The Balqa (; transliteration: ''al-Balqāʾ''), known colloquially as the Balga, is a geographic region in central

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

generally defined as the highlands east of the Jordan Valley in between the

Zarqa River The Zarqa River (, ''Nahr az-Zarqāʾ'', lit. "the River of the Blue ity) is the second largest tributary of the lower Jordan River, after the Yarmouk River. It is the third largest river in the region by annual discharge and its watershed enc ...

to the north and the

Wadi Mujib The Wadi Mujib (), also known as Arnon Stream (Hebrew: נַחַל ארנון), is a river in Jordan. The river empties into the Dead Sea circa below sea level. In ancient times, the river served as the northern boundary of the kingdom of Mo ...

gorge to the south. The Balqa was part of the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

province of

Arabia Petraea Arabia Petraea or Petrea, also known as Rome's Arabian Province or simply Arabia, was a frontier Roman province, province of the Roman Empire beginning in the 2nd century. It consisted of the former Nabataean Kingdom in the southern Levant, th ...

and home to the Arab tribes of Judham, Lakhm and

Bali Bali (English:; Balinese language, Balinese: ) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller o ...

. After the 630s Muslim conquest, it became part of

Jund Dimashq ''Jund Dimashq'' () was the largest of the sub-provinces (''ajnad'', sing. '' jund''), into which Syria was divided under the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties. It was named after its capital and largest city, Damascus ("Dimashq"), which in the Umayya ...

(the military district of

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

). The Umayyad family maintained interests in the region before the founding of the

Umayyad Caliphate The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member o ...

(661–750), a period in which the Balqa prospered. Starting from the reign of Caliph Abd al-Malik (), the Balqa was assigned its own sub-governor. The caliphs

Yazid II Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (; — 26 January 724), commonly known as Yazid II, was the ninth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 720 until his death in 724. Although he lacked administrative or military experience, he derived prestige from his ...

and his son

al-Walid II Al-Walid ibn Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik (; 70917 April 744), commonly known as al-Walid II, was the eleventh Umayyad caliph, ruling from 743 until his assassination in 744. He succeeded his uncle, Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik. Birth and background Al-W ...

lived in the Balqa as princes and caliphs, building several palatial residences. In the 10th century the Balqa became subordinate to

Jund Filastin Jund Filasṭīn (, "the military district of Palestine") was one of the military districts of the Umayyad and Abbasid province of Bilad al-Sham (Levant), organized soon after the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s. Jund Filastin, which ...

(the military district of

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

). Under the

Ayyubids The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish ori ...

(1170s–1260) and Mamluks (1260–1516) the Balqa continued to function as a district, subordinate to Damascus, sometimes spanning the Sharat highlands to the south.

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

had been the Balqa's traditional capital, but the capital shifted to Hisban under the Mamluks. The tribes of Banu Sakhr and Banu Mahdi, descendants of the Judham, lived there at the time. By the 16th century, during Ottoman rule, only four villages were recorded in the Balqa, along with the

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu ( ; , singular ) are pastorally nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Bedouin originated in the Sy ...

tribe of Da'aja, still present in the region. In the late 18th–early 19th centuries, the only permanent settlement was the mixed Muslim and Christian town of

Salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

, the rest of the region being dominated by Bedouin tribes, the strongest of which was the Adwan. The Balqa had been outside Ottoman government control until the campaign of Rashid Pasha in the late 1860s, after which it was incorporated into the Nablus Sanjak. In the following years several settlements were established or re-established, including Amman and

Madaba Madaba (; Biblical Hebrew: ''Mēḏəḇāʾ''; ) is the capital city of Madaba Governorate in central Jordan, with a population of about 60,000. It is best known for its Byzantine art, Byzantine and Umayyad mosaics, especially a large Byz ...

, by Christians from Salt and Karak, government-sponsored Circassian and Chechen refugees, and Bedouin chiefs. The growing prosperity of the Balqa in the late Ottoman period was disrupted by the British occupation of the region in World War I. The paramountcy of the Banu Sakhr over the Adwan and other local tribes was sealed in the subsequent period, leading to the Adwan Rebellion. Amman became the capital of the

Emirate of Transjordan The Emirate of Transjordan (), officially the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a British protectorate established on 11 April 1921,Balqa (centered in Salt),

, Zarqa and

. Mainly due to the influx of

Palestinian refugees Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country, village or house over the course of the 1948 Palestine war and during the 1967 Six-Day War. Most Palestinian refug ...

from the

1948 Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

and

1967 Arab–Israeli war The Six-Day War, also known as the June War, 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states, primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan from 5 to 10June ...

s, Palestinians and their descendants made up about 70% of the population of Amman, Zarqa and Balqa. Most of the preexisting population during the same period comprised the descendants of the formerly semi-nomadic Arab tribesmen of the Balqa, who continue to identify culturally as Bedouin.

