King Abdullah II bin al-Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Birth: January 30, 1962 in Amman, Jordan.
Claim to Fame: Successor to King Hussein, for whom the Jordanian constitution had to be amended to permit the ascension of a man whose mother was not an Arab Muslim, but an Ipswich typist; supposed 43rd-generation direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
Power Base: The old guard among the tribes of the East Bank (Transjordanians) who occupy important positions within the Jordanian security forces and the public sector, and who hold a tight grip on the majority of the Jordanian parliament through gerrymandering.
Merits: Here in the West, we patronizingly tend to thf little King Abdullah as one of the good Arabs. Educated in the U.S. and at Oxford, he is charming, witty, has a blazingly hot young wife, and is frequently seen wearing European suits at the center of progressive global initiatives involving ecumenism, economic development and peace.
Reasons: The Bible says that the Antichrist will be from Assyria (Isaiah 10:12, 14:25), which in its heyday included the lands now under the control of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Jordan’s people, incidentally, are genetically close to the Assyrians, according to a study by Stanford’s L.L. Cavalli-Sforza);
- The “ten kings” in the Book of Revelations refer not to the nations of the European Union, but to a confederation of Middle Eastern sub-nations united in their desire to destroy Israel (in accordance with Psalms 83:1-5), many of which are now united under the umbrella of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan;
- Abdullah’s British mother, Antoinette Gardiner, provides him with “Roman ancestry,” thus giving him the credentials for establishing a “Revived Roman Empire”;
- As a so-called direct descendant of Muhammad, Abdullah is “looked upon by moderate Muslims as the al-Mahdi, the eschatological saviour to Islam” – a handy conflation of the Christian tradition of the antichrist with the Muslim tradition of the Mahdi;
- The fact that Abdullah seems to be playing a role of increasing importance to the Middle East peace process, and in fact has been suggested as a possible new ruler for Iraq, post-Saddam Hussein.
The West seem to see Abdullah in a positive light, such as a 2003 Travel Channel program which portrayed him as;
… a “man for all seasons” … flying a helicopter, appearing in grand style in military situations, touring Petra (after taking a camel ride through the desert), riding a boat on the beautiful Gulf of Aqaba, meeting the Bedouin desert people (showing his common touch), amply demonstrating his charm/wit and Western education and command of English, making a rigorous climb of a mountain to a shrine for ” prophets ” of various religions
