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Balqa (region)

The Balqa (Arabic: البلقاء; transliteration: al-Balqāʾ), known colloquially as the Balga, is a geographic region in central Jordan generally defined as the highlands east of the Jordan Valley in between the Zarqa River to the north and the Wadi Mujib gorge to the south.

The landscape of the Balqa as seen from a hill in the Baqa'a suburb of Amman

The Balqa was part of the Byzantine province of Arabia Petraea and home to the Arab tribes of Judham, Lakhm and Bali. After the 630s Muslim conquest, it became part of Jund Dimashq (the military district of Damascus). The Umayyad family maintained interests in the region before the founding of the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), a period in which the Balqa prospered. Starting from the reign of Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), the Balqa was assigned its own sub-governor. The caliphs Yazid II and his son al-Walid II lived in the Balqa as princes and caliphs, building several palatial residences. In the 10th century the Balqa became subordinate to Jund Filastin (the military district of Palestine). Under the Ayyubids (1170s–1260) and Mamluks (1260–1516) the Balqa continued to function as a district, subordinate to Damascus, sometimes spanning the Sharat highlands to the south.

Amman had been the Balqa's traditional capital, but the capital shifted to Hisban under the Mamluks. The tribes of Banu Sakhr and Banu Mahdi, descendants of the Judham, lived there at the time. By the 16th century, during Ottoman rule, only four villages were recorded in the Balqa, along with the Bedouin tribe of Da'aja, still present in the 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. The Balqa had been outside Ottoman government control until the campaign of Rashid Pasha in the late 1860s, after which it was incorporated into the Nablus Sanjak. 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.

The growing prosperity of the Balqa in the late Ottoman period was disrupted by the British occupation of the region in World War I. The paramountcy of the Banu Sakhr over the Adwan and other local tribes was sealed in the subsequent period, leading to the Adwan Rebellion. Amman became the capital of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1923 and continues to be the capital of the Emirate's successor state, the Kingdom of Jordan. The region is presently divided between the governorates of Balqa (centered in Salt), Amman, Zarqa and Madaba. Mainly due to the influx of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 Arab–Israeli wars, Palestinians and their descendants made up about 70% of the population of Amman, Zarqa and Balqa. 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.

Etymology edit

According to J. Sourdel-Thomine, the Arabic etymology of al-Balqāʾ could be related to the feminine form of the Arabic word ablaq, meaning "variegated".[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.[1]

Geography edit

Geographic definition edit

The Balqa forms the central part of the Transjordanian highlands.[2][3] It extends from the Zarqa River in the north to the Wadi Mujib gorge in the south.[2][3] The southern limit of the Balqa is alternatively placed north of Wadi Mujib at Wadi Zarqa Ma'in, hence the colloquial description of the Balqa as "the land between the two Zarqas".[4] The Zarqa River separates the Balqa from the Jabal Ajlun highlands, while the Wadi Mujib separates it from the Sharat highlands.[2] To the west, the Balqa borders the lowlands of the Jordan Valley (called al-Ghor in Arabic),[2] while the region borders the Syrian Desert in the east.[2]

Topography and climate edit

 
Mount Nebo, one of the highest peaks in the Balqa

The entire Balqa is a limestone plateau,[3] as compared to the gravel and basalt-covered plateau of the Syrian Desert that makes up over 75% of Jordan's land area.[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.[3] The eastern part of the Balqa sees little rainfall and is characterized by its tabular consistency.[3] In general the Balqa is arid, though the western plains near the Jordan Valley and the depressions allow for some cultivation.[3] This accounts for the ancient and medieval reports of the Balqa's fertility.[3] Like Jabal Ajlun and the Sharat, the Balqa has a dry and temperate climate.[2]

The average elevation of the Balqa is 700–800 meters (2,300–2,600 ft) above sea level.[3] Among the tallest peaks are Tell Nabi Usha (1,096 meters (3,596 ft)) in the northern Balqa and Mount Nebo (835 meters (2,740 ft)) in the south.[3]

Monthly normal high and low temperatures (°C) for the largest localities in the Balqa
City Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Annual
Max/Min
Citation
Amman 12/3 13/4 16/6 22/9 27/13 30/15 31/17 32/18 30/16 27/13 20/9 14/5 23/11 [6]
Madaba 12/3 14/4 17/6 22/9 27/12 29/15 30/16 30/17 29/15 27/13 20/9 14/5 23/10 [7]
Salt 12/4 13/4 16/6 21/9 27/13 30/16 31/18 31/18 30/16 26/13 20/10 14/6 23/11 [8]
Zarqa 13/2 15/4 19/6 24/10 30/13 32/16 33/18 33/17 32/16 28/13 21/8 15/4 25/11 [9]

Rivers edit

 
The Wadi Shueib valley, 2010

The perennial Wadi Shueib stream traverses the heart of the western Balqa and creates a fertile valley in which many of the area's western towns sit. The stream deposits into the Jordan Valley.[2] The Zarqa River is a tributary of the Jordan River, while the Wadi Mujib stream flows into the Dead Sea.[2]

History edit

Hellenistic period edit

 
Map of the southern Levant under Roman rule, c. 1st century CE. The Balqa region spanned part of Perea, the Decapolis and Nabatea

During the Hellenistic period, the western part of the Balqa belonged to the administrative district of Perea centered in the city of Gadara (near modern al-Salt), while much of the northeastern Balqa around Philadelphia (modern Amman) formed part of the Decapolis and the southeastern part belonged to Nabatea.[3]

Roman and Byzantine periods edit

In 106 CE, during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan, the whole of the Balqa came under the province of Arabia Petraea.[3] The Balqa remained part of Arabia province during the Byzantine period and the Wadi al-Mujib formed the southern boundary of the province, separating it from the new district of Palestina Tertia.[3] The major towns of Byzantine Balqa were Philadelphia, Esbus (modern Hisban) and Madaba.[3]

Early Islamic period edit

 
The interior of Qasr al-Kharane, one of several desert palaces built in the Balqa by the Umayyads

