Pathbreakers of Arab America, Tenth in Series: Lisa Halaby/Queen Noor of Jordan
By: John Mason / Arab America Contributing Writer
This is the tenth in Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, sports, science, academia, and politics, among other areas. Arab America highlights our tenth pathbreaker, Lisa Halaby, Queen of Jordan, Noor al-Hussein (‘the light of Hussein,’) Arab American, former architect/urban planner, proud daughter of Najib Halaby, originally of Syrian lineage, and Doris Carlquist. Her background allowed Lisa to adapt to the role of Queen in the royal family of King Hussein of Jordan. Lisa, now the widow of King Hussein, is a global activist for peace and justice.
Accomplished in her own right, Lisa Halaby went on to become Queen Noor of Jordan
Lisa Halaby was born in Washington, D.C. on August 23, 1951. She is the daughter of Syrian/Lebanese American father, Najeeb, and American mother, Doris Carlquist. Her father was a Navy experimental test pilot, an airline executive, and a government official. President John F. Kennedy appointed him to head the Federal Aviation Administration and then he served as CEO of Pan American World Airways from 1969 to 1972. The Halaby family has deep roots in the Syrian Lebanese community and Lisa’s great-grandfather was one of the earliest Syrian Lebanese immigrants to the United States. The family is Christian.
Lisa attended a number of prestigious schools before entering Princeton University, as a member of its first coeducational freshman class. She earned an A.B. in architecture and urban planning in 1974. Her senior thesis concerned a section of Manhattan, titled, “96th Street and Second Avenue.” Upon graduation, Halaby took a position with an Australian firm specializing in planning new towns, with an area focus on the Middle East. Lisa gravitated towards that area because of her Lebanese Syrian roots.
Halaby moved to a British firm and took a position as an architect-planner involved in designing a model capital city center in Tehran, Iran. During increasing political troubles in Iran, in the mid-late 1970, Lisa was forced to leave the country. At first, she filled a temporary aviation facility research job in Amman. Subsequently, Lisa became Director of Facilities Planning and Design for Jordan’s Alia Airlines.
In that period, Halaby met King Hussein, who befriended Lisa during a mourning period following the death of his third wife, Alia. Wikipedia describes the relationship, “Their friendship evolved and the couple became engaged in 1978.” The couple wed on June 15, 1978, in Amman, at which time Lisa became Queen of Jordan. She converted to Sunni Islam just prior to her marriage and began an intensive program to learn Arabic.
King Hussein died on February 7, 1999, from lymphatic cancer.
Halaby’s contribution to the Kingdom of Jordan, now as a global activist for peace and justice
Lisa, then Noor al-Hussein (the Light of Hussein), adapted quickly to her new role as Queen of Jordan. According to Wikipedia, “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.”
Halaby assumed management of the royal household, including her three stepchildren, mothered by Hussein’s deceased wife, Queen Alia. Noor and Hussein had four children of their own, Hamzah, who became Crown Prince from 1999 to 2004, Prince Hashim, Princess Iman, and Princess Raiyah.
Queen Noor contributed significantly to Jordanian development organizations and foundations. This involved support for family health, youth community development, Islamic microfinance, information and research, music, and culture and the arts. More recently, her international work has focused on environmental issues and the connection to human security, with an emphasis on water and ocean health.
Since King Hussein’s death, Halaby has been nothing but active. She 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 the Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson Award for public service.
“Jordan’s royal rift entangles an American-born queen”
Not of her own doing at all, Halaby got caught up in a Kingdom of Jordan palace drama. It involved her eldest son, then the Crown Prince, it was presumed that he would eventually follow his father, King Hussein, onto the throne of the Hashemite Kingdom. As a Los Angeles Times piece put it, “Whether lifted from Shakespeare or next up in the video-streaming queue, the story’s plotline seems oddly familiar: the traumatic circumstances of a royal death reverberating down through the years, family tensions simmering quietly for a generation before bursting into full view.”
This drama meant that Noor and Hussein’s first son, Hamza, was no longer being considered by his half-brother, King Abdullah, for succession to the throne. Abdullah removed Hamzah as crown prince, replacing him with his own eldest son. Hamza had published a strong criticism of the government for “high-level corruption, nepotism and misrule in Jordan.”
The drama had begun much earlier, when King Hussein, in his final days, removed his own brother, Hassan, as Crown Prince, instead anointing his eldest son, Abdullah, who was born to the king’s second wife, Princess Muna. In any case, Prince Hamza’s assumption of the throne would have meant a violation of Jordan’s constitution, which required that the eldest brother, not the son, would succeed King Hussein.
As the L.A. Times reported, Noor has confined her public statements to a carefully worded tweet. “Praying that truth and justice will prevail for all the innocent victims of this wicked slander,” she wrote. “God bless and keep them safe.”
Always a beacon of hope and optimism, Lisa Halaby has shown the world the readiness of Arab Americans to serve, whether as royalty or otherwise as exemplary citizen.
Sources:
–“List of Arab Americans, Lisa Halaby,” Wikipedia, 2023
— “Jordan’s royal rift entangles an American-born queen,” Yahoo/Los Angeles Times, 4/6/2021
John Mason, PhD., who focuses on Arab culture, society, and history, is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. He has taught at the University of Libya, Benghazi, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the American University in Cairo; John served with the United Nations in Tripoli, Libya, and consulted extensively on socioeconomic and political development for USAID and the World Bank in 65 countries.
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