Queen Dina: First wife of King Hussein

Banadoora · #1 11-23-2003, 08:25 AM

Queen Dina was very good looking in my opinion. Does anyone know what happened with her after they were divorced?

mahawi · #2 11-26-2003, 10:47 PM

well as i know queen dina got married again and i think that she lives in eygpt now.

igniya · #3 11-27-2003, 12:45 AM

You are right Queen Dina was very beautiful, elegant and extremely intelligent. She lives in Jordan now.

salma · #4 11-27-2003, 03:19 AM

I think that Dina lives in Egyt with her family, when Hussein divorcet to her she was in Egypt with Alia.

Banadoora · #5 11-27-2003, 11:45 AM

Oh, so Alia lived with her? I thought that if the king got divorced, he'd keep the children with him? Am I wrong?

salma · #6 11-27-2003, 05:23 PM

When Dina was in vacation in egypt whit Alia, Hussein said to dina that he want divorced to her, then Dina keep alia with her. During six or seven years Hussein can´t to see his daugther Dina.

Banadoora · #7 11-28-2003, 03:00 AM

Wow! Dina doesn't sound like a very nice person!

igniya · #8 11-28-2003, 05:19 AM

No I am sorry that was not the case. Princess Alia lived with her father and Princess Muna in Jordan.

For the past couple of years Princess Dina has been living in Jordan.

shelley · #9 07-24-2004, 08:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by salma@Nov 27th, 2003 - 5:23 pm
When Dina was in vacation in egypt whit Alia, Hussein said to dina that he want divorced to her, then Dina keep alia with her. During six or seven years Hussein can´t to see his daugther Dina.

I am sorry, you have got this totally wrong. Alia was at home in Jordan with her nanny when her mother was paying a quick visit to Egypt to visit her family, when she learnt of her divorce. Alia was taken to live with the young P. Hassan and P. Basma in the care of Queen Mother Zein. Dina did not return to Jordan for a long time and was by all accounts desperate to see her daughter but did not do so again for several years. By some account, and this is to Muna's credit, it was she who intervened with K. Hussein to allow her to see her child again. As years went by, and especially after Alia was sent to boarding school in Britain, mother and daughter saw more of each other. They have a close relationship and now a rather frail P. Dina lives in Amman with Alia. She is now in her late seveties having been nine years older than K. H.

Banadoora · #10 07-24-2004, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by shelley@Jul 24th, 2004 - 6:44 am
Alia was taken to live with the young P. Hassan and P. Basma in the care of Queen Mother Zein.

I can believe that. I didn't think that King Hussein would have allowed for her mother to raise her after they got divorced. I've also seen a picture of her with Princess Basma and Prince Hassan while they were young children on Prince Hassan's website.

maryshawn · #11 08-03-2004, 01:48 AM

Quote:

I am sorry, you have got this totally wrong. Alia was at home in Jordan with her nanny when her mother was paying a quick visit to Egypt to visit her family, when she learnt of her divorce. Alia was taken to live with the young P. Hassan and P. Basma in the care of Queen Mother Zein. Dina did not return to Jordan for a long time and was by all accounts desperate to see her daughter but did not do so again for several years. By some account, and this is to Muna's credit, it was she who intervened with K. Hussein to allow her to see her child again. As years went by, and especially after Alia was sent to boarding school in Britain, mother and daughter saw more of each other. They have a close relationship and now a rather frail P. Dina lives in Amman with Alia. She is now in her late seveties having been nine years older than K. H.

It's all true--no rumor for once. Princess Dina was divorced by KH while out of the country and not allowed to see her daughter, Alia, for years. And, yes, it was the gracious, thougtful Princess Muna who convinced KH to reunite mother and daughter. Now, I don't know who raised Alia but a busy, young playboy king wouldn't be around a lot and families mean a great deal in arabic societies so either she was raised by a nanny guided by Queen Zein or Queen Zein as who else would have taken care of her? I admire KH very much and understand he was young, a little insensitive, didn't like his challenging arranged marriage to the intellectual Dina....but this was one of the decisions he made (keeping mother and daughter apart) which was a poor one. My opinion.

salma · #12 01-20-2005, 08:59 AM

I have find this article about King Hussein and Queen Dina:

QUEEN DINA STREET: by Samir Raafat.
Cariro Times, 18 February 1999.