At the time of the early Muslim conquests in the 630s, the principal Arab tribes in the Balqa were the Bali, the Judham, and the Ghassanids.[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.[11] Yazid's father Abu Sufyan owned a village in the Balqa called Biqinis.[12] In 661, Yazid's brother Mu'awiya founded the Levant-based Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), under which the Balqa continued to prosper.[1] Caliph Marwan I (r. 684–685) granted the Sakun, a branch of the Kinda tribe the right to settle the Balqa in return for their support against anti-Umayyad tribes in Syria at the Battle of Marj Rahit.[13] Several palatial residences for the Umayyad caliphs and princes were erected throughout the Balqa, including al-Mshatta, Ziza, Qastal, and Umm al-Walid, as well as Qusayr Amra, al-Kharane, Qasr al-Hallabat and Qasr Tuba further east along the desert fringe.[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.[15] Yazid II's son al-Walid II resided in his Balqa estates during part of his years as the heir apparent of Caliph Hisham and built Qusayr Amra.[16] Al-Walid II's father-in-law, a member of the Umayyad family, Caliph Uthman's great-grandson Sa'id ibn Khalid ibn Amr ibn Uthman, owned an estate called al-Faddayn in the Balqa, which al-Walid II regularly visited.[17] After succeeding Hisham in 743, he continued to live in the Balqa.[18] He imprisoned Hisham's son Sulayman in Amman.[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.[20]

 
Map of Islamic Syria and its districts under the Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th century. The Balqa is shown as part of Dimashq (Damascus), lying east of Filastin (Palestine)

The administrative and geographic definition of the Balqa varied throughout the early Islamic period.[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).[21] The historian al-Ya'qubi held that the Balqa was divided into two zones: the Ghor with its center in Jericho (west of the Jordan River) and the Zahir centered in Amman.[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).[1]

Umayyad and Abbasid sub-governors edit

The post of the sub-governor of Balqa first appeared in the Islamic traditional sources during the reign of Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705).[22]

  • Ubayd Allah ibn Marwan, governed for undetermined period under his brother Caliph Abd al-Malik.[23]
  • Muhammad ibn Umar al-Thaqafi, governed for undetermined period under Caliph Abd al-Malik. Muhammad was a brother of Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi from the clan of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf.[24] Yusuf ibn Umar had been al-Walid II's governor in Iraq and relocated to his Thaqafi family's estate in the Balqa. The historian Garth Fowden proposed that the family estate may have been Umm al-Walid (Mother of al-Walid) based on the assumption that it belonged to al-Walid II's mother, who belonged to al-Hajjaj's family.[25]
  • Al-Walid ibn Qa'qa al-Absi, may have governed for undetermined period under Caliph al-Walid I (r. 705–715).[26]
  • Harith ibn Amr al-Ta'i, governed for undetermined period under Caliph Umar II (r. 717–720).[27]
  • Unnamed governor under Marwan II (r. 744–750)[28]
  • Salih ibn Ali ibn Abdallah ibn Abbas, governor in 750 under his nephew, the Abbasid caliph al-Saffah.[29]
  • Abdallah ibn Sulayman ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Muttalib, governed for undetermined period under his distant kinsman Caliph al-Mansur (r. 754–775).[30]
  • Salih ibn Sulayman ibn Abdallah ibn Abbas, governed from 796 under Ja'far ibn Yahya al-Barmaki, vizier of Salih ibn Sulayman's kinsman Caliph Harun al-Rashid.[31]

Ayyubid and Mamluk periods edit

Under the Ayyubids (1180s–1250), the Balqa administratively included and excluded the Sharat, while under the Mamluks the Balqa was a district of the southern march of Mamlakat Dimashq (province of Damascus) with its center in Hisban.[1] At times, the town of al-Salt formed its own wilaya (subdistrict).[1] Practically, it depended, at least temporarily, on Niyabat al-Karak (province of al-Karak) to the south.[1] The major tribes of the Balqa during Mamluk rule were the Banu Sakhr and the Banu Mahdi, both counted as descendants of the Judham, whose presence in the southern Levant dated to the late Byzantine and early Islamic periods.[32]

Ottoman era edit

 
A sheikh of the Da'aja tribe in al-Muwaqqar in the Balqa, c. 1900. The Da'aja were one of two tribes recorded in Ottoman tax records as living in the Balqa in the 16th century

Although Ottoman tax records from the 16th century do not specify the Bedouin tribes living in the Balqa, the Ottoman historian al-Khalidi al-Safadi (d. 1628) noted that two tribes, the Da'aja and Jahawisha, dwelt there.[33] Only four villages were officially recorded in the Balqa during the 16th century.[34] By the end of the 18th century, the only permanent settlement in the region was the mixed Muslim and Christian town of Salt, a situation which persisted until the late 19th century.[35] The rest of the Balqa was dominated by the local Bedouin tribes.[34]

Salt was the most developed town and the commercial center of Transjordan from the 18th century until the early years of the Emirate of Transjordan.[34] The high hills and deep valleys upon which the town was built protected Salt from raids by the Bedouin tribes, with whom the townspeople made commercial accommodations: the tribes guaranteed the townspeople access to their wheat fields in the Balqa's eastern plains and the tribes were able to buy and sell goods in the town's extensive markets.[34] Salt townspeople encamped in Amman and Wadi Wala in the spring until harvest and paid an annual tribute to the dominant tribe of the Balqa, which until the 1810s was the Adwan, known as "lords of the Balqa".[36] Afterward, the Banu Sakhr overtook the Adwan and collected the tribute from Salt.[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.[36]

