People: Jan. 5, 1981

Just 2½ years ago, she was Lisa Halaby, daughter of a former Pan Am president, Princeton grad, aspiring architect and freewheeling all-American girl. Then she became the fourth wife of Jordan's King Hussein, now 46, and nothing —not her name, nationality, religion or rank—is the same. Jordan's 29-year-old Queen Nur has mastered Arabic, become involved in her country's arts and environmental movement and, after a miscarriage, borne her husband a son, Prince Hamzah, now nine months old. Shortly after posing next to an oil portrait of Nur at Amman's Nadwa Palace for the...