In pre-CNN days, when public opinion was hostage to state-controlled media, mega-eulogies and fairy tale weddings of foreign sovereigns were virtually unknown. So when King Hussein of Jordan came courting his Maadi belle in the 1950s, it was looked upon as a non-event. True, the suburb's blasé residents had seen it all before. Yet had audio-visual coverage been what it is today, with satellite technology and all, they might have had little choice in the matter.

The western educated bride-in-waiting lived with her uncles in a large Mediterranean-type villa, in what was regarded then as an exclusive suburb. At various times, Maadi had been home to deposed princes and monarchs, including an ex-empress.

It was also in Maadi that Hussein's uncle, Prince Nayef of Transjordan, wed a Turkish sultana ten years earlier. More aspiring than his older brother Talal, Nayef had taken a shot at the throne following the assassination of their father, King Abdallah. Had it not been for the resolve of the unshakable Zein --Hussein's mother--and the ingenuity of Prime Minister Tewfik Aboul Hoda Pasha, it would most probably have been Nayef's grandson assuming Jordan's throne today. Instead, Nayef was encouraged into exile, while his unassuming brother was declared mentally unfit.

Hussein, barely 17 at the time, became king.

Two years later Zein announced that a suitable partner had been found for her son. The prospective bride was Cambridge-educated and held a teaching post at Cairo University. Never mind that she was six years older than the groom. Being king would made up for any shortcomings on his part.

The choice had fallen on Al Sharifa Dina Abdel Aziz Oaun, a distant cousin. Through her father Al Sharif Abdel Hamid, her lineage--like that of King Hussein--could be traced back to Prophet Mohammed--hence her birthright designation of Al Sharifa (the Honorable).

By virtue of their Egyptian upbringing, the Cairo Hashemites were regarded as more urbane than their tribal cousins. Moreover, through her mother, Dina was also connected to Egypt's Circassian elite.

Of course, there was the question of wealth. While not as acknowledged as the Hashemite houses of Iraq and Jordan--both of whom had landed British-made thrones following the ousting of their common ancestor from the Kingdom of Al Hijaz, the Cairo Hashemites, including Dina's father and uncles, claimed the right to manage a large ancestral trust (waqf) consisting of almost 2000 feddans in Upper Egypt.

The wedding was set for April 19, 1955.

The couple's initial meeting took place at the home of a royal Iraqi relation in London. This was followed by brief encounters in Maadi, when King Hussein would go for drives with his fiancé in a large American car that made them both look even tinier than they actually were.

Aside from noting the fast cars and Groppi's yellow catering vans that frequently delivered sweets and pastries, the neighbors took little interest in the teenage ruler of what was then considered nothing more than a crossroads for desert caravans. And if one believed contemporary propaganda, Hussein's was a kingdom-by-default run by a British general, Glubb Pasha. Nasser, in a rising state of Arabphoria, had taken to lambasting Hussein's mentor on a daily basis.

A final pre-nuptial celebration took place in Maadi, where Dina gathered her friends, fellow professors and students to bid them farewell at a garden fete. The following week, the bride, along with her uncles, aunts and attendants, took off for Amman. There, a week of festivities brought together Hashemites from the four corners of the Arab World. On hand to entertain them at Zahran Palace was Egypt's foremost crooner, Farid Al Atrash.

But all was not going as planned. Except for common Hashemite blood, little else bonded the newlyweds. Differences became apparent and sometimes embarrassing. Even the arrival of baby Aliya did not help. Rather than decrease tensions, it made the presence of an omnipresent and doting Queen Mother intolerable.

Dina would learn of her divorce in 1956 while on a visit to Cairo. After a painful period of separation, Aliya was allowed to make visits. Hussein would occasionally call on his Maadi relations, too.

