Jabal Ajlun

The numerous springs and streams of the region supply its thick forests and historically enabled the widespread terrace-based cultivation of olive and fruit orchards, as well as grain and pulses.

In the north and east of the region the mountains give way to rolling hills and plains, where springs are scarce and villages historically relied on cisterns for water.

[5] The geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi in 1226 noted that 'Jabal Jarash' was a "mountain tract ... full of villages and domains" on which sat the ruins of the city of Jerash.

[6] 'Jabal Awf' was mentioned by the emir and historian Abu'l-Fida in 1321 as a district that laid to the southeast of Jabal Amil and contained the "very strong" Ajloun Castle.

"[7] During Ottoman rule (1517–1917), Jabal Ajlun was consistently the most populated area in Transjordan, with at least eighty permanently inhabited villages recorded in 16th-century tax censuses and in 19th-century travel accounts.

The government was in a weaker position there than the Bedouin Adwan and Anaza tribes and the collection of taxes by both powers often drove the peasantry to abandon their villages.

[9] With the passage of the Vilayet Law in 1864 and the appointment of the reformist Mehmed Rashid Pasha to Damascus, centralization efforts began to permanently bear fruit for the Ottoman in Jabal Ajlun, as well as in the neighboring Hauran and Transjordan.

[11] By the late 19th century, the prominent Bedouin Beni Sakhr tribe gained practical authority over the eastern and northern nahiyes of Jabal Ajlun.

They instituted the customary khuwwa syste whereby the villages would contribute to the tribe a share of their grain and other goods in return for protection from Bedouin raids.