Transjordan

TRANSJORDAN. - So called (because it corresponded to the Oultrejordain of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem) until 1949; thereafter "Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan".

I. GEOGRAPHY

It embraces a strip of the Syrian-Arabian plateau to the E. of the trench in which the Jordan flows and the Dead Sea spreads out, which Transjordan divides with the neighboring State of Israel, and, to the W., the so-called Arab Palestine (6,000 sq km), occupied in 1949 and annexed the following year. Its 96,000 sq km of territory bring it into contact with Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, allow it to look out to the S. on the Red Sea (Aqabah) and push it to within a short distance of the Mediterranean; still in the western sector its frontier cuts through the middle of the urban settlement of Jerusalem. Of this surface, however, less than 1/10 is cultivable; the rest is in the domain of the steppe or indeed of the desert. Pastoralism is therefore the prevailing occupation (over 1 million head of cattle and 350,000 of sheep), in nomadic and seminomadic form; the sedentary inhabitants, settled in the fertile depression of the Jordan, where irrigation is possible, and in the nearby highland, cultivate cereals (wheat, barley and millet), legumes, tobacco, vines (especially for table grapes) and olives (the harvest is destined for the oil mill). Although mineral resources are not lacking (phosphates, bitumen, copper, salt, and perhaps also petroleum), none of them is yet exploited.

The population, almost entirely Arab and Muslim, amounts to 1.2 million inhabitants, of whom a little more than 1/3 are scattered in the territory to the E., and a little less than 1/3 in that to the W. of the Jordan, where it is denser. Another 400,000 inhabitants are refugees from Israel, gathered in concentration camps organized by the United Nations. The inhabited centers are few and of little importance; above all of them stands the capital 'Ammān (whose population is estimated at about 170,000 inhabitants), on the Hejaz railway, which once reached Medina, but which today operates only from Der'ā to Ma'ān, in Hashemite territory.

Transjordan, which was part of the British mandate over Palestine, became independent in March 1946, and constituted itself as a monarchy two months later. The authority of the sovereign is tempered by a legislative assembly of 20 members elected by male suffrage, and by a Council of notables of 10 members, chosen by the king.

Giuseppe Caraci

II. HISTORY

The modern political districts into which Transjordan is divided correspond in part to the kingdoms named in the Old Testament. They are, beginning from the north: the district of 'Ajlun (biblical Gilead [v.]), between the Yarmuk (Sheri'at el-Menadireh) and the biblical Jabbok (Nahr ez-Zerqa), a high plateau from 600 to 800 m., covered with recent volcanic materials, with cultivated areas alternating with woods and pastures. Next is the district of el-Belqa, from the Jabbok to the Arnon (Seil el-Mojib), a rolling plateau 800-1000 m. high (Jebel Osha' 1096 m.), territory of the Ammonites (v.), with considerable cultivated areas, numerous villages and the city of 'Amman, capital of the Kingdom. South of the Arnon as far as the Wadi el-Hesa, is the district of el-Kerak (biblical Moab [v.]), 800 to 1000 m. high, with vast areas cultivated with cereals, especially around el-Kerak, the major center of the region; finally the district of Ma'an (biblical Edom [v.] and country of the Nabataeans), from the south of the Wadi el-Hesa as far as the Gulf of el-'Aqabah, with mountains rising to 1000 m., but very arid and with very few inhabited centers, the largest of which is Ma'an. The gulf of el-'Aqabah is Transjordan's only maritime outlet, on barely 5 km. of coast, between the border of Israel and the Hijaz. Eastern Transjordan, east of the railway line from Damascus to Mecca, is a desert tableland, with few oases, among them the oasis of el-Azraq on the 'Amman-Baghdad road and the oasis of Hausa on the south-eastern border.

