94 Facts About Abdullah II

Abdullah II is a member of the Hashemite dynasty, who have been the reigning royal family of Jordan since 1921, and is considered a 41st-generation direct descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Abdullah II began his schooling in Amman, continuing his education abroad.

Abdullah II began his military career in 1980 as a training officer in the Jordanian Armed Forces, later assuming command of the country's Special Forces in 1994, eventually becoming a major general in 1998.

In 1993 Abdullah II married Rania Al-Yassin, and they went on to have four children: Crown Prince Hussein, Princess Iman, Princess Salma and Prince Hashem.

Many of the protests led to civil wars in other countries, but Abdullah II responded quickly to domestic unrest by replacing the government and introducing reforms to the constitution and laws governing public freedoms and elections.

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Abdullah II is popular locally and internationally for maintaining Jordanian stability, and is known for promoting interfaith dialogue and a moderate understanding of Islam.

Abdullah II is custodian of the Muslim and Christian sacred sites in Jerusalem, a position held by his dynasty since 1924.

The 2021 Pandora Papers leak and the 2022 Credit Suisse leak revealed that Abdullah II maintained a vast empire of wealth that he disguised through offshore companies and tax havens; the Royal Court responded that the offshore accounts were used for offering privacy and security, while the funds were a result of private wealth inherited from his father.

Abdullah II is the namesake of his paternal great-grandfather, Abdullah I, who founded modern Jordan.

Abdullah II began his schooling in 1966 at the Islamic Educational College in Amman, and continued at St Edmund's School in England.

Abdullah II attended high school at Eaglebrook School and Deerfield Academy in the United States.

Abdullah II has four brothers and six sisters: Princess Alia, Prince Faisal, Princess Aisha, Princess Zein, Princess Haya, Prince Ali, Prince Hamzah, Prince Hashem, Princess Iman and Princess Raiyah; seven of them are paternal half-siblings.

Abdullah II began his military career at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1980, while he was a training officer in the Jordanian Armed Forces.

Abdullah II was admitted to Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1982, where he completed a one-year special-studies course in Middle Eastern affairs.

Abdullah II joined the Royal Jordanian Army on his return home, serving as first lieutenant and then as platoon commander and assistant commander of a company in the 40th Armored Brigade.

Abdullah II took a free-fall parachuting course in Jordan, and in 1985 he took the Armored Officer's Advanced Course at Fort Knox.

Abdullah II became commander of a tank company in the 91st Armored Brigade, with the rank of captain.

Abdullah II served with the Royal Jordanian Air Force's anti-tank helicopter wing, receiving training to fly Cobra attack-helicopters.

Abdullah II returned home to serve as assistant commander of the 17th Royal Tank Battalion in 1989, later being promoted to major.

Abdullah II attended a staff course at the British Staff College in 1990, and served the following year in the Office of the Inspector General of the Jordanian Armed Forces as the Armored Corps representative.

Abdullah II commanded a battalion in the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in 1992 and was promoted to colonel the following year, commanding the 40th Brigade.

Abdullah II met Rania Al-Yassin, a marketing employee at Apple Inc in Amman, at a dinner organized by his sister Princess Aisha in January 1993.

In 1994 Abdullah II assumed command of Jordan's Special Forces and of other elite units as a brigadier general, restructuring them into the Joint Special Operations Command two years later.

Abdullah II became a major general, attended a course in defence-resources management at the American Naval Postgraduate School and commanded an elite special-forces manhunt in the pursuit of outlaws in 1998.

Abdullah II joined his father on a number of missions, including meetings abroad with Soviet and American leaders.

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Abdullah II was occasionally King Hussein's regent during the 1990s but this duty was mainly performed by Hussein's younger brother, Crown Prince Hassan.

Abdullah II led his father's delegation to Moscow for talks in 1987.

Abdullah II frequently visited the Pentagon in Washington, where he lobbied for increased military assistance to Jordan.

Abdullah II commanded military exercises during Israeli military officials' visits to Jordan in 1997, and was sent to hand-deliver a message to Muammar Gaddafi in 1998.

