Faisal was then King of Hashemite Iraq, but was under regency since he was the same age as Hussein. He proceeded to Harrow School in England, where he befriended his second cousin Faisal II of Iraq, who was also studying there. He was then educated at Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt. The young prince started his elementary education in Amman. Hussein's maternal grandmother, Widjan Hanim, was the daughter of Shakir Pasha who was the Ottoman governor of Cyprus. The Hashemites, the oldest ruling dynasty in the Muslim world, are the second-oldest-ruling dynasty in the world (after the Imperial House of Japan). Hussein claimed to be an agnatic descendant of Muhammad's daughter Fatimah and her husband Ali, the fourth caliph, since Hussein belonged to the Hashemite family, which had ruled Mecca for over 700 years – until its 1925 conquest by the House of Saud – and has ruled Jordan since 1921. Hussein was the namesake of his paternal great-grandfather, Hussein bin Ali (Sharif of Mecca), the leader of the 1916 Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. During one cold Ammani winter, his baby sister Princess Asma died from pneumonia, an indication of how poor his family was then – they could not afford heating in their house. Hussein was the eldest among his siblings, three brothers and two sisters – Princess Asma, Prince Muhammad, Prince Hassan, Prince Muhsin, and Princess Basma.
Hussein was born in Amman on 14 November 1935 to Crown Prince Talal and Princess Zein al-Sharaf. Hussein (age six) and his mother, Zein al-Sharaf, 1941 He died at the age of 63 from cancer in 1999 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Abdullah II. Hussein, who survived dozens of assassination attempts and plots to overthrow him, was the region's longest-reigning leader. He was revered for pardoning political dissidents and opponents, and giving them senior posts in the government. He acted as a conciliatory intermediate between various Middle Eastern rivals, and came to be seen as the region's peacemaker. After 1967 he increasingly engaged in efforts to solve the Palestinian problem. Hussein led his country through four turbulent decades of the Arab–Israeli conflict and the Cold War, successfully balancing pressures from Arab nationalists, Islamists, the Soviet Union, Western countries, and Israel, transforming Jordan by the end of his 46-year reign into a stable modern state. The country had few natural resources, and a large Palestinian refugee population as a result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
In 1994 he became the second Arab head of state to sign a peace treaty with Israel.Īt the time of Hussein's accession in 1953, Jordan was a young nation and controlled the West Bank. He lifted martial law and reintroduced elections in 1989 when riots over price hikes spread in southern Jordan. The King renounced Jordan's ties to the West Bank in 1988 after the Palestine Liberation Organization was recognized internationally as the sole representative of the Palestinians.
In 1970 Hussein expelled Palestinian fighters (fedayeen) from Jordan after they had threatened the country's security in what became known as Black September. Jordan fought three wars with Israel under Hussein, including the 1967 Six-Day War, which ended in Jordan's loss of the West Bank. A few months into the experiment, he forced that government to resign, declaring martial law and banning political parties. Hussein, a constitutional monarch, started his rule with what was termed a "liberal experiment," allowing, in 1956, the formation of the only democratically elected government in Jordan's history. Hussein was married four separate times and fathered eleven children including King Abdullah II of Jordan and Princess Haya, who married the ruler of Dubai. The Jordanian Parliament forced Talal to abdicate a year later due to his illness, and a regency council was appointed until Hussein came of age. After Talal became king in 1951, Hussein was named heir apparent. Hussein began his schooling in Amman, continuing his education abroad. Talal was then the heir to his own father, King Abdullah I. Hussein was born in Amman as the eldest child of Talal bin Abdullah and Zein al-Sharaf bint Jamil. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, Hussein was a 40th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad. Hussein bin Talal (Arabic: الحسين بن طلال, Al-Ḥusayn ibn Ṭalāl 14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999) was King of Jordan from 11 August 1952 until his death in 1999. Hussein bin Talal bin Abdullah bin Hussein