Archaeological exploration and the excavations carried out in various parts of the country have established that Transjordan was inhabited from the Paleolithic era, as vast remains of megalithic culture indicate. After the victories won by Moses over the Amorite kingdoms of Sihon and Og (Num. 12, 26; Jos. 13, 15-32), it was in part inhabited by the Israelite tribes of eastern Manasseh, of Gad and of Reuben, and then disputed between the kings of Samaria and of Damascus. In the 1st century B.C., in the northern part flourished the cities of the Decapolis (v.) and in the central part Perea (v.) and the Kingdom of the Nabataeans with its capital at Petra (v.). The emperor Trajan annexed the territories into the Roman province of Arabia, whose southern part (Petraea) became in 400 Palestine III. As the ruins of ancient churches indicate (Madaba, Nebo, Gerasa), Christianity prospered there until the Muslim period, when the Arabs settled there after the battle of the Yarmuk (665 A.D.). The Umayyad dynasty endowed the desert with a series of palaces, of which marvelous architectural ruins remain. At the time of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, the various territories of Transjordan were for the first time united into a single State, with the fief of the Pays outre Jordain, established by Baldwin I with its capital at Le Krak (Kerak). The crusader fortresses of Kerak, of Sobak (Montréal), Wadi Musa (Le val de Moïse) and on the small island of el-'Aqabah (Grave), today Gearet Far'on, still remain, though in ruins.

After the Crusaders Transjordan remained in abandonment and, with the exception of the brief Mameluke period, was dominated by tribal chiefs. When the Allies conquered the Arab lands of the Ottoman Empire in the years 1916-18, the Arabs hoped to unite them all in the Arab Empire they were preparing to found with King Husein, leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, and with his sons; instead the Anglo-French Allies had by secret agreements divided the territory into zones of influence; the sanjak of Kerak together with Palestine was entrusted to the English mandate (conference of San Remo, 25 Apr. 1920). Subsequently, after agreements with local tribal chiefs and an intervention by Churchill with 'Abdallah, eldest son of Husein, in Jerusalem (28 March 1921), it was decided to constitute an emirate of Transjordan under the emir 'Abdallah, while the territory nevertheless remained included under the general mandate for Palestine. In the definitive text of this mandate approved by the League of Nations (24 July 1922) it was provided (art. 25) that the Mandatory Power should have the faculty, for the territory east of the Jordan, to derogate from the general norms. Thus was born the State of Transjordan, which had a history different from that of Palestine (among other things it was withdrawn from Jewish immigration and its consequences).

The autonomy of the emirate of Transjordan (in Arabic Sharq al-Urdunu) was proclaimed on 1 Oct. 1922. The new State, not entirely independent, had its capital at 'Amman, residence of the emir and of a British resident dependent on the high commissioner for Palestine, who had his seat in Jerusalem. Relations with Great Britain were defined by the Anglo-Transjordanian Agreement of 28 Feb. 1928, by which Great Britain was recognized as having a strong interference in the financial administration and in legislative activity and the right to maintain armed forces in the territory and to control the Transjordanian forces. The borders had been delimited between 1923 and 1925 with some concessions to the south in favor of the Nejd; the port of el-'Aqabah, formerly belonging to the Hijaz, was annexed to Transjordan in 1925 at the time of the Saudi invasion of the Hijaz: this cession was not recognized by the Saudi government.

The Constitution of Transjordan issued on 16 Apr. 1928 established the ordinances of the emirate within the frameworks of the League of Nations mandate and of the aforementioned Anglo-Transjordanian Agreement; in any case, from 1928 Transjordan had an almost constitutional government with an emirate invested with broad powers. Until 1946 Transjordan was thus governed by the emir under a mandate regime; Great Britain drew considerable advantages from the special position it enjoyed in that territory; the Arab Legion trained and commanded by English officers (first Peake, then Glubb) was useful for curbing the Wahhabi incursions from the south and later, during the world war of 1939-45, for maneuvering in Syria and in Iraq.

Transjordan too profited from English financial and technical aid to improve its economic equipment and introduce civil institutions. After the war ended, after other States subject to mandate (first Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon) had become independent, Transjordan too wished to pass to autonomy and independence: this came about with the Anglo-Transjordanian Treaty of 22 March 1946 by virtue of which Great Britain recognized the cessation of the mandate and the proclamation of the independent Kingdom of Transjordan. On 25 March 1946 'Abdallah was acclaimed king in 'Amman. Transjordan, unlike the aforementioned new Arab States, did not obtain admission to the UN. The new Kingdom of Transjordan found itself directly involved in the question, by then aggravated, of Palestine. Before the world war the many British attempts to resolve the Arab-Jewish dispute originating from the promise (1917) to give a national home to the Jews in Palestine had failed. After the war the Palestinian question was referred to the UN which, in the climate of human sympathy spread throughout the world in favor of the persecuted Jews, decided to partition Palestine between the Arabs and the Jews (29 Nov. 1947). The Arabs of Syria, of Lebanon, of Transjordan, of Iraq, of Saudi Arabia, of Yemen and of Egypt, since 1945 united in an Arab League with its seat in Cairo, opposed the decision.