In 1866–1867 the governor of Syria Vilayet (to which the Balqa nominally belonged), Rashid Pasha, extended the imperial Tanzimat reforms into the Balqa.[37] He launched an expedition against the tribes of the Balqa at the head of a large army.[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.[38] He established the town as the center of a district encompassing the Balqa, appointed as its governor the Damascene Kurd Faris Agha Kadru and established an elected administrative council composed of the town's elite.[38] He proceeded toward Hisban against the Adwan, which was allied with their traditional rivals the Banu Sakhr and led by Dhi'ab al-Humud. The Ottomans defeated the Adwan, killing or wounding fifty tribesmen, capturing Dhi'ab's son and forcing the tribe's retreat toward Karak.[38] By October Dhi'ab surrendered himself and was imprisoned in Nablus.[39] The following year, the Balqa was appended to the Nablus Sanjak, which became a new district straddling both sides of the Jordan River and called the Mutasarifiyya of Balqa; its first governor was Muhammad Sa'id Pasha, the former governor of the new district of Ajlun. 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.[39] The Banu Sakhr and the Banu Hamida were cornered into the deep gorges of Wadi Wala, submitted to the Ottoman authorities and paid a large fine.[39] According to the historian Eugene Rogan: "If the first Balqa expedition introduced direct Ottoman rule to the district, the second campaign confirmed that the Ottomans were in Jordan to stay."[40]

 
The Circassian settlement of Wadi Sir, 1900, one of several villages founded in the Balqa during the Ottoman-sponsored drive to settle the region in the late 19th century

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.[41] The first settlers were Circassians transported to the region from other parts of the Empire and the first two Circassian villages established in the Balqa were Amman and Wadi Sir.[41] A third village was established at al-Ruman in 1884 by Turkmen settlers.[42] The Turkmens and Circassians were known to be highly loyal to the Ottomans, skilled in agriculture and willing to combat Bedouin raiders.[43] During roughly the same period, Christian townspeople established settlements in the Balqa after leaving established towns in Transjordan.[44] Between 1869 and 1875, Christians from Salt transformed the nearby encampment of Fuheis from sixteen tents to twenty-five–thirty houses. Between 1870 and 1879, members of the Christian family of Siyagh established the village of Rumaymin in the vicinity of Salt, and in 1881 Christians from Karak established a permanent settlement at Madaba, which became the southernmost settlement of the Balqa, with support from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the governor of Damascus Midhat Pasha.[45][44]

The establishment of farming villages by settlers and local Christians spurred the development of the Bedouin plantation village, which were small hamlets registered in the name of Bedouin tribesmen and farmed largely by peasants from Palestine and Egypt.[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.[41] In 1905 the kaza of Salt was transferred to the Karak Sanjak, part of the Damascus Vilayet.[48] By 1908, there were at least nineteen Bedouin plantation villages around Madaba.[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]

The Circassians introduced a network of dirt roads throughout the Balqa, which could accommodate their large-wheeled carts.[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. The following year the line was extended from Amman southward to Ma'an and by 1908 to Medina. The Circassians of the Balqa were employed in the construction, maintenance and lower management of the railway, and Circassian ox-driven carts transported goods from Damascus to the markets of the Balqa after the arrival of the goods to Amman by train.[50]

British period edit

 
Bedouin and Circassian chiefs with British officers on the Aerodome at Amman, 1921

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.[50] In a 1922 population survey, the Balqa district had a settled population of 39,600 living in fifteen settlements, the largest of which was Salt (pop. 20,000), followed by Wadi Sir, Amman and Madaba whose populations ranged between 2,400 and 3,200.[51] There were 59,500 Adwan, Balqawiyya, Banu Hamida and Salit tribesmen living in 11,900 tents, while the Banu Sakhr, whose encampments were not restricted to the Balqa, had 5,500 tents and counted 27,500 tribesmen.[51] With the exception of a mostly Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic Christian minority in Salt, its smaller satellite villages of Fuheis and Rumaymin, and Madaba, the inhabitants were Sunni Muslims.[51][52] Other than the Circassian/Chechens who represented about 5% of Transjordan's population, the inhabitants of the Balqa and Transjordan in general were ethnically Arab, the main social division being between pastoralists and peasants.[51] The main crops of the Balqa were corn, wheat and barley, as well as the well-known grapes of Salt.[53]

Relations between the settled residents and the Bedouin, the Circassians and the Arabs and the Muslims and Christians were generally amicable at the time. Most conflict, when it occurred, centered on competition for land between the Bedouin and the settled people.[51] The semi-nomadic Adwan had lost its paramountcy in the Balqa to the largely nomadic Banu Sakhr during the 19th century and the latter tribe remained dominant in the Balqa under indirect British rule. The Adwan and Banu Hasan, who dwelt north of Amman along the Zarqa River, were allied against the Banu Sakhr, and the tribal rivalry continued in the early years of British rule. The British had recognized the Hashemite emir Abdullah as the Emir of Transjordan, separating the region's governance from the direct British administration in neighboring Palestine. Abdullah had courted and granted high favor the more powerful Banu Sakhr; to guarantee their loyalty from the burgeoning influence of the Wahhabi movement of Ibn Saud, the emir granted the tribe large tracts and assessed taxes at a fractional rate to that imposed on the Adwan and other Balqa tribes. By August 1923, the taxation disparity and tribal rivalries had grown and the following month the paramount emir of the Adwan at the head of his tribesmen marched toward Abdullah's residence in Amman in what became known as the Adwan Rebellion. They were intercepted by the British-led Arab Legion units not long after their departure from Sweileh. 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.[54]

Demography edit

More than half of Jordan's population live in the Balqa.[55] As a result of the influxes of Palestinian refugees into Jordan as a result of the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967, Palestinians, i.e. those whose origins are traced to modern-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, accounted for about 70% of the population of the Amman, Balqa and az-Zarqa governorates in the 1990s.[56][57] During the same period, the population of the preexisting inhabitants of the region, who largely belonged to confederations of mostly unrelated Arab tribes, stood at about 350,000, though this number is an unofficial estimate as the Jordanian census does not provide specific information on the Balqa tribes.[58]

