Princess Salma of Jordan celebrated her 26th birthday on Sept. 26, and the timing couldn't be more fitting. The third of King Abdullah II and Queen Rania's four children has long been the quiet one, content to let her older brother, Crown Prince Hussein, command the headlines. Lately, that's started to change, and she isn't doing it alone. Her younger brother, 21-year-old Prince Hashem, has been right there with her, proving himself just as valuable an asset to the Jordanian crown.
© Abaca PressThe clearest sign of the shift came this summer. When King Abdullah made a state visit to China in August, Salma and Hashem were both part of his delegation. Over the weeklong trip, which took the royals to Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing, the siblings joined their father on a tour of a leading Shanghai robotics company, sat in on a meeting with top Chinese executives and attended his talks with President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
It wasn't Salma's first turn on the world stage in a strategic role. In November 2025, she accompanied her father on an official visit to Indonesia, a trip with a distinctly military bent.
The Royal Hashemite Court confirmed she was on hand in Jakarta when the king and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto watched a joint drone exercise staged by Jordanian and Indonesian special forces. Her presence turned heads at the time, but it made perfect sense given her résumé.
© Royal Hashemite CourtThat résumé is where Salma stands apart. She trained at Britain's Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the storied institution where generations of kings and princes from around the world have learned to soldier, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in Jordan's armed forces in 2018. Two years later, in 2020, she made history as the first female pilot in the Jordanian military.
She's no ceremonial officer, either: in December 2023, Salma, then a first lieutenant in the Royal Jordanian Air Force, flew with a military mission that airdropped medical supplies to Jordan's field hospital in northern Gaza. Somewhere along the way, she had time to earn a bachelor's degree in archaeology from the University of Southern California, cementing her reputation as one of the Hashemite court's genuine trailblazers.
Hashem's own unique path
© Royal Hashemite Court, queenraniaHashem, meanwhile, has been carving out a path of his own. His first official trip abroad came in June 2023, when he joined his parents in Spain and appeared publicly alongside King Felipe and Queen Letizia. Three years on, he's a regular fixture at his father's side.
Being the third and fourth children has given the pair room to grow in a direction quite different from their older sister, Princess Iman. Since marrying Jameel Thermiotis, Iman has turned toward family life and is now a mother, most recently welcoming twin daughters in August. Salma and Hashem, by contrast, have steadily found their footing in public life, with a growing list of international trips and a reliable presence on the most important dates of Jordan's national calendar.
Their mother's influence shows, too. Beyond supporting the king, Salma and Hashem have joined Queen Rania at social and humanitarian initiatives, signaling the arrival of a new generation, and perhaps a new way of doing things, within the Jordanian monarchy.
© Queen Rania
