Encyclopedia of Islam

Jordan

  

405  J

---

the Ottomans began enforcing a more central-

ized taxing system and curbed the power of the 

tribes, first by military campaigns against them, 

and when that failed, by settling Circassians from 

the Caucasus region in tribal border areas such as 

the largely abandoned town of Amman. Increased 

security and the resulting upswing in regional 

commerce brought new immigrants to towns 

such as Irbid, Ajloun, Salt, and Karak. Syrian and 

Palestinian merchants from Damascus, Nablus, 

J

erUsalem

, and Hebron settled branches of their 

families in the main Jordanian towns in order to 

expand their commercial ties.

Jordan is often described as the most prepos-

terous of the newly mandated territories created 

by the British and French after World War I. Its 

jagged, straight-lined borders to the north, east, 

and south do not correspond to any natural geo-

graphical boundaries and seem arbitrary lines in 

the desert. In November 1920, Abd Allah, the 

son of Sharif Husayn ibn Ali (d. 1931) of m

ecca

,

encamped in Maan with an armed group of 300 

fighters intending to march on Damascus to assist 

in the defense of his brother Faysal’s independent 

Arab kingdom declared in 1918. Instead, when 

he arrived in Amman in March 1921, the Brit-

ish offered to sponsor him as the emir (Arabic: 

amir, ruler) of Transjordan. Abd Allah accepted 

and later became the first king in the h

ashimite

dynasty

 that still rules Jordan today. Over the 

course of the 20th century, with the consolidation 

and longevity of state power, a Jordanian national 

identity has taken hold over a majority of the 

population.

One factor that has led to the partial success 

of national identity formation in Jordan is cultural 

homogeneity. Almost the whole population is 

Arab, with the exception of very small Circassian, 

Chechen, Kurdish, and Armenian communities. 

About 95 percent of Jordanians are Sunni Muslims 

who follow the h

anaFi

  l

egal

  s

chool

, although 

this is changing. There are small groups of Alawis, 

Twelve-Imam Shia, and d

rUze

. About 5 percent of 

Jordanians are Christians, mostly Greek Ortho-

dox. There are some Catholics, Maronites, and 

Protestants. Historically, institutionalized religion 

was weak in Jordan. At the beginning of the 19th 

century, there was hardly any functioning mosque 

or church of any significance in any town or vil-

lage. The spread of formal religious structures 

began only during the 1920s with the establish-

ment of Hashemite rule. Since the 1950s, the 

government has often allied itself with Islamist 

political forces such as the m

Uslim

 b

rotherhood

in order to legitimize its authority. However, 

autonomous Islamist politicians who have gone 

against government policies have been severely 

repressed.

Jordan suffers from cataclysmic destabilizing 

events on its borders. It has been particularly 

affected by Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although 

King Abd Allah secretly negotiated with Zionist 

leaders over the partition of p

alestine

, Jorda-

nian troops led by a British commanding officer 

fought in the Jerusalem area in the 1948 war in 

Palestine. With the establishment of the state 

of Israel, Jordan annexed the West Bank of 

the Jordan River. By doing so, it immediately 

acquired a majority-Palestinian population and 

the largest number of the 750,000 to 800,000 

Palestinians who either fled the fighting or were 

forced from their homes. King Abd Allah was 

assassinated by a Palestinian gunman on July 20, 

1950, as he was entering the a

l

-a

qsa

 m

osqUe

 in 

Jerusalem for Friday prayers. In the 1967 Arab-

Israeli war, Israel occupied the West Bank, and 

300,000 more Palestinian 

reFUgees

 fled to the 

East Bank. Another 300,000 Palestinian refugees 

suddenly arrived in Jordan in 1991 after they 

were expelled from Kuwait at the end of the first 

Gulf War. As of December 2006, 1,858,362 Pales-

tinians were officially registered with the United 

Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNWRA) as 

refugees in Jordan, and 328,076 of them lived in 

10 refugee camps spread throughout the country. 

