Balqa (region)

In the late 18th–early 19th centuries, the only permanent settlement was the mixed Muslim and Christian town of Salt, the rest of the region being dominated by Bedouin tribes, the strongest of which was the Adwan.

In the following years several settlements were established or re-established, including Amman and Madaba, by Christians from Salt and Karak, government-sponsored Circassian and Chechen refugees, and Bedouin chiefs.

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.

[1] 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 Ammonites and the biblical figure and Islamic prophet Lot.

[5] The western part of the Balqa, closer to the Jordan River and the Dead Sea, is a relatively fertile zone characterized by its broken ground and deep gorges formed by precipitation-induced erosion.

[10] The Balqa was conquered by the Muslims under the commander Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan shortly after the capture of Damascus in late 634/early 635 and the peaceful surrender of Amman.

[1] While still a prince, Yazid II built Qastal and al-Muwaqqar, another palace near Amman, and was possibly associated with Umm al-Walid;[14] he ruled as caliph in 720–724 and died in the Balqa town of Irbid.

[19] Descendants of al-Walid II may have continued to reside in Qastal as late as the early Abbasid period, as possibly attested by gravestones at the site.

[1] 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 Jund Dimashq (military district of Damascus) with its own ʿāmil (governor).

[1] The writings of the 10th-century geographer al-Muqaddasi indicate that the Balqa shifted to administrative dependence on Jund Filastin (military district of Palestine).

[36] 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.

[38] 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.

The Ottomans defeated the Adwan, killing or wounding fifty tribesmen, capturing Dhi'ab's son and forcing the tribe's retreat toward Karak.

Two years later, the Adwan and Banu Sakhr attempted to reassert their dominance in Transjordan and attacked the village of Ramtha, prompting a second, larger expedition by Rashid Pasha into the Balqa.

"[40] 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.

[46] By 1883, nine such tax-paying plantation villages were established in the Balqa: Jalul, Sahab was Salbud, al-Raqib, Juwayda, Dhiban, Manja, Umm al-Amad, al-Ghabya and Barazin.

[47] The Balqa remained a kaza (called after Salt) attached to the Nablus Sanjak, including after the sanjak's incorporation into the Beirut Vilayet 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..[48] Between 1901 and 1906 five new Circassian and Chechen settlements were established at Zarqa, Rusayfa, Na'ur, Suwaylih and Sukhna, all to the east of Amman.

[46] During the same approximate period, the Abu Jabir clan of Salt began to cultivate their sixty-feddan farms 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) south of Amman.

[49] 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.

[50] 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 the ensuing clashes, 86 Adwan tribesmen, including 13 women, were killed or injured and the tribe's leader fled to the Jabal al-Druze in French Mandatory Syria.

[62] 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.

[64] Nonetheless, the descendants of the Balqa tribes continue to consider themselves Bedouin who have historically cultivated the land but distinct from the fellahin (peasants) who lived north of the Zarqa River.