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71-563: Balqa may refer to the following places: Balqa (region) , the central highland region of Jordan where Amman is situated. Balqa Governorate , one of the governorates of Jordan, covering part of the Balqa region around the city of Salt. Al-Balqaʼ Applied University , a university in Salt. Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

142-797: A Turkmen village, al-Ruman, was established in 1884. Amman, abandoned during the 14th century, was revived by the Circassians. The first group of Circassians belonged to the Shapsug dialect group. They were joined later by Circassians belonging to the Kabardia and Abzakh groups. During a second major wave of migration in 1901–1906, which also included many Chechen refugees from the Caucasus, five mixed Circassian and Chechen settlements were founded: Naour (1901), Zarqa (1902), Russeifa (1905), Swaylih (1905) and Sukhna (1906), all located in

213-510: A key factor in the integration of the local economy through agricultural production, grain transportation, the construction and protection of the Hejaz Railway and service in local administrative bodies. The Circassian town of Amman grew rapidly after the construction of the Hejaz Railway , operational in central Transjordan since 1903, which also brought investment from Salti, Damascene, and Nabulsi merchants. As their numbers increased,

284-690: 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. 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

355-621: A ten-year period they received and the service many took up with the Ottoman Gendarmerie . The Circassians refused to pay the khuwwa (protection fees) solicited by the Bedouin, which entailed a portion of their harvest to the tribes in return for the tribes' "protection". The mutual hostility between the Circassians and their nomadic and settled Arab neighbors led to clashes. Despite the superiority of Bedouin arms and mobility,

426-650: Is an unofficial estimate as the Jordanian census does not provide specific information on the Balqa tribes. 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. Afterward, members of the tribes increasingly transitioned into wage earners or permanent agriculturalists and

497-484: 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

568-690: 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. More than half of Jordan's population live in the Balqa. As a result of the influxes of Palestinian refugees into Jordan as

639-687: The Adygea Republic . The Al-Ahli Club, founded in 1944, promoted Circassian engagement in sports and social and cultural events in Jordan and other countries, while the establishment of the Folklore Committee in 1993 helped promote Circassian traditional song and dance. Today, an estimated 17% of the Circassian community in Jordan speak Adyghe. Political representation: Circassians, together with Chechens , are mandated 3 seats in

710-509: The Battle of Marj Rahit . 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. While still a prince, Yazid II built Qastal and al-Muwaqqar , another palace near Amman, and

781-483: The Emirate of Transjordan . 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. Salt townspeople encamped in Amman and Wadi Wala in

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852-766: The Russo–Turkish War of 1877–1878, was partly attributed to the killings of Bulgarian Christians by Circassian settlers. During the subsequent Russian occupation of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia the Circassians were expelled from the Balkans, which was formalized by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. Coinciding with the crisis in the Balkans, further waves of Circassians and Chechens from the Caucasus and Turkmens from Central Asia were fleeing Russian rule and becoming refugees in eastern Anatolia . With Ottoman territories decreasing and tens of thousands of refugees overcrowding

923-618: 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

994-512: The 10th-century geographer al-Muqaddasi indicate that the Balqa shifted to administrative dependence on Jund Filastin (military district of Palestine). 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 ). Under the Ayyubids (1180s–1250), the Balqa administratively included and excluded

1065-642: The 1850s. An 1860 agreement between the Ottomans and the Russians mandated the immigration of 40,000–50,000 Circassians into Ottoman territory. However, between 800,000 and 1,200,000 Muslim Circassians entered and settled in the Ottoman Empire, of whom some 175,000 were resettled by the government in the Empire's predominantly Christian Balkan territories in 1864. The Balkan Crisis of 1876 , which led to

1136-410: The Balqa during the 16th century. 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. The rest of the Balqa was dominated by the local Bedouin tribes. Salt was the most developed town and the commercial center of Transjordan from the 18th century until the early years of

1207-805: The Balqa from the Jabal Ajlun highlands, while the Wadi Mujib separates it from the Sharat highlands. To the west, the Balqa borders the lowlands of the Jordan Valley (called al-Ghor in Arabic), while the region borders the Syrian Desert in the east. The entire Balqa is a limestone plateau, as compared to the gravel and basalt-covered plateau of the Syrian Desert that makes up over 75% of Jordan's land area. The western part of

1278-747: 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

1349-435: 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

1420-543: 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. The eastern part of the Balqa sees little rainfall and is characterized by its tabular consistency. In general the Balqa is arid, though the western plains near the Jordan Valley and the depressions allow for some cultivation. This accounts for

1491-484: The Balqa, which al-Walid II regularly visited. After succeeding Hisham in 743, he continued to live in the Balqa. He imprisoned Hisham's son Sulayman in Amman. 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. The administrative and geographic definition of the Balqa varied throughout the early Islamic period. Under

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1562-573: The Balqa, who continue to identify culturally as Bedouin. 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". 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

1633-640: 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. 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. Only four villages were officially recorded in

1704-585: 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. 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

1775-534: 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. The establishment of farming villages by settlers and local Christians spurred