Jordan has by far the largest number of the 4.4 

million Palestinians recognized by the UNWRA 

as refugees from 1948 and their descendants. It 

K  406  

Jordan

---

is estimated that from 60 percent to 80 percent of 

the Jordanian population is of Palestinian origin. 

The current reigning queen, Rania, is of Palestin-

ian origin from Kuwait.

Much of the history of the modern state of 

Jordan since independence has been dominated 

by the figure of King Husayn who came to power 

when he was only 18 in May 1953 after his father 

Talal was forced to abdicate because of mental 

illness. The early years of his rule were marked 

by a resurgent opposition to foreign influence 

in Jordan. In elections held only a few weeks 

before Israel, France, and Britain invaded Egypt 

in 1956, Arab nationalists and communists won 

the majority of seats in parliament and were 

able to form a government. Husayn was forced 

to dismiss his British military advisers, but then 

exchanged British for U.S. patronage in 1957. 

The alliance with the United States was enduring 

and today Jordan is one of the largest recipients 

of U.S. foreign aid in the Middle East after Iraq, 

Israel, and Egypt.

The rule of King Husayn was seriously chal-

lenged by the rise of the p

alestine

  l

iberation

o

rganization

 (PLO) and Palestinian armed resis-

tance organizations that were based in the refugee 

camps. After Palestinian militants hijacked three 

international airline carriers and flew them to an 

airfield near Zarqa in September 1970, the Jorda-

nian army launched an all-out attack on the PLO 

armed presence in the camps and, by 1971, the 

PLO was forced to move its military and political 

headquarters to Beirut, Lebanon. In 1974 the a

rab

l

eagUe

 recognized the PLO as the sole legitimate 

representative of the Palestinian people. King 

Husayn still claimed Jordanian sovereignty over 

the West Bank until 1988. During these years he 

maintained secret contacts with Israeli leaders. A 

full peace agreement with Israel was signed on 

October 26, 1994. King Husayn died of cancer on 

February 7, 1999, and was succeeded by his son 

Abdullah (b. 1962), the present monarch.

Jordan is witnessing a rapid demographic 

and economic transformation caused by the 

U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 with unpredictable 

consequences. Some reports put the number 

of Iraqis now resident in Jordan as high as 1.5 

million or one-fifth of Jordan’s entire popula-

tion. Some of the Iraqi refugees are wealthy 

and billions of dollars have been poured into 

unproductive speculative investments such as 

the stock market and real estate. The rise in land 

and housing prices has hit Jordan’s lower classes 

the hardest and caused overcrowding and the 

delay of marriages due to lack of suitable hous-

ing. The sudden influx of tens of thousands of 

poor Iraqi war refugees has overburdened the 

educational system and medical and social ser-

vices. Many thousands of Iraqi refugee children 

have not been in school for two or more years, 

creating a potential generation of illiterates and 

unemployed who will be compelled to face the 

insecurity of the informal labor sector or fall into 

criminal activities. The poorest of the Iraqi refu-

gees are beginning to move into the overcrowded 

low-income neighborhoods of East Amman and 

even into some of the Palestinian refugee camps 

causing social tensions as communities vie for 

scant public services and resources.

Jordan is quickly becoming a land of social 

contrasts. High-rise construction, the increase 

in the number of luxury hotels for tourism, and 

infrastructure modernization are occurring at an 

astonishing pace in areas such as West Amman, 

on the shores of the Dead Sea, and in Aqaba. U.S.-

based fast food conglomerates, cafés, restaurants, 

nightclubs, and mega malls dot the landscape of 

West Amman with its villas and condos. Cities 

such as Zarqa or the neglected neighborhoods of 

East Amman that have not been the beneficiaries 

of priority public investment, the input of billions 

of recycled Iraqi war dollars, or the focus for the 

burgeoning tourist industry have suffered from a 

deterioration of housing stock, overcrowding, a 

lack of services, and serious environmental deg-

radation. Unemployment and underemployment 

are rampant. Over 30 percent of the population 

lives below the poverty line and the thousands