1 The Transjordan frontier in 1850

To give you an idea of the difficulties which the Turkish government supposed there would be for an Englishman to go to Kerek and Wady Mousa_, it is necessary to say that when Mr. Bankes applied at Constantinople to have these places inserted in his firman_, they returned for answer_, "that they knew of none such within the Grand Seignior's dominions." 1

To the world at large_, Transjordan was one of the blank spots on the globe in the early 1800s_, a terra incognita to Europeans and Ottomans alike.

The Ottomans had left the region to its local rulers for the better part of two centuries_, rule by proxy degenerating into out and out local rule. The government had long since reduced its priorities in the region to ensuring the safe passage of the annual pilgrimage caravan from Damascus to the holy cities of Mecca and Madina_, which crossed the length of Transjordan. They did so t_hrough the provisioning of a chain of fortresses situated at intervals of one day's march. The more powerful regional tribes were paid by the governor in Damascus to provide protection to the caravan as it passed through each tribe's territory_, and were given lucrative contracts to provide the thousands of camels needed to transport officials, pilgrims and provisions. 2 Aside from the occasional military campaign to intimidate the Bedouin or to seek taxes when the prevailing system broke down, the central Ottoman government had left Transjordan in isolation as a peripheral zone of a marginal province. One legacy of this policy is the near total lack of Ottoman documents on the region dating to the first half of the nineteenth century.

1 Charles Irby and James Mangles, Travels in Egypt and Nubia_, Syria and Asia Minor; During the Years 1817 & 1818 (London, 1823), pp. 336-38.

2 Karl K.Barbir, Ottoman Rule in Damascus_, 1708-1758 (Princeton, 1980), pp. 108-77; Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims & Sultans: The Hajj under the Ottomans_, 1517-1683 (London, 1994), pp. 54-73; Abdul Karim Rafeq, HNew Light on the Transportation of the Damascene Pilgrimage during the Ottoman Period,'' in Robert Olson, ed., Islamic and Middle Eastern Societies (Brattleboro VT, 1987), pp. 127-36.

21

22 Frontiers ofthe state in the late Ottoman Empire

There are no local sources at hand for the first half of the nineteenth century either. There were very few teachers to be found in the towns and villages ofTransjordan, and most schools taught a passive literacy of religious texts - the Qur'an and gospels. None of the handful of individuals with an ac-tive literary command seems to have seen fit to leave a written record of his times before the twentieth century. While the memoirs of 'Awda Qusus of IZarak and Salih Tall of Irbid provide valuable insights into the politics and society of Transjordan before Ottoman rule, they were writing their accounts in the first half of the twentieth century.

And so the earliest contemporary accounts we have of this region come from a small group of European travelers who, in an age of exploration, sought to make their names by rediscovering the lands described in biblical and classical texts. They traveled together, traded notes and were to all appearances the best of comrades - until it came to publishing their findings. The early explorers were particularly jealous of their descriptions of the ancient cities of the Decapolis, a lost corner of late antiquity. Their recriminations and accusations of plagiarism sounded through the press, the publishing houses, and ultimately the courts. The controversy over the exploration of Transjordan would not be surpassed until Richard Burton and John Speke fell out over the discovery of the source of the Nile in the 1860s.

There was no dispute over the descriptions of contemporary society which filled much of the narrative of these authors' travel accounts in Transjordan. Bankes, in his notes, had little or nothing to say about modern Transjordan, and Irby and Mangles were fairly cursory in. their accounts. 3 Burckhardt and Buckingham provide the most extensive descriptions of the villages and tribes they encountered in their travels. Buckingham, the prototypical Englishman in Arab dress, is the more superficial of the two, though his chatty narrative provides a good sense of interiors. He describes the layout of houses, sleeping arrangements, conversations and card games.4 Burckhardt's accounts, on the other hand, are most precise in explaining how a community earned its living and its system of governance. His Arabic was sufficiently fluent for Burckhardt to be taken for an Ottoman, if not for an Arab. Conse­quently, Burckhardt seems to have enjoyed an unusual degree of acceptance by local society, which make his observations more pene-

3 J. M. C. Bowsher, ~'An Early Nineteenth Century Account of Jarash and the Decapolis: The Records of William John Bankes," Levant 29 (1997), pp. 227 -46; Irby and Mangles, Travels in Egypt and Nubia.

4 J. S. Buckingham, Travels in Palestine:J Through the Countries of Bashan and Gilead:J East of the River :Jordan (London, 1821) and Travels Among the Arab Tribes (London, 1825).

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 23

trating than those of any other European traveler. 5 These_, along with such later visitors as the American naval explorer_, W F. Lynch_, who toured the Dead Sea region in 1848_, 6 provide our only sources on Transjordan before the advent of direct Ottoman rule.

Ottoman ''Transjordan"

There was no administrative unit known as Transjordan in Ottoman times. European visitors to Palestine took the River Jordan as their reference in devising a name for the lands which lay beyond - "Trans­Jordanic lands" or "Trans-jordania." Ottoman practice was to refer to a territory by its administrative name. The Ottomans thus knew this frontier by the names of its districts: cAjlun_, al-Balqa:>_, al-IZarak and Macan. Taken together_, these districts bore little resemblance to the modern Kingdom of Jordan. They comprised a thin belt of land stretching from the Jordan Rift Valley in the west_, to the desert Pilgrimage Road to the east. The Ottomans made no claim to admin­ister the vast desert regions to the east of the Pilgrimage Road - a territory which would remain more under Bedouin than Ottoman control. Ottoman Transjordan was landlocked_, separated from the Gulf of cAqaba by the provinces of Hijaz and Egypt. For the Ottomans_, who calculated distance in time_, it took eight days to walk the length of the Transjordan frontier_, and its width ranged from twenty-two hours in CAjlun to twelve hours in the Balqa:> to twenty hours in Ma can. 7

No common identity or political order bound the districts of Trans­jordan. Each was marked by a particular local order. The local order in a given district was a product of a number of factors_, including topography_, water resources_, the relative proportion of intensive and extensive cultivation_, and the balance struck between sedentary and Bedouin populations. In their external relations_, each district had a particular orientation for trade and migration worn into the landscape through regular caravans. These routes permitted social and commercial exchanges which often meant that a given town in Transjordan had more interaction with its Palestinian partners than its neighbors in Transjordan. The regional particularisms ofTransjordan influenced the

5 J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Syria and the.Holy Land (London, 1822). 6 W. F. Lynch, Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River jordan and the Dead Sea

(London, 1852). 7 One hour corresponded to five kilometers; cf. sacat in Redhouse Turkish and English

Lexicon (Beirut, 1987 reprint of Constantinople, 1890). Province of Syria Sa/name 1307 M (1891-92), p. 138; HDC, Derkenar vol. 51, report from the imperial boundaries commission of the province of Syria to the ministry of interior (22 $ubat 1325/7 March 1910).

