Hashesmite 1947CE

The Hashemites (Arabic: الهاشميون‎, Al-Hāshimīyūn; also House of Hashim) are the ruling royal family of Jordan. The House was also the royal family of Syria (1920), Hejaz (1916–1925) and Iraq (1921–1958). The family belongs to the Dhawu Awn, one of the branches of the Hasanid Sharifs of Mecca – also referred to as Hashemites – who ruled Mecca continuously from the 10th century until its conquest by the House of Saud in 1924. Their eponymous ancestor is Hashim ibn Abd Manaf, great-grandfather of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.

The current dynasty was founded by Sharif Hussein ibn Ali, who was appointed as Sharif and Emir of Mecca by Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1908, then in 1916 was proclaimed King of the Arab Lands (but only recognized as King of the Hejaz) after initiating the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire. His sons Abdullah and Faisal assumed the thrones of Jordan and Iraq in 1921.

The Hashemites claim to trace their ancestry from Hashim ibn 'Abd Manaf (died c. 497 AD), the great-grandfather of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, although the definition today mainly refers to the descendants of Muhammad's daughter Fatimah.[1] The early history of the Hashemites saw them in a continuous struggle against the Umayyads for control over who would be the caliph or successor to Muhammad. The Umayyads were of the same tribe as the Hashemites, but a different clan. After the overthrow of the Umayyads, the Abbasids would present themselves as representatives of the Hashemites, as they claimed descent from Abbas ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, an uncle of Muhammad. Muhammad's father had died before he was born, and his mother died while he was a child, so Muhammad was raised by his uncle Abu Talib ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib, chief of the Hashemites.[2]

From the 10th century onwards, the sharif (religious leader) of Mecca and its emir was, by traditional agreement, a Hashemite. Before World War I, Hussein bin Ali of the Hashemite Dhawu-'Awn clan ruled the Hejaz on behalf of the Ottoman sultan. For some time it had been the practice of the Sublime Porte to appoint the Emir of Mecca from among a select group of candidates. In 1908, Hussein bin Ali was appointed to the Emirate of Mecca. He found himself increasingly at odds with the Young Turks in control at Istanbul, while he strove to secure his family's position as hereditary emirs.

Sharif Hussein bin Ali rebelled against the rule of the Ottomans during the Arab Revolt of 1916.[3] Between 1917 and 1924, after the collapse of Ottoman power, Hussein bin Ali ruled an independent Hejaz, of which he proclaimed himself king, with the tacit support of the British Foreign Office. His supporters are sometimes referred to as "Sharifians" or the "Sharifian party". Hussein bin Ali's chief rival in the Arabian Peninsula, the king of the Najd (highlands), Ibn Saud, annexed the Hejaz in 1925 and established his own son, Faysal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, as governor. The region was later incorporated into Saudi Arabia.

Hussein bin Ali had five sons:

• Ali, who briefly succeeded to the throne of Hejaz before its loss to the Saud family in 1925.

• Abdullah, became the amir of Transjordan in 1921 and king of Jordan in 1946, and whose descendants continue to rule the kingdom known ever since as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

• Faisal, briefly proclaimed King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria in 1920, became King of Iraq in 1921.

• Prince Zeid bin Hussein, who moved to Jordan when his brother's grandson, King Faisal II of Iraq, was overthrown and murdered in a coup in 1958.

• Hassan, died at a young age.

Hashemite custodianship of Jerusalem holy sites refers to Jordan's royal family role in tending Muslim and Christian holy sites in the city of Jerusalem.[1] The legacy traces back to 1924 when the Supreme Muslim Council, the highest Muslim body in charge of Muslim community affairs in Mandatory Palestine, accepted Hussein bin Ali (Sharif of Mecca) as custodian of Al-Aqsa. The custodianship became a Hashemite legacy administered by consecutive Jordanian kings.

Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1948, and annexed the territories in 1951 until they were lost to Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Jordan renounced claims to the territory in 1988, and signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, whose 9th article states that Israel commits to "respect the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem" and that "when negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines." In 2013, an agreement between Jordan and the Palestinian Authority recognized Jordan's role.

Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock were renovated four times by the Hashemite dynasty during the 20th century. In 2016, King Abdullah II participated in funding renovation of Christ's tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and in 2017, Abdullah donated $1.4 million to the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, the Jordanian authority responsible for administering Al-Aqsa. An independent report estimates the total amount that the Hashemites have spent since 1924 on administering and renovating Al Aqsa as over $1 billion.[2]

Intermittent violence at the Temple Mount between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinians evolves into diplomatic disputes between Israel and Jordan.

The Emirate of Transjordan (Arabic: إمارة شرق الأردن‎ Imārat Sharq al-Urdun lit. "Emirate of east Jordan"), also hyphenated as Trans-Jordan and previously known as Transjordania or Trans-Jordania, was a British protectorate established in April 1921. There were many urban settlements east of the Jordan River, the largest one in Al-Salt.[1]

Transjordan had been a no man's land following the July 1920 Battle of Maysalun,[2] and the British in neighbouring Mandatory Palestine chose to avoid "any definite connection between it and Palestine"[3] until a March 1921 conference at which it was agreed that Abdullah bin Hussein would administer the territory under the auspices of the British Mandate for Palestine with a fully autonomous governing system.

The Hashemite dynasty ruled the protectorate, as well as the neighbouring Mandatory Iraq. On 25 May 1946, the Emirate became the "Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan", achieving full independence on 17 June 1946 when in accordance with the Treaty of London ratifications were exchanged in Amman. In 1949, it was constitutionally renamed the "Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan", commonly referred to as Jordan.

In the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916, Transjordan was allocated to Britain.[5]

In March 1920, the Hashemite Kingdom of Syria was declared by Faisal I of Iraq in Damascus which encompassed most of what later became Transjordan. At this point, the southern part of Transjordan was part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz. Following the provision of mandate to France and Britain at the San Remo conference in April, the British appointed a High Commissioner in Palestine with a remit over the area west of the Jordan, and the French ended the Kingdom of Syria at the battle of Maysalun