Etymology

According to J. Sourdel-Thomine, the Arabic etymology of ''al-Balqāʾ'' could be related to the feminine form of the Arabic word ''ablaq'', meaning "variegated". The most popular etymology cited by the medieval Arabic geographers, however, was that Balqa was the name of a descendant of the Bani Amman ibn Lut, which conjures up the

Ammon Ammon (; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''ʻAmān''; '; ) was an ancient Semitic languages, Semitic-speaking kingdom occupying the east of the Jordan River, between the torrent valleys of Wadi Mujib, Arnon and Jabbok, in present-d ...

ites and the biblical figure and Islamic prophet Lot.

Geography

Geographic definition

The Balqa forms the central part of the Transjordanian highlands. It extends from the

in the north to the

gorge in the south. The southern limit of the Balqa is alternatively placed north of Wadi Mujib at Wadi Zarqa Ma'in, hence the colloquial description of the Balqa as "the land between the two Zarqas". The Zarqa River separates the Balqa from the Jabal Ajlun highlands, while the Wadi Mujib separates it from the Sharat highlands. To the west, the Balqa borders the lowlands of the Jordan Valley (called al-Ghor in Arabic), while the region borders the

Syrian Desert The Syrian Desert ( ''Bādiyat Ash-Shām''), also known as the North Arabian Desert, the Jordanian steppe, or the Badiya, is a region of desert, semi-desert, and steppe, covering about of West Asia, including parts of northern Saudi Arabia, ea ...

in the east.

Topography and climate

The entire Balqa is a limestone plateau, as compared to the gravel and basalt-covered plateau of the Syrian Desert that makes up over 75% of Jordan's land area. The western part of the Balqa, closer to the

Jordan River The Jordan River or River Jordan (, ''Nahr al-ʾUrdunn''; , ''Nəhar hayYardēn''), also known as ''Nahr Al-Sharieat'' (), is a endorheic river in the Levant that flows roughly north to south through the Sea of Galilee and drains to the Dead ...

and the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

, is a relatively fertile zone characterized by its broken ground and deep gorges formed by precipitation-induced erosion. The eastern part of the Balqa sees little rainfall and is characterized by its tabular consistency. In general the Balqa is arid, though the western plains near the Jordan Valley and the depressions allow for some cultivation. This accounts for the ancient and medieval reports of the Balqa's fertility. Like Jabal Ajlun and the Sharat, the Balqa has a dry and temperate climate. The average elevation of the Balqa is above sea level. Among the tallest peaks are Tell Nabi Usha () in the northern Balqa and

Mount Nebo Mount Nebo (; ) is an elevated ridge located in Jordan, approximately Height above sea level, above sea level. Part of the Abarim mountain range, Mount Nebo is mentioned in the Bible as the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised L ...

() in the south.

Rivers

The perennial Wadi Shueib stream traverses the heart of the western Balqa and creates a fertile valley in which many of the area's western towns sit. The stream deposits into the Jordan Valley. The Zarqa River is a tributary of the Jordan River, while the Wadi Mujib stream flows into the Dead Sea.

History

Hellenistic period

During the Hellenistic period, the western part of the Balqa belonged to the administrative district of Perea centered in the city of

Gadara Gadara ( or ; ), in some texts Gedaris, was an ancient Hellenistic city in what is now Jordan, for a long time member of the Decapolis city league, a former bishopric and present Latin Catholic titular see. Its ruins are today located at Umm ...

(near modern

al-Salt Al-Salt ( ''Al-Salt''), also known as Salt, is an ancient trading city and administrative centre in west-central Jordan. It is on the old main highway leading from Amman to Jerusalem. Situated in the Balqa highland, about 790–1,100 metr ...

