True Name: Ṭalāl ibn `Abd Allāh (طلال بن عبد الله)
Parents: Abdullah I, king of Jordan, and Musbah bint Nasser
Date of Birth: 26 February 1909
Royal House: Hashemite
Spouse: Zein al Sharaf Talal, daughter of Jamal bin Nasser, governor of Hauran, and Wijdan Hanim
Predecessor: Abdullah I
Reign: 1951 – 1952
Summary: Talal was born in Mecca to Abdullah, a nobleman in the Ottoman Empire, and his wife Musbah. During his childhood, he received a private education and then joined the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst, from which he graduated in 1929. He became a second lieutenant in the Cavalry Regiment of the Arab Legion. He was first attached to the British regiment in Jerusalem before being transferred to the Royal Artillery in Baghdad. In 1946, the Kingdom of Transjordan was created for his father, Abdullah I, and Talal became royalty. The kingdom originally included much of modern-day Israel. Abdullah actively supported a Jewish state in the hope that the portions of Palestine not allocated to the Jews would be ceded to Jordan, much as the West Bank already was a part of Jordan. When the Arab-Israeli War broke out with the creation of the Israeli state in 1948, Jordan was forced to join in to avoiding looking passive to the other Arab powers. Abdullah set his goal as the conquest of Jerusalem to help satisfy his desire to occupy a Muslim holy site (his grandfather had once ruled over Mecca but lost it to the Saudi family in 1925). In 1951, Abdullah was assassinated by a Palestinian angry at Jordan's lack of willpower to remove Israel from the Middle East. Talal was suddenly the second king of Jordan and was unprepared for the role.
Royal House: Hashemite
Spouse: Zein al Sharaf Talal, daughter of Jamal bin Nasser, governor of Hauran, and Wijdan Hanim
Predecessor: Abdullah I
Reign: 1951 – 1952
Summary: Talal was born in Mecca to Abdullah, a nobleman in the Ottoman Empire, and his wife Musbah. During his childhood, he received a private education and then joined the Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst, from which he graduated in 1929. He became a second lieutenant in the Cavalry Regiment of the Arab Legion. He was first attached to the British regiment in Jerusalem before being transferred to the Royal Artillery in Baghdad. In 1946, the Kingdom of Transjordan was created for his father, Abdullah I, and Talal became royalty. The kingdom originally included much of modern-day Israel. Abdullah actively supported a Jewish state in the hope that the portions of Palestine not allocated to the Jews would be ceded to Jordan, much as the West Bank already was a part of Jordan. When the Arab-Israeli War broke out with the creation of the Israeli state in 1948, Jordan was forced to join in to avoiding looking passive to the other Arab powers. Abdullah set his goal as the conquest of Jerusalem to help satisfy his desire to occupy a Muslim holy site (his grandfather had once ruled over Mecca but lost it to the Saudi family in 1925). In 1951, Abdullah was assassinated by a Palestinian angry at Jordan's lack of willpower to remove Israel from the Middle East. Talal was suddenly the second king of Jordan and was unprepared for the role.
When Abdullah was assassinated, Talal's son, Hussein, was nearby. He was only fifteen at the time but saw his father as a dangerously weak monarch. Talal, meanwhile, set about liberalizing the constitution of Jordan, increasing the powers of the individual ministers of state while also increasing the power of the Parliament. Talal ratified this new constitution in January of 1952. During his short term in office, Talal worked hard to normalize relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, both of which viewed Jordan as weak on the problem of Israel. When European and Arab doctors both agreed that Talal was suffering from schizophrenia, Hussein forcibly deposed his father, succeeding to the throne at the age of sixteen. Despite his age, Hussein began his rule from the moment of his father's deposition. Talal lived another twenty years in a declining state of health, finally dying in Istanbul in 1972. He was returned to Jordan and buried at the Royal Mausoleum at the Raghadan Palace in Amman.
Date of Death: 7 July 1972
Successor: Hussein
Other Monarchs Who Died Today:
Date of Death: 7 July 1972
Successor: Hussein
Other Monarchs Who Died Today:
- Benedict XI, pope of Rome (1304)
- Edward I, king of England (1307)
- Sigismund II, king of Poland (1572)
- Athenagoras, patriarch of Constantinople (1972)
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