Lisa Halaby 's family
Noor of Jordan
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Lisa Halaby)
Her Majesty
Queen Noor (born
August 23,
1951) is the fourth wife and widow of the late
King Hussein of
Jordan (
1935-
1999). She is an
American of
Arab,
Swedish,
Scottish, and
English descent.
Queen Noor was born
Elizabeth Najeeb Halaby the daughter of Najeeb Elias Halaby (1915-2003), a former CEO of
Pan-American World Airways, one time head of the
Federal Aviation Administration, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, and his first wife, Doris Carlquist. She has a younger brother, Christian Halaby, a composer and guitarist, and a younger sister, Alexa Halaby (a
University of Pennsylvania squash champion who was a bridesmaid at the 1986 wedding of
Maria Owings Shriver and
Arnold Schwarzenegger). She was born in
Washington, DC.
Queen Noor's paternal grandfather, Najeeb Elias Halaby (1878-1928), a
Syrian immigrant of
Lebanese descent, was an oil broker, according to 1920 census records. Retail panjandrum Stanley Marcus, however, recalled that in the early 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).
Lisa Halaby was raised and educated in the United States, graduating from
Princeton University in 1974. An architect-planner by training, she met King Hussein while working in Jordan on the development of the Amman Intercontinental Airport. They married on
June 15,
1978. In a
New York Times article (
May 19,
1978) about the couple's forthcoming wedding, a friend of the bride described her as "a darling, healthy, sunburned, tennis-playing, All-American girl, but she is very sophisticated. I can't see her marrying the average boy." Halaby converted to
Islam, and before the marriage took place, her first name was changed from Elizabeth to Noor, an Arabic word meaning Light.
She is not the Queen Mother of Jordan, being
King Abdullah II's stepmother, but no apparent titular distinction has been made between Queen Noor and Abdullah's wife,
Queen Rania.
Queen Noor and King Hussein had four children:
- Prince Hamzah (born March 29, 1980)
- Prince Hashim (born June 10, 1981)
- Princess Iman (born April 24, 1983)
- Princess Raiyah (born February 9, 1986)
In 2003, Queen Noor published a memoir,
Leap of Faith, which became a bestseller.
[
edit]
External links
Retrieved from "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noor_of_Jordan"
Categories:
1951 births