), while much of the northeastern Balqa around

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

(modern Amman) formed part of the

Decapolis The Decapolis (Greek: ) was a group of ten Greek Hellenistic cities on the eastern frontier of the Greek and late Roman Empire in the Southern Levant in the first centuries BC and AD. Most of the cities were located to the east of the Jordan ...

and the southeastern part belonged to

Nabatea The Nabataean Kingdom ( Nabataean Aramaic: 𐢕𐢃𐢋𐢈 ''Nabāṭū''), also named Nabatea () was a political state of the Nabataeans during classical antiquity. The Nabataean Kingdom controlled many of the trade routes of the region, amassi ...

Roman and Byzantine periods

In 106 CE, during the reign of the Roman emperor

Trajan Trajan ( ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus, 18 September 53) was a Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, remembered as the second of the Five Good Emperors of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty. He was a philanthropic ruler and a successful soldier ...

, the whole of the Balqa came under the province of

. The Balqa remained part of Arabia province during the Byzantine period and the Wadi al-Mujib formed the southern boundary of the province, separating it from the new district of

Palestina Tertia Palaestina Salutaris or Palaestina Tertia was a Late Roman and Byzantine province, which covered the area of the Negev, Sinai (except the north-western coast) and south-west of Transjordan, south of the Dead Sea. The province, a part of the Dioc ...

. The major towns of Byzantine Balqa were Philadelphia, Esbus (modern Hisban) and

Early Islamic period

At the time of the

early Muslim conquests The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests (), also known as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the founder of Islam. He established the first Islamic state in Medina, Arabian Peninsula, Arabia that ...

in the 630s, the principal Arab tribes in the Balqa were the

, the Judham, and the

Ghassanids The Ghassanids, also known as the Jafnids, were an Tribes of Arabia, Arab tribe. Originally from South Arabia, they migrated to the Levant in the 3rd century and established what would eventually become a Christian state, Christian kingdom unde ...

. The Balqa was conquered by the Muslims under the commander

Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan ibn Harb ibn Umayya (; died 639) was a leading Arab Muslim commander in the conquest of Syria from 634 until his death in the plague of Amwas in 639. Following the capture of Damascus around 635, he was placed in command of ...

shortly after the

capture of Damascus Capture may refer to: Arts and entertainment * "Capture", a song by Simon Townshend Simon Townshend (; born 10 October 1960) is a British guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is the younger brother of the Who's guitarist Pete Townshend, and ...

in late 634/early 635 and the peaceful surrender of Amman. Yazid's father

Abu Sufyan Sakhr ibn Harb ibn Umayya (; ), commonly known by his ' Abu Sufiyan (), was a prominent opponent-turned companion and father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was the father of the first Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I () and namesake of the S ...

owned a village in the Balqa called Biqinis. In 661, Yazid's brother

Mu'awiya Mu'awiya I (–April 680) was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashid ...

founded the Levant-based

(661–750), under which the Balqa continued to prosper. Caliph

Marwan I Marwan ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi al-As ibn Umayya (; 623 or 626April/May 685), commonly known as MarwanI, was the fourth Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyad caliph, ruling for less than a year in 684–685. He founded the Marwanid ruling house of the Umayyad ...

() granted the Sakun, a branch of the Kinda tribe the right to settle the Balqa in return for their support against anti-Umayyad tribes in Syria at the Battle of Marj Rahit. Several palatial residences for the Umayyad caliphs and princes were erected throughout the Balqa, including al-Mshatta, Ziza, Qastal, and Umm al-Walid, as well as

Qusayr Amra Qusayr 'Amra or Quseir Amra, sometimes also named Qasr Amra (), is the best-known of the desert castles located in present-day eastern Jordan. It was built some time between 723 and 743, by Walid Ibn Yazid, the future Umayyad caliph Walid II, wh ...

, al-Kharane, Qasr al-Hallabat and

Qasr Tuba Qasr Tuba is an 8th-century Umayyad ''qasr'' or castle in the Amman Governorate of northern Jordan. History Qasr at-Tuba is the southernmost of the Umayyad desert castles in Jordan. Built in 743 CE by Caliph al-Walid II for his sons, al-Hakam and ...

further east along the desert fringe. While still a prince,

built Qastal and

al-Muwaqqar Al-Muwaqqar () is a district in the Amman Governorate of north-western Jordan. The village contains the scant ruins of an Umayyad palace, the Qasr al-Muwaqqar, one of the desert castles. Little remains of the palace today except several acanthus ...

