Queen Noor of Jordan

Noor Al Hussein (; born Lisa Najeeb Halaby; August 23, 1951)

Family and early life Queen Noor was born Lisa Najeeb Halaby in Washington, D.C., U.S., the eldest child of Najeeb Halaby (1915–2003) and Doris Carlquist (1918–2015). Her paternal grandfather was Syrian; her maternal family is Swedish American. Her father was raised a Christian Scientist and was a Navy experimental test pilot, an airline executive, and government official. He served as an aide to the United States Secretary of Defense in the Truman administration, before being appointed by President John F. Kennedy to head the Federal Aviation Administration. Najeeb Halaby also had a private-sector career, 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. The children were raised nominally Episcopalian. Najeeb and Doris divorced in 1977. Doris, who was of Swedish descent, died on December 25, 2015, aged 97.

Noor's paternal grandfather was Najeeb Elias Halaby, a Syrian-Lebanese businessman born in Zahle, and whose parents hailed from Aleppo. He was a petroleum broker, according to 1920 Census records. Merchant Stanley Marcus 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 circa 1891, one of the earliest Syrian-Lebanese immigrants to the United States. He was a Christian as well as having been a provincial treasurer (magistrate) as stated before by Najeeb Halaby in his autobiography Crosswinds: an Airman's Memoir.

Education

Halaby attended schools in New York and California before entering National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C. from fourth to eighth grade. She attended the Chapin School in New York City for two years, and then went on to graduate from Concord Academy.

She entered Princeton University with its first coeducational freshman class and received an A.B. in architecture and urban planning in 1974 after completing a 32-page long senior thesis titled "96th Street and Second Avenue." She was also a member of Princeton'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 towns, with a burgeoning interest in West Asia. Because of Halaby's Syrian roots, this had special appeal for her. After a year, in 1975, she accepted a job offer from Llewelyn Davies, a British architectural and planning firm, which had been employed to design a model capital 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 third wife. Their friendship evolved and the couple became engaged in 1978.

Marriage and children

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

Before her marriage, she accepted her husband's Sunni Islamic religion and upon the marriage, changed her name from Lisa Halaby to the royal name Noor Al Hussein ("Light of Hussein"). The wedding was a traditional Muslim ceremony. 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).

International agenda Queen Noor's international work focuses on environmental issues and the connection to human security with emphasis on water and ocean health. At the 2017 Our Ocean Conference, she delivered a keynote address on the link between climate change and ocean health with human security. Queen Noor is Patron of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, Founding and Emeritus President of BirdLife International, Trustee Emeritus of Conservation International, and an Ocean Elder. In 1993 she accompanied King Hussein to the opening of Challenge 93, the first international ex-service wheelchair games at Stoke Mandeville. On July 2, 2009, Abdullah named his eldest son Prince Hussein as heir apparent to the throne, thereby ending the previous five years' speculation over his successor.

Noor divides her time among Jordan, the United States (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 also enjoys skiing, water skiing, tennis, sailing, horseback riding, reading, gardening and photography. She held amateur radio callsign JY1NH, but the license has lapsed.

Honours National honours

Foreign honours

Awards 2001: Blessed are the Peacemakers Award from Catholic Theological Union

Publications

A New York Times #1 best seller published in 17 languages