.I

24 Frontiers of the state in the late Ottoman Empire

ways in which Ottoman rule was received by the local population, and set limits on the application of the Ottoman order. In order to under­stand the uneven and discontinuous way in which the Ottomans extended their institutions of law and order to Transjordan in the second half of the nineteenth century, we need first to understand the lay of the land in the first half of the century.

:Jabal cAjlun

The local order in the cAjlun district was characterized by extensive networks of mountain villages grouped into communes (nahiya)_, each under the authority of a zacim_, or communal leader. These chiefdoms were not static. By the nineteenth century, the cAjlun district was composed of eight communes, only two of which - Bani Juhma and IZafarat- had survived from the seventeenth century. 8 Jabal cAjlun was unique in all the Transjordan for the extent ofvillage life, made possible by the protection of the highlands (jabal) which gave the district its name.

The Yarmouk river descends from the hills flanking the great plains of the Hawran and cuts a deep gorge between the Golan and the northern edge of cAjlun as it runs down the Jordan Valley to empty into the Jordan river due south of the Lake of Tiberias. The hill country catches the clouds displaced by the warm air currents of the Jordan Valley. With the highest rainfall in Transjordan (in excess of 500mm annually), Jabal cAjlun has been worn by millennia of water runoff into a series of deep valleys which plunge from the eastern highlands to the Jordan Valley. The springs which dot the hillsides and the streams which flow down the valleys endowed the cAjlun district with rich forests and made possible an intensive, terrace-based cultivation of olives and fruit trees, along with grains and pulses. The hills also provided a measure of security which encouraged year-round village settlement. Some eighty villages, built, on easily defensible sites, remained inhabited right through the Ottoman centuries, appearing in both sixteenth-century Ottoman fiscal registers and in nineteenth-century traveler accounts. 9 No other district ofTransjordan could match this record of sedentary life.

In the south and west of the cAjlun district, high mountains and deep valleys put limits on the movement of Bedouin horsemen. Here, local leaders ruled their communes with full autonomy. The eponymous

8 cAlayan al-Jaludi and Muhammad cAdnan al-Bakhit, Qada, cAJlun fi casr al-tanzimat al-cuthmaniyya (Amman, 1992), p. 18.

9 Norman Lewis, Nomads and Settlers in Syria and:Jordan~ 1800-1980 (Cambridge, 1987), p. 21.

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 25

Plate 1.1 cAjlun. Photograph taken by H. St. John Philby in 1923.

southwestern commune~ alternately referred to as al-Jabal or simply as cAjlun, was the largest of the eight nahiyas of Jabal cAjlun~ and comprised some of the most populous villages in the district. The Furayhat~ an "ancient and very influential family" governed cAjlun from the village of IZufrinja~ retreating in times of war to the Ayyubid castle named Qalcat al-Rabad. 10 Bordering cAjlun to the north was the nahiya of al-Kura~ a smaller commune than cAjlun though densely inhabited with populous villages. The Shurayda were lords of the Kura, which they ruled from the village of Tibna. Relations between the Furayhat and the Shurayda were poor - "skirmishes~ fighting and enmity" to use one local chronicler's words. 11

Some of the dynamics of zacim rule are reflected in the rise of the Shurayda to leadership in the IZura. Formerly, the IZura had been ruled by the Rushdan. family in "a shaykhly manner." Authority was based on hospitality and force. The shaykh received all visitors in his guesthouse (madafa) where he provided food and lodging. And he surrounded himself ~:~:with bold and reckless men and used them as a threat against all who disobeyed him.'' On the basis of these two pillars of authority, the people obeyed their shaykh. In the early eighteenth century~ the Shurayda were a family of no standing. However~ one of their men,

1° CMS, C M/0 41/279 'Notes on a Missionary tour in the trans-jordanic country, 1868' (F. A. Klein).

11 "Mudhakkirat Salih al-Tall" (hereafter Tall), unpublished ms, p. 9.

26 Frontiers of the state in the late Ottoman Empire

'Abd al-Nabi_, was intelligent and ambitious. He began to gather a group of supporters in secret. Once his party gained sufficient strength_, they forced the Rushdan out of the village ofTibna. This led to a period of divided authority over the IZura_, with the Shurayda ruling in Tibna and the Rushdan in Kafr al-Ma,. The Shurayda then drove the Rushdan out of the Kura and into the Jordan Valley where they lived in disgrace. It was now the Shurayda who ruled through hospitality and force. 12

The highlands gave way to rolling hills and plains to the north and east of the district. There were no water springs_, which meant that villages such as Irbid were reliant on reservoirs to catch rainwater. An extensive rainfed cultivation of wheat and barley prevailed here as in the rest of the plains of the Hawran_, known as the granary of Damascus since Roman times. Here_, topography set no barriers to Bedouin horsemen and pastoralists' herds_, which obliged villagers to come to terms with the tribes of the region. Consequently_, the six communes which spanned the north and east of the district were under the dual authority of their za'ims and leading Bedouin shaykhs. In the latter half of the nineteenth century_, different branches of the Bani Sakhr tribe (the Zaban_, Hamid and Khadir) assumed authority over these parts of Jabal 'Ajlun. A representative of the tribe would be appointed to each village to serve as a "brother" (akh) _, responsible for the protection of the village from outside attack. The tribesman also arbitrated disputes by Bedouin law_, hearing both sides and coming to a decision on the spot. The tribesman's judgment was usually final_, though a dissatisfied party could call for a new judge to hear the dispute. In return_, the "brother" claimed a share of wheat_, barley and clothing as com­pensation (khuwa). 13 All other aspects of the commune's administra­tion except external defense and the arbitration of disputes fell to the za'im.

The 'Ajlun district paid taxes to the governor in Damascus in most years_, refusing only when the Bedouin demands for khuwa left too little surplus to satisfy the government's demands. Receipts from 'Ajlun were applied to the financing of the Damascene pilgrimage caravan in the eighteenth century, and Buckingham noted numerous villages which paid taxes to the governor in Damascus in 1816. 14 This acknowledg­ment of Ottoman authority was also unique for Transjordan_, and 12 Tall, pp. 8-9. Tall named three generations between cAbd al-Nabi and Yusif Shurayda

(died c. 1877), which would situate these events sometime in the middle of the eighteenth century.