Until around the 1960s and 1970s, most of the Arab tribesmen of the Balqa had been semi-nomadic pastoralists and farmers who migrated between their winter campsites in the Jordan Valley and their highland campsites in the Balqa during spring and summer.[59][60] Afterward, members of the tribes increasingly transitioned into wage earners or permanent agriculturalists and the seasonal campsites transitioned into permanent settlements.[59][60] As of the 1990s, most lived as suburbanites in the metropolitan areas of Madaba, Amman, as-Salt and az-Zarqa.[61] The main Arab tribes of the Balqa are the Abbad, the Adwan, the Hadid, the Ajarma, the Balqawiyya, Bani Hasan, Bani Hamida, the Da'aja, the Ghanaymat and the Saltiyya.[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.[62] From the mid-18th to the mid-20th century, the most powerful tribe of the Balqa were the Adwan, a relatively small tribe that arrived in the region around the 1700s.[63]

From the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan (precursor to the modern Kingdom of Jordan) in 1921, the Balqa Bedouin have not been officially considered 'Bedouin', which was the legal designation for the nomadic, camel-herding tribes of Jordan's eastern and southern deserts until the designation was abolished in 1976.[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.[65]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sourdel-Thomine 1960, p. 998.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Salibi 1993, p. 4.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Sourdel-Thomine 1960, p. 997.
  4. ^ Shryock 1997, p. 39.
  5. ^ Salibi 1993, p. 5.
  6. ^ "Amman Climate". Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  7. ^ "Madaba Climate". World Meteorological Organization. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  8. ^ "Al Salt Climate". Climate-Data.org. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  9. ^ "Zarqa Climate". Climate-Data.org. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  10. ^ Kennedy 2010, p. 188.
  11. ^ Sourdel-Thomine 1960, pp. 997–998.
  12. ^ Fowden 2004, p. 151, note 54.
  13. ^ Bosworth 1982, p. 38.
  14. ^ Bacharach 1996, p. 36.
  15. ^ Powers 1989, pp. 193–194.
  16. ^ Fowden 2004, pp. 149, 161, 163.
  17. ^ Fowden 2004, p. 153.
  18. ^ Fowden 2004, p. 150.
  19. ^ Fowden 2004, p. 160.
  20. ^ Fowden 2004, pp. 152–153.
  21. ^ Salibi 1993, pp. 17–18.
  22. ^ Gil 1997, p. 117.
  23. ^ Ahmed 2010, p. 114.
  24. ^ Crone 1980, p. 125.
  25. ^ Fowden 2004, pp. 154–155.
  26. ^ Elad 2016, p. 135.
  27. ^ Crone 1980, p. 127.
  28. ^ Williams 1985, p. 84.
  29. ^ Williams 1985, p. 208.
  30. ^ Kennedy 1990, p. 119.
  31. ^ Bosworth 1989, p. 158.
  32. ^ Bakhit 1982, pp. 194–195.
  33. ^ Bakhit 1982, p. 194.
  34. ^ a b c d Rogan 1999, p. 27.
  35. ^ Rogan 1999, pp. 27, 71.
  36. ^ a b c Rogan 1999, p. 28.
  37. ^ Rogan 1999, pp. 48–49.
  38. ^ a b c d Rogan 1999, p. 49.
  39. ^ a b c Rogan 1999, p. 51.
  40. ^ Rogan 1999, pp. 51–52.
  41. ^ a b c Rogan 1999, p. 73.
  42. ^ Rogan 1994, p. 46.
  43. ^ Rogan 1994, pp. 45–46.
  44. ^ a b Rogan 1994, p. 45.
  45. ^ Rogan 1999, pp. 73–77, 80–81.
  46. ^ a b Rogan 1994, p. 47.
  47. ^ Rogan 1994, p. 47, note 41.
  48. ^ a b Salibi 1993, p. 37.
  49. ^ a b Wilson 1987, p. 54.
  50. ^ a b Wilson 1987, p. 55.
  51. ^ a b c d e Wilson 1987, p. 56.
  52. ^ Barakat 2015, pp. 156–157, 159.
  53. ^ Wilson 1987, p. 57.
  54. ^ Wilson 1987, pp. 77–78.
  55. ^ Shryock 1997, p. 50.
  56. ^ Shryock 1997, pp. 50, 57.
  57. ^ Shryock 1997, p. 57.
  58. ^ Shryock 1995, p. 41.
  59. ^ a b Shryock 1997, p. 41.
  60. ^ a b Shryock 1995, p. 327.
  61. ^ Shryock 1997, pp. 39, 50.
  62. ^ a b Shryock 1997, p. 40.
  63. ^ Shryock 1997, p. 42.
  64. ^ Shryock 1997, p. 69.
  65. ^ Shryock 1997, pp. 39, 46.

