Hussein Onn
prime Minister of Malaysia from 1976 to 1981
Hussein bin Onn (Jawi: حسين بن عون; 12 February 1922 – 29 May 1990) was a Malaysian lawyer and politician who was the third prime minister of Malaysia from 1976 to 1981.
Early life, family and education
Hussein Onn was born on 12 February 1922 in Johor Bahru to an aristocratic family. His father, Onn Jaafar (1895–1962) was a pioneer of early Malay nationalism and helped found the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), serving as its inaugural president. His mother was Halimah Hussein (1900–1988). Hussein's grandfather, Jaafar Haji Muhammad, was the first Menteri Besar of Johor, or Chief Minister, while his grandmother, Rogayah Hanim, is generally understood to have come from the Caucasus region of the Ottoman Empire. She was likely presented as a concubine (see Circassian beauties) by the Ottoman court to the Sultan of Johor, but her exact origins are unclear. Through Rogayah, Hussein is also cousin to academics Ungku Abdul Aziz, Syed Hussein Alatas, and Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas.
In 1948, Hussein married Suhailah Noah, a daughter of first Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat Mohamed Noah Omar. Abdul Razak Hussein was his brother-in-law by virtue of his marriage to another of Mohamed Noah's daughters, Rahah Noah.
Hussein received his early education at Telok Kurau Primary School, Singapore, and at English College Johore Bahru.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hussein Onn” as prime Minister of Malaysia from 1976 to 1981. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as prime Minister of Malaysia from 1976 to 1981. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q529391. VIAF identifies the subject as 30837228. The Library of Congress control number is n80068706. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 1990, 1976 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hussein Onn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.