13 Tall, pp. 8, 224; Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 301-302. 14 I<arl Barbir, Ottoman Rule in Damascus, appendices IV and VI; Buckingham, Travels in

Palestine, pp. 349, 410, 411, 412, 439; and Travels Among the Arab Tribes, p. 138.

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 27

confirmed cAjlun's northward orientation in commerce and migration towards the Hawran and Damascus. It is thus not surprising that the government would make its first efforts at direct rule over the cAjlun district.

Al-Balqa>

The Bedouin dominated the local order in the Balqa> ~ where sedentary life had become concentrated in the single town of al-Salt. No other settlement in the district was inhabited on a year-round basis. In the late sixteenth century~ there were only four active villages recorded in the Ottoman fiscal registers for the Balqa> .15 By the end of the eighteenth century~ the last of these villages had been abandoned in favor of Salt. 16

The concentration of sedentary life in Salt gave farmers a secure base from which to negotiate relations with the dominant tribes of the region. The tribesmen needed access to Salt to market their goods and to buy town products~ while the Saltis needed access to their wheat fields in the plains. Here again~ topography was instrumental in shaping the local order.

Organized in quarters with extensive markets~ mosques and a church~ Salt was the most developed town in Transjordan. The town was built on the steep slopes of a conical hill surmounted by a castle~ and on the flanks of the two surrounding valleys. Two copious springs provided the town's water needs~ and irrigated the gardens along the watercourse of the Wadi Shucayb which descends from Salt to the Jordan Valley. The combination of high hills and deep valleys secured the town from attack by horsemen~ and the castle which dominated the hill provided security against sustained attacks. From their strategic enclave~ the people of Salt could negotiate the terms of their existence with the neighboring tribes~ and could ignore the occasional· demands of the Ottoman government with impunity. 17

The townspeople were divided into three clans - the Akrad~ Qatishat and cAwamila- each with its own quarter and leader. Overall leadership of the town was held either by a single shaykh al-balad (town leader)~ or else the heads of two or more of the clans shared this position. The head of the town lived in the castle~ though the office carried no more power over the townspeople than a shaykh exercised over his tribe as a first 15 W.-D. Hiitteroth and K. Abdulfattah, Historical Geography of Palestine, Transjordan and

Southern Syria in the Late 16th Century (Erlangen, 1977), pp. 169-70. 16 U. J. Seetzen, Brief Account of the Countries Adjoining the Lake of Tiberias, the :Jordan and

the Dead Sea (Bath, 1810), pp. 34-37; Buckingham, Travels Among the Arab Tribes, pp. 122, 125.

17 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 349.

28 Frontiers of the state in the late Ottoman Empire

among equals. 18 However_, he headed an armed community with enough guns to preserve the respect of the tribes from the surrounding plains. Burckhardt estimated the population to number some 400 Muslim and 80 Christian families. Together he estimated they could muster 400 flintlocks-and 40-50 horses. 19

From the highlands of Salt_, the hill country of the Balqa) slowly gives way to plains as one moves eastwards towards the Pilgrimage Road. These rich pastures were celebrated by the Bedouin in the proverb: "Thou canst not find a country like the Belka (mithl al-Balqa) ma taltaqa) ."20 The Zarqa) river was the largest of the perennial streams in the district_, flowing from its headwaters in Amman in a northwestern spiral to follow a direct course to the Jordan Valley_, forming the boundary between the Balqa) and cAjlun districts. The plains also received sufficient rainfall to support extensive grain cultivation_, setting in motion rival claims between pastoralists and cultivators to exploit the plains of the Balqa). In order to gain access to the plains for farming_, the townspeople of Salt struck sharecropping arrangements with neigh­boring tribes. The Saltis would travel as far as Amman or Wadi Wala, where they would encamp for the spring growing season until the harvest was collected. In addition_, the Saltis paid an annual tribute to the leading tribe of the region. 21 By the 1810s_, the Bani Sakhr had effectively displaced the cAdwan tribe who had formerly been recog­nized as the "lords of the Balqa\" and collected trib-ute from Salt. 22

Salt was the most important center of commerce in Transjordan_, and Nablus was its primary trade partner. The most detailed accounts of the commerce of Salt are provided by Burckhardt and Buckingham, who spent several days in Salt. Buckingham lodged with a merchant he claimed "was reputed to be one of the greatest traders in the country" and was "one of the most wealthy inhabitants" of Salt. He reported the commercial property of the merchant "Aioobe" to be worth a total of 5_,000 piasters_, or some £250. Other traders held as little as £10 in stock_, and the town's average was "safely taken at £20." The number of shops in Salt was given by Burckhardt as "about twenty."23 Such rough estimates lend an order of magnitude to what was apparently a modest level of commerce.

18 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 349; Buckingham, Travels Among the Arab Tribes, pp. 27-28.

19 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 349. 20 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 368. 21 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 352. 22 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 354-56. 23 Buckingham, Travels Among the Arab Tribes, pp. 22, 34-35; Burckhardt, Travels zn

Syria, p. 350.

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 29

The shopkeepers of Salt operated on commission for the merchants of larger Palestinian towns and Damascus_, who traded there because_, according to Burckhardt_, the prices were at least 50 percent higher than in Damascus. The transaction costs which allowed so high a mark-up over neighboring urban prices reflected the expense of transport and risk. The low level of security compelled merchants to travel in organized caravans for security of numbers against the risk of attack by regional tribes. According to Buckingham_, "there was a constant communication between the towns seated on the east and the west of the Jordan_, from Jerusalem_, Nazareth and Nablous_, to Assalt_, Adjeloon and the villages in their respective districts." There was a monthly caravan from Nablus "when all who had business in these parts profited by the protection it afforded." Outside the regularly scheduled -caravans_, whenever a number of travelers desired to cross over from Palestine to al-Salt_, an ad hoc caravan would assemble; both Burckhardt and Buck­ingham traveled with such impromptu caravans. 24

The shops served the needs of cultivators and Bedouin alike. Buck­ingham gave Aioobe's stock as cotton cloths from Nablus_, ·Bedouin garments_, and various articles for sale among the Arab tribes. A number of products were exported from the Transjordanian districts to Palestine and Damascus. The wool and butter (samn) produced by the tribes' herds were of high quality and in regular demand. Burckhardt noted that the Bedouin gathered ostrich feathers "which they sell to great advantage in Damascus."25 The Bedouin also traded in two processed products - summaq_, used by the tanners of Jerusalem_, and qili_, an ash used for the manufacture of soap_, a leading industry ofNablus.

The Balqa;, extended southwards from Salt to the great gorge of the Wadi Mujib. There were no settlements between Salt and al-IZarak inhabited on a year-round basis. The intervening lands_, which provided good pasturage_, were contested between the tribes of the Balqa;, and of the IZarak district.

