On Fragments of Former Greatness: How Jordan Noor’s ‘Evil’ Ex-Mistress Recalls Awkward First Encounter With Her King-Husband

While Queen Rania, 52, King Abdullah, 61, and their four children are constantly in the public eye and in the thick of it, Queen Noor, 71, appears to have chosen the path of isolation . King Hussein’s widow did not attend the royal weddings of Rania and Abdullah’s children, rarely posts on social media and is hardly shown in public. In 2023, she has only been seen twice – at the memorial service for Greek King Constantine in January and in late June at a meeting of the International Commission on Missing Persons in The Hague.

Noor and Abdullah’s cold relationship is no secret. It all started at Rania and Abdullah’s wedding on June 10, 1993. For reasons not officially discussed, Noor was not allowed to pose with his family for official photos.

Of course, when Abdullah suddenly took the throne six years after the wedding, Nur didn’t thaw out, because she had to step aside. Moreover, in 2004, things took a very unpleasant turn – the new king deprived Nur’s son, Prince Hamza, of the title of crown prince and heir. Abdullah accused his half-brother of “plotting” and “destabilizing the kingdom” and placed him under house arrest in 2021, and the situation escalated to the extreme.

In 2022, Hamza, who lives under house arrest in Jordan, even decided to give up his royal title. Mother, despite all the precariousness of Hamza’s position, always ardently defended him and rejected any accusation that the prince was trying to seize power. As it turns out, she became practically the only member of the Jordanian royal family who remained on Hamza’s side. His own younger brother Hashim, the king’s half-brother, continues to perform his royal duties and remains a confidant and loyal friend of Abdullah, condemning Hamza’s outrageous attempts to interfere in the administration of the kingdom.

Read also: What Prince Hashim Looks Like, The Father Of Jordan’s Most Beautiful Princess, Haala

The result of this split was the complete separation of Nur from his kin. On the one hand, she remains a representative of the Hashemite court – but lives and works alone. A painful situation for Abdallah and Rania, who put family first!

Ever since her husband closed his eyes for good on February 7, 1999, Queen Noor seems to have struggled. After all, for nearly 20 years she was a wealthy, infinitely influential, and certainly bossy woman – and it all ended in an instant.

In 2004, Noor published a memoir titled In the Spirit of Reconciliation – Living Between Two Worlds. And it is there that she evokes with warmth and emotion the moment of the first meeting with the one who has become her only chosen one and the father of her four children.

In the winter of 1976, Lisa Chalabi accompanied her father, Najib Chalabi, an airline executive and director of the United States Federal Aviation Administration, on a trip to Amman.

“When we first met, I saw my future husband through the lens. I was standing with my father on the runway at Amman airport in Jordan when King Hussein came to us salute,” wrote Noor. “My father always made decisions very quickly, then he handed me his camera. ‘Take a picture of me with the king,’ he ordered. I was terribly embarrassed, because my dad so adamantly turned to the head of state with a request to pose for a picture! But of course I took pictures. In this picture, my dad and my future husband are standing side by side coast, and in the background is the king’s eldest daughter, Princess Alia.

Read also: Behind the Scenes of Abdullah and Rania’s Happiness: Secrets and Tragedies of the Jordanian Royal Family

Queen Noor’s father was invited to a small party on the occasion of the purchase of the first Boeing 747, and he was also eager to carry out organizational preparatory work for a pan-Arab aviation school in Amman to reduce the the region’s dependence on foreign specialists, and he was discussing this possibility at a reception. The project was highly appreciated by King Hussein and other enthusiasts of Jordanian aviation development. And Liza Chalabi joined the work of this aviation school – at that time she had just left her job in Tehran and was happy to go to Jordan.

By a fateful coincidence, King Hussein’s beloved wife Alia Toukan died in a plane crash in 1977 – Amman’s first airport was named after her. And in 1978, the widowed king married for the fourth and last time, and it was the young Lisa Halabi who became his chosen one… Many said that Hussein had chosen her because of her resemblance to Aliya, others gossips whispered that the American “hurry on time.” Anyway, it was Lisa, who adopted the name Nur al-Hussein with Islam, turned out to be a woman, hand in hand with whom the King of Jordan was destined to meet the old age and to rest in peace, surrounded by children and grandchildren.

But her energetic character and ambitions did not allow Liza-Nur to accept her fate, and that is why for twenty years she has occupied a special place in the royal family. And with true oriental sophistication, he uses his silence as a weapon…

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