Queen Noor
Lisa Najeek Halaby was born in 1951 in Washington D.C.
Lisa’s father’s name was Najeeb and her mother’s name was Doris. Her mother was European and her father Middle Eastern. Her father was an aviator airline exec. and government official. He served as deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Truman administration. Lisa had 2 siblings following her. A brother, Christian, and a sister, Alexa. Lisa’s parents divorced in 1977.
Growing up, Lisa moved around a lot because of her father and his job. She attended National Cathedral School from 4thgrade to 8th, then for a short period of time she went to Chapin School in New York, and went to graduate from concord academy in Massachusetts. She found politics extremely interesting growing up and enjoyed watching the news.
She grew up moving a lot to different states. Her parents fought a lot growing up as well. She has the experience of having a privileged upbringing. She attended exclusive schools. Her parents eventually divorced, which might have been for the better. They moved apart from each other. She had kind of an unstable childhood and never had the opportunity in staying in one place.
Lisa had many hobbies and interests. She was half Middle Eastern and half European, but affiliated herself more with her Arab roots. She became increasingly interested with her ethnicity. When she grew older she played an active role in promoting international exchange and understanding of Arab and Muslim culture and politics, Arab western relations and conflict- prevention and recovery issues.
She was interested in changing the world. She, just like her husband, had wanted peace in the Middle East. She tried to work in the Arab world and focused more on national development.
As a kid, Lisa was very into politics and would watch the news. This one time her and her grandmother were watching the news and something about MLK being shot and killed came on the news. Lisa was so upset by the tragedy and expected her grandmother to be too, but realized her grandmother had no care in the world for this situation. Lisa ran to her room and locked her self in there for hours crying. She was upset at the fact that her grandmother didn’t care about such things as she did. It hurt Lisa to think that.
After she graduated, Lisa moved to Australia. She worked for a firm that specialized in planning new towns. She became increasingly interested more in the Middle East then ever before. She got another job offer and accepted with no hesitation from a British architectural firm. She was employed in Tehran, Iran. She became director of facilities planning and design.