Al-Karak

Karak was the tribal town of Transjordan - a rough urban fabric which served as a base for a population which alternated between life under a mud roof and a Bedouin tent. The tribes of the district were grouped in two rival alliances under the leadership of the Majali tribe_, who were the hereditary rulers ofthe town and district. The tribal townsmen ofKarak did not need to negotiate access to pastures or farmlands as they were_, 24 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 342; Buckingham_, Travels Among the Arab Tribes_, p. 2. 25 Burckhardt_, Travels in Syria_, p. 351.

30 Frontiers of the state in the late Ottoman Empire

in Burckhardt's words~ the "complete masters of the district of IZerek~ and have great influence over the affairs of the Belka."26 The lack of a social divide between cultivators and pastoralists was the most signifi­cant distinction between IZarak and the districts of Salt and Jabal c:Ajlun.

IZarak was linked to the north by two ancient roads. The Roman road known as the !Zing's Highway climbed in tortuous curves up the Wadi Mujib to trace its ridge-line course past the ancient sites of al-Qasr and Rabba before reaching IZarak. Coming from the north~ on a level with IZarak, th·e traveler might have overlooked the town of basic one-story dry-stone buildings which blended into the rocky hill country. The town could also be reached from the desert ~route~ the Hajj Road. A track led westwards from the pilgrimage fortress of Qatrana~ past the remains of a Roman military camp at Lajjun~ ascending to the fortress-town of IZarak. From the base of the great hill surmounted by the remains of the extensive Crusader castle~ IZarak gave the impression of a monumental town in an otherwise unsettled wilderness.

The notion of "settlement" is of course relative~ perhaps nowhere more so in Ottoman Transjordan than the town and district of IZarak. Unlike the Balqa:l district~ where settlement had been reduced to the single town of Salt~ Burckhardt remarked on three villages surrounding the town of IZarak~ overlooking the Dead Sea. Of the 15,000-20~000 estimated inhabitants in the district in the nineteenth century~ however, only a fraction lived under a fixed roof at any given time.27 Burckhardt was told that one-third of the "residents" of Karak lived the year round in tents set two to three hours distant from IZarak to tend their herds. At planting and harvest time~ the majority of IZarakis moved into encamp­ments to till their fields. If the Sal tis resembled their Bedouin neighbors, the IZarakis were indistinguishable from them "in dress~ food~ and language."28

Socially and politically~ the residents of IZarak were organized into a complex network of tribes and alliances particular to that district. Individual tribes and small tribal groupings comprised the lower level of the system. At its largest level~ the network culminated in two main alliances -the Eastern (Sharaqa) and the Western (Gharaba) -which embraced most of the tribes of IZarak. The Karaki alliance system was marked by a certain amount of fluidity~ with individual tribes shifting allegiances over time. Yet the .system as a whole showed significant continuity. According to local memory~ the origins of the alliances lay in sixteenth-century Ottoman fiscal practice~ which divided the district's

26 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 382. 27 Peter Gubser, Politics and Change in Al-Karak, :Jordan (London, .1973), p. 26. 28 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 387-88.

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 31

tribes into three groups - Western, Eastern and Christians. Some time before the nineteenth century the Christian tribes allied with the Western alliance. These alliances were reflected in the geography of both the district and town of Karak. With few exceptions, the lands of the Western alliance were confined to the western and northern lands of the district, while the Eastern alliance's lands lay to the south and east of the town of IZarak. The town of Karak was divided in the same way, though the central markets were considered neutral territory, a meeting place for members ofthe two alliances in times ofpeace and tension alike. 29

Leadership in Karak reflected these complexities. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Tarawna family led the Eastern alliance, while the Majali family headed both the Western alliance and Karak town and district as a whole. 30 Though the Majali were in command of the town of IZarak by the last quarter of the eighteenth century, their power was constrained by the challenges posed by the Tarawna and the Eastern alliance, and by powerful nomadic tribes outside the alliance system such as the Bani Sakhr and Huwaytat. As in Salt, Burckhardt claimed that the shaykh of Karak had "no greater authority over his people than a Bedouin Sheikh has over his tribe ... and his power is not absolute enough to deprive the meanest of his subjects of the smallest part of his property."31

Twice in the early decades of the nineteenth century, the Majalis were forced to submit to stronger regional leaders. In 1808 IZarak fell under the nominal authority of the .Sacudi-Wahabi confederation, whose authority then extended from their native Najd in Central Arabia through the holy cities of the Hijaz. According to Burckhardt, Ibn Sacud conferred on the ruling shaykh Yusif Majali the title of "Emir of all the Bedouins to the south of Damascus, as far as the Red Sea."32 The Egyptian occupation of the 1830s proved far more disruptive. Karak, like Salt, got caught up in the Palestine revolt against Egyptian rule in 1834. The leader of the revolt was Qasim al-Ahmad, a native ofNablus. After suffering a decisive defeat near Hebron, Qasim sought refuge in Karak in August, 1834. The Egyptian army followed in hot pursuit, led by Mehmed Ali's son and generalissimo Ibrahim Pasha, who laid siege to IZarak for seventeen days. A breach was blasted into the town's strong

29 Mudhakkirat cAwda al-Qusus (unpublished typescript, hereafter Qusus), p. 36; Gubser, Politics and Change, pp. 54-59.

30 On the Majali rise to power, cf. Jean Dissard, "Les Migrations et les vicissitudes de Ia tribu des eArner,'' Revue Biblique lntern.ationale 2 (1905), p. 423; Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 381.

31 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 382-83. 32 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 383. On the first Saudi state, cf. P.M. Holt, Egypt and

the Fertile Crescent:~ 1516-1922 (Ithaca NY, 1966), pp. 149-55.

32 Frontiers ofthe state in the late Ottoman Empire

walls, the town was razed and the surrounding orchards uprooted to punish the townspeople for having stood up to the Pasha. 33 The IZarakis would take their revenge six years later, when the Egyptians were driven out of Syria by a joint European-Ottoman force. The retreating Egyptian army took the HaJj Road south from Damascus and were harried from Qatrana to Gaza by the Karakis, who killed and robbed the weary soldiers. By the time Ibrahim Pasha reached Gaza, "he had lost most ofhis army, his munitions, and his beasts."34

Through it all, the Majali retained their primacy over IZarak against the challenges mounted by the Bani Sakhr and the Huwaytat tribes, as well as from the Tarawna tribe and the Eastern alliance. In their continuous efforts to maintain their ascendancy, the Majalis even sought to play the Ottomans off their local rivals. Muhammad Majali, the leader of IZarak from 1842-86, sought Ottoman assistance in 1861 to resolve a dispute between the Christians of IZarak and the Eastern alliance in which he had taken the side of the Christians. The governor in Jerusalem dispatched a three-man commission of inquiry, backed by a company of irregular cavalry, to resolve the dispute in Majali's favor. 3 5

However, there was a clear conflict of interest between the Majalis, who sought to use the Ottomans to preserve their rule over IZarak, and the government which would ultimately seek to rule IZarak for itself.

