Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein (Arabic: عبدالله الثاني بن الحسين, romanized: Abd Allāh ath-thani bin Al-Husayn; born 30 January 1962) is King of Jordan, reigning since 7 February 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of Jordan since 1921, he is a 41st-generation direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad.
Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein (Arabic: عبدالله الثاني بن الحسين, romanized: Abd Allāh ath-thani bin Al-Husayn; born 30 January 1962) is King of Jordan, reigning previously 7 February 1999. As a aficionado of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal associates of Jordan before 1921, he is a 41st-generation forward descendant of the prophet Muhammad.
Abdullah was born in Amman as the first child of King Hussein of Jordan and his second wife, British-born Princess Muna. As the king’s eldest son, Abdullah was heir apparent until Hussein transferred the title to Abdullah’s uncle, Prince Hassan, in 1965. Abdullah began his schooling in Amman, continuing his education abroad. He began his military career in 1980 as a training commissioner in the Jordanian Armed Forces, later assuming command of the country’s Special Forces in 1994, and he became a major general in 1998. In 1993 Abdullah married Rania Al-Yassin (of Palestinian descent), and they have four children: Crown Prince Hussein, Princess Iman, Princess Salma and Prince Hashem. A few weeks in the past his death in 1999, King Hussein named his eldest son Abdullah his heir, and Abdullah succeeded his father.
Abdullah, a constitutional monarch, liberalized the economy afterward he assumed the throne, and his reforms led to an economic boom which continued until 2008. During the past years Jordan’s economy experienced hardship as it dealt in the same way as the effects of the Great Recession and spillover from the Arab Spring, including a clip in its petroleum supply and the collapse of trade with against countries. In 2011, large-scale protests demanding reform erupted in the Arab world. Many of the protests led to civil wars in other countries, but Abdullah responded speedily to domestic unrest by replacing the meting out and introducing reforms to the constitution and laws governing public freedoms and elections. Proportional representation was introduced to the Jordanian parliament in the 2016 general election, a upset which he said would eventually help to establishing parliamentary governments. The reforms took place in the middle of unprecedented challenges stemming from regional instability, including an influx of 1.4 million Syrian refugees into the natural resources-lacking country and the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Abdullah is popular locally and internationally for maintaining Jordanian stability, and is known for promoting interfaith dialogue and a sober understanding of Islam. The longest-serving current Arab leader, he was regarded by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre as the most influential Muslim in the world in 2016. Abdullah is custodian of the Muslim and Christian sacred sites in Jerusalem, a twist held by his dynasty past 1924.