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balqa, region, this, article, about, geographic, region, jordan, modern, district, jordan, balqa, governorate, balqa, arabic, البلقاء, transliteration, balqāʾ, known, colloquially, balga, geographic, region, central, jordan, generally, defined, highlands, east. This article is about the geographic region in Jordan For the modern day district in Jordan see Balqa Governorate The Balqa Arabic البلقاء transliteration al Balqaʾ known colloquially as the Balga is a geographic region in central Jordan generally defined as the highlands east of the Jordan Valley in between the Zarqa River to the north and the Wadi Mujib gorge to the south The landscape of the Balqa as seen from a hill in the Baqa a suburb of AmmanThe Balqa was part of the Byzantine province of Arabia Petraea and home to the Arab tribes of Judham Lakhm and Bali After the 630s Muslim conquest it became part of Jund Dimashq the military district of Damascus The Umayyad family maintained interests in the region before the founding of the Umayyad Caliphate 661 750 a period in which the Balqa prospered Starting from the reign of Caliph Abd al Malik r 685 705 the Balqa was assigned its own sub governor The caliphs Yazid II and his son al Walid II lived in the Balqa as princes and caliphs building several palatial residences In the 10th century the Balqa became subordinate to Jund Filastin the military district of Palestine Under the Ayyubids 1170s 1260 and Mamluks 1260 1516 the Balqa continued to function as a district subordinate to Damascus sometimes spanning the Sharat highlands to the south Amman had been the Balqa s traditional capital but the capital shifted to Hisban under the Mamluks The tribes of Banu Sakhr and Banu Mahdi descendants of the Judham lived there at the time By the 16th century during Ottoman rule only four villages were recorded in the Balqa along with the Bedouin tribe of Da aja still present in the 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 The Balqa had been outside Ottoman government control until the campaign of Rashid Pasha in the late 1860s after which it was incorporated into the Nablus Sanjak 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 The growing prosperity of the Balqa in the late Ottoman period was disrupted by the British occupation of the region in World War I The paramountcy of the Banu Sakhr over the Adwan and other local tribes was sealed in the subsequent period leading to the Adwan Rebellion Amman became the capital of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1923 and continues to be the capital of the Emirate s successor state the Kingdom of Jordan The region is presently divided between the governorates of Balqa centered in Salt Amman Zarqa and Madaba Mainly due to the influx of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 and 1967 Arab Israeli wars Palestinians and their descendants made up about 70 of the population of Amman Zarqa and Balqa 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 Contents 1 Etymology 2 Geography 2 1 Geographic definition 2 2 Topography and climate 2 3 Rivers 3 History 3 1 Hellenistic period 3 2 Roman and Byzantine periods 3 3 Early Islamic period 3 3 1 Umayyad and Abbasid sub governors 3 4 Ayyubid and Mamluk periods 3 5 Ottoman era 3 6 British period 4 Demography 5 References 6 BibliographyEtymology editAccording to J Sourdel Thomine the Arabic etymology of al Balqaʾ could be related to the feminine form of the Arabic word ablaq meaning variegated 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 1 Geography editGeographic definition edit The Balqa forms the central part of the Transjordanian highlands 2 3 It extends from the Zarqa River in the north to the Wadi Mujib gorge in the south 2 3 The southern limit of the Balqa is alternatively placed north of Wadi Mujib at Wadi Zarqa Ma in hence the colloquial description of the Balqa as the land between the two Zarqas 4 The Zarqa River separates the Balqa from the Jabal Ajlun highlands while the Wadi Mujib separates it from the Sharat highlands 2 To the west the Balqa borders the lowlands of the Jordan Valley called al Ghor in Arabic 2 while the region borders the Syrian Desert in the east 2 Topography and climate edit nbsp Mount Nebo one of the highest peaks in the BalqaThe entire Balqa is a limestone plateau 3 as compared to the gravel and basalt covered plateau of the Syrian Desert that makes up over 75 of Jordan s land area 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 3 The eastern part of the Balqa sees little rainfall and is characterized by its tabular consistency 3 In general the Balqa is arid though the western plains near the Jordan Valley and the depressions allow for some cultivation 3 This accounts for the ancient and medieval reports of the Balqa s fertility 3 Like Jabal Ajlun and the Sharat the Balqa has a dry and temperate climate 2 The average elevation of the Balqa is 700 800 meters 2 300 2 600 ft above sea level 3 Among the tallest peaks are Tell Nabi Usha 1 096 meters 3 596 ft in the northern Balqa and Mount Nebo 835 meters 2 740 ft in the south 3 Monthly normal high and low temperatures C for the largest localities in the Balqa City Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec AnnualMax Min CitationAmman 12 3 13 4 16 6 22 9 27 13 30 15 31 17 32 18 30 16 27 13 20 9 14 5 23 11 6 Madaba 12 3 14 4 17 6 22 9 27 12 29 15 30 16 30 17 29 15 27 13 20 9 14 5 23 10 7 Salt 12 4 13 4 16 6 21 9 27 13 30 16 31 18 31 18 30 16 26 13 20 10 14 6 23 11 8 Zarqa 13 2 15 4 19 6 24 10 30 13 32 16 33 18 33 17 32 16 28 13 21 8 15 4 25 11 9 Rivers edit nbsp The Wadi Shueib valley 2010The perennial Wadi Shueib stream traverses the heart of the western Balqa and creates a fertile valley in which many of the area s western towns sit The stream deposits into the Jordan Valley 2 The Zarqa River is a tributary of the Jordan River while the Wadi Mujib stream flows into the Dead Sea 2 History editHellenistic period edit nbsp Map of the southern Levant under Roman rule c 1st century CE The Balqa region spanned part of Perea the Decapolis and NabateaDuring the Hellenistic period the western part of the Balqa belonged to the administrative district of Perea centered in the city of Gadara near modern al Salt while much of the northeastern Balqa around Philadelphia modern Amman formed part of the Decapolis and the southeastern part belonged to Nabatea 3 Roman and Byzantine periods edit In 106 CE during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan the whole of the Balqa came under the province of Arabia Petraea 3 The Balqa remained part of Arabia province during the Byzantine period and the Wadi al Mujib formed the southern boundary of the province separating it