As-Salt

In 1596, during the Ottoman Empire, Salt was noted in the census as being located in the nahiya of Salt in the liwa of Ajlun, with a Muslim population of 40 households and 5 bachelors; and a Christian population of 25 households. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on various agricultural products; including wheat, barley, olive trees/vineyards, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and a market toll; a total of 12,000 akçe.[5]

By the end of the 18th century, Salt was the sole permanent settlement in the Balqa region, a situation which persisted well into the 19th century.[6] The rest of the Balqa was dominated by the local Bedouin tribes.[6] It was the most developed city and commercial center of Transjordan from the 18th century until the early years of the Emirate of Transjordan.[6] The city's drinking water was supplied by two abundant springs, which also irrigated the town gardens along the Wadi Shu'ayb stream. It was situated along the slopes of a conical hill, at the top of which stood a fort, and along the ridges of two deep abutting valleys, which provided a natural defense against encroachments by neighboring Bedouin tribes. Salt's inhabitants negotiated terms with the tribes, who guaranteed the townspeople access to their wheat fields in the Balqa's eastern plains in return for giving the tribesmen access to the town's extensive markets.[6] Sharecropping agreements were formed with the tribes whereby Salt townspeople would encamp in Amman and Wadi Wala in the spring until harvest and paid an annual tribute to the dominant tribe of the Balqa.[7] Until around the 1810s, the paramount tribe was the Adwan, known as "lords of the Balqa".[7] Afterward, the Banu Sakhr overtook the Adwan and collected the tribute from Salt.[7]

The city'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.[7] Western travelers in the early 19th century reported that the leader of the town effectively wielded the same authority as any of the provincial governors of Ottoman Syria appointed by the sultan.[8]

In the early 19th century, the townspeople mostly belonged to the clans of Fakhoury, Akrad, Awamila and Qatishat. Each clan was headed by its own sheikh, one or two of whom would act as the shaykh al-balad (city leader), who was based in the fort and was in charge of protecting Salt from Bedouin attack.[7] The population consisted of about four hundred Muslim and eighty Christian families.[7] According to the observations of Buckingham in the 1820s, roughly 100 Christians in Salt were immigrants from Nazareth who moved to the town to avoid the exactions of Jazzar Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Acre.[9] Muslim–Christian relations were amicable and the two communities shared the same lifestyles, dress and the Arabic language.[10] Salt was organized into quarters, each controlled by one of three main clans, and contained a number of mosques, a church and about twenty shops during this period.[7][11] Salt served the surrounding countryside as far as Karak, which lacked a market until the late 19th century, and goods in its market originated as far as Tyre and Egypt.[12] It exported raisins, sumac leaves for the tanneries of Jerusalem, qili (a type of ash, a key ingredient of Nabulsi soap) to Nablus, and ostrich feathers supplied by the Bedouin to Damascus.[12][13] Nablus was Salt's primary partner,[7] and Salt served as the Transjordanian center of the Nablus-based Tuqan family.[14] Although most of the inhabitants were farmers, there were also craftsmen and smaller numbers of shopkeepers, the latter of whom were commissioned by merchants in Nablus, Nazareth and Damascus.[11][13]

In 1834 the townspeople and local Bedouin fought together to drive out the forces of the practically autonomous province of Egypt led by Ibrahim Pasha, the first recorded clash of the Peasants' revolt in Palestine.[14] Ottoman rule in the Levant was restored in 1840, but Salt remained only nominally part of the Empire.[15] In 1866–1867, the governor of Damascus Mehmed Rashid Pasha (1866–1871) extended the imperial Tanzimat centralization and modernization reforms in Transjordan.[15] He led a large force of Bedouin tribesmen from the Rwala, Wuld Ali and Banu Hasan, Hauran plainsmen, Druze mountaineers and regular infantry, cavalry and artillery troops toward Salt, stopping three hours north of the city.[15] From there, he offered to pardon Salt's inhabitants for allying with the Adwan and Banu Sakhr against the authorities.[15] The city organized a delegation of Muslim and Christian grandees who negotiated the unopposed entry of the Ottomans into Salt on 17 August.[15] Rashid Pasha repaired the damaged fort where he garrisoned 400 troops.[15] He appointed the Damascene Kurd Faris Agha Kadru as Salt's first district governor and established an elected administrative council composed of Salt's elite families.[15] Rashid Pasha confiscated huge qualities of grain and livestock from the town as compensation for tax arrears.[15]

Salt's heyday was in the late 19th century, when traders arrived from Nablus to expand their trading network eastwards beyond the Jordan River. As a result of the influx of newcomers this period saw the rapid expansion of Salt from a simple village into a city with many architecturally elegant buildings, many built in the Nablusi style from the attractive honey-coloured local stone. A large number of buildings from this era survive as of 2009.

During World War I, Salt was captured from the Ottomans by the third battalion of the Jewish Legion of the British expeditionary corps, and its commander, Eliezer Margolin, was made military governor of Salt.[16][17]

After the war, the town was the site which Herbert Samuel, British High Commissioner of Palestine, chose to make his announcement that the British favoured a Hejazi Hashemite ruled entity on the East Bank of the Mandatory Palestine (current Jordan). This wish became reality in 1921 when Abdullah I became Emir of Transjordan. Salt seemed to be the city that would be chosen as the capital of the new emirate since most of the industry and commerce flowed through Salt. During this period Salt had no high schools. Even so, Abdullah picked the city as the capital of his emerging emirate but later changed his mind and moved his compound and entourage to Amman when he and the notables of Salt had a disagreement. Amman at that time was a small city of only 20,000 people which experienced rapid growth.

The Jordanian census of 1961 found 16,176 inhabitants in Al-Salt,[18] of whom 2,157 were Christian.[19]

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, when the Ottomans established a regional administrative base in Salt and encouraged settlement from other parts of the empire, the city's status increased, many merchants arrived and, with their newly acquired wealth, built the fine houses that can still be admired in Salt today.

These splendid yellow sandstone buildings incorporate a variety of styles. Typically, they have domed roofs, interior courtyards and characteristic tall, arched windows. Perhaps the most beautiful is the Abu Jaber mansion, built between 1892 and 1906, which has frescoed ceilings, painted by Italian artists, and is reputed to be the finest example of a 19th-century merchant house in the region.

Tightly built on a cluster of three hills, Salt has several other places of interest, including Roman tombs on the outskirts of the city and the citadel and site of the town's early 13th century Ayyubid fortress, which was built by Al-Mu'azzam Isa, the nephew of Saladin soon after AD 1198.

Salt's Archaeological & Folklore Museum displays artifacts dating back to the Chalcolithic period to the Islamic era as well as other items relating to the history of the area. In the folklore museum there is presentation of Bedouin and traditional costumes and everyday folkloric items. A small museum and a handicraft school are presenting the traditional skills of ceramics, weaving, silk-screen printing and dyeing.

In the city of Salt and its environs, there are several Muslim shrines at the traditional tombs of the prophets Shuaib, Ayyoub, Yusha, and Jadur, the Arabic names of the biblical characters Jethro, Job, Joshua, and Gad. These sites of Muslim pilgrimage are known as An-Nabi Shu'ayb, An-Nabi Ayyub, An-Nabi Yusha' bin Noon, and 'Ayn al-Jadur ("Spring of Jadur") respectively, an-nabi being Arabic for "the prophet".