On 24 January 1999, two weeks before his death, Hussein surprised everyone—including Abdullah II who thought he would spend his life in the military—by replacing Hassan with his son as heir apparent.

Several hours after the announcement of his father's death, Abdullah II appeared at an emergency session of the Jordanian parliament.

Abdullah II is head of state and commander-in-chief of the Jordanian Armed Forces and appoints the prime minister and the directors of security agencies.

Abdullah II cracked down on the Hamas presence in Jordan in November 1999 after pleas from the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

On 23 June 2000, while vacationing in the Greek Islands, Abdullah II received a phone call from the director of mukhabarat warning of an assassination attempt against him by Al-Qaeda.

In March 2003, during a meeting with George W Bush at the White House, Abdullah tried to dissuade the president from invading Iraq.

Abdullah II allowed American Patriot batteries to be stationed in the Jordanian desert along its border with Iraq, but did not allow coalition troops to launch an invasion from Jordan.

Abdullah II's postponement was criticized by the largest Islamist opposition party in the country, the Islamic Action Front, who accused Abdullah of impeding the democratic process.

Abdullah II inherited a controversial single non-transferable vote electoral system, implemented by his father in 1991, which hobbled Islamic political parties after they obtained 22 of 80 seats in the 1989 elections.

Abdullah II issued a royal decree before the election, introducing an amendment to the election law giving women a six-seat quota in Parliament.

In 2004, Abdullah II coined the term "Shia Crescent" to describe a Shia-dominated region from Damascus to Tehran which promoted sectarian politics.

Abdullah II's warning received international attention, leading Abdullah to clarify that he meant a shift in political alignment.

Abdullah II established King's Academy near Madaba, the Middle East's first boarding school, in 2007 in appreciation of the education he received at Deerfield Academy.

Abdullah II hired Deerfield headmaster Eric Widmer to oversee the school, which has students from throughout the region.

In 2008, Abdullah II became the first Arab head of state to visit Iraq after the 2003 American invasion.

Dissatisfied with the pace of reform, Abdullah II sacked Bakhit's government and appointed Awn Khasawneh to form a cabinet.

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Abdullah II called for an early parliamentary election and appointed Abdullah II Ensour to form a cabinet of intermittent government.

In December 2012, Abdullah II was the first head of state to visit the West Bank after a United Nations General Assembly vote upgraded the Palestinian Authority to a nonmember observer state.

Abdullah II criticized American diplomats, some of his country's tribal leaders and members of his family.

About the unrest in Iraq, Abdullah II told a delegation of US congressmen in June 2014 about his fear that the turmoil would spill across the entire region.

Abdullah II said that any solution to the problems in the war-torn countries must involve all the people of Iraq and Syria.

Shortly afterwards, Abdullah II said in an interview that the country's borders with Iraq and Syria were "extremely safe".

Abdullah II's retaliation was praised on the Internet, where he was dubbed "The Warrior King".

Abdullah II established a close cooperation between Jordan and the International Labour Organization.

Abdullah II was worried about the new administration's positions on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, specifically, issues relating to Israeli settlements.

Abdullah II was hosted by President Trump at the White House and they discussed "terrorism, the threat from Iran and the crisis in Syria, and working towards a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians".

Abdullah II stated, "The two-state solution is the only way for us to be able to move forward", and noted a possible Israeli annexation of the West Bank causes conflicts.

On 19 July 2021, during a two-week visit to the US, Abdullah II was received at the White House by President Joe Biden.

Abdullah II was the first leader from the Middle East to visit the White House since Biden's inauguration on 20 January 2021.

Abdullah II thanked Putin for Russia's support for Jordan and its provision of anti-COVID vaccines.

On 3 October 2021, Abdullah II held a telephone conversation with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the first contact since the start of the Syrian civil war.

On 16 July 2022, Abdullah II met with Joe Biden in Jeddah during the summit of the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and the US.

King Abdullah II proposed significant economic reforms to the country during the first decade of his reign.

Jordan embarked on an aggressive economic liberalization program when Abdullah II was crowned in an effort to stimulate the economy and raise the standard of living, and its economy has improved under his reign.