Like Salt, IZarak was a major trade entrepot between the deserts of Arabia and the towns of Palestine. IZarak's primary trade partner was the town of Hebron, though it also enjoyed regular contact with Jerusalem. Commerce was largely conducted in barter; IZarak was noted for a low level of monetarization. Bedouin goods brought to market were priced by a given standard such as wheat and traded in barter for other goods. 36 Trade and migration were the foundations of a special relationship between IZarak and Hebron.

Mac an

The district of Macan was the southernmost part of the Ottoman province of Damascus, where Syria converged with Egypt and the Hijaz.

33 Asad Rusturn, The Royal Archives of Egypt and the Disturbances in Palestine> 1834 (Beirut, 1938), pp. 76-82; S. N. Spyridon, "Annals ofPalestine, 1821-1841," journal of the Palestine Oriental Society 18 (1938), pp. 106-10; Asad Rusturn, Corpus of Arabic Documents Relating to the History of Syria under Mehemet Ali Pasha, vol. II (Beirut, 1931), pp. 129-38.

34 Spyridon, "Annals of Palestine," pp. 82-84. 35 ADN, CCE: Jerusalem, 8 October 1861. 36 C. T. Wilson, Peasant Life in the Holy Land (London, 1906), pp. 74-76; Antonin

Jaussen, Coutumes des Arabes au pays de Moab (Paris, 1908), p. 259.

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 33

Plate 1.2 Macan. Photograph taken by H. St. John Philby in 1918.

This frontier orientation was apparent in the language, the clothing, the orientation of trade, and the toponymy of the place. Burckhardt noted that the women of the district wore an Egyptian-styled face veil called the barque, "which," he claimed, "is not a Syrian fashion.''37 Egypt imposed itself on the toponymy of the district, with the coastal village of cAqaba designated al-Misriyya (the Egyptian) to distinguish it from the fortress on the HaJj" Road known as cAqaba al-Shamiyya (the Syrian), which marked the southern boundary of the land-locked district of Ma'an. Macan itself was divided into two distinct townships: the smaller Ma'an al-Shamiyya and the main town of Macan al-Hijaziyya.

The district of Macan was separated from Karak by the deep Wadi al-Hasa, and was bounded to the west by the Wadi cAraba and the Egyptian frontier. It extended southwards to the borders of the province of Hijaz at cAqaba al-Shamiyya. Within these boundaries lay three islands of settlement. These were, from north to south: Tafila and its hinterlands, the Jibal; Shawbak and the southern drylands of the Shara; and Macan itself. Few travelers other than pilgrims to Mecca went to Ma'an. Of all the districts of Transjordan it is thus the least well documented before the advent of direct Ottoman rule.

Burckhardt provides the best description of the lands south of the Wadi Hasa. He reached Tafila, the main town of the Jibal, in August

37 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 407, 659.

34 Frontiers ofthe state in the late Ottoman Empire

1812. While nominally under the authority of the town's shaykh, the real rulers of the Jibal were the regional tribes- the Bani Hajaya, Salayt and Huwaytat - to whom the residents of Tafila paid khuwa. Of these, the most powerful by far were the Huwaytat, who had reinforced their position in the Jibal by building fortifications in Tafila and its surrounding villages. Tafila was, by his estimate, a town of some 600 houses, primarily engaged in agriculture, with trade links to Gaza and Hebron. In its immediate environs were three villages of sedentarized tribesmen of the Bani Hamida. 38

As in the Jibal, Burckhardt found the settlements of the Shara under the authority of the Huwaytat. The main settlement was in the crusader castle of Shawbak, within which some 100 families had built homes or pitched tents. Agriculture around Shawbak was assured through khuwa payments to the Huwaytat. Shawbak was linked to cAqaba al-Shamiyya by a good road which passed by Wadi Musa, where Burckhardt passed the last settlement before reaching Macan. It was from this village of al-Jiy that Burckhardt was led down the narrow gorge of the Siq to become the first modern European to gaze on the marvels of Petra. He described al-Jiy as a sizable town of some 200-300 houses. Its inhabi­tants practiced an intensive cultivation of grains and fruit in well­maintained terraces, and sold their surplus to the Bedouin, the markets of Gaza, and the pilgrimage caravans to and from the Hijaz. Al-Jiy, too, paid khuwa to the Huwaytat.39 A desert separated al-Jiy from the town ofMacan.

Macan was a creation ofthe pilgrimage caravan. The town lived off its trade with Meccan pilgrims coming to and from the Hajj. ·The merchants of Macan imported provisions from Hebron and Gaza for resale to the pilgrims.40 The outbound caravan was a sellers' market for provisions for the long journey ahead, and for livestock - camels for transport, sheep and goats for the sacrifice ending the ritual of pilgrimage. The inbound caravan, by contrast, was a buyers' market for the goods and chattels carried by Muslims from Morocco to Jakarta to offset their expenses.41 This link to the holy cities of Islam marked the culture of the town. Burckhardt reported that the residents of Macan, "considering their town as an advanced post to the sacred city of Medina," were avid scholars of the Qur'an and as a result were a remarkably literate society. "The greater part of them read and write, and many serve in the capacity of Imams or secretaries to the great

38 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 402-407. 39 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 416-19, 433. 40 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 436-37. 41 Selah Merrill, East of the :Jordan (New York, 1883), p. 342.

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 35

Bedouin Sheikhs."42 At the time of Burckhardt's v1s1t_, the town was being slowly strangled by the Saudi-Wahabi occupation of Mecca and Madina_, and their prohibition of the Ottoman pilgrimage caravans from Cairo and Damascus imposed since 1807. The closure of the holy cities to the Ottoman pilgrims placed great pressure on the residents of Ma'an.

