Queen Rania of Jordan turns 56 on Monday, with the release of a new portrait coming just weeks after her daughter Princess Iman welcomed twin girls.
The portrait, released by the Royal Hashemite Court ahead of the birthday, shows Rania sitting on brick steps in a garden, wearing a white top and blue jeans. She is looking directly at the camera, with her hair pulled into a loose updo.
The court did not say where the photograph was taken or who took it.
The birthday comes after a busy month for Jordan’s royal family. On August 14, Princess Iman and her husband, Jameel Alexander Thermiotis, welcomed twin daughters, Talia and Rania.
Rania shared photographs of the babies several days later, including pictures of herself and King Abdullah II holding their new granddaughters.
The twins are the couple’s second and third children. Their first daughter, Amina, was born in February 2025. Rania and Abdullah are now grandparents of four, with their first grandchild, Princess Iman bint Al Hussein, born to Crown Prince Hussein and Princess Rajwa in August 2024.
Rania has shared more of her family life publicly since becoming a grandmother. When she announced Princess Iman’s pregnancy in July, she wrote that “the grandchildren club is growing”.
Queen for 27 years
Rania was born Rania Al Yassin in Kuwait on August 31, 1970. She studied business administration at the American University in Cairo and later worked in banking and information technology.
She married then-Prince Abdullah in 1993. He became king in February 1999, and Rania was proclaimed queen the following month.
The couple have four children: Crown Prince Hussein, Princess Iman, Princess Salma and Prince Hashem.
Much of Rania’s public work has centered on education, children, women and young people. She founded the Jordan River Foundation in 1995 and is chairwoman of the Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development, which works on education in Jordan and the wider region.
She has also built an international profile through speeches and advocacy on humanitarian issues. In recent years, she has spoken about the war in Gaza, women’s rights and the effects of conflict on children.
At the 2025 Mexico Siglo XXI Conference, she argued that technology should be guided by human concerns, saying that technology without humanity was “hollow”.
Her birthday portrait is markedly less formal than some of her previous official photographs, continuing her preference for combining royal presentation with more contemporary clothing and settings.
The release also comes at a moment when the royal family’s public focus has shifted towards its youngest generation, with Rania now a grandmother of four.
