Wijdan Ali

Princess Wijdan Bint Fawwaz Muhana took the oath of office as Jordan's new ambassador to Italy before King Abdullah II on 3 October 2006.

In her art, she develops the traditions of Arabic calligraphy in a modern format and, as such, she forms part of the contemporary school of Arabic calligraphic painting. Due to her use of Arabic calligraphy as a graphic form, she has been described as a pioneer of the Hurufiyyah Art Movement. Her work, which has won awards in Belgium and France, is found in museums and private collections internationally, including the collections of the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, the American National Museum of Women in the Arts and the National Art Gallery, Pakistan. She has participated in the cross cultural cooperation " the Dance of Visions" in Gothenburg Sweden, invited by the Swedish artist Ragnhild Lundén. Her best known art works are a series of shimmering desert-scapes made during the 1980s.

While working as a diplomat, she was studying art privately and received some of her early arts training from Alice Ladoux, a French teacher. In 1966, following her marriage to Prince 'Ali bin Naif, the second son of the ruling Hashemite family on Jordan, she resigned from her diplomatic post and began to take art seriously. She then began to study art formally with the Jordanian artists Muhanna Al-Dura and Armando Bruno. She received a Ph.D. in Islamic art from the University of London in 1993.

She is the daughter of Sharif Fawwaz Muhana, an architect, and Sharifa Nafi'a bint Jamil Ali. In 1966, she married Prince 'Ali bin Naif of Jordan, the grandson of King Abdullah I. Following her marriage, she became a member of the Royal family and was given the title of Her Royal Highness Princess Princess Wijdan Ali.

In 1962, she joined the Foreign Office of the United Nations in Jordan, shortly after completing her B.A. in Middle Eastern history from Beirut University College (1961), now the Lebanese American University. She was the first woman to enter the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jordan (1962) and also the first woman delegate to represent Jordan at United Nations meetings and the first female diplomat at the United Nations General Assembly.

Princess Wijdan Ali (Arabic: وجدان علي) (born 29 August 1939 in Baghdad, Iraq) is a Jordanian artist, art historian, educator and diplomat. She is the ex-wife of Prince 'Ali bin Naif of Jordan. She is best known for her efforts to revive the traditions of Islamic art and her abstract paintings and for her work as an art historian.

She was born Sharifa Wijdan bint Fawwaz in Baghdad on 29 August 1939 into a noble family and was raised in Jordan. She was the daughter of Sharif Fawwaz Muhana, an architect, and his wife, Sharifa Nafi'a bint Jamil Ali. Both her parents could trace their ancestry to the Prophet Mohammed, which allowed her to be given the title of Sharifa.