, another palace near Amman, and was possibly associated with Umm al-Walid; he ruled as caliph in 720–724 and died in the Balqa town of

Irbid Irbid (), known in ancient times as Arabella or Arbela (Άρβηλα in Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek), is the capital and largest city of Irbid Governorate. It has the second-largest metropolitan population in Jordan after Amman, with a ...

. Yazid II's son

resided in his Balqa estates during part of his years as the heir apparent of Caliph

Hisham Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (; 6 February 743) was the tenth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 724 until his death in 743. Early life Hisham was born in Damascus, the administrative capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, in AH 72 (691–692 CE). Hi ...

and built Qusayr Amra. Al-Walid II's father-in-law, a member of the Umayyad family, Caliph

Uthman Uthman ibn Affan (17 June 656) was the third caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, ruling from 644 until his assassination in 656. Uthman, a second cousin, son-in-law, and notable companion of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, played a major role ...

's great-grandson Sa'id ibn Khalid ibn Amr ibn Uthman, owned an estate called al-Faddayn in the Balqa, which al-Walid II regularly visited. After succeeding Hisham in 743, he continued to live in the Balqa. He imprisoned Hisham's son

Sulayman Sulayman (Arabic: سُلِيمَان ''sulaymān'') is an Arabic name of the Biblical king and Islamic prophet Solomon meaning 'man of peace', derived from the Hebrew name Shlomo. The name Sulayman is a diminutive of the name Salman (سَلْما ...

in Amman. Descendants of al-Walid II may have continued to reside in Qastal as late as the early

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...

period, as possibly attested by gravestones at the site. Syria in the 9th century

The administrative and geographic definition of the Balqa varied throughout the early Islamic period. Under the Umayyads until at least the late 9th century the Balqa included much of the Jabal Ajlun and Ma'ab areas and was a subdistrict of

(military district of Damascus) with its own '' ʿāmil'' (governor). The historian

al-Ya'qubi ʾAbū al-ʿAbbās ʾAḥmad bin ʾAbī Yaʿqūb bin Ǧaʿfar bin Wahb bin Waḍīḥ al-Yaʿqūbī (died 897/8), commonly referred to simply by his nisba al-Yaʿqūbī, was an Arab Muslim geographer. Life Ya'qubi was born in Baghdad to a fam ...

held that the Balqa was divided into two zones: the Ghor with its center in

Jericho Jericho ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and the capital of the Jericho Governorate. Jericho is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It had a population of 20,907 in 2017. F ...

(west of the Jordan River) and the Zahir centered in Amman. The writings of the 10th-century geographer

al-Muqaddasi Shams al-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Bakr, commonly known by the '' nisba'' al-Maqdisi or al-Muqaddasī, was a medieval Arab geographer, author of ''The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions'' and ''Description of Syri ...

indicate that the Balqa shifted to administrative dependence on

(military district of Palestine).

Umayyad and Abbasid sub-governors

The post of the sub-governor of Balqa first appeared in the Islamic traditional sources during the reign of Caliph Abd al-Malik (). * Ubayd Allah ibn Marwan, governed for undetermined period under his brother Caliph Abd al-Malik. * Muhammad ibn Umar al-Thaqafi, governed for undetermined period under Caliph Abd al-Malik. Muhammad was a brother of

Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi () was a senior provincial governor for the Umayyad Caliphate. His policies during his tenure as governor of Iraq in 738–744 deepened the Qays–Yaman rivalry and were one of the main factors in the outbreak of the civil ...

from the clan of

al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf Abu Muhammad al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi Aqil al-Thaqafi (; ), known simply as al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (), was the most notable governor who served the Umayyad Caliphate. He began his service under Caliph Abd al-Malik (), who successiv ...

. Yusuf ibn Umar had been al-Walid II's governor in Iraq and relocated to his Thaqafi family's estate in the Balqa. The historian Garth Fowden proposed that the family estate may have been Umm al-Walid (Mother of al-Walid) based on the assumption that it belonged to al-Walid II's mother, who belonged to al-Hajjaj's family. * Al-Walid ibn Qa'qa al-Absi, may have governed for undetermined period under Caliph

al-Walid I Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (; – 23 February 715), commonly known as al-Walid I (), was the sixth Umayyad caliph, ruling from October 705 until his death in 715. He was the eldest son of his predecessor, Caliph Abd al-Malik (). As ...

