Queen Rania of Jordan

Queen Rania of Jordan

Queen of Jordan

Although her husband ascended on 7 February 1999, Rania did not become Queen immediately. She was proclaimed Queen of Jordan by her husband on 22 March 1999. Without proclamation, she would have been a princess consort, just like her mother-in-law, Princess Muna al-Hussein.

Queen Rania has pushed for more rights for women and children in the region and in the world as a whole. She set up the Madrasati initiative aimed at renovating Jordan's most dilapidated public schools and installing new computers.

Queen Rania has launched a "war on child abuse" after a story emerged of the brutal death of a child in Amman, Jordan. She is also an outspoken critic of honor killings.

Queen Rania has been an outspoken advocate of women's rights. She was awarded the honorary rank of colonel in the Jordanian Armed Forces by her husband, King Abdullah, on 9 June 2004.

She was named the third most beautiful woman in the world in the 2005 top 100 of Harpers & Queen magazine. In addition, she was the youngest queen in the world at the time King Abdullah succeeded to the throne. She has made many public appearances, including a half-hour television interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show on 17 May 2006, where she spoke about misconceptions about Islam and women's role in Islam. In May 2000, she was named an honorary member of Deerfield Academy's class of 2000 (her husband's alma mater).

Queen Rania was ranked 81st in the Forbes 2005 100 most powerful women of the world list. In 2009, she was ranked 75th.

In 2008, she was awarded the North-South Prize of the Council of Europe.

She met Jordanian King Abdullah bin Al-Hussein, then Prince, at a dinner party in January 1993. Two months later, they announced their engagement and on 10 June 1993, they were married. They have four children:

* Prince Hussein (born 28 June 1994)
* Princess Iman (born 27 September 1996)
* Princess Salma (born 26 September 2000)
* Prince Hashem (born 30 January 2005)