Quick Facts
Biography
Talal bin Abdullah (Arabic: طلال بن عبد الله, Ṭalāl ibn ‘Abd Allāh) 26 February 1909 – 7 July 1972) was King of Jordan from the assassination of his father, King Abdullah I, on 20 July 1951, until he was forced to abdicate by Parliament on 11 August 1952. According to Talal, he was a 39th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad as he belongs to the Hashemite family—who have ruled Jordan since 1921.
Talal ruled for less than thirteen months until he was forced to abdicate due to mental illness (reported as schizophrenia).
Life
Talal was born on 26 February 1909 at Mecca in the Hejaz, then part of the Ottoman Empire, to Abdullah and his first wife Musbah.
He was educated privately before attending the British Army's Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from which he graduated in 1929 when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Cavalry Regiment of the Arab Legion. His regiment was attached to a British regiment in Jerusalem and also to the Royal Artillery in Baghdad.
Talal ascended the Jordanian throne after the assassination of his father, Abdullah I, in Jerusalem. His son, Hussein, who was accompanying his grandfather at Friday prayers was also a near victim. On 20 July 1951, Prince Hussein travelled to Jerusalem to perform Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque with his grandfather, King Abdullah I. An assassin fearing that the king might normalise relations with the State of Israel, killed Abdullah, but the 15-year-old Hussein survived.
During his short reign he was responsible for the formation of a liberalised constitution for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which made the government collectively, and the ministers individually, responsible before the Jordanian Parliament. The constitution was ratified on 1 January 1952. King Talal is also judged as having done much to smooth the previously strained relations between Jordan and the neighbouring Arab states of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Talal died in Istanbul on 7 July 1972 and was buried in the Royal Mausoleum at the Raghadan Palace in Amman.
Marriage and children
In 1934, Talal married his first cousin Zein al-Sharaf Talal who bore him four sons and two daughters:
- King Hussein (14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999).
- Princess Asma, died at birth in 1937.
- Prince Muhammad (born 2 October 1940).
- Prince Hassan (born 20 March 1947).
- Prince Muhsin, deceased.
- Princess Basma (born 11 May 1951).
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Titles, honours and awards
Titles
- 26 February 1909 – 25 May 1946: His Royal Highness Prince Talal of Jordan
- 25 May 1946 – 20 July 1951: His Royal Highness The Crown Prince of Jordan
- 20 July 1951 – 11 August 1952: His Majesty The King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Honours
- Honorary Lieutenant, Trans-Jordan Frontier Force, 1932
- Honorary Major-General, Jordan Arab Army, 1949
- Field Marshal, Jordan Arab Army, 1951
- Grand Cross of the Order of Military Merit (with white distinctive) of Spain, 1 April 1952.
- Grand Collar of the Order of the Hashemites, 1951
- Order of the Two Rivers of the Kingdom of Iraq, 1st Class, 1951
- Grand Master of the Order of al-Hussein bin Ali, 1951
- Grand Master of the Supreme Order of the Renaissance, 1951
- Grand Master of the Order of Independence, 1951