1846-617: The Circassian proportion of the city's population currently stands at about 5%. Most Circassians in Jordan formed part of the country's urban middle class. They largely work in the government bureaucracy, military, and intelligence and are given significant representation in Jordan's parliament and executive branch. The Circassian settlers mainly spoke the Adyghe dialects of Kabardian , Shapsug , Abzakh and Bzhedug , but there were also Abkhazian and Dagestani language speakers. Historically Circassians identified themselves as "Adyghe" while

1917-464: The Circassians and others. The Circassians were initially housed in schools and mosques until their resettlement. Numerous migrants died in transit from disease and poor conditions. The Circassians settled close to water sources and grain fields. Between 1878 and 1884, three Circassian villages were founded: Amman (1878) and Wadi al-Seer (1880) in the Balqa and Jerash (1884) in Jabal Ajlun , and

1988-596: The Circassians became a major local power and a number of pacts were formed with the Bedouin, including a mutual defense alliance with the Bani Sakhr in the late 1890s spearheaded by Talal Al-Fayez . The alliance proved instrumental in the Bani Sakhr's intervention in the 1906–1910 conflict between the Circassians and the Balqawiyya tribal confederation. The Circassian, Chechen and Turkmen settlements solidified

2059-414: The Circassians maintained their positions and were feared by the Bedouin and the Salt townspeople, who blamed them for a number of killings. The Circassians in the Balqa proved an integral component in the expansion of government control in the historically autonomous southeastern Levant. For the government, the Circassian settlers served the dual role as a periodic militia used against local rebellions and

2130-585: The Empire, which included attempts to sedentarize the nomadic Bedouin of the Syrian steppe and impose control over the practically autonomous Druze , Alawite and Maronite communities of the coastal mountain ranges; the settlements of the Circassians, along with other migrant communities such as the Kurds , Assyrians and Armenians were strategically located to serve as a buffer between the dissident communities. In 1878, 50,000 Circassians were transported by sea to

2201-619: The Levantine coast from Constantinople , Salonica and Kavalla . From there about 25,000 were sent to the southern parts of Syria Vilayet, mainly the Balqa (part of modern Jordan), the Golan Heights and the area around Tiberias . Their transportation and settlement came under the supervision of the Damascus -based governor. Four piasters per taxpayer were levied toward financing the immigration committees charged with settling

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2272-544: 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.. 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. In 1905

2343-506: The Ottomans were in Jordan to stay." 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. 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 . A third village

2414-568: 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. At times, the town of al-Salt formed its own wilaya (subdistrict). Practically, it depended, at least temporarily, on Niyabat al-Karak (province of al-Karak) to the south. The major tribes of the Balqa during Mamluk rule were the Banu Sakhr and

2485-741: 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). 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. The writings of

2556-582: 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

2627-435: The ancient and medieval reports of the Balqa's fertility. Like Jabal Ajlun and the Sharat, the Balqa has a dry and temperate climate. The average elevation of the Balqa is 700–800 meters (2,300–2,600 ft) above sea level. 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. The perennial Wadi Shueib stream traverses

2698-490: 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. In a 1922 population survey, the Balqa district had a settled population of 39,600 living in fifteen settlements,

2769-596: The biblical figure and Islamic prophet Lot . The Balqa forms the central part of the Transjordanian highlands. It extends from the Zarqa River in the north to the Wadi Mujib gorge in the south. 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". The Zarqa River separates

2840-476: 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

2911-541: The cities of Anatolia, Thrace and Macedonia , the imperial government resolved to resettle refugees along the peripheral areas of the Levantine provinces . The policy of establishing Circassian agricultural communities in grain-producing regions in Syria Vilayet was partly motivated by the Empire's loss of its key agricultural region, the Balkans. It was also driven by Ottoman efforts to centralize control over

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2982-443: The closest being Quneitra about 100 kilometers (62 mi) to the northwest. By 1893 new arrivals boosted the population to around 1,000. The lands on which the Circassians settled had served as winter campgrounds for Bedouin tribes who did not possess property deeds. The Bedouin and the townspeople of Salt viewed the Circassians as beneficiaries and agents of the government due to the land grants and exemptions from taxes for

3053-426: 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. 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 . The Balqa remained a kaza (called after Salt) attached to

3124-433: The governor of Syria Vilayet (to which the Balqa nominally belonged), Rashid Pasha , extended the imperial Tanzimat reforms into the Balqa. He launched an expedition against the tribes of the Balqa at the head of a large army. 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. He established

3195-443: 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. The Zarqa River is a tributary of the Jordan River, while the Wadi Mujib stream flows into the Dead Sea. 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

3266-417: The inhabitants were Sunni Muslims. 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. The main crops of the Balqa were corn, wheat and barley, as well as the well-known grapes of Salt. Relations between the settled residents and

3337-474: The kaza of Salt was transferred to the Karak Sanjak , part of the Damascus Vilayet . By 1908, there were at least nineteen Bedouin plantation villages around Madaba. 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. The Circassians introduced a network of dirt roads throughout the Balqa, which could accommodate their large-wheeled carts. Interconnectivity with