(). * Harith ibn Amr al-Ta'i, governed for undetermined period under Caliph

Umar II Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan (; February 720) was the eighth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 717 until his death in 720. He is credited to have instituted significant reforms to the Umayyad central government, by making it much more efficient and ...

(). *Unnamed governor under

Marwan II Marwan ibn Muhammad ibn Marwan (; – 6 August 750), commonly known as Marwan II, was the fourteenth and last caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 744 until his death. His reign was dominated by a Third Fitna, civil war, and he was the l ...

() * Salih ibn Ali ibn Abdallah ibn Abbas, governor in 750 under his nephew, the Abbasid caliph

al-Saffah Abu al-ʿAbbās Abd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās (‎; 721/722 – 8 June 754), known by his laqab, ''laqab'' al-Saffah (), was the first caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, one of the longest and most impor ...

. * Abdallah ibn Sulayman ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Muttalib, governed for undetermined period under his distant kinsman Caliph

al-Mansur Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Manṣūr (; ‎; 714 – 6 October 775) usually known simply as by his laqab al-Manṣūr () was the second Abbasid caliph, reigning from 754 to 775 succeeding his brother al-Saffah (). He is known ...

(). * Salih ibn Sulayman ibn Abdallah ibn Abbas, governed from 796 under Ja'far ibn Yahya al-Barmaki, vizier of Salih ibn Sulayman's kinsman Caliph

Harun al-Rashid Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn ibn Muḥammad ar-Rāshīd (), or simply Hārūn ibn al-Mahdī (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Hārūn al-Rāshīd (), was the fifth Abbasid caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, reigning from September 786 unti ...

Ayyubid and Mamluk periods

Under the

(1180s–1250), the Balqa administratively included and excluded the Sharat, while under the Mamluks the Balqa was a district of the southern march of Mamlakat Dimashq (province of Damascus) with its center in Hisban. At times, the town of al-Salt formed its own ''wilaya'' (subdistrict). Practically, it depended, at least temporarily, on Niyabat al-Karak (province of al-Karak) to the south. The major tribes of the Balqa during Mamluk rule were the Banu Sakhr and the Banu Mahdi, both counted as descendants of the Judham, whose presence in the southern Levant dated to the late Byzantine and early Islamic periods.

Ottoman era

Although Ottoman tax records from the 16th century do not specify the Bedouin tribes living in the Balqa, the Ottoman historian al-Khalidi al-Safadi (d. 1628) noted that two tribes, the Da'aja and Jahawisha, dwelt there. Only four villages were officially recorded in the Balqa during the 16th century. By the end of the 18th century, the only permanent settlement in the region was the mixed Muslim and Christian town of

, a situation which persisted until the late 19th century. The rest of the Balqa was dominated by the local Bedouin tribes. Salt was the most developed town and the commercial center of Transjordan from the 18th century until the early years of the

Emirate of Transjordan The Emirate of Transjordan (), officially the Amirate of Trans-Jordan, was a British protectorate established on 11 April 1921,Adwan, known as "lords of the Balqa". Afterward, the Banu Sakhr overtook the Adwan and collected the tribute from Salt. The town's defenses and isolation in a land practically controlled by Bedouin tribes also enabled its inhabitants to ignore the impositions of the Ottoman authorities without consequence. In 1866–1867 the governor of Syria Vilayet (to which the Balqa nominally belonged), Rashid Pasha, extended the imperial

Tanzimat The (, , lit. 'Reorganization') was a period of liberal reforms in the Ottoman Empire that began with the Edict of Gülhane of 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. Driven by reformist statesmen such as Mustafa Reşid Pash ...

reforms into the Balqa. He launched an expedition against the tribes of the Balqa at the head of a large army. The townspeople of Salt made terms with Rashid Pasha, who repaired the town's fort, garrisoned it with 400 troops and confiscated large amounts of grain and livestock as tax arrears. He established the town as the center of a district encompassing the Balqa, appointed as its governor the Damascene Kurd Faris Agha Kadru and established an elected administrative council composed of the town's elite. He proceeded toward Hisban against the Adwan, which was allied with their traditional rivals the Banu Sakhr and led by Dhi'ab al-Humud. The Ottomans defeated the Adwan, killing or wounding fifty tribesmen, capturing Dhi'ab's son and forcing the tribe's retreat toward Karak. By October Dhi'ab surrendered himself and was imprisoned in Nablus. The following year, the Balqa was appended to the Nablus Sanjak, which became a new district straddling both sides of the Jordan River and called the Mutasarifiyya of Balqa; its first governor was Muhammad Sa'id Pasha, the former governor of the new district of

Ajlun Ajloun (, ''‘Ajlūn''), also spelled Ajlun, is the capital town of the Ajloun Governorate, a hilly town in the north of Jordan, located 76 kilometers (around 47 miles) north west of Amman. It is noted for its impressive ruins of the 12th-centur ...