A later visitor_, the Finn George August Wallin_, saw Ma'an in more prosperous times in the spring of 1845.43 Wallin described two peaceful_, though distinct communities: Macan_, a town of some 200 households; and a smaller village independent of the shaykhs of Macan composed of twenty Syrian families lying a quarter of an hour to the northeast of the main town_, known as al-Shamiyya or al-Maghara. Everything about al-Shamiyya - the mud bricks and architecture of its houses_, the diet_, customs and way of life of its inhabitants_, their methods of cultivation and the fruits of their gardens - reminded Wallin of Syria amidst the desert environment of Macan.44

Wallin was most struck by the strong relations of trust and respect between the townspeople of Ma'an and the surrounding Bedouin tribes. The townsmen and tribesmen enjoyed a level of trade and economic interdependence which Wallin had not seen anywhere else in the Syrian steppe. To some extent relations would have been facilitated by the fact that the desert environment around Ma'an restricted all cultivation to the spring-fed gardens and vineyards within the walls of the town. The Bedouin could not threaten the livelihood of the townspeople by grazing their herds on their corn fields. Townspeople and tribesmen were equally dependent on outside markets for their grain_, which came primarily from the villages of the Jibal and Shara. Macan's main trade partner was Gaza on the Mediterranean coast_, from which supplies were brought for resale to pilgrims. The preservation of Macan as a center of trade was as important for the Bedouin as for the townspeople. This strengthened the hand of the people of Macan_, whom Wallin noted could bargain down the khuwa payments demanded by the Shararat_, Huwaytat and cAnaza tribes_, even refusing payment,altogether in some years.

The little evidence available on life in the district of Mac an reinforces the assertion that it was characterized by a local order distinct from the 42 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 437. 43 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 436-37. George August Wallin, Travels in Arabia

1845-1848 (1979), in Sacd Abu Daya, Macan: dirasa-fi'l-mawqic (Amman, 1984), pp. 63-64.

44 Charles Doughty gave a similar description in 1876, well before the advent of direct Ottoman rule; Travels in Arabia Desena, 3rd edn. (New York, n.d. [1921]), pp. 32-33.

36 Frontiers of the state in the late Ottoman Empire

other districts of Transjordan. Jabal cAjlun~ the Balqa:>~ IZarak and Macan were particular worlds where topography~ climate and resources combined to produce a myriad of distinct systems of social~ political and economic relations. Yet there was a great deal of convergence between the regions·~ aspects of a common culture that was shaped by Transjordan's proximity to the desert and distance from urban centers. Distance did not mean isolation from urban centers. As already noted~ each of the districts of Transjordan enjoyed trade relations with specific towns in Syria and Palestine. Trade routes were also conduits for outside influences. These influences were adopted and adapted by the inhabitants of Transjordan~ enhancing their common culture.

A common culture

The cultural life of Transjordan was most apparent in the public spaces of the towns and countryside. Among the public spaces most frequently discussed by European travelers~ and which would undergo most change in the latter part of the century~ were those which involved religious life and hospitality. Local views on religion often surprised European visitors~ after their experiences in other parts of Syria. The mosques~ churches and saints' shrines of Transjordan were some of the most important public spaces in the area. The only communally funded institutions in the region were the madafas~ or guesthouses~ in which visitors were given room and board~ and their animals fed~ at the community's expense. This hospitality culture was a distinctive .feature of public life in Transjordan at mid-century.

Religious life

Transjordan was marked by a greater degree of religious toleration than any other part of Ottoman Syria. Religious life in the towns and villages of Transjordan departed from the orthodoxy of Syrian cities in important ways in the first half of the nineteenth century. The Muslims~ virtually all Sunni~ represented a majority of roughly 75 percent according to Western travelers~ and the remaining 25 percent were Christians of the Greek Orthodox church. While religion was a defining pole of identity, there were few institutions to reinforce adherence.

There were remarkably few mosques in use. As late as the 1880s~ the old Western Mosque in Irbid was roofless and filled with rubble~ used by the villagers as a place to dry their cracked wheat. 45 Medieval mosques

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 37

were still in use in cAjlun and Salt.46 There was no working mosque in Karak until the Ottoman government constructed one in 1896. The early Islamic mosque in IZarak was in ruins and served as a cemetery.47

Macan was exceptional in its degree of religious adherence which_, as already noted_, was due to its links to the pilgrimage to Mecca and Madina. Wallin wrote in 1848 that all of the inhabitants of Ma can were_, without exception_, good Hanafis who rigorously observed the pillars of

Islam.48

There were relatively few working churches at mid-century. Burck-hardt found the church of St George in IZarak in good repair in 1812_, and Lynch found the IZaraki Christians building a new church in 1848.49 Buckingham attended the Sunday service in Salt where_, according to his account_, some 100 people crowded a tiny room which he estimated measured only 15 by 30 feet_, with the altar screened from the congregation oriented towards the east. The church was lit by oil lamps made from ostrich eggs and glass suspended from the 15-foot ceilings and decorated with three icons_, a large wooden cross and two carved birds atop the screen. Crutches were distributed for the comfort of the congregants who stood through the long service in Arabic punctuated by regular doses of incense and singing. Great reverence was shown to both priest and scripture. In lieu of a lectern the celebrant rested his book of lessons on the bent necks of the men at the front of th~ church_, who kissed the hems of the priesf,s garments at the end of the service. 50 Judging by Buckingham's description_, the church of Salt was one of the most active religious communities to the east of the Jordan.

This is not to suggest that religious life was confined to mosques and churches. Rather_, the paucity of houses of worship emphasized religious observation at home and in common spaces such as saints' shrines (wali). Muslims and Christians joined in veneration of certain local saints_, such as al-Khidr_, or St George (particularly in IZarak_, Salt and the village of Mahis_, near Salt) and Nabi Ushac_, the prophet Hosea_, whose shrine overlooks the town of Salt and the Jordan Valley. Burck­hardt reported that pilgrimage to the tomb-shrine of Nabi Ushac was accompanied by a trade fair. Here too_, the annual harvest of qili soap ash was sold each autumn to a Nabulsi merchant. 5 1

45 Tall, p. 132. 46 Buckingham, Travels Among the Arab Tribes, p. 42. 47 H. B. Tristram, The Land of Moab (New York, 1873), p. 93. See also Burckhardt,

Travels in Syria, p. 380; and T. E. Dowling, "Kerak in 1896," PEFQS (1896), p. 330. 48 Wallin in Abu Daya, Macan, p. 64. 49 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 381, 350. Lynch, Narrative, pp. 237, 240-41. 50 Buckingham, Travel Among the Arab Tribes, pp. 30-32; on cAjlun, cf. p. 156.

