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Abstract
Since its establishment the Hashemite Dynasty in Jordan has enjoyed the support of the Jordanian tribes. In a unique historical process, the tribes were integrated into the modern state structure and developed an interest in the very existence of the state and its regime. Despite the significance of this process, the roots of these exceptional relations between the tribes and state have been insufficiently explored. This article evaluates the tribes' response to state-formation processes during the formative years of the British mandate when the prospect of violent internal dissent was ever present. Contrary to the accepted scholarly understanding that in the early 1930s the central government already achieved the tribes' absolute surrender, this article shows that the tribes' integration was a long, dynamic process, which began with the formation of the Emirate of Transjordan in 1921 and continued well into the 1940s. The main argument is that even with the consolidation of the government's authority, the government did not achieve full control over the tribes, which remained a powerful force. Whereas the tribes benefited from governmental initiatives and played a role in the process of state-building, they opposed any attempt to constrict their autonomy. Though changed through this process, the tribes succeeded in preserving their influence to a greater degree than hitherto acknowledged in the current literature.
Notes
1. Linda Layne, Home and Homeland: The Dialogical of Tribal and National Identities in Jordan (Princeton: Princeton UP 1994); Andrew Shryock, Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press 1997); Andrew Shryock and Sally Howell, “‘Ever a Guest in our House”: The Amir Abdullah, Shaykh Majid al-Adwan and the Practice of Jordanian House Politics, Remembered by Umm Sultan, the Widow of Majid’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 33 (May 2001) pp.247–69.
2. P.J. Vatikiotis, Politics and the Military in Jordan: A Study of the Arab Legion 1921–1957 (London: Frank Cass 1967); Uriel Dann, Studies in the History of Transjordan, 1920–1949 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1984); Mustafa Hamarneh, ‘Social and Economic Transformation of Trans-Jordan, 1921–1946’ (PhD, Georgetown Univ. 1985); Philip Robins, ‘The Consolidation of the Hashemite Power in Jordan 1921–1946’ (PhD, Univ. of Exeter 1988); Mary C. Wilson, King Abdullah, Britain and the Making of Jordan (Cambridge: CUP 1987); Joseph A. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (NY: Columbia UP 2001).
3. Philip S. Khoury and Joseph Kostiner (eds.), Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East (Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press 1991); Nazih N. Ayubi, Overstating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris 1995); Richard Tapper (ed.), The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan (London: Macmillan 1983); Idem, Frontier Nomads of Iran: A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan (Cambridge: CUP 1997); Dale F. Eickelman, The Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall 2002).
4. Timothy Mitchell, ‘The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics’, American Political Science Review 85 (March 1991) pp.77–96; Roger Owen, State, Power and Politics in the Making of the Middle East (London: Routledge 1992) pp.4–5; Sami Zubaida, Islam, the People and the State, 2nd ed. (London: I.B. Tauris 1993) Chapter 6.
5. Yoav Alon, ‘State, Tribe, and Mandate in Transjordan, 1918–1946’ (DPhil, Oxford Univ. 2000) Chapter 1.
6. Wilson (note 2) pp.71, 82.
7. The best account on Transjordan's political development is Wilson (note 2).
8. Alon (note 5).
9. St John Philby,’Stepping Stones’, p.148 [unpublished typescript], Philby Papers, St Antony's College, Oxford; cAwda Qasus, Mudhakkirat [Memoirs, unpublished typescript] pp.190–1.
10. Sulayman Musa, ‘“Harakat al-Balqa’ - Aylul 1923 [The Balqa’ Movement- Sept. 1923]’, Al-Ra'y (Amman) 4, 5, 6 Oct. 1997.
11. Al-Sharq al- c Arabi (Amman), 20 Oct. 1924, 3 Nov. 1924, 1 March 1926, 15 Dec. 1926; Correspondence between Assistant Governor of Macan and the prime ministry, 7–8 Sept. 1926, reproduced in Muhammad cAdnan al-Bakhit (ed.), Al-Watha'iq al-Hashimiyya, Awraq c Abdullah bin al-Husayn: Al- c Alaqat al-Urdunniyya-al-Su c udiyya, 1925–1951 [The Hashemite Documents, the Papers of Abdullah bin al-Husayn: Jordanian-Saudi Relations, 1925–1951] (Amman: Jamicat Al al-Bayt 1997) Vol.2, pp.99–101; Peake, Situation report, 17 Nov. 1929, CO831/5/9, National Archives, London [Formerly PRO].
12. Cox to Field-Marshal Sir Herbert Plumer (High Commissioner Palestine), 23 May 1928, CO831/3/1.
13. Riccardo Bocco and Tariq M. M. Tell, ‘Pax Britannica in the Steppe: British Policy and the Transjordan Bedouin’, in Eugene L. Rogan and Tariq M. M. Tell (eds.), Village, Steppe and State: The Social Origins of Modern Jordan (London: British Academic Press 1994) pp.108–27; Massad (note 2) Chapter 3; Sacd Abu Daya and cAbd al-Majid Mahdi, Al-Jaysh al- c Arabi wa-Diblumasiyyat al-Sahra [The Arab Legion and the Desert Diplomacy] (Amman: Mudiriyyat al-Matabic al-Caskariyya 1987).
14. Bocco and Tell (note 13) pp.120–22; Norman Lewis, Nomads and Settlers in Syria and Jordan, 1800–1980 (Cambridge: CUP 1987) pp.134–35; Sulayman Bashir, Judhur al-Wisayat al-Urdunniyya [The Roots of the Jordanian Trusteeship] (Jerusalem 1980 n.p.); John Glubb, ‘A monthly report on events in the deserts of Transjordan’ Glubb Papers, St Antony's College [hereafter, Glubb's report]. This information was gathered from numerous reports during the period 1932–36.