from the new district of Palestina Tertia 3 The major towns of Byzantine Balqa were Philadelphia Esbus modern Hisban and Madaba 3 Early Islamic period edit nbsp The interior of Qasr al Kharane one of several desert palaces built in the Balqa by the UmayyadsAt the time of the early Muslim conquests in the 630s the principal Arab tribes in the Balqa were the Bali the Judham and the Ghassanids 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 11 Yazid s father Abu Sufyan owned a village in the Balqa called Biqinis 12 In 661 Yazid s brother Mu awiya founded the Levant based Umayyad Caliphate 661 750 under which the Balqa continued to prosper 1 Caliph Marwan I r 684 685 granted the Sakun a branch of the Kinda tribe the right to settle the Balqa in return for their support against anti Umayyad tribes in Syria at the Battle of Marj Rahit 13 Several palatial residences for the Umayyad caliphs and princes were erected throughout the Balqa including al Mshatta Ziza Qastal and Umm al Walid as well as Qusayr Amra al Kharane Qasr al Hallabat and Qasr Tuba further east along the desert fringe 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 15 Yazid II s son al Walid II resided in his Balqa estates during part of his years as the heir apparent of Caliph Hisham and built Qusayr Amra 16 Al Walid II s father in law a member of the Umayyad family Caliph Uthman s great grandson Sa id ibn Khalid ibn Amr ibn Uthman owned an estate called al Faddayn in the Balqa which al Walid II regularly visited 17 After succeeding Hisham in 743 he continued to live in the Balqa 18 He imprisoned Hisham s son Sulayman in Amman 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 20 nbsp Map of Islamic Syria and its districts under the Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th century The Balqa is shown as part of Dimashq Damascus lying east of Filastin Palestine The administrative and geographic definition of the Balqa varied throughout the early Islamic period 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 ʿamil governor 21 The historian al Ya qubi held that the Balqa was divided into two zones the Ghor with its center in Jericho west of the Jordan River and the Zahir centered in Amman 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 1 Umayyad and Abbasid sub governors edit The post of the sub governor of Balqa first appeared in the Islamic traditional sources during the reign of Caliph Abd al Malik r 685 705 22 Ubayd Allah ibn Marwan governed for undetermined period under his brother Caliph Abd al Malik 23 Muhammad ibn Umar al Thaqafi governed for undetermined period under Caliph Abd al Malik Muhammad was a brother of Yusuf ibn Umar al Thaqafi from the clan of al Hajjaj ibn Yusuf 24 Yusuf ibn Umar had been al Walid II s governor in Iraq and relocated to his Thaqafi family s estate in the Balqa The historian Garth Fowden proposed that the family estate may have been Umm al Walid Mother of al Walid based on the assumption that it belonged to al Walid II s mother who belonged to al Hajjaj s family 25 Al Walid ibn Qa qa al Absi may have governed for undetermined period under Caliph al Walid I r 705 715 26 Harith ibn Amr al Ta i governed for undetermined period under Caliph Umar II r 717 720 27 Unnamed governor under Marwan II r 744 750 28 Salih ibn Ali ibn Abdallah ibn Abbas governor in 750 under his nephew the Abbasid caliph al Saffah 29 Abdallah ibn Sulayman ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al Muttalib governed for undetermined period under his distant kinsman Caliph al Mansur r 754 775 30 Salih ibn Sulayman ibn Abdallah ibn Abbas governed from 796 under Ja far ibn Yahya al Barmaki vizier of Salih ibn Sulayman s kinsman Caliph Harun al Rashid 31 Ayyubid and Mamluk periods edit Under the Ayyubids 1180s 1250 the Balqa administratively included and excluded the Sharat while under the Mamluks the Balqa was a district of the southern march of Mamlakat Dimashq province of Damascus with its center in Hisban 1 At times the town of al Salt formed its own wilaya subdistrict 1 Practically it depended at least temporarily on Niyabat al Karak province of al Karak to the south 1 The major tribes of the Balqa during Mamluk rule were the Banu Sakhr and the Banu Mahdi both counted as descendants of the Judham whose presence in the southern Levant dated to the late Byzantine and early Islamic periods 32 Ottoman era edit nbsp A sheikh of the Da aja tribe in al Muwaqqar in the Balqa c 1900 The Da aja were one of two tribes recorded in Ottoman tax records as living in the Balqa in the 16th centuryAlthough Ottoman tax records from the 16th century do not specify the Bedouin tribes living in the Balqa the Ottoman historian al Khalidi al Safadi d 1628 noted that two tribes the Da aja and Jahawisha dwelt there 33 Only four villages were officially recorded in the Balqa during the 16th century 34 By the end of the 18th century the only permanent settlement in the region was the mixed Muslim and Christian town of Salt a situation which persisted until the late 19th century 35 The rest of the Balqa was dominated by the local Bedouin tribes 34 Salt was the most developed town and the commercial center of Transjordan from the 18th century until the early years of the Emirate of Transjordan 34 The high hills and deep valleys upon which the town was built protected Salt from raids by the Bedouin tribes with whom the townspeople made commercial accommodations the tribes guaranteed the townspeople access to their wheat fields in the Balqa s eastern plains and the tribes were able to buy and sell goods in the town s extensive markets 34 Salt townspeople encamped in Amman and Wadi Wala in the spring until harvest and paid an annual tribute to the dominant tribe of the Balqa which until the 1810s was the Adwan known as lords of the Balqa 36 Afterward the Banu Sakhr overtook the Adwan and collected the tribute from Salt 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 36 In 1866 1867 the governor of Syria Vilayet to which the Balqa nominally belonged Rashid Pasha extended the imperial Tanzimat reforms into the Balqa 37 He launched an expedition against the tribes of the Balqa at the head of a large army 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 38 He established the town as the center of a district encompassing the Balqa appointed as its governor the Damascene Kurd Faris Agha Kadru and established an elected administrative council composed of the town s elite 38 He proceeded toward Hisban against the Adwan which was allied with their traditional rivals the Banu Sakhr and led by Dhi ab al Humud The Ottomans defeated the Adwan killing or wounding fifty tribesmen capturing Dhi ab s son and forcing the tribe s retreat toward Karak 38 By October Dhi ab