The literature on Jordan is awash in studies of the history, politics, and possible futures of theHashemite family. In a polity so closely identified with its ruling dynasty, one would be surprisedif this fixation did not prevail. More curious to the anthropologist is the extent to which thescholarly attention lavished on the Hashemites has centered on the rather obvious fact that theyrule, but has given less concern to the fact that they rule as a family—that they express theirdominance in a patriarchal rhetoric brimming with kinship metaphors, and that they preside over abody politic in which households and their influential heads are of far greater significance thanelectoral constituencies, public opinion, or (least of all) individual citizens and their rights. WhenKing Hussein described his realm as “the big Jordanian family” (al-usraal-urduniyya al-kubra¯), he invoked an image of community (and authorized a style ofpolitical exchange) that made immediate sense to his subjects. In his final years of rule, Husseinartfully consolidated his role as national father figure. His heir, King Abdullah II, who was 37years old when he inherited the throne in 1999, affects the “older brother” personaappropriate to his age. In announcing Hussein's death, Abdullah II relied heavily on thevocabulary of political kinship his father had standardized: “Hussein was a father, abrother, to each of you, the same as he was my father. . . . Today you are my brothers and sisters,and with you I find sympathy and condolences under God”1