15. Abu Daya and Al-Mahdi (note 13) pp.103–8; Lewis (note 14) 133; John Bagot Glubb, The Story of the Arab Legion (London: Hodder 1948) p.101; Alec Seath Kirkbride, A Crackle of Thorns (London: John Murray 1956) pp.63–70.
16. Glubb's report, July 1934, Sept. 1939.
17. Testimony of Shaykh Haditha al-Khuraysha, the representative of the Bani Sakhr, Muzakkirat al-Majlis al-Tashri c i [minutes of the Legislative Council, hereafter LC], 28 Dec. 1931; Glubb's report, June 1936, CO831/37/3.
18. Peter Gubser, Politics and Change in Al-Karak, Jordan: A Study of a Small Arab Town and Its District (London: Oxford UP 1973); Sulayman Musa, Imarat Sharq al-Urdunn: Nasha'tuha wa-Tatawwuruha fi Rubc Qarn, 1921–1946 [The Emirate of Transjordan: Its Growth and Development in a Quarter of a Century, 1921–1946] (Amman: Lajnat Ta'rikh al-Urdunn1990) p.241.
19. Glubb's reports, Nov. 1938, June, August and Sept. 1939; Political reports, July and Nov. 1938, CO831/46/6; Situation report, Aug. 1939, CO831/51/8; Political situation, June and July 1943, CO831/60/2; Glubb (note 15) pp.170–71.
20. Al-Sharq al- c Arabi, 15 June 1926, 15 Dec. 1927, 15 Feb. 1928; Al-Jarida al-Rasmiyya li-Hukumat Sharq al-Urdunn [The Official Gazette of the Transjordanian Government, hereafter: OG], 28 Jan. 1929, 16 Jan. 1932, 17 Aug. 1940.
21. OG (note 20) 18 Dec. 1934; Glubb's reports July 1934, Sept. 1939.
22. OG (note 20) 1 May 1932.
23. A.H. Cohen, Report from the visit to Amman, 10 Aug. 1932, S25/6313, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem (CZA); OG, 16 Oct. 1932, 1 May 1933; LC, 27 April 1933, 2 May 1933; Political reports, Dec. 1932, Aug. 1933 CO831/23/11; cAdwani oral history, courtesy of Andrew Shryock.
24. Michael Richard Fischbach, State, Society and Land in Jordan (Leiden, NL: Brill 2000); LC, 26 Feb. 1936; File 1/5/8 (Taswiyat al-Aradi wa-cAlamat al-Misaha), Prime Minister Office, National Archives, Amman.
25. Glubb, A note on the question of the Wadi Sirhan (n.d.), Glubb Papers.
26. Glubb's report, Feb. 1934; Peake to Cox, 23 March 1936, CO831/37/9.
27. Cohen, Visit in the house of M.U. in Shuna, 8 Dec. 1937, S25/3491; Cohen, A letter from Transjordan, 9 Dec. 1937, and A letter from Transjordan, 15 Dec. 1937, S25/3539; Glubb's report, March 1940; Bocco and Tell (note 12) p.119.
28. Avi Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1988); Yoav Gelber, Jewish–Transjordanian Relations, 1921–1948 (London: Frank Cass 1997).
29. Colonial Secretary to High Commissioner, 29 Nov. 1934, CO831/27/2; Cox's attached letter to Glubb's report for June 1936 addressed to the High Commissioner, 6 July 1936, CO831/37/3.
30. Muhammad cAbd al-Qadr Khrisat, Al-Urdunniyyun wal-Qadaya al-Wataniyya wal-Qawmiyya [The Jordanians and the National and pan-Arab Issues] (Amman: Al- Jamica al-Urdunniyya 1991), 183, 189, 193–98, 200; Musa (note 18) pp.341–43, Political report, Dec. 1938, CO831/46/6.
31. Eliyahu Sason, Information of the Arab Bureau, 11 May 1936, S25/3240; Sason, Information of the Arab Bureau, 14 June 1936, S25/3240; Cohen to Shertok and Ben Zvi, 18 May 1936, S25/3539; Glubb's report, June 1936, CO831/37/3.
32. Alon (note 5) Chapter 5.
33. Musa (note 18) pp.242–45; Khrisat (note 30) pp.193–95; Political report, Oct. 1938, CO831/46/6.
34. Al-Ra'y, 12 Aug. 1994; Muhammad cAli Al-Kurdi, Ta'rikh al-Salt wal-Balqa’ [The History of al-Salt and the Balqa’] (Amman: Dar cammar 1998) pp.95–102, 106, 109; Shryock (note 1) p.230; Political report, Oct. 1938, CO831/46/6.
35. Wauchope to Ormsby-Gore, 25 June 1936, S25/22779, CZA.
36. Kirkbride to MacMichael, 9 Sept. 1941, CO831/58/2.
37. Al-Ra'y, 12 Aug. 1994; Situation report, July 1941, CO831/58/2.
38. Political situation, Sept. 1941, CO831/58/2; Kirkbride to MacMichael, 9 Sept. 1941, CO831/58/2; Avira, The affair of the negotiations to purchase a tractor in Transjordan, 4 Oct. 1941, S25/3504; Dov, At Mithqal's house, 9 Oct. 1941, S25/8005.
39. Political situation for June and July 1943, CO831/60/2; Interview with Salih Knican al-Fayiz, Jordan, 31 July 1998.