Noor Al-Hussein
Noor Al Hussein born Lisa Najeeb Halaby; August 23, 1951, is an American-born Jordanian philanthropist and activist who is the fourth wife and widow of King Hussein of Jordan. She was Queen of Jordan from their marriage on June 15, 1978, until Hussein\'s death on February 7, 1999.
Noor is the longest-standing member of the Board of Commissioners of the International Commission on Missing Persons. As of 2023, she is president of the United World Colleges movement and an advocate of the anti-nuclear weapons proliferation campaign Global Zero. In 2015, Queen Noor received Princeton University\'s Woodrow Wilson Award for her public service.
Queen Noor was born Lisa Najeeb Halaby in Washington, D.C. 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, 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. 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 the Middle East. 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.
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. Her conversion to Islam and wedding to the King of Jordan received extensive coverage in the Western press; many assumed that she would be regarded as a stranger to the country[citation needed], since she was an American of mostly European descent who was raised in Christianity. However, because of her Syrian grandfather, she was considered by most of the population to be an Arab returning home rather than a foreigner[citation needed]. She soon gained 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, as well as the empowerment of women in Jordanian economic life.[citation needed]
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.
