named Lisa Najeeb Halaby at her birth. Her father, Najeeb Elias Halaby, was a former U.S. Navy test pilot and lawyer who had been head of the Federal Aviation Administration under President John F. Kennedy. Born into a distinguished Arab-American family, Lisa experienced a privileged upbringing, attending exclusive private schools in Washington D.C., New York City, and Massachusetts before enrolling in the first co-educational class at Princeton University in 1969.

In 1972, after taking a break from academics to waitress, ski, and study photography in Aspen, Colorado, Lisa returned to Princeton and took up her study of architecture and urban planning with a renewed vigor and drive. Upon graduation, she flew to Australia and worked for an architectural firm that specialized in the design of new towns. At this time, her steadily growing interest in Arab culture took shape in the form of a job offer from Llewelyn-Davies, Weeks—a British architectural firm that had been commissioned to re-plan the city of Teheran—which she immediately accepted.


Marriage to King Hussein of Jordan

Lisa returned to the United States in 1976, where she planned to obtain a master's degree in journalism, entertaining the idea of pursuing a career in television production. In the meantime, her father had just accepted an offer from the Jordanian government to help redesign their airlines, forming the company Arabair Services. He offered Lisa a job and she accepted, foregoing the Columbia School of Journalism to become the airline's Director of Facilities Planning and Design. She assisted in the design of the Arab Air University, to be built in the Jordanian capital, as well as a housing company for Royal Jordanian Airlines employees.

During this time, Lisa attended several important social events in Jordan, and occasionally got the opportunity to meet King Hussein (they first met at an airport ceremony in 1977). The King, who was still mourning the loss of his third wife, Alia, took great interest in the airlines. The two became friends, and by 1978, their friendship had evolved into a romance. Lisa later recalled to Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair: "We courted on a motorcycle. It was the only way we could get off by ourselves." After a six-week courtship, King Hussein proposed to Lisa on May 13, 1978.

On June 15, 1978, Lisa Najeeb Halaby became the first American-born queen of an Arab country, taking the name Noor al-Hussein or "Light of Hussein." She and King Hussein married in a traditional Islamic ceremony at the Zaharan Palace, where Queen Noor was the only woman present. Although the Jordanian people expressed discomfort about King Hussein's choice of a non Arab-Muslim bride, they soon warmed to the union when they witnessed Noor's genuine interest and commitment to Jordan and her conversion
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