Mufti was leader of Jordan's small community of Circassians, who had emigrated to Jordan from the Russian empire in the 19th century and who became a bedrock of support for the current Hashemite monarchy.
Bin Shaker is very distantly related to the king because both are members of the Hashemite family descended from Islam's Prophet Mohammed.
A traffic circle long-named for the Arab nationalist, Gamel Abdel Nasser, was recently renamed Faisal Square, with a statue of the Hashemite king at its center, replacing a similar one torn down by angry mobs in 1958.
King Hussein of Jordan, one of Saddam's closest allies, appealed to Arab leaders to help his Hashemite kingdom revive its wavering economy and buttress its military power.