Queen Noor of Jordan
Queen and Queen Dowager of Jordan; philanthropist and activist
Noor Al Hussein (Arabic: نور الحسين; born Lisa Najeeb Halaby; August 23, 1951) is an American-born Jordanian philanthropist and activist who was 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.
Family and early life
Queen Noor was born Lisa Najeeb Halaby in Washington, D.C., U.S., the eldest child of Najeeb Halaby (1915–2003) and Doris Carlquist (1918–2015). Her paternal grandfather was Syrian; her maternal family is Swedish American. Her father was raised a Christian Scientist and was a Navy experimental test pilot, an airline executive, and government official. He served as an aide to the United States Secretary of Defense in the Truman administration, before being appointed by President John F. Kennedy to head the Federal Aviation Administration. Najeeb Halaby also had a private-sector career, as CEO of Pan American World Airways from 1969 to 1972.
The public source identifies “Queen Noor of Jordan” as queen and Queen Dowager of Jordan; philanthropist and activist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Queen, Noor and Jordan.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q240575. VIAF identifies the subject as 106602914. The Library of Congress control number is n95055129. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1978, 1999 and 2023.
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This entry incorporates text from “Queen Noor of Jordan” 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.