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Abdullah I of Jordan
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Abdullah I bin al-Hussein, King of Jordan(1882 – July 20, 1951) was born in Mecca, Ottoman Empire, (in modern-day Saudi Arabia) as (Arabic) ??? ???? ????? ?? ??????, to Sherif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca, later King of Hejaz, and his first wife Abdiya bint Abdullah. Educated in Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey and Hijaz. From 1912 to 1914, Abdullah sat in the Ottoman legislature, as deputy for Mecca, but allied with Britain during World War I. Between 1916 to 1918, working with the British guerilla leader T. E. Lawrence, he played a key role as architect and planner of the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule, leading guerilla raids on Turkish garrisons.
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Abdullah I bin al-Hussein, King of Jordan(1882 – July 20, 1951) was born in Mecca, Ottoman Empire, (in modern-day Saudi Arabia) as (Arabic) ??? ???? ????? ?? ??????, to Sherif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca, later King of Hejaz, and his first wife Abdiya bint Abdullah. Educated in Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey and Hijaz. From 1912 to 1914, Abdullah sat in the Ottoman legislature, as deputy for Mecca, but allied with Britain during World War I. Between 1916 to 1918, working with the British guerilla leader T. E. Lawrence, he played a key role as architect and planner of the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule, leading guerilla raids on Turkish garrisons. He was the ruler of Transjordan and its successor state, Jordan, from 1921 to 1951--first as Emir under a British Mandate from 1921 to 1946, then as King of an independent nation from 1946 to his death.
Founding of the Emirate of Transjordan
When French forces captured Damascus at the Battle of Maysalun and expelled his brother Faisal, Abdullah moved his forces from Hejaz towards Syria to liberate Syria and dislodge the French from Damascus, where his brother had been proclaimed King in 1918. Having heard of Abdullah's plans, Winston Churchill invited Abdullah to a famous "tea party" where he convinced Abdullah to stay put and not attack Britain's allies, the French. Churchill told Abdullah that French forces were superior to his and that the British did not want any trouble with French. Abdullah acquiesced and was rewarded when the British created a protectorate for him, which later became a state; Transjordan. He embarked on negotiations with the British to gain independence, resulting in the announcement of the Emirate of Transjordan’s independence on May 25, 1946 as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan (renamed simply Jordan in 1949). This date is Jordan’s official independence day. His brother Faisal became King of Iraq. Prime Ministers under Abdullah formed 18 governments during the 23 years of the Emirate.
Expansionist aspirations
Abdullah, alone among the Arab leaders of his generation, was a moderate with a modestly pro-Western outlook. He would actually have signed a separate peace agreement with Israel, but for the Arab League's militant opposition. Because of his dream for a Greater Syria comprising the borders of what was then Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the British Mandate for Palestine under a Hashemite dynasty with "a throne in Damascus," many Arab countries distrusted Abdullah and saw him as both "a threat to the independence of their countries and they also suspected him of being in cahoots with the enemy" and in return, Abdullah distrusted the leaders of other Arab counties.
In 1946-1947, Abdullah had no intention to "resist or impede the partition of Palestine and creation of a Jewish state." Historian Eugene L. Rogan wrote that Abdullah actually supported partition in order that the Arab allocated areas of the British Mandate for Palestine could be annexed into Transjordan. According to this thesis, Abdullah went so far as to have secret meetings with the Jewish Agency (future Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was among the delegates to these meetings) that came to a mutually agreed upon partition plan independently of the United Nations, and that the plan even had approval from British authorities. This idea of secret Zionist-Hashemite negotiations in 1947 was in fact first proposed by New Historian Avi Shlaim in his book Collusion Across The Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine.
The claim has, however, been strongly disputed by Israeli historian Efraim Karsh. In an article in Middle East Quarterly, he alleged that "extensive quotations from the reports of all three Jewish participants [at the meetings] do not support Shlaim's account...the report of Ezra Danin and Eliahu Sasson on the Golda Meir meeting (the most important Israeli participant and the person who allegedly clinched the deal with Abdullah) is conspicuously missing from Shlaim's book, despite his awareness of its existence". According to Karsh, the meetings in question concerned "an agreement based on the imminent U.N. Partition Resolution, [in Meir's words] "to maintain law and order until the UN could establish a government in that area"; namely, a short-lived law enforcement operation to implement the UN Partition Resolution, not obstruct it".
By 1948, the neighboring Arab states pressured Abdullah into joining them in an "all-Arab military intervention" against the newly created State of Israel, which he used to restore his prestige in the Arab world, which had grown suspicious of his relatively good relationship with Western and Jewish leaders. Abdullah's role in this war became substantial. He saw himself as the "supreme commander of the Arab forces" and "persuaded the Arab League to appoint him" to this position. His forces under their British commander Glubb Pasha did not approach the area set aside for the new Israel, though they clashed with the Yishuv forces around Jerusalem, intended to be the International Zone.
