Ḥussein - King of Jordan

born November 14, 1935, Amman, Transjordan [now Jordan]
died February 7, 1999, Amman, Jordan

King Ḥussein of Jordan.in full Ḥussein ibn Ṭalāl, Ḥussein also spelled Ḥusayn king of Jordan from 1953 to 1999. His reign marked the shaping of the modern kingdom of Jordan, and his policies greatly increased the Jordanian standard of living. A member of the Hāshimite dynasty, he was considered by pious Muslims to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad (Ahl al-Bayt).
Educated partly in England, Ḥussein succeeded his father, King Ṭalāl, who because of mental illness was declared unfit to rule by parliament in 1952 and abdicated in favour of his eldest son, Ḥussein. Ḥussein was crowned king the next year on his 18th birthday. His policies fostered slow but steady economic progress, though he was sometimes forced to depend on financial aid from the West. Ḥussein's base of support was his country's indigenous Bedouin tribesmen. Because the Palestinian majority in Jordan felt no attachment to his dynasty, Ḥussein strengthened the military establishment to assert the authority of the crown over that of parliament.
Ḥussein's socially conservative policies and his alignment with the Western powers were often criticized by other Arab leaders as well as by his domestic opposition. Thus, popular demonstrations, especially in the West Bank, and political unrest precluded his joining the pro-Western mutual defense treaty between the United Kingdom, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Iraq known as the Central Treaty Organization, or Baghdad Pact (1955), which he had helped initiate. He was also forced in 1956 to dismiss General John Bagot Glubb, the British officer who commanded the Arab Legion (Jordanian army).
With U.S. aid he steadily expanded and modernized his military forces, but Israel's military victory over Jordan in the Arab-Israeli War of June 1967 was a severe setback to Ḥussein's regime, resulting as it did in the loss of the West Bank to Israel and the influx of more Palestinian refugees into Jordan. After the war Ḥussein's rule was threatened by the military forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), who based themselves in Jordan to carry out guerrilla raids against Israel. In September 1970 full-scale warfare broke out between the PLO and Ḥussein's army in a struggle for control of the country. Ḥussein's army succeeded in completely expelling the PLO's forces from Jordan in 1971. In the following years Ḥussein steered a difficult course: he refrained from confronting Israel militarily, he mended relations with the PLO, and he sought both closer ties with and financial aid from Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Arab states. He also maintained good relations with the United States and Great Britain. In 1988 Ḥussein surrendered Jordan's claim to the disputed West Bank, as well as its role in representing the Palestinians living there, to the PLO. In the wake of the Israel-PLO accords of 1993, Ḥussein on October 26, 1994, signed a bilateral peace treaty normalizing relations between Jordan and Israel.
At Ḥussein's death, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Abdullāh, who became King Abdullāh II.
Ḥussein's autobiography, Uneasy Lies the Head, was published in 1962.