Highlights - Essential Info - Itineraries - History
Although the modern state of Jordan as we know it was only created in the 20th Century, it is home to some of the oldest civilisations in the world. Jordan is a land steeped in history and it was shaped by the trade of Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks and the Crusaders.
Many wars were fought and consequently cities were built in the region of what is today’s Jordan. All of them left behind their cultural influences and today’s Jordan is a country with a rich and eclectic history.
The first known inhabitants of the current Jordan were the Nabataeans. The Romans came through and made it part of their empire, as part of the province of Arabia, in 106 AD. Christianity was the official religion of Jordan under Byzantine rule as the emperor Constantine had converted to Christianity in the early 4th Century AD. However, shortly after the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632 AD, Arab armies entered the region and established the Umayyad dynasty and the Byzantine rule came to an end. After the conquest of Baghdad, however, the region became something of a provincial backwater and during the 11th and 12th Centuries, Jordan was the scene of some major conflicts between the Christian Crusaders and Islamic forces. Saladin (Salah ad Din) ruled Jordan from his main seat of power in Egypt, where he had overthrown the Fatimid rulers, whilst recapturing Palestine and occupying most of the Crusader strongholds in Jordan . This came to an end when Saladin’s successors were displaced by the Mamluks, a race of mostly Kurdish and Circassian origin.
The Mamluks defeated the first wave of rampaging Mongolian forces in the 14th Century but then were in turn overthrown by the Ottoman Turks in 1517. They governed Jordan along with modern-day Palestine and Syria as a single administrative entity and their rule lasted in one form or another until the beginning of the 20th Century.
In 1921, Britain recognized Transjordan as an independent state under its protection with Abdullah as its Emir. In 1946, Britain gave up its mandate on Transjordan and Jordan became the independent Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In 1951, King Abdullah was assassinated in Jerusalem while praying and King Talal succeeded to the throne for a few months. In 1952, King Hussein succeeded on abdication of King Talal. During his reign of 47 years, King Hussein established the modern Jordan. He died in 1999 and was succeeded by King Abdullah II.
