Abdullah I of Jordan was born in February 1882 in Mecca, Hejaz, Ottoman Empire. He was the second of three sons of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca and his first wife Abdiyya bint Abdullah (d. 1886). According to Abdullah, he was a 38th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad as he belongs to the Hashemite family.
He was educated in Constantinople and Hejaz.
Following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the new Ottoman government appointed Husein ibn Ali the sharif of Mecca, the protector of the holy places, which was a position his family had often held.
Abdullah represented the Hejaz Province of western Arabia in the reorganized Ottoman parliament and participated in Arab political movements concerned with the question of autonomy or independence for Arab areas of the multinational Ottoman Empire.
Even before the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Abdullah had discreetly contacted British officials in Egypt to learn Great Britain's attitude toward Arab political aspirations in the event of Ottoman involvement in war.
Consequent negotiations led in part to the Arab Revolt of June 1916, in which Abdullah and Arab troops assisted British efforts to drive the Turks out of Syria.
Following the war, Britain could not harmonize the pledges it had made to the French, the Zionists, and the Arabs-especially the Arab expectation for a separate and fully independent Arab state for the Fertile Crescent and Arabia.
The Arab National Congress at Damascus in 1920 elected Abdullah king of Iraq and his brother Faisal king of Syria, but the French seizure of Damascus in July 1920 upset the plans.
Abdullah moved north in 1921 with troops to support Faisal's claims, but the pragmatic Abdullah acquiesced in Britain's immediate proposal to accept the newly created emirate of Transjordan, the largely arid territory east of the Jordan River. This land became formally independent in 1946, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1949.
During the first Palestinian War of 1948-1949, Abdullah's British-trained Arab Legion held central Palestine, which Abdullah annexed in 1950 over the objections of Palestinians and the other Arab states.
Because of this and the general opinion that he was a moderate and was willing to reach an accommodation with Israel, Abdullah was killed by an embittered Palestinian on July 20, 1951, in Jerusalem-the nationalist of one generation assassinating the nationalist of an earlier one.
Between World Wars I and II Abdullah had ruled as a realistic, capable desert emir, but he was not cognizant of new social and political forces emerging in the Arab world following World War II and the Palestinian conflict. Abdullah failed completely in his ambitious dream of building a greater Syrian union with himself as king, just as his father had failed before him.
He joined the Arab nationalist movement, which sought independence for Arab territories in the Ottoman Empire.
Abdullāh aspired to create a united Arab kingdom encompassing Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan.
Abdullah married three times. In 1904, Abdullah married his first wife Musbah bint Nasser (1884 – 15 March 1961) at Stinia Palace, İstinye, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire. She was a daughter of Emir Nasser Pasha and his wife Dilber Khanum. They had three children.
In 1913, Abdullah married his second wife Suzdil Khanum (d. 16 August 1968), at Istanbul, Turkey. They had two children.
In 1949, Abdullah married his third wife Nahda bint Uman, a lady from Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in Amman. They had one child.
( 1853/1854 – 4 June 1931)
(1884 – 15 March 1961)
(d. 16 August 1968)
She was a lady from Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, in Amman.
(1907 – 1990)
(6 February 1921 – 1 January 2001)
(1915 – 1987)
(1950)
(26 February 1909 – 7 July 1972)
(14 November 1914 – 12 October 1983)