. Two years later, the Adwan and Banu Sakhr attempted to reassert their dominance in Transjordan and attacked the village of

Ramtha Judy "Zebra" (aka JZ) Knight (born Judith Darlene Hampton; March 16, 1946) is an American spiritual teacher and author known for her purported channelling of a spiritual entity named Ramtha. Critics consider her to be a cult leader. Knight ha ...

, prompting a second, larger expedition by Rashid Pasha into the Balqa. The Banu Sakhr and the Banu Hamida were cornered into the deep gorges of Wadi Wala, submitted to the Ottoman authorities and paid a large fine. According to the historian

Eugene Rogan Eugene Lawrence Rogan, (born 31 October 1960) is an American historian of the Middle East and North Africa from the late Ottoman era to the present. He is currently Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Oxford. Educatio ...

: "If the first Balqa expedition introduced direct Ottoman rule to the district, the second campaign confirmed that the Ottomans were in Jordan to stay." Wadi Sir Circassian Village 1900

Between 1878 and 1884 the Ottoman authorities in Damascus launched their first attempt to establish permanent settlements in grain-growing areas in the eastern Balqa with access to regular sources of water. The first settlers were

Circassians The Circassians or Circassian people, also called Cherkess or Adyghe (Adyghe language, Adyghe and ), are a Northwest Caucasian languages, Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation who originated in Circassia, a region and former country in t ...

transported to the region from other parts of the Empire and the first two Circassian villages established in the Balqa were Amman and Wadi Sir. A third village was established at al-Ruman in 1884 by

Turkmen Turkmen, Türkmen, Turkoman, or Turkman may refer to: Peoples Historical ethnonym * Turkoman (ethnonym), ethnonym used for the Oghuz Turks during the Middle Ages Ethnic groups * Turkmen in Anatolia and the Levant (Seljuk and Ottoman-Turkish desc ...

settlers. The Turkmens and Circassians were known to be highly loyal to the Ottomans, skilled in agriculture and willing to combat Bedouin raiders. During roughly the same period, Christian townspeople established settlements in the Balqa after leaving established towns in Transjordan. Between 1869 and 1875, Christians from Salt transformed the nearby encampment of

Fuheis Fuheis () is a Christian majority town in the central Jordanian governorate of Balqa. It lies in between Salt and Amman, at a distance of 6 and 13 kilometers respectively. . The population of Fuheis was estimated to be 21,908 in 2021, 87% are ...

from sixteen tents to twenty-five–thirty houses. Between 1870 and 1879, members of the Christian family of Siyagh established the village of Rumaymin in the vicinity of Salt, and in 1881 Christians from Karak established a permanent settlement at Madaba, which became the southernmost settlement of the Balqa, with support from the

Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem () is the Latin Catholic ecclesiastical patriarchate in Jerusalem, officially seated in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is the archbishop of Latin Church Catholics of th ...

and the governor of Damascus Midhat Pasha. The establishment of farming villages by settlers and local Christians spurred the development of the Bedouin plantation village, which were small hamlets registered in the name of Bedouin tribesmen and farmed largely by peasants from Palestine and Egypt. By 1883, nine such tax-paying plantation villages were established in the Balqa: Jalul, Sahab was Salbud, al-Raqib, Juwayda,

Dhiban Dhiban () is a Jordanian town located in Madaba Governorate approximately 70 kilometres south of Amman and east of the Dead Sea. It was the site of an ancient Moabite town (;, ,) Previously nomadic, the current community settled the town in th ...

, Manja, Umm al-Amad, al-Ghabya and

Barazin Barazin, also spelled Barazayn (), is a town in the Amman Governorate of north-western Jordan.Maplandia world gazetteer History Modern Barazin was founded in the 1860s when its lands were granted by the Ottomans to a Beni Sakhr chieftain, Fand ...

