Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction: Which Middle Eastern ruler once had a walk-on role on Star Trek?
That would be Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Back in 1996, when he was still just Prince Abdullah, he appeared as a science officer in a Star Trek: Voyager episode titled Investigations.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising that Abdullah was a Trekkie: He went to prep school at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, and attended Oxford and Sandhurst in England as well. He wasn’t even expected to be king: His dad, King Hussein, planned to hand the throne over to a brother, Hassan. But Hussein changed his mind and anointed Abdullah just before his own death in 1999.
(No stranger himself to pop culture, Hussein was an avid ham radio operator.)
So it apparently wasn’t considered too strange that Abdullah managed to arrange a Trek cameo. In his five-second scene, the future king is seen (but not heard) chatting with Ensign Harry Kim (played by actor Garret Wang) before strolling out of frame.
The BBC says that after his appearance, Abdullah invited a few fellow cast members to Jordan and arranged a “mini-convention” of Jordanian Trek fans.
Three years later, his father was dead and he was king.