The Time line of Jordan

Early Bronze Age

is marked by deposits at the base of Dhībān. Although many sites have been found in the northern portion of the country, few have been excavated, and little evidence of settlement in this period is found south of Al-Shawbak. The region’s early Bronze Age culture was terminated by a nomadic invasion that destroyed the principal towns and villages, marking the end of an apparently peaceful period of development. Security was not reestablished until the Egyptians arrived after 1580 BC. It was once believed that the area was unoccupied from 1900 to 1300 BC, but a systematic archaeological survey has shown that the country had a settled population throughout the period. This was confirmed by the discovery of a small temple at Amman with Egyptian, Mycenaean, and Cypriot imported objects.

The Latin kingdom and Muslim domination

The area was devastated in the 6th and 7th centuries by the intermittent warfare between Byzantium and Sāsānian Persia. In 627 the emperor Heraclius finally defeated the Persians and reestablished order, but Byzantium, gravely weakened by the long struggle, was unable to face the unexpected menace of a new power that had arisen in Arabia. In 636 the Muslims—led by the famous “Sword of Islam,” Khālid ibn al-Walīd—destroyed a Byzantine army at the Battle of the Yarmūk River and brought the greater part of Syria and Palestine under Muslim rule.

Capital at Damascus

The caliphs of the Umayyad dynasty (660–750) established their capital at Damascus and built hunting lodges and palaces in the Jordanian desert. These can still be seen at sites such as Qaṣr ʿAmrah, Al-Kharānah, Al-Ṭūbah, and Qaṣr al-Mushattā. Many Roman forts were also rebuilt. After the ʿAbbāsids seized power in 750, the capital was transferred to Baghdad, and Syria, which had been the Umayyad metropolitan province, was severely repressed. Jordan, now distant from the centre of power, became a backwater and slowly returned to the old Bedouin way of life. With the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099, the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was extended east of the Jordan, a principality known as Oultre Jourdain was established, and a capital was set up at Al-Karak. After the Crusaders retreated, the history of Jordan remained mostly uneventful. Not until the 16th century did it submit to Ottoman rule and become part of the vilāyet (province) of Damascus.

Linking Damascus and Medina.

In the 19th century the Ottomans settled Circassian, Caucasian, and other refugees in Jordan to protect their communications with Arabia; assisted by Germany, they completed in 1908 the Hejaz Railway linking Damascus and Medina.

Transjordan, the Hāshimite Kingdom, and the Palestine war

During World War I the Arabs joined the British against the Ottomans. In a revolt of 1916, in which they were assisted by Colonel T.E. Lawrence, the Arabs severed the Hejaz Railway. In July 1917 the army of Prince Fayṣal ibn Husayn (of the Hāshimite [or Hashemite] dynasty) captured Al-ʿAqabah, and by October 1918 Amman and Damascus were in Allied hands. In 1920 the Conference of San Remo in Italy created two mandates; one, over Palestine, was given to Great Britain, and the other, over Syria, went to France. This act effectively separated the area now occupied by Israel and Jordan from that of Syria. In November 1920 ʿAbdullāh, Fayṣal’s brother, arrived in Maʿān (then part of the Hejaz) with 2,000 armed supporters intent on gathering together tribes to attack the French, who had forced Fayṣal to relinquish his newly founded kingdom in Syria. By April 1921, however, the British had decided that ʿAbdullāh would take over as ruler of what then became known as Transjordan.

Full independence

Effectively, Turkish rule in Transjordan was simply replaced by British rule. The mandate, confirmed by the League of Nations in July 1922, gave the British virtually a free hand in administering the territory. However, in September, the establishment of “a Jewish national home” was explicitly excluded from the mandate’s clauses, and it was made clear that the area would also be closed to Jewish immigration. On May 25, 1923, the British recognized Transjordan’s independence under the rule of Emir ʿAbdullāh, but, as outlined in a treaty as well as the constitution in 1928, matters of finance, military, and foreign affairs would remain in the hands of a British “resident.” Full independence was finally achieved after World War II by a treaty concluded in London on March 22, 1946, and ʿAbdullāh subsequently proclaimed himself king.

A new constitution

A new constitution was promulgated, and in 1949 the name of the state was changed to the Hāshimite Kingdom of Jordan.