38 Frontiers of the state in the late Ottoman Empire

The casual intermixing of Muslims and Christians in public space resulted in a convergence in religious practice between the two faiths. Buckingham was surprised when the Greek priest ended an evening discussion in a private home in Salt with a spontaneous group prayer, in which the priest turned his back to the group who lined up behind him and led them in a prayer much like an imam in a mosque. 52 He also noted that local Christians abstained from pork and alcohol - this despite the region's numerous vineyards.53 Burckhardt claimed that the Muslims of IZarak baptized their sons in the church of St. George, there being "neither Mollah nor fanatic IZadhy to prevent this practice."5 4

Elsewhere, Christian men were encountered who had followed Muslim practice and taken a second wife, particularly where their first wife had failed to conceive. 55

This blurring of distinctions resulted in a lack of sectarian divisions unique to the Syrian provinces. Visitors who came to Transjordan from Damascus or Jerusalem remarked on the absence of restrictions com­monly applied in the major towns. Christians wore the same clothes and colors as Muslims, enjoyed equal rights before local judges, used the same manner of greeting and of speech, rode the same mounts and felt no compunction at cursing or striking a Muslim when disputes came to blows. 5 6

Without schools or clergy to reinforce sectarian distinctions, the people of 'Ajlun, the Balqa::. and Karak in the mid-nineteenth century showed a common indifference to dogma and doctrine. Ma'an was the exception, given its links to the Muslim pilgrimage and the absence of a Christian community. Religion was for them a feature of identity, as was family, tribe and place of origin. It was not a basis for sectarian divisions within society.

The hospitality culture

Hospitality to strangers was closely linked to personal and communal honor in Transjordan. Virtually every village with a stable population kept a guesthouse (manzil or madafa) to provide for the needs of travelers. There were four in Salt- one for the Christians and one for

51 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria:~ pp. 354-55. 52 Buckingham:~ Travel Among the Arab Tribes, p. 47. 53 Buckingham, Travel Among the Arab Tribes, pp. 51-52. 54 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 386-87. 55 LPJ, ''Memoires de M. Jean Moretain a Salt, 1869-1871" (unpublished ms), p. 487;

Pierre Medebielle, Histoire de la m·£ssion de Kerak (Jerusalem, 1961), p. 27. 56 Buckingham, Travels Among the Arab Tribes, pp. 28, 51-52; Burckhardt, Travels in

Syria,pp. 322-23,386-87.

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 39

each of the three major clans. In IZarak there were eight madafas in operation in the 181 Os.

The degree of hospitality appears to have varied directly according to proximity to government centers. Some of the villages of Jabal cAjlun which paid taxes to the Ottomans charged visitors for animal fodder or other expenses.57 In the Balqa;) and Karak districts!! where the inhabi­tants paid no taxes!! it was unthinkable that visitors should pay for their hospitality. Accounts differ on the length of time that a visitor could reasonably stay in a guesthouse. Irby and Mangles claimed that the guesthouses provided free food and shelter for all visitors and their mounts for one night only!! while Burckhardt maintained that no time limit was imposed!! so long as a guest did not stay for an unreasonable length without good cause. Common visitors were provided with three basic meals and coffee. For more respectable guests!! a sheep or goat would be slaughtered and some of the townspeople would share the . meal. Such hospitality proved a heavy charge on the community. Irby and Mangles noted that their party of eleven never once paid for their food or their animals' fodder!! which they estimated to have totaled 1,500 piasters over the fifty-day journey. In Salt!! a manager kept the accounts in each guesthouse and raised the funds from the families of the quarter in accordance with their wealth. According to Burckhardt!! "every respectable family paid about fifty piasters per annum into the hands of the master of the Menzels!l which makes altogether a sum of about£ 1 !1000 spent in the entertainment of strangers."58

The guesthouse can thus be interpreted functionally as a public service which was provided through a form of taxation!! in which the extent of hospitality varied directly with a village's fiscal burden. Alter­nately it can be seen as a reflection of an ethos which derived from a Bedouin hospitality culture. The travelers' accounts provide ample evidence of this culture. On arriving at a Bedouin encampment!! the visitors' horses were taken to be fed and watered by younger tribesmen and their bags carried to their host's tent!! where the visitors themselves were received by one of the shaykhs of the tribe. A lamb or goat was slaughtered and a vast meal set before the guests!! who were expected to spend the night. There was no limit on the number of visitors a tribe would receive!! as when Buckingham's party was joined at Um al-Rasas by a group of IZarakis en route to Jerusalem. 59 The two groups were

57 Buckingham was asked to pay for part of his hospitality in the guesthouses of Suf and Barha, but not in Aydun and Um Qays; Buckingham, Travels in Palest£ne, pp. 349, 410-11, 439.

58 lrby and Mangles, Travels in Egypt and Nubia, pp. 482-83; Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 351-52.

40 Frontiers of the state in the late Ottoman Empire

received with equal hospitality, as the reputation of the shaykh and his tribe alike would be sullied if they failed in this duty. This sense of duty was taken to extraordinary lengths. After spending a night with the Bani Hamida, Burckhardt was astonished to learn that the shaykh of the encampment was in fact confined to the women's tent where he lay dying of a recent lance wound. The shaykh had asked one of the leading men of the tribe to provide hospitality to the visitors and had retreated in silence, in spite of his pain, so as not to prevent his guests from enjoying their supper. 60

This hospitality culture was reflected in the guesthouses of Trans­jordan, and appears to have been more pronounced the farther south one traveled. In IZarak, there was no question of collecting money from the leading families to offset the cost of hospitality as in Salt. Rather, when a stranger presented himself at a madafa, families would vie for the honor of providing the day's hospitality.

When a stranger enters the town the people almost come to blows with one another in their eagerness to have him for their guest, and there are Turks [i.e. Muslims] who every other day kill a goat for this hospitable purpose. [ ... ] The more a man expends upon his guests, the greater is his reputation and influence; and the few families who pursue an opposite conduct are despised by all the others. 61

According to Burckhardt, all of the surplus which the residents of IZarak might have accumulated for not paying taxes to the government were diverted to meet the expense of hospitality.

Hospitality was as much a reflection of power as it was an extension of an individual's honor. The power of Yusif Shurayda, zacim of the IZura in the cAjlun district, was described in terms of his hospitality. Yusuf's guesthouse adjoined his Damascene-style, two-story palace in the village of Tibna. He commissioned a vast mansaj, or serving tray, from Damascus, which could hold a pilaf of rice and the meat of six or seven goats and took twelve men to carry. When the tray arrived, its diameter exceeded the breadth of the guesthouse door by some fifteen centi­meters. In order to get the tray through the door, Yusif's men were obliged to bend it in the middle. The tray was known throughout the district as al-cAwaj, or "the warped," a symbol by which hospitality of unparalleled excess reflected wealth and power. Yusif used this symbol

59 Buckingham, Travels Among the Arab Tribes, pp. 101-105. For meals at Bedouin encampments, see pp. 72-73, 93; Irby and Mangles, Travels in Egypt and Nubia, pp. 485, 483.