The Kingdom of Transjordan was part of the League and its King appeared among the Arab heads of State as the most fervent for the defense of the Palestinian Arab cause; he also had the advantage of having the most battle-hardened body of troops in the immediate vicinity of the theater of operations. Thus, when, on 15 May 1948, the English mandate in Palestine ceased, the forces of the various Arab states crossed the borders to proceed with the liberation, 'Abdallāh's Arab Legion, having crossed the Allenby Bridge over the Jordan, easily occupied Jericho, Jerusalem (the Old City), Bethlehem and Judea. Then the Arabs everywhere came up against the effective and aggressive armed action of the Jews, and Palestine remained divided between the Jews of the new State of Israel and the Arabs along armistice lines (1949) that still today (spring 1952) await the conclusions of peace.

The failure of the Arabs in the Palestinian campaign derives, and still depends, on rivalries among the Arabs and on disorder within the individual states, including T. This state, in fact, as mistress of the part of Palestine on the right bank of the Jordan occupied in 1948, came into conflict with the Arab League when it decided (24 Apr. 1950) to annex it to its own territory. A de facto annexation had already occurred in 1949, and since then (1 June 1949) T. had officially assumed the name "Hāshimite Kingdom of the Jordan." The Arabs of Jordan and of the other states reproached King 'Abdallāh for excessive dependence on Great Britain, for the discord that had arisen in the Arab League, for opposition to closer contacts between the Arab states or between some of them (union of the Fertile Crescent or of Greater Syria), for the tendency to make a separate peace with Israel and to come to an agreement with it in order to prevent the internationalization of Jerusalem decided by the UN. On 20 July 1951 King 'Abdallāh was assassinated in a mosque in 'Ammān; he was succeeded by his firstborn Ṭalāl, who was deposed on 12 Aug. 1952 because of serious nervous illness and left the throne to his son Ḥusqīn. Since 8 Jan. 1952 Jordan has had a new constitution, more liberal than that of 1928, with a government responsible before Parliament.

Donato Baldi - Ettore Rossi

III. RELIGIOUS SITUATION

For the history prior to the First World War see PALESTINE. Among a total population of about 400,000 inhabitants, overwhelmingly Muslim, there are 35,000 Christians, for the most part "Orthodox," who enjoy a satisfactory religious freedom.

The new Constitution, which came into force on 8 Jan. 1952, although it proclaims Islam the religion of the State (art. 2), guarantees the equality of all citizens without distinction of religion (art. 6, 1) and freedom of worship (art. 14), recognizes the right of religious communities to have their own schools (art. 19) and gives the Christian religious courts the same rights as the Muslim ones (art. 109).

There are about 7,000 Catholics of the Latin rite and 6,500 of the Greek rite. There is also a small Armenian-Catholic community with a parish in 'Ammān. The Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem has been working in Transjordan since 1866 for the conversion of the dissidents. In 1908 the Greek Catholics or Melkites too began their work with means inferior to those of the Latin mission but with the great advantage of offering the population the possibility of becoming Catholics while retaining the traditional rite in the Arabic language. In recent decades one can speak of a true movement of union. In 1932 the Holy See erected for the Greek Catholics of Transjordan the diocese of Petra and Philadelphia with residence in 'Ammān. Collaboration between Latins and Greek Catholics left somewhat to be desired.

The union between the two rites was greatly strengthened after a popular mission held jointly in 1938 by Latin and Greek priests. At the request of the Greek bishop the apostolic delegate appointed a permanent visitor of the schools of the two rites, and it was established never to open in a single village two Catholic schools (one Latin and one Greek) but only one, called simply Catholic. The organization of the "Union of Catholic Schools" now provides for this important work. The Latin patriarchate has 21 parishes in Transjordan and the Greek-Catholic diocese has about thirty.

There are about 60 Catholic schools with a total of 9,000 pupils. From 11 Feb. 1948 the apostolic delegate of Jerusalem and Palestine is such also for Transjordan. Since the end of the last century the Protestants too have been working in Transjordan with ample means. But the success is minimal. There are barely 1,000 Protestants.

Guglielmo de Vries