As far as the suburb was concerned, the only thing that came out of this whole affair was that while the names of Egypt's own monarchs and royals were abolished from street signs, up came a sign on Road 78 announcing that this was henceforth Queen Dina Street.

The renamed street was kept in impeccable order--one never knew when His Majesty would pop in. But gradually, as the wily king substituted wives, swapped regional allegiances, and transformed his desert kingdom into a clean well-functioning state, his visits to Maadi became less frequent. The Hashemite villa and the privileged street decayed in tandem, and the ex-queen was seldom seen.

Today, except for deserted looking villas and faded street signs evoking a distant past, Queen Dina Street is just another rickety road. Like the rest of Maadi, it has fallen on hard times. C'est la vie.

Veram98 · #13 11-21-2005, 10:41 AM

She was a Hashemite and a Sharifa, but not a royal princess.
she was not a member of the Egyptian royal family but a Hashemite (a third cousin of KH’s father). Her branch of the Hashemite family has been living in Cairo.

lil Monkey · #14 11-21-2005, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veram98

she was not a member of the Egyptian royal family but a Hashemite (a third cousin of KH’s father). Her branch of the Hashemite family has been living in Cairo.

wasn't she related to King Farouk of Egypt?! she was his neice?

Veram98 · #15 11-21-2005, 12:34 PM

King Hussein married "Sharifa Dina bint 'Abdu'l-Hamid, an Egyptian-born third cousin of King Hussein's father, King Talal, on April 19, 1955. A graduate of Cambridge University and a former lecturer in English literature at Cairo University, the bride was 26 to the groom's 19. They separated in 1956 and were divorced in 1957, at which time Queen Dina became known as Princess Dina. She became an Egyptian citizen in 1963, and in October 1970, Princess Dina of Jordan married Asad Sulayman Abd al-Qadir, alias Salah Taamari, a Palestinian guerilla commando who became a high-ranking official in the Palestine Liberation Organization".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Hussein

Cassy · #16 04-24-2008, 11:40 PM

a lebanese-american woman named deborah kanafani, a former fiancee of one of king hussein's brothers (she didn't say which, but she is closer in age to prince hassan) and the ex wife of one of yasser arafat's advisors, is working on a documentary about queen dina. she said queen dina's marriage to king hussein was a "forced marriage." queen dina declined his proposal, but queen zein announced the marriage anyway, forcing queen dina to marry him. then queen zein became insanely jealous and hateful when queen dina's beauty, elegance, and refinement were popular among jordanians. on one of queen dina's trips to egypt to visit an ill relative, queen zein worked behind the scenes to ensure queen dina wasn't able to return to jordan. that is how her estrangement from her daughter, princess alia, came about. also the eventual divorce from king hussein. it was only when king hussein remarried (princess muna) and queen zein was assured he wouldn't remarry queen dina that queen dina was permitted to see her daughter again.

Amazon.com: Unveiled: How an American Woman Found Her Way Through Politics, Love, and Obedience in the Middle East: Deborah Kanafani: Books

this version of events isn't widely known in jordan. if it's true, it speaks to queen zein's lack of character and heart and judgment. was she any less mentally ill than her husband?

rebbevb · #17 11-11-2008, 12:31 PM

Is there a recent picture of her ?

yamamah · #18 11-11-2008, 02:54 PM

I think Queen Dina married someone high up inthe PLO after her divorce from King Hussein. He stopped her from seeing her daughter and it was Princess Muna and Queen Alia who made him change his mind about that. Dina was very intelligent, an academic and a 'sharifa', also a Hashemite. In fact a cousin of King Hussein. She was very beautiful.

chaimae · #19 11-11-2008, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rebbevb

Is there a recent picture of her ?

i found this picture of queen dina in her wedding with king hussein .
http://www.egy.com/P/articles-2/99-02-18.1.jpg

More pictures :
http://deborahkanafani.com/yahoo_sit...192518_std.jpg
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....y/pix/dina.jpg

yamamah · #20 11-11-2008, 04:11 PM

This from wikipedia:

In October 1970 she married Asad Sulayman Abd al-Qadir, alias Salah Taamari, a Palestinian g