Noor grabbed international headlines as the lanky, blond Princeton University graduate who at 26 married the dashing 42-year-old widowed monarch. She was his fourth wife.

Leap of Faith touches briefly on the girl born Lisa Halaby: her childhood, her education and her mild rebellion against her parents. She grew up as part of the American elite -- both she and Onassis attended Manhattan's ultra-exclusive Chapin School. Her parents' marriage was troubled, and she describes herself as a solitary reader who loved to ride. After college, she worked in Iran and visited her father in Jordan where, within months, King Hussein asked her father for her hand in marriage. And Queen Noor emerged.

Of Arab descent on her father's side, she immersed herself in the role of queen alongside an Arab monarch said to be descended from the Prophet Mohammed. She converted to Islam, championed Jordanian culture, emphasized charitable work, bore four children and adopted her husband's optimism. (She concedes that handling the teenagers from Hussein's earlier marriages was a trial.)

Noor also has written an effective explanation of why she believes the United States has so deeply angered the Arab world with its cultural self-absorption, its support of Israel, its lack of interest in the Palestinians and its portrayal in the media of Arabs as religious fanatics and terrorists.

There are failings: The book should have been better edited. At points, it reads like an endless description of fellow royals and other dignitaries.

These include Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and Iraq (news - web sites)'s Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). In 1989, Noor visited Saddam's wife and cousin in Iraq. Although Noor found the country fascinating with its rich history, she describes a disturbing cult of personality focused on Saddam.

The book's ending has real power. Hussein's death from lymphoma was a painful ordeal for him, his wife, his family and his small grieving country.

Yet he conducted himself with kindness and concern for others to the end. If Queen Noor's object was to make the Arab world more human and understandable, she has succeeded.Leap of Faith

By Queen Noor

Miramax, 468 pp., $25