Queen Noor of Jordan

Family and early life

Queen Noor was born Lisa Najeeb Halaby in Washington, D.C. She is the daughter of Najeeb Halaby (1915–2003) and Doris Carlquist (1918–2015) of Swedish descent. Her father was a Navy experimental test pilot, an airline executive, and government official. He served as United States Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Truman administration, before being appointed by John F. Kennedy to head the Federal Aviation Administration. Najeeb Halaby also had a private-sector career, serving as CEO of Pan American World Airways from 1969 to 1972. The Halabys had two children following Lisa; a son, Christian, and a younger daughter, Alexa. They divorced in 1977. Doris C. Halaby died on December 25, 2015 age 97.

Noor's paternal grandfather, Najeeb Elias Halaby, a Syrian immigrant, was a petroleum broker, according to 1920 Census records. Merchant Stanley Marcus, however, recalled that in the mid-1920s, Halaby opened Halaby Galleries, a rug boutique and interior-decorating shop, at Neiman Marcus in Dallas, Texas, and ran it with his Texas-born wife, Laura Wilkins (1889–1987, later Mrs. Urban B. Koen). Najeeb Halaby died shortly afterward, and his estate was unable to continue the new enterprise.

According to research done in 2010 for the PBS series Faces of America by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., of Harvard University, her great-grandfather, Elias Halaby, came to New York around 1891, one of the earliest Syrian immigrants to the United States. He was a Christian and had been a provincial treasurer (magistrate) in the Ottoman Empire. He left Syria with his two eldest sons. His wife Almas and remaining children joined him in the United States in 1894. He died three years later, leaving his teenage sons, Habib, and Najeeb (her paternal grandfather), to run his import business. Najeeb moved to Dallas around 1910 and fully assimilated into American society.

Education

Halaby attended schools in New York and California before entering National Cathedral School from fourth to eighth grade. She attended The Chapin School in New York City for two years, then went on to graduate from Concord Academy in Massachusetts. She entered Princeton University with its first coeducational freshman class, and received a BA in architecture and urban planning in 1973. At Princeton she was also a member of the school's first women's ice hockey team.

Career

After she graduated from Princeton, Halaby moved to Australia, where she worked for a firm that specialized in planning new townswith a burgeoning interest in the Middle East which because of her Syrian roots had special appeal. After a year, she accepted a job offer from Llewelyn Davies, a British architectural and planning firm, in 1975 which had been employed to design a model Capitol city center in Tehran, Iran. When increasing political instability forced the company to relocate to the UK, she traveled to the Arab World and decided to apply to Columbia University’s graduate school of Journalism while taking a temporary aviation facility research job in Amman. Eventually, she left Arab Air and accepted a job with Alia Airlines to become Director of Facilities Planning and Design. Halaby and the king became friends while he was still mourning the death of his wife. Their friendship evolved and the couple became engaged in 1978.

Marriage and children

Halaby wed King Hussein on 15 June 1978 in Amman, becoming Queen of Jordan.

Before her marriage, she accepted her husband's Sunni Islamic religion and upon the marriage, the royal name Noor Al-Hussein ("Light of Hussein"). The wedding was a traditional Muslim ceremony. Although many assumed that she would be initially regarded as a stranger to the country and as an Arab-American Halaby, she was considered an Arab returning home rather than a foreigner. She soon gained power and influence by using her role as King Hussein's consort and her education in urban planning for charitable work and improvement to the country's economy.

Noor assumed management of the royal household and three stepchildren, Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, Prince Ali bin Al Hussein and Abir Muhaisen (her husband's children by Queen Alia). Noor and Hussein had four children:

Domestic agenda

Queen Noor founded the King Hussein Foundation (KHF) in 1979. It includes the Noor Al Hussein Foundation and 8 specialized development institutions: the Jubilee Institute, the Information and Research Center, the National Music Conservatory, the National Center for Culture and Arts and the Institute for Family Health, the Community Development Program, Tamweelcom the Jordan Micro Credit Company and the Islamic micro finance company, Ethmar. She is the Honorary Chairperson of JOrchestra. In addition, Noor launched a youth initiative, the International Arab Youth Congress, in 1980.

International agenda

She is chair of King Hussein Foundation International, a US non-profit 501(c)(3) which, since 2001, has awarded the King Hussein Leadership Prize.

Widowhood

Following a long battle with lymphatic cancer, King Hussein died on 7 February 1999. After his death, his first-born son, Abdullah, became king and Hamzah became Crown Prince. Unexpectedly, during 2004, Prince Hamzah was stripped of his status as heir designate. On 2 July 2009, Abdullah named his eldest son as heir to the throne, thereby ending the previous five years' speculation over his successor.

Noor divides her time among Jordan, Washington, D.C., and the United Kingdom (in London and at her country residence, Buckhurst Park, near Winkfield in Berkshire). She continues to work on behalf of numerous international organizations. She speaks Arabic, English and French. The queen also enjoys skiing, water skiing, tennis, sailing, horseback riding, reading, gardening and photography.

National honours

Foreign honours

Books written by Queen Noor