Forty-seven years ago, Jordan was economically unviable, socially divided, and with powerful and predatory neighbours who had little to fear from its British-officered army, the Arab Legion. Other Middle Eastern monarchies have long been swept away -- the fellow Hashemites in Iraq, the Senussis of Libya, Iran's Pahlavis -- but Hussein's dynasty is firmly in control. And despite worries about the succession going to his untried son, Abdallah, the signs are that it will continue to be so.

Haunted by the assassination of his grandfather Abdullah by a Palestinian outside a Jerusalem mosque, Hussein spent his life maneouvering through the treacherous waters of the Arab-Israeli conflict and in a region where he was often vilified as a pliant tool of the western powers which backedhim. Yet at home and abroad his kingly courtesy won admirers: his habit of clutching the elbow as he shook your hand was a gesture both strong and intimate; his womanising was old-fashioned and relentless. He was a regular visitor to Downing Street long after Britain's Middle Eastern moment had passed, though his relationship with the US became more politically important. Jordan's domestic front posed many challenges, too: the 1989 riots, created by the sudden removal of government subsidies to comply with IMF reforms, marked an end to the fat years of the `Gucci kingdom'.

Uniquely in the Arab world, Hussein's surefooted rule has meant that there is no potentially violent organised opposition waiting in ambush. Yet even in his dying days the king must have worried about the uncertain impact of Palestine's political future, with the probable emergence of a semi-sovereign Palestinian state complicating Jordan's longer-term stability. Seven years ago, when his long struggle against cancer was just beginning,the man who has come to so closely personify his country that it has sometimes been hard to separate the two, started to urge his anxious subjects to brace themselves for a future without him.

``The life of an enlightened people and vibrant nation cannot be measured by the life of an individual,'' he declared then. ``A successful person is one who manages to lay down a new stone, a brick that would help firm up his nation's existence.'' And the monument to the Middle Eastern ruler is all around, a tough little kingdom that has adapted to survive multiple crises at home and abroad, sometimes against heavy odds, and is there to stay.

Tears for the King

An era in Middle Eastern history came to an agonising close as King Hussein was declared clinically dead hours after he arrived home in his desert kingdom. The news unleashed a deluge of grief among Jordanians as most struggled to comprehend the loss of the only leader they have known and the uncertain prospect of a new Hashemite king, Hussein'seldest son, Abdallah.

The mood in the Jordanian capital was heavy. The pain was fresh and raw: the middle-aged, those who have lived under his shelter throughout Hussein's extraordinary 47-year reign, were the most uninhibited. Ali Maher, an architect who designed the King's Bab Sala'am palace and whose father was an army former chief-of-staff who helped thwart one of several coup attempts, was sobbing. ``He means everything to me, my whole life. When my father died his majesty came to our house. In life you eventually outgrow your father but he has managed not to be outgrown,'' he whispered. Ali Kassay, a former speechwriter to the king, said his mother could recall bouncing the young king on her knee. ``She had felt maternal towards him ever since. He was extremely gentle, there was not a single meeting without him giving me praise and thanks for my efforts.'' All that is left now is for Abdullah to select his crown prince. This could be either his own four-year-old son, Hussein, or his half-brother,Hamza, the 18-year-old apple of the deceased king's eye. The Middle East is a different, unfamiliar and more frightening place.