Iraqi monarch Crown Prince Abd al-Ilāh of Hejaz was BOTD in 1913. Born in aṭ-Ṭāʾif in the Kingdom of Hejaz, he was the eldest son and heir of Hāshimite king  ʿAlī ibn Ḥusayn. In 1925, Ḥusayn was usurped by the Saudi Arabian king Ibn Saud of Nejd, and the family fled to the British protectorate of Iraq, settling in Baghdad. In 1934, Abd al-Ilāh’s sister Aliya bint Ali married their cousin King Ghazi ibn Fayṣal of Iraq. After Ghazi’s death in a car accident in 1939, Abd al-Ilāh was appointed Regent for his four-year old nephew Fayṣal II. ʿAbd al-Ilāh ruled Iraq for 14 turbulent years, supporting the Allies during World War Two. In April 1941, faced with an uprising of army officers led by Rashīd ʿĀlī al-Gaylānī, who was sympathetic to Germany and Italy, Abd al-Ilāh was forced to leave Iraq. With British assistance, the revolt was quickly suppressed, and he was returned to power. For the remainder of his reign, he pursued a policy of moderate Iraqi nationalism, maintaining strong ties with the West and distancing himself from hardline Egyptian nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. During World War Two, he undertook a series of high-profile tours of Britain, the Middle East and the United States, meeting US Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman and being photographed by society portraitist Cecil Beaton. He also formed a close friendship with English Secretary of State for the Colonies Alan Lennox-Boyd, writing each other erotically-charged letters that may or may not have been evidence of an affair. He stepped down as Regent in 1953 when Fayṣal II reached adulthood, but remained as the young king’s chief adviser, overseeing Iraq’s involvement in the Baghdad Pact with Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and the United Kingdom and the short-lived Hashemite Arab Federation with the Kingdom of Jordan. In 1958, Abd al-Ilāh was murdered in a military coup led by Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim. His body was dragged through the streets of Baghdad, mutilated and burned, then hung from the gates of the former Ministry of Defence. Abd al-Ilāh’s correspondence with Lennox-Boyd was discovered by the revolutionary regime, who released them to the world press as evidence of the moral corruption of the Hashemite monarchy.