surrendered himself and was imprisoned in Nablus 39 The following year the Balqa was appended to the Nablus Sanjak which became a new district straddling both sides of the Jordan River and called the Mutasarifiyya of Balqa its first governor was Muhammad Sa id Pasha the former governor of the new district of Ajlun 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 39 The Banu Sakhr and the Banu Hamida were cornered into the deep gorges of Wadi Wala submitted to the Ottoman authorities and paid a large fine 39 According to the historian Eugene Rogan If the first Balqa expedition introduced direct Ottoman rule to the district the second campaign confirmed that the Ottomans were in Jordan to stay 40 nbsp The Circassian settlement of Wadi Sir 1900 one of several villages founded in the Balqa during the Ottoman sponsored drive to settle the region in the late 19th centuryBetween 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 41 The first settlers were Circassians transported to the region from other parts of the Empire and the first two Circassian villages established in the Balqa were Amman and Wadi Sir 41 A third village was established at al Ruman in 1884 by Turkmen settlers 42 The Turkmens and Circassians were known to be highly loyal to the Ottomans skilled in agriculture and willing to combat Bedouin raiders 43 During roughly the same period Christian townspeople established settlements in the Balqa after leaving established towns in Transjordan 44 Between 1869 and 1875 Christians from Salt transformed the nearby encampment of Fuheis from sixteen tents to twenty five thirty houses Between 1870 and 1879 members of the Christian family of Siyagh established the village of Rumaymin in the vicinity of Salt and in 1881 Christians from Karak established a permanent settlement at Madaba which became the southernmost settlement of the Balqa with support from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the governor of Damascus Midhat Pasha 45 44 The establishment of farming villages by settlers and local Christians spurred the development of the Bedouin plantation village which were small hamlets registered in the name of Bedouin tribesmen and farmed largely by peasants from Palestine and Egypt 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 41 In 1905 the kaza of Salt was transferred to the Karak Sanjak part of the Damascus Vilayet 48 By 1908 there were at least nineteen Bedouin plantation villages around Madaba 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 The Circassians introduced a network of dirt roads throughout the Balqa which could accommodate their large wheeled carts 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 The following year the line was extended from Amman southward to Ma an and by 1908 to Medina The Circassians of the Balqa were employed in the construction maintenance and lower management of the railway and Circassian ox driven carts transported goods from Damascus to the markets of the Balqa after the arrival of the goods to Amman by train 50 British period edit nbsp Bedouin and Circassian chiefs with British officers on the Aerodome at Amman 1921The 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 50 In a 1922 population survey the Balqa district had a settled population of 39 600 living in fifteen settlements the largest of which was Salt pop 20 000 followed by Wadi Sir Amman and Madaba whose populations ranged between 2 400 and 3 200 51 There were 59 500 Adwan Balqawiyya Banu Hamida and Salit tribesmen living in 11 900 tents while the Banu Sakhr whose encampments were not restricted to the Balqa had 5 500 tents and counted 27 500 tribesmen 51 With the exception of a mostly Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic Christian minority in Salt its smaller satellite villages of Fuheis and Rumaymin and Madaba the inhabitants were Sunni Muslims 51 52 Other than the Circassian Chechens who represented about 5 of Transjordan s population the inhabitants of the Balqa and Transjordan in general were ethnically Arab the main social division being between pastoralists and peasants 51 The main crops of the Balqa were corn wheat and barley as well as the well known grapes of Salt 53 Relations between the settled residents and the Bedouin the Circassians and the Arabs and the Muslims and Christians were generally amicable at the time Most conflict when it occurred centered on competition for land between the Bedouin and the settled people 51 The semi nomadic Adwan had lost its paramountcy in the Balqa to the largely nomadic Banu Sakhr during the 19th century and the latter tribe remained dominant in the Balqa under indirect British rule The Adwan and Banu Hasan who dwelt north of Amman along the Zarqa River were allied against the Banu Sakhr and the tribal rivalry continued in the early years of British rule The British had recognized the Hashemite emir Abdullah as the Emir of Transjordan separating the region s governance from the direct British administration in neighboring Palestine Abdullah had courted and granted high favor the more powerful Banu Sakhr to guarantee their loyalty from the burgeoning influence of the Wahhabi movement of Ibn Saud the emir granted the tribe large tracts and assessed taxes at a fractional rate to that imposed on the Adwan and other Balqa tribes By August 1923 the taxation disparity and tribal rivalries had grown and the following month the paramount emir of the Adwan at the head of his tribesmen marched toward Abdullah s residence in Amman in what became known as the Adwan Rebellion They were intercepted by the British led Arab Legion units not long after their departure from Sweileh 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 54 Demography editMore than half of Jordan s population live in the Balqa 55 As a result of the influxes of Palestinian refugees into Jordan as a result of the Arab Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967 Palestinians i e those whose origins are traced to modern day Israel the West Bank and the Gaza Strip accounted for about 70 of the population of the Amman Balqa and az Zarqa governorates in the 1990s 56 57 During the same period the population of the preexisting inhabitants of the region who largely belonged to confederations of mostly unrelated Arab tribes stood at about 350 000 though this number is an unofficial estimate as the Jordanian census does not provide specific information on the Balqa tribes 58 Until around the 1960s and 1970s most of the Arab tribesmen of the Balqa had been semi nomadic pastoralists and farmers who migrated between their winter campsites in the Jordan Valley and their highland campsites in the Balqa during spring and summer 59 60 Afterward members of the tribes increasingly