. The Balqa remained a

kaza A kaza (, "judgment" or "jurisdiction") was an administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire, administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. It is also discussed in English under the names district, subdistrict, and juridical district. Kazas co ...

(called after Salt) attached to the Nablus Sanjak, including after the sanjak's incorporation into the

Beirut Vilayet The Vilayet of Beirut (; ) was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire. It was established from the coastal areas of the Syria Vilayet in 1888 as a recognition of the new-found importance of its then-booming capital, ...

established in 1888, during which Khalil Bek El-Assaad was in office, Balqa remained under his clan's control until the kaza of Salt was transferred.. Between 1901 and 1906 five new Circassian and Chechen settlements were established at

Zarqa Zarqa () is the capital of Zarqa Governorate in Jordan. Its name means "the blue (city)". It had a population of 635,160 inhabitants in 2015, and is the second most populous city in Jordan after Amman. History Although the area has been inhab ...

, Rusayfa, Na'ur, Suwaylih and Sukhna, all to the east of Amman. In 1905 the kaza of Salt was transferred to the

Karak Sanjak The Mutasarrifate of Karak (), also known as the Sanjak of Karak, was an Ottoman district with special administrative status established in 1895, located in modern-day Jordan. The city of Karak was the district's capital. It had a population of 7 ...

, part of the Damascus Vilayet. By 1908, there were at least nineteen Bedouin plantation villages around Madaba. During the same approximate period, the Abu Jabir clan of Salt began to cultivate their sixty-

feddan A feddan () is a unit of area used in Egypt, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Oman. In Classical Arabic, the word means 'a yoke of oxen', implying the area of ground that could be tilled by oxen in a certain time. In Egypt, the feddan is the only n ...

farms south of Amman. The Circassians introduced a network of dirt roads throughout the Balqa, which could accommodate their large-wheeled carts. Interconnectivity with the rest of the Empire and centralization increased with the construction of the Hejaz Railway, which connected Amman to Damascus upon its inauguration in 1903. The following year the line was extended from Amman southward to

Ma'an Ma'an () is a city in southern Jordan, southwest of the capital Amman. It serves as the capital of the Ma'an Governorate. Its population was approximately 41,055 in 2015. Civilizations with the name of Ma'an have existed at least since the Nab ...

and by 1908 to Medina. The Circassians of the Balqa were employed in the construction, maintenance and lower management of the railway, and Circassian ox-driven carts transported goods from Damascus to the markets of the Balqa after the arrival of the goods to Amman by train.

British period

The occupation of Transjordan and the wider Levant by British-led Allied forces during World War I marked the end of the late Ottoman period of growing trade, settlement and cultivation in the Balqa. With the disruptions to the railway caused by the war, trade and security eroded and Bedouin tribesmen who had begun transitioning to plantation farming or cultivation reverted to nomadism. The importance of the area also decreased under the British and French mandatory powers whose focus centered on Palestine, the northern half of the Levant and Mesopotamia. Commerce eventually returned to the Balqa, but underwent significant change as a result of new borders separating it from Damascus and Medina and new foreign interests. In a 1922 population survey, the Balqa district had a settled population of 39,600 living in fifteen settlements, the largest of which was Salt (pop. 20,000), followed by Wadi Sir, Amman and Madaba whose populations ranged between 2,400 and 3,200. There were 59,500 Adwan, Balqawiyya, Banu Hamida and Salit tribesmen living in 11,900 tents, while the Banu Sakhr, whose encampments were not restricted to the Balqa, had 5,500 tents and counted 27,500 tribesmen. With the exception of a mostly Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic Christian minority in Salt, its smaller satellite villages of Fuheis and Rumaymin, and Madaba, the inhabitants were Sunni Muslims. Other than the Circassian/Chechens who represented about 5% of Transjordan's population, the inhabitants of the Balqa and Transjordan in general were ethnically Arab, the main social division being between pastoralists and peasants. The main crops of the Balqa were corn, wheat and barley, as well as the well-known grapes of Salt. Relations between the settled residents and the Bedouin, the Circassians and the Arabs and the Muslims and Christians were generally amicable at the time. Most conflict, when it occurred, centered on competition for land between the Bedouin and the settled people. The semi-nomadic Adwan had lost its paramountcy in the Balqa to the largely nomadic Banu Sakhr during the 19th century and the latter tribe remained dominant in the Balqa under indirect British rule. The Adwan and Banu Hasan, who dwelt north of Amman along the Zarqa River, were allied against the Banu Sakhr, and the tribal rivalry continued in the early years of British rule. The British had recognized the

