KING HUSSEIN OF JORDAN Related story: Obituary: King Hussein of Jordan

"I have a lot of faith in God, and I believe one lives one's destiny."

Jordan's King Hussein bin Talal died on February 7 in Amman after a long battle with cancer. He was 63.

He ascended the throne in 1953 as a 17-year-old schoolboy. He faced repeated assassination attempt. And in 1956 he put down a rebellion by pro-Egyptian army officers. One of Hussein's chief enemies was Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who branded the king a "stooge of American imperialism."

But Hussein admired Nasser's Arab nationalism and allied with Egypt before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, an alliance that led to disastrous setbacks for Jordan.

The instability stirred by the 1967 war led to the "Black September" civil war of 1970-71, in which Hussein's Bedouin Arab Legion crushed Palestinian guerrillas who sought his overthrow.

In July 1994, under pressure from the United States, Hussein signed an agreement with his old adversary, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, ending hostilities between the two countries.

Hussein's first two marriages ended in divorce. His third wife, Alia, died in a 1977 helicopter crash. In 1978 he married Lisa Halaby, a Lebanese-American who took the name Queen Noor.