Letter to HRH Crown Prince Abdullah 

January 26, 1999 

(Translated from the original Arabic)

His Royal Highness Crown Prince Abdallah Bin-Hussein, may God watch over him:

I extend to you a Hashemite Arab greeting, full of love, confidence, and pride in you as a Hashemite knight, a soldier for the homeland, my heir, and the person who our great Jordanian family of all origins pins great hopes on.

I have bestowed upon you the position of crown prince of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with a clear conscience. I am very confident and reassured that you are fit to bear this great responsibility. I have known you—my son, whom I raised with my own hands—to love your country, enjoy a great sense of belonging to it, work diligently and selflessly for its sake without showing off. I know you to be determined, strong-willed, objective, balanced, and to work upon the guidelines of the honorable and noble Hashemite principles based on the love and fear of God, as well as the love of the people and humbling oneself to their will, being eager to serve them, treating them with fairness, respecting their elderly, showing mercy on their youth, and forgiving the guilty when possible. These principles are also based on magnanimity, firmness when a decision is reached, and placing the interests of the country and nation above all other interests and considerations.

I am very optimistic about your future. You were my student and you know that beloved Jordan has inherited the principles of the Great Arab Revolt and its great message and that it is an inseparable part of the Arab nation. You know that the Jordanian people must remain, as always, at the forefront of their nation in defending the nation's causes and the future of their generations. These great people have sacrificed a lot for the sake of these honorable principles and have born for their sake burdens that mountains cannot bear and would crumble under.

The lofty men and glorious women of our one Jordanian family, from all origins, have never failed to do their duties. They have never let down their leadership and nation. They have always been the faithful comrades of the march who are affiliated with their homeland and nation, and who are capable of facing difficulties and challenges with relentless resolution and generous and noble spirits. Their leadership should commit itself to working for their present and future and to achieving their comprehensive development so that they can lead an honorable life, that their rights, which are guaranteed by the Constitution, can be safeguarded, and that their heads remain high and do not bow but to God or to kiss the soil of the dear homeland.

On the level of your Hashemite family, every one of them has done all he could. They have suffered and endured with their people and tribe, the big Jordanian family, what is beyond their endurance. I am certain that you will be, as you have always been, one of them, respect and love them and do your best to unite them, close their ranks, spread love, amity, and mercy among them, consult them after me, and appreciate everyone's favor and safeguard everyone's right.

While reiterating my full confidence in you and in your ability to assume all these responsibilities with extreme honesty, sincerity, devotion, and self-denial in accordance with the principles of soldiership on which you were raised and were distinguished in its field; and all my support for you as much as I can, I beseech Almighty God to preserve you, to take care of you, to help you, to guide your steps on the right path, and to grant you success in serving dear Jordan. May God guide our steps on the good path of success.

May God's peace and blessing be upon you,

Your loving father