Hashemite The Hashemites (), also House of Hashim, are the Dynasty, royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Hejaz, Hejaz (1916–1925), Arab Kingdom of Syria, Syria (1920), and Kingd ...

emir

Abdullah Abdullah may refer to: * Abdullah (name), a list of people with the given name or surname * Abdullah, Kargı, Turkey, a village * ''Abdullah'' (film), a 1980 Bollywood film directed by Sanjay Khan * '' Abdullah: The Final Witness'', a 2015 Pakis ...

as the Emir of Transjordan, separating the region's governance from the direct British administration in neighboring Palestine. Abdullah had courted and granted high favor the more powerful Banu Sakhr; to guarantee their loyalty from the burgeoning influence of the

Wahhabi Wahhabism is an exonym for a Salafi revivalist movement within Sunni Islam named after the 18th-century Hanbali scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. It was initially established in the central Arabian region of Najd and later spread to other ...

movement of

Ibn Saud Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud (; 15 January 1875Ibn Saud's birth year has been a source of debate. It is generally accepted as 1876, although a few sources give it as 1880. According to British author Robert Lacey's book ''The Kingdom'', ...

, the emir granted the tribe large tracts and assessed taxes at a fractional rate to that imposed on the Adwan and other Balqa tribes. By August 1923, the taxation disparity and tribal rivalries had grown and the following month the paramount emir of the Adwan at the head of his tribesmen marched toward Abdullah's residence in Amman in what became known as the Adwan Rebellion. They were intercepted by the British-led

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...

units not long after their departure from Sweileh. In the ensuing clashes, 86 Adwan tribesmen, including 13 women, were killed or injured and the tribe's leader fled to the

Jabal al-Druze Jabal al-Druze (), is an elevated volcanic region in the Suwayda Governorate of southern Syria. Most of the inhabitants of this region are Druze, and there are also significant Christian communities. Safaitic inscriptions were first found in ...

in French Mandatory Syria.

Demography

More than half of Jordan's population live in the Balqa. As a result of the influxes of

into Jordan as a result of the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967, Palestinians, i.e. those whose origins are traced to modern-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, accounted for about 70% of the population of the Amman, Balqa and az-Zarqa governorates in the 1990s. During the same period, the population of the preexisting inhabitants of the region, who largely belonged to confederations of mostly unrelated Arab tribes, stood at about 350,000, though this number is an unofficial estimate as the Jordanian census does not provide specific information on the Balqa tribes. Until around the 1960s and 1970s, most of the Arab tribesmen of the Balqa had been semi-nomadic pastoralists and farmers who migrated between their winter campsites in the Jordan Valley and their highland campsites in the Balqa during spring and summer. Afterward, members of the tribes increasingly transitioned into wage earners or permanent agriculturalists and the seasonal campsites transitioned into permanent settlements. As of the 1990s, most lived as suburbanites in the metropolitan areas of Madaba, Amman, as-Salt and az-Zarqa. The main Arab tribes of the Balqa are the Abbad, the Adwan, the Hadid, the Ajarma, the Balqawiyya, Bani Hasan, Bani Hamida, the Da'aja, the Ghanaymat and the Saltiyya. The largest land-owning tribe are the Abbad, who are a confederation of genealogically unrelated clans, counting about 100,000 members, living in the territory between Wadi al-Shitta in the south and the Zarqa River, and eastward to Amman. From the mid-18th to the mid-20th century, the most powerful tribe of the Balqa were the Adwan, a relatively small tribe that arrived in the region around the 1700s. From the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan (precursor to the modern Kingdom of Jordan) in 1921, the Balqa Bedouin have not been officially considered 'Bedouin', which was the legal designation for the nomadic, camel-herding tribes of Jordan's eastern and southern deserts until the designation was abolished in 1976. Nonetheless, the descendants of the Balqa tribes continue to consider themselves Bedouin who have historically cultivated the land but distinct from the

fellahin A fellah ( ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a local peasant, usually a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller". Due to a con ...

(peasants) who lived north of the Zarqa River.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{coord missing, Jordan Landforms of Jordan Medieval history of Jordan Syria under the Umayyad Caliphate Syria under the Abbasid Caliphate Historical regions of Jordan