Jordan under King Ḥussein

The history of Jordan after 1953 was largely shaped by King Ḥussein’s policies to secure his throne and to retain or regain the West Bank for the Hāshimite dynasty. Jordan’s relationship with Israel in the first decade of the Jewish state’s existence was uneasy but tolerable, though bloody raids and acts of terrorism carried out by both sides added to the tension. Jordan’s involvement in the Palestinian question led as much to a contest with Egypt over Jordan’s future as it did to a struggle with Israel. In particular, it repeatedly forced Jordan to balance relations with and between various Arab nations, the Palestinians, and the West and Israel. Thus, popular demonstrations, especially in the West Bank, and pressure from Egypt prevented Ḥussein in 1955 from signing the Baghdad Pact, a pro-Western mutual defense treaty that he had initiated between Great Britain, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. The next year Ḥussein—bowing to popular pressure and in a show of support for Egyptian efforts at pan-Arab leadership—dismissed his British advisers, including Glubb, and abrogated the Anglo-Jordanian treaty of 1946. However, when members of the National Guard, drawn mainly from the West Bank, attempted a coup in April 1957, the king, supported by loyal East Bank Bedouins, purged the legislature of Palestinian nationalists and extremists, banned political parties, and set up a royal dictatorship to curb domestic unrest.

The PLO and the June 1967 war

The emergence in the late 1960s of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the militant group Fatah represented a potential threat to Jordan’s sovereignty in the West Bank as well as to Israel. In early 1965, with the support of Egypt and the radical Baʿth Party government in Syria, Fatah began a series of Jordan-based raids against Israel that inflicted serious casualties and property damage. Israel retaliated by raiding the West Bank in an effort to deter these operations. Relations between Jordan and Syria and Egypt and between the Palestinians and Amman soon deteriorated. Ḥussein continued private talks with Israel over the internal and external dangers both countries faced. In late 1966 the Israeli army made a devastating raid into the West Bank village of Al-Samu south of Hebron. Ḥussein responded by attempting to stop the passage of Syrian-based Palestinian guerrillas coming through Jordan into Israel, and he eventually broke off diplomatic ties with Syria. However, as tension mounted between Israel and Egypt and Syria in the spring of 1967, Jordan reversed its position and signed a defense pact with Egypt and Syria. Israeli and Jordanian forces clashed in East Jerusalem, and in June 1967 Ḥussein joined Egypt and Syria in the third Arab-Israeli war.

From the Persian Gulf War to peace with Israel

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 and the subsequent Persian Gulf War (fought principally in January–February 1991) forced Ḥussein to choose between two allies, the United States and Iraq. The king leaned heavily toward Iraqi leader Ṣaddām Ḥussein, who also received a zealous and vocal groundswell of support from the Jordanian people. In addition, trade with Iraq represented two-fifths of the kingdom’s gross domestic product. Kuwait’s allies immediately cut off all aid to Jordan, imposed an air and sea blockade, and condemned King Ḥussein’s actions. To make matters worse, between 200,000 and 300,000 refugees from Kuwait were expelled or fled (back) to Jordan. However, by the end of 1991 the United States and Israel were again seeking Ḥussein’s support for an American-Israeli peace initiative.

Arab Spring and reform

After several years of strong economic growth, the global economic recession in 2008–09 caused growth to slow in Jordan. In January 2011, following massive antigovernment demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt (see Arab Spring), thousands of Jordanians attended rallies in Amman to protest high prices, unemployment, public corruption, and a lack of democracy in Jordan. The crowds focused much of their anger on Jordan’s prime minister, Samir Rifai, and his government rather than on the king. The government responded to that popular discontent by announcing a package of subsidies for basic goods, but that did little to placate critics, and protests continued. On February 1 King ʿAbdullāh dismissed the government and appointed a new prime minister, Marouf al-Bakhit. In an official statement the king tasked Bakhit with introducing political reforms and improving living conditions for all Jordanians.

Continued reform and austerity

Electoral reform was again implemented in 2016, this time introducing a system of proportional representation. The IAF participated in the election for the first time in over a decade. Wary of public perception after years of vilification and nonparticipation, the party formed a political alliance known as the National Coalition for Reform (NCR) that included Christians and non-Islamist Muslims and that avoided campaigning under Islamist slogans. The NCR won only 15 of the 130 parliamentary seats but was the largest organized political group in parliament. The vast majority of seats were won by independent candidates unaffiliated with any party.

uided by the IMF and aimed toward reducing public debt and spurring growth. The program required a number of austerity measures in the years that followed. The budget for 2017 reduced the deficit largely by raising taxes. Sales tax was increased on many goods in 2018 as subsidies for food staples were cut, though low-income individuals would receive cash transfers to offset the subsidy cuts. In late spring, as lawmakers debated a bill to raise income tax by 5 percent, Jordanians took to the streets in the largest protests since 2011. King ʿAbdullāh replaced his prime minister, and the new prime minister rescinded the tax bill. Months later, in November 2018, an amended tax bill was passed that exempted low-income households from the tax, though the amendment did not alleviate all concerns over the tax hike. In 2019 it appeared that the tax hike had backfired, hampering consumption and ultimately causing revenue collected from sales tax to decline. By the end of the year, Jordan had begun negotiations with the IMF to begin a new program to spur growth.