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More than 90 percent of Jordanians adhered to Sunni Islam in the late 1980s. Although observance was not always orthodox, devotion to and identification with the faith was high. Islam was the established religion, and as such its institutions received government support. The 1952 Constitution stipulates that the king and his successors must be Muslims and sons of Muslim parents. Religious minorities included Christians of various denominations, a few Shia Muslims, and even fewer adherents of other faiths.
Library of Congress Country Studies
Geography:
Location: Middle East, northwest of Saudi Arabia
Geographic coordinates: 31 00 N, 36 00 E
Area:
total: 89,213 sq km
land: 88,884 sq km
water: 329 sq km Area - comparative: slightly smaller than Indiana
Source: CIA
Ancient Antiquity
The Jordan Valley provides abundant archaeological evidence of occupation by paleolithic and
mesolithic hunters and gatherers. A people of neolithic culture, similar to that found around
the Mediterranean littoral, introduced agriculture in the region. By the eighth millennium B.C.,
this neolithic culture had developed into a sedentary way of life. Settlements at Bayda on the
East Bank and Jericho on the West Bank date from this period and may have been history's first
"cities." Bronze Age towns produced a high order of civilization and carried on a
brisk trade with Egypt, which exercised a dominant influence in the Jordan Valley in the third millennium.
Islam & Arab Rule in Jordan
By the time of his death in A.D. 632, the Prophet Muhammad and his followers had brought most of
the tribes and towns of the Arabian Peninsula under the banner of the new monotheistic religion
of Islam (literally, submission), which was conceived of as uniting the individual believer, the
state, and the society under the omnipotent will of God. Islamic rulers therefore exercised both
temporal and religious authority. Adherents of Islam, called Muslims (those who submit to the
will of God), collectively formed the House of Islam, or Dar al Islam.
Ottoman Rule in Jordan
Mamluk Egypt and its possessions fell to the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, in 1517. The Jordan
region, however, stagnated under Ottoman rule. Although the pilgrim caravans to Mecca continued
to be an important source of income, the East Bank was largely forgotten by the outside world
for more than 300 years until European travelers "rediscovered" it in the nineteenth century.
Religious Minorities in Jordan
Jordan's Constitution guarantees freedom of religious beliefs. Christians formed the largest
non-Muslim minority. Observers estimated in the late 1970s that the Christian community--
comprising groups of several denominations - constituted roughly 5 to 8 percent of the
population. The principal points of concentration of the East Bank's indigenous Christians were
a number of small towns in the "sown," such as Al Karak, Madaba, As Salt, and Ajlun.
Christians also lived in Amman and other major cities.
Islam in Jordanian Social Life
Despite a strong identification with and loyalty to Islam, religious practices varied among
segments of Jordan's population. This unevenness in practice did not necessarily correlate with
a rural-urban division or differing levels of education. The religious observance of some
Jordanians was marked by beliefs and practices that were sometimes antithetical to the teachings
of Islam. Authorities attributed at least some of these elements to pre-Islamic beliefs and
customs common to the area.
Islamic Revival in Jordan
The 1980s witnessed a stronger and more visible adherence to Islamic customs and beliefs among
significant segments of the population. The increased interest in incorporating Islam more fully
into daily life was expressed in a variety of ways. Women wearing conservative Islamic dress and
the head scarf were seen with greater frequency in the streets of urban as well as rural areas;
men with beards also were more often seen. Attendance at Friday prayers rose, as did the number
of people observing Ramadan. Ramadan also was observed in a much stricter fashion; all public
eating establishments were closed and no alcohol was sold or served. Police responded quickly to
infractions of the rules of Ramadan. Those caught smoking, eating, or drinking in public were
reprimanded and often arrested for a brief period.
Jordanian Tribes & Tribalism
Before the events of the post-World War II period thrust it onto the center stage of
international affairs, the territory that is now the East Bank was first a provincial backwater
of the Ottoman Empire and later a small and weak desert amirate. Straddling the transitional
area between the "desert and the sown," it participated only marginally in the social
and intellectual changes that began sweeping the Arab world during the nineteenth century.
Jordanian Ethnicity & Language
In the late 1980s, several ethnic and religious groups coexisted on the East Bank. Roughly 5 to
8 percent of the total population were Christians (see Religious
Minorities). Of these, most were Arabs, including a small number - unique among Christians
in the Middle East - who recently had been pastoral nomads. The largest group of non-Arab
Christians were the Armenians, perhaps 1 percent of the population, who resided primarily in
Irbid and Amman.
Arab States and Jordan
In 1989 Jordan maintained relatively cordial relations with most other Arab states. Jordan's
closest ties were with Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. King Hussein made frequent trips
to these countries to confer with their leaders on regional and international strategy. Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia and other Arab oilproducers provided Jordan with financial aid in accordance with
guidelines originally agreed on at the November 1978 Baghdad Summit. The total amount of these
grants had declined dramatically by 1984 because of the budgetary problems that depressed oil
prices caused in petroleum-producing countries. Nonetheless, they remained an important source
of total government revenue for Jordan.
Jordanian Relations with Israel
In 1989 Jordan still refrained from establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. The absence
of formal relations notwithstanding, the two countries had cooperated directly or indirectly
since 1967 in a multiplicity of matters pertaining to the West Bank, the Israeli-occupied
territory whose Palestinian population retained Jordanian citizenship until 1988. Hussein's aim
was to maintain influence and eventually regain control of the West Bank, a goal that had not
been realized by 1988, when he renounced Jordan's claim to sovereignty of the area.
Nationalism & Zionism
In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, two separate movements developed that were to
have continuing effects for all of the Middle East - the Arab revival and Zionism. Both
movements aimed at uniting their peoples in a national homeland. They were to converge and
confront each other in Palestine where, it was initially thought by some, they could each
achieve their aspirations in an atmosphere of mutual accommodation. The two movements would, in
fact, prove incompatible.
Palestinians in Jordan
Jordanians tended to refer to Palestinians as persons who fled or were driven from Palestine
during the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 and the June 1967 War. Some immigrants from Palestine who
had entered Jordan in preceding centuries, however, were so thoroughly integrated into the local
society as to be indistinguishable from their neighbors.