transitioned into wage earners or permanent agriculturalists and the seasonal campsites transitioned into permanent settlements 59 60 As of the 1990s most lived as suburbanites in the metropolitan areas of Madaba Amman as Salt and az Zarqa 61 The main Arab tribes of the Balqa are the Abbad the Adwan the Hadid the Ajarma the Balqawiyya Bani Hasan Bani Hamida the Da aja the Ghanaymat and the Saltiyya 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 62 From the mid 18th to the mid 20th century the most powerful tribe of the Balqa were the Adwan a relatively small tribe that arrived in the region around the 1700s 63 From the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan precursor to the modern Kingdom of Jordan in 1921 the Balqa Bedouin have not been officially considered Bedouin which was the legal designation for the nomadic camel herding tribes of Jordan s eastern and southern deserts until the designation was abolished in 1976 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 65 References edit a b c d e f g h i j Sourdel Thomine 1960 p 998 a b c d e f g h Salibi 1993 p 4 a b c d e f g h i j k l m Sourdel Thomine 1960 p 997 Shryock 1997 p 39 Salibi 1993 p 5 Amman Climate Retrieved 22 January 2021 Madaba Climate World Meteorological Organization Retrieved 22 January 2021 Al Salt Climate Climate Data org Retrieved 22 January 2021 Zarqa Climate Climate Data org Retrieved 22 January 2021 Kennedy 2010 p 188 Sourdel Thomine 1960 pp 997 998 Fowden 2004 p 151 note 54 Bosworth 1982 p 38 Bacharach 1996 p 36 Powers 1989 pp 193 194 Fowden 2004 pp 149 161 163 Fowden 2004 p 153 Fowden 2004 p 150 Fowden 2004 p 160 Fowden 2004 pp 152 153 Salibi 1993 pp 17 18 Gil 1997 p 117 Ahmed 2010 p 114 Crone 1980 p 125 Fowden 2004 pp 154 155 Elad 2016 p 135 Crone 1980 p 127 Williams 1985 p 84 Williams 1985 p 208 Kennedy 1990 p 119 Bosworth 1989 p 158 Bakhit 1982 pp 194 195 Bakhit 1982 p 194 a b c d Rogan 1999 p 27 Rogan 1999 pp 27 71 a b c Rogan 1999 p 28 Rogan 1999 pp 48 49 a b c d Rogan 1999 p 49 a b c Rogan 1999 p 51 Rogan 1999 pp 51 52 a b c Rogan 1999 p 73 Rogan 1994 p 46 Rogan 1994 pp 45 46 a b Rogan 1994 p 45 Rogan 1999 pp 73 77 80 81 a b Rogan 1994 p 47 Rogan 1994 p 47 note 41 a b Salibi 1993 p 37 a b Wilson 1987 p 54 a b Wilson 1987 p 55 a b c d e Wilson 1987 p 56 Barakat 2015 pp 156 157 159 Wilson 1987 p 57 Wilson 1987 pp 77 78 Shryock 1997 p 50 Shryock 1997 pp 50 57 Shryock 1997 p 57 Shryock 1995 p 41 a b Shryock 1997 p 41 a b Shryock 1995 p 327 Shryock 1997 pp 39 50 a b Shryock 1997 p 40 Shryock 1997 p 42 Shryock 1997 p 69 Shryock 1997 pp 39 46 Bibliography editAhmed Asad Q 2010 The Religious Elite of the Early Islamic Ḥijaz Five Prosopographical Case Studies Oxford University of Oxford Linacre College Unit for Prosopographical Research ISBN 978 1 900934 13 8 Bacharach Jere L 1996 Marwanid Umayyad Building Activities Speculations on Patronage Muqarnas Online 13 27 44 doi 10 1163 22118993 90000355 ISSN 2211 8993 JSTOR 1523250 Bakhit Muhammad Adnan 1982 The Ottoman Province of Damascus in the Sixteenth Century Beirut Libraire du Liban ISBN 9780866853224 Barakat Nora Elizabeth Spring 2015 An Empty Land Nomads and Property Administration in Hamidian Syria PhD Berkeley University of California Bosworth C E 1982 Medieval Arabic Culture and Administration London Variorum ISBN 0 86078 113 5 Bosworth C E ed 1989 The History of al Ṭabari Volume XXX The ʿAbbasid Caliphate in Equilibrium The Caliphates of Musa al Hadi and Harun al Rashid A D 785 809 A H 169 192 SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies Albany New York State University of New York Press ISBN 978 0 88706 564 4 Crone Patricia 1980 Slaves on Horses The Evolution of the Islamic Polity Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 52940 9 Elad Amikam 2016 The Rebellion of Muḥammad al Nafs al Zakiyya in 145 762 Ṭalibis and Early ʿAbbasis in Conflict Leiden Brill ISBN 978 90 04 22989 1 Fowden Garth 2004 Quṣayr ʻAmra Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria Berkeley and Los Angeles University of California Press ISBN 0 520 23665 3 Gil Moshe 1997 1983 A History of Palestine 634 1099 Translated by Ethel Broido Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 59984 9 Kennedy Hugh ed 1990 The History of al Ṭabari Volume XXIX Al Mansur and al Mahdi A D 763 786 A H 146 169 SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies Albany New York State University of New York Press ISBN 978 0 7914 0142 2 Kennedy Hugh N 2010 Syrian Elites from Byzantium to Islam Survival or Extinction In Haldon Josh ed Money Power and Politics in Early Islamic Syria A Review of Current Debates Farnham Ashgate Publishing pp 181 199 ISBN 978 0 7546 6849 7 Powers David S ed 1989 The History of al Ṭabari Volume XXIV The Empire in Transition The Caliphates of Sulayman ʿUmar and Yazid A D 715 724 A H 96 105 SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies Albany New York State University of New York Press ISBN 978 0 7914 0072 2 Rogan Eugene L 1994 Bringing the State Back The Limits of Ottoman Rule in Jordan 1840 1910 In Rogan Eugene L Tell Tariq eds Village Steppe and State The Social Origins of Modern Jordan London British Academic Press pp 32 47 ISBN 1 85043 829 3 Rogan Eugene L 1999 Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire Transjordan 1850 1921 Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 66312 1 Salibi Kamal 1993 The Modern History of Jordan I B Tauris ISBN 1860643310 Shryock Andrew 1997 Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan Berkely and Los Angeles University of California Press ISBN 0 520 20100 0 Shryock Andrew April 1995 Popular Genealogical Nationalism History Writing and Identity among the Balqa Tribes of Jordan Comparative Studies in Society and History 37 2 327 357 doi 10 1017 S001041750001968X JSTOR 179284 Shryock Andrew Spring 1997b Bedouin in Suburbia Redrawing the Boundaries of Urbanity and Tribalism in Amman Jordan The Arab Studies Journal 5 1 40 56 JSTOR 27933719 Sourdel Thomine J 1960 Al Balkaʾ In Gibb H A R Kramers J H Levi Provencal E Schacht J Lewis B amp Pellat Ch eds Encyclopaedia of Islam Volume I A B 2nd ed Leiden E J Brill pp 997 998 OCLC 495469456 Wilson Mary C 1987 King Abdullah Britain and the Making of Jordan New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 32421 1 Williams John Alden ed 1985 The History of al Ṭabari Volume XXVII The ʿAbbasid Revolution A D 743 750 A H 126 132 SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies Albany New York State University of New York Press ISBN 978 0 87395 884 4 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Balqa region amp oldid 1176066247, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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