60 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 3 7 5-7 6. 61 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 384; for guesthouses in Tafila cf. p. 405; and in Salt,

p. 351.

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 41

to impress both the people under his authority and Ottoman officials when he received the regional governor of the Hawran:

When lunch was served, they took out the bent mansaf carried by twelve men singing at the top of their voices. They placed the mansaf below the windows of the upper rooms in which the Mutasarrif [regional governor] was seated. He watched for more than an hour and a half while waves of villagers ate_, and was astonished by the pile of rice and meat on the mansaf. There were no fewer than two hundred people who ate from it. The Mutasarrif was astonished by such generosity and such a meal prepared for the village people who had come to Tibna to meet with him. 62

Only the villagers partook of the feast_, which served as a spectacle of power to impress the regional governor. Yusif Shurayda and the Mutasarrif did not eat from the common tray_, but took their meal in the house overlooking the bent mansaf.

While any honorable person in Transjordan adhered to the ethos of hospitality_, and provided for visitors with the best their means allowed_, it took a great deal of wealth to turn hospitality to power politics. To deprive someone of the means to distribute largesse was to open the door to a successor. One reason why the residents of Transjordan distanced themselves from the Ottoman government was the fear of a level of taxation which would jeopardize power relations. Yet in 1850_, most ofTransjordan lay well beyond the reach of the Ottoman state.

The Ottoman Empire viewed from Transjordan

In all the Transjordan, the authority of the Ottoman government was recognized only in the cAjlun district. "All of the villages in this district of Adjeloon were ... tributary to the Pasha of Damascus_, though lightly taxed_," Buckingham wrote from the village of Kufrinja. "Even the Bedouins_, who come in to encamp on this fertile country ... pay a yearly tribute_, from their flocks and herds_, to the same authority."63 The double burden of paying taxes to the Ottoman state and khuwa to the leading tribes of the region could prove overwhelming. Burckhardt passed through the village of Husn when an agent of the governor in Damascus had arrived with 150 horsemen to collect the year's taxes, and he quartered his troops with the local inhabitants. As Burckhardt wrote:

my landlord had seven men and fifteen horses for his share_, and although he killed a sheep_, and boiled about twenty pounds of rice for supper_, yet the two officers of the party in his house were continually asking for more_, spoiled all his

62 Tall, pp. 11-12. 63 Buckingham, Travels Among the Arab Tribes, p. 138.

42 Frontiers of the state in the late Ottoman Empire

furniture, and, in fact, acted worse ·than an enemy would have done. It is to avoid vexations of this kind that the peasants abandon the villages most exposed to such visits. 64

The officials sought by such methods to force the peasants to pay their taxes as quickly as possible, though in the process they generated little attachment to the Ottoman state.

Crossing the Zarqa, river from 'Ajlun to the Balqa, was to cross the boundary of effective Ottoman rule. Burckhardt described the people of Salt as "quite independent. The Pashas of Damascus have several times endeavoured in vain to subdue them.,, 65 The Bedouin tribes of the region were equally disrespectful of Ottoman authority. While they were nominally subject to an annual tribute to the governor in Damascus, Burckhardt found that they were "very frequently in rebellion, and pay only when threatened by a superior force.,, 66 Irby and Mangles were yet more categorical about the Bedouin: "they are 'lords of the desert,, pay no tribute, and have nothing whatever to do with governours of any description.', 67 When they were stopped by Bani Sakhr tribesmen to pay a protection fee near His ban, Irby and Mangles produced their firman to ward off the extortion. The tribesman retorted that "he cared nothing for firmans; that he considered them only fit for those who were weak enough to obey them; that he was Grand Seignior,, in the Balqa,. 68

These attitudes became more pronounced as one moved southward. If the ministers in the Sultan,s court were unaware of the existence of IZarak and Wadi Musa, as Irby and Mangles claimed, the residents of IZarak were equally ignorant of affairs in Istanbul. "It appeared that few if any of [the Karakis] knew the name of the present sultan/, they wrote, and while they were willing to accord a modicum of respect to the office of the Sultan, they had no time for provincial governors. 69 In the district of Ma'an, near the Nabatean ruins of Petra, this disregard was extended to the Sultan and his pashas alike. 70

Viewed from Transjordan, the Ottoman government was remote, and the indigenous people were pleased for it to remain so. Their limited experience of interaction with the Ottoman state, and the stories passed down across the generations of earlier Ottoman campaigns against the people of Transjordan, reinforced the view of the Ottomans as a threat to their livelihood. Governors demanded taxes without contributing to

64 Burckhardt, Travels in Syr£a, p. 268. 65 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, p. 349. 66 Burckhardt, Travels in Syria, pp. 367-68. 67 Irby and Mangles, Travels in Egypt and Nubia, p. 485. 68 Irby and Mangles, Travels in Egypt and Nub£a, p. 4 72. 69 Irby and Mangles, Travels in Egypt and Nubia, p. 366. 70 Irby and Mangles, Travels in Egypt and Nubia, pp. 390-91.

The Transjordan frontier in 1850 43

the region_, sought the submission of a proud and independent popula­tion_, and occasionally vented their frustration against the insubordinate people of Transjordan by sending armies on punitive expeditions. The inhabitants of Transjordan had to endure the rule of various regional leaders over the centuries - Fakhr al-Din II of Mount Lebanon in the seventeenth century_, Dahir al-cUmar of Palestine in the eighteenth century_, and Mehmet Ali's Egypt in the nineteenth - without a modicum of support from their nominal Ottoman rulers. By the time the Egyptians had withdrawn in 1840_, the imminent collapse of the Ottoman Empire and its dismemberment by the European powers was a frequent topic of conversation in Transjordan. 71

In the age of Ottoman reforms_, initiated in 1839 at the height of the second Egyptian crisis_, the Ottoman government sought to prevent such an eventuality by reorganizing its instruments of rule and reasserting its authority over provinces formerly governed by local leaders. The Arab provinces_, and Syria in particular_, were to experience an unprecedented degree of government interest and intervention. 72 First applied to the provincial centers_, the administrative reforms were extended to the rural hinterlands. In time_, the reforms even reached peripheral zones such as the Transjordan frontier.

71 Buckingham, Travels Among the Arab Tribes, pp: 116-1 7, 13 7. 72 Moshe Ma,oz, Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine 1840-1861; the Impact of the

Tanzimat on Politics and Society (Oxford, 1968).