Assassination
On July 20, 1951, Abdullah, while visiting Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, was shot dead by Mustafa Shukri Ashu, "a Palestinian from the Husseini clan." On July 16, Riad Bey al-Solh, a former Prime Minister of Lebanon, had been assassinated in Amman, where rumors were circulating that Lebanon and Jordan were discussing a joint separate peace with Israel. The assassin passed through apparently heavy security. Abdullah was in Jerusalem to give a eulogy at the funeral and for a prearranged meeting with Reuven Shiloah and Moshe Sasson. Abdullah was shot while attending Friday prayers at the Dome of the Rock in the company of his grandson, Prince Hussein. The Palestinian gunman, motivated by fears that the old king would make a separate peace with Israel, fired three fatal bullets into the King's head and chest. Abdullah's grandson, Prince Hussein, was at his side and was hit too. A medal that had been pinned to Hussein's chest at his grandfather's insistence deflected the bullet and saved his life.
The assassin was a 21-year-old tailor's apprentice Mustafa Ashu, who according to Alec Kirkbride, the British Resident in Amman, was a "former terrorist". Ten conspirators were accused of plotting the assassination and were brought to trial in Amman. The prosecution named Colonel Abdullah Tell, ex-Military Governor of Jerusalem, and Dr. Musa Abdullah Husseini as the chief plotters of "the most bastardly crime Jordan ever witnessed." The Jordanian prosecutor asserted that Col. Tell had given instructions that the killer, made to act alone, be slain at once thereafter to shield the instigators of the crime. Tell and Husseini fled to protection in Egypt and four local co-conspirators were sentenced to death in Amman. Jerusalem sources added that Col. Tell had been in close contact with the former "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem", Amin al-Husayni, and his adherents in Arab Palestine.
Abdullah was succeeded by his son Talal; however, since Talal was mentally ill, Talal's son Prince Hussein became the effective ruler as King Hussein at the age of seventeen.
Marriages and children
Abdullad had married three times.
In 1904, Abdullah married his first wife Musbah bint Nasser (1884 - 15 March 1961) at Stinia Palace, Constantinople, Turkey. She was a daughter of Emir Nasser Pasha and his wife Dilber Khanum. They had three children:
- HRH Princess Haya (1907 - 1990). Married Abdul-Karim Ja'afar Zeid Dhaoui.
- HM Talal I (26 February 1909 - 7 July 1972).
- HRH Princess Munira (1915 - 1987). Never married.
In 1913, Abdullah married his second wife Suzdil Khanum (d. 16 August 1968), at Constantinople. They had two children:
- HE Damat HRH Prince Nayef bin Abdullah Beyefendi (Ta’if, 14 November 1914 - Amman, 12 October 1983). A Colonel of the Royal Jordanian Land Force. Regent for his older half-brother Talal from 20 July to 3 September 1951). Married in Cairo or Amman on 7 October 1940 HIH Princess Mihrimâh Selcuk Sultan (11 November 1922 - Amman, March 2000 and buried Istanbul, 2 April 2000), daughter of HIH Prince Sehzade Mehmed Ziyaeddin Efendi (Ortaköy, Ortaköy Palace, 26 August 1873 - Alexandria, 30 January 1938) and fifth wife (m. 10 February 1923) HH Neshemend Hanim Efendi (1905 - Alexandria, 1 February 1934 and buried in Cairo), and paternal granddaughter of Mehmed V by first wife. Father of:
- HRH Prince and HH Prince Sultanzade Ali bin Nayef Beyefendi (b. 10 August 1941), married on 11 April 1966 HRH Princess Wijdana Fawaz Muhana (b. Baghdad, 29 August 1939), and had:
- HRH Princess Nafa'a bint Ali Hanim (b. 27 December 1966), unmarried and without issue
- HRH Princess Rajwa bint Ali Hanim (b. 29 June 1968), unmarried and without issue
- HRH Princess Basma Fatima bint Ali Hanim (b. 29 March 1970), unmarried and without issue
- HRH Prince Mohammad Abbas bin Ali Bey (b. 17 February 1973), unmarried and without issue
- HRH Prince and HH Prince Sultanzade Asem Abu Baker bin Nayef Beyefendi (b. 1948), unmarried and without issue
- HRH Princess Maqbula (6 February 1921 - 1 January 2001). Married Hussein bin Nasser, Prime Minister of Jordan (terms 1963 - 1964, 1967).
In 1949, Abdullah married his third wife Nahda bint Uman, a lady from Sudan, in Amman. They had no children.
Footnotes
Bibliography
- Rogan, Eugene L., ed., and Avi Shlaim, ed. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.
- Landis, Joshua. "Syria and the Palestine War: fighting King 'Abdullah's 'Greater Syria plan.'" Rogan and Shlaim. The War for Palestine. 178-205.
- Rogan, Eugene L. "Jordan and 1948: the persistence of an official history." Rogan and Shlaim. The War for Palestine. 104-124.
- Tripp, Charles. "Iraq and the 1948 War: mirror of Iraq's disorder." Rogan and Shlaim. The War for Palestine. 125-150.
- Sela, Avraham. "Abdallah Ibn Hussein." The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East. Ed. Avraham Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 13-14.
- Shlaim, Avi (1990). The Politics of Partition; King Abdullah, the Zionists and Palestine 1921-1951 . Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-07365-8.
- Shlaim, Avi. "Israel and the Arab coalition in 1948." Rogan and Shlaim. The War for Palestine. 79-103.
- Shlaim, Avi (2007) Lion of Jordan; The life of King Hussein in War and Peace Allen Lane ISBN 9780713997774
- Wilson, Mary Chrstina (1990). King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39987-4.
- Michael Oren ,(Oxford, 2002), ISBN 0-345-45912-4 pp. 5, 7.
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