Abdullah II has been credited with attracting foreign investment, improving public-private partnerships and providing the foundation for the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority and Jordan's flourishing information and communications technology sector.

Abdullah II set up five other special economic zones: Irbid, Ajloun, Mafraq, Ma'an and the Dead Sea.

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Abdullah II negotiated a free-trade agreement with the United States, the third free-trade agreement for the US and its first with an Arab country.

Abdullah II's efforts have made Jordan the freest Arab economy and the ninth-freest economy in the world, according to a 2014 study by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty.

Abdullah II was criticized during his early years for focusing on economic, rather than political reform.

In September 2016, Abdullah II formed a royal committee to make recommendations which would improve the country's judiciary.

On 10 June 2021, Abdullah II announced the introduction of a new committee of 92 members chaired by former prime minister Samir Rifai.

In November 2021, Abdullah II ordered the government to push for political modernization.

On 3 January 2022, the Jordan parliament passed an amendment to Article 40 of the constitution, which allows Abdullah II to appoint or dismiss the chief justice, the head of the Sharia judicial council, the Grand Mufti of Jordan, the chief of the Royal Court, the minister of the court, and the advisors to the king.

Abdullah II modernized the army, leading Jordan to acquire advanced weaponry and increase and enhance its F-16 fighter-jet fleet.

Vandalism of the Egyptian pipeline supplying Jordan strained the country's electrical company, whose debt increased substantially; this prompted Abdullah II to urge the government to formulate a 10-year plan to diversify the kingdom's energy sources.

In 2007, Abdullah II said that Jordan intends to benefit from its large uranium reserves by building nuclear reactors to generate electricity; the country is one of the few non-petroleum-producing nations in the region.

Early on, in a 2010 interview, Abdullah II accused Israel of trying to disrupt Jordan's nuclear program.

Separately, Abdullah II opened a liquefied natural gas port in Aqaba in 2015, allowing Jordan to import LNG.

Abdullah II presented the Message in 2010 to the United Nations General Assembly, where he proposed a World Interfaith Harmony Week.

Abdullah II established an award, based on this initiative, for interfaith dialogue.

Abdullah II restored the Jami' Al-Aqsa and other mosques in Palestine.

The sharif's son, King Abdullah II I, is said to have personally taken charge of efforts to extinguish a fire which engulfed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1949.

In 2013 an agreement was signed between the Palestinian Authority and Abdullah II, replacing the decades-old verbal agreement which was reinforced by the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty.

Abdullah II met Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Amman in late 2014, and the Jordanian ambassador returned when Israeli authorities eased restrictions and revoked a decision that prevented men of all ages from praying at Al-Aqsa—for the first time in months.

In 2014, Abdullah II received Pope Francis in Jordan, the third papal visit of his reign.

Abdullah II led The 500 Most Influential Muslims 2016 list, published by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center, and was third on its 2018 list.

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On 28 November 2004 Abdullah II removed the title of crown prince from his half-brother, Prince Hamzah, whom he had appointed on 7 February 1999 in accordance with their father's advice.

King Abdullah II met Rania Al-Yassin at a dinner party in January 1993.

Abdullah II published an autobiography, Our Last Best Chance: The Pursuit of Peace in a Time of Peril, in 2010.

Abdullah II's book contains insights into his childhood and behind-the-scenes accounts of encounters with political figures.

Abdullah II has listed skydiving, motorcycling, water sports and collecting ancient weapons as his interests and hobbies, and is a fan of the science-fiction series Star Trek.

In 2013, a video of Abdullah II helping push a car stuck in snow in Amman during the 2013 Middle East cold snap went viral.

In 2017, another amateur video that went viral showed Abdullah II wearing pyjamas helping in extinguishing a fire in a wood near the royal palace.

Abdullah II owns an international network of real estate properties, valued in excess of $100 million.

Abdullah II's lawyers denied any misuse of public funds or tax evasion and stated that they were bought from the monarch's private wealth and through offshore companies for security and privacy reasons.