3408-508: 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. 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. 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,

3479-633: 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

3550-450: The late 19th century after the Circassian genocide in the 1860s and the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) . They settled in Jordan, then a part of Ottoman Syria , in and around Amman and Jerash . Circassians are credited with founding modern Amman as the city had been previously abandoned. Circassians began entering the Ottoman Empire en masse during the expansion of the Tsarist Russian Empire into their Caucasian homeland during

3621-485: The markets of the Balqa after the arrival of the goods to Amman by train. 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

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3692-435: The new district of Palestina Tertia . The major towns of Byzantine Balqa were Philadelphia, Esbus (modern Hisban ) and Madaba . 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 . 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

3763-580: The new sedentarized order taking place in the Balqa, which also included Salt and Karak townspeople and Bedouin tribesmen establishing their own agricultural and satellite villages. Two new roads linking Jerash and Amman were built via al-Ruman and Swaylih respectively to accommodate the settlers' ox-drawn carts, while secondary roads were built connecting Amman to its satellite Circassian and Chechen villages. Circa World War I there were 5,000–6,000 Circassians in Transjordan. As Amman has experienced exponential growth and urbanization since Jordan's independence,

3834-428: The northeastern Balqa around Philadelphia (modern Amman) formed part of the Decapolis and the southeastern part belonged to Nabatea . In 106 CE, during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan , the whole of the Balqa came under the province of Arabia Petraea . 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

3905-405: The ordeals of the exodus, the first harvests and the construction of the first Circassian homes in Jordan. The self-image promoted is of a brave community of hardy men and women that long endured suffering. In 1932 Jordan's oldest charity, the Circassian Charity Association, was established to assist the poor and grant scholarships to Circassians to study at universities in Kabardino-Balkaria and

3976-432: The peaceful surrender of Amman. Yazid's father Abu Sufyan owned a village in the Balqa called Biqinis. In 661, Yazid's brother Mu'awiya founded the Levant-based Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), under which the Balqa continued to prosper. 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

4047-437: 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

4118-491: The seasonal campsites transitioned into permanent settlements. As of the 1990s, most lived as suburbanites in the metropolitan areas of Madaba, Amman, as-Salt and az-Zarqa. 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. The largest land-owning tribe are the Abbad, who are a confederation of genealogically unrelated clans, counting about 100,000 members, living in

4189-446: 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". Afterward, the Banu Sakhr overtook the Adwan and collected the tribute from Salt. 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. In 1866–1867

4260-445: The term "Circassians" was historically used by outsiders, such as Turks, Arabs, Russians and Europeans. Today the diaspora communities, including the Jordanian Circassians, use both terms interchangeably. The group's cultural identity in Jordan is mainly shaped by their self-images as a displaced people and as settlers and Muslims. Beginning in the 1950s, Circassian ethnic associations and youth clubs began holding performances centered on

4331-441: The territory between Wadi al-Shitta in the south and the Zarqa River, and eastward to Amman. 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. 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

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4402-410: The theme of expulsion and emigration from the Caucasus and resettlement in Jordan, which often elicited emotional responses by Circassian audiences. Eventually the performances were made in front of mixed Circassian and Arab spectators in major national cultural events, including the annual Jerash Festival of Arts . The performances typically omit the early conflicts with the indigenous Arabs and focus on

4473-453: The title Balqa . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Balqa&oldid=1190027000 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Balqa (region) The Balqa

4544-444: 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. 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

4615-484: The tribe's retreat toward Karak. By October Dhi'ab surrendered himself and was imprisoned in Nablus. 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

4686-403: The vicinity of Amman. The new migrants also settled in the villages founded during the first migration wave. Amman experienced a decline from 500 settlers to 150 in the first three months due to inhospitable conditions. Those who remained lived in caves and among the Roman-era ruins, exposed to typhoid, malaria, and typhus. Amman had been relatively isolated from other Circassian communities,

4757-399: The village of Ramtha , prompting a second, larger expedition by Rashid Pasha into the Balqa. 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. According to the historian Eugene Rogan : "If the first Balqa expedition introduced direct Ottoman rule to the district, the second campaign confirmed that

4828-511: Was established at al-Ruman in 1884 by Turkmen settlers. The Turkmens and Circassians were known to be highly loyal to the Ottomans, skilled in agriculture and willing to combat Bedouin raiders. During roughly the same period, Christian townspeople established settlements in the Balqa after leaving established towns in Transjordan. 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

4899-450: 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 ),

4970-428: Was possibly associated with Umm al-Walid; he ruled as caliph in 720–724 and died in the Balqa town of Irbid . 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. 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

5041-663: Was the legal designation for the nomadic, camel-herding tribes of Jordan's eastern and southern deserts until the designation was abolished in 1976. 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. Circassians in Jordan Surviving Destroyed or barely existing Circassians in Jordan ( Adyghe : Иорданием ис Адыгэхэр , romanized:  Yiordaniyem yis Adıgəxer ; Arabic : الشركس في الأردن ) are descendants of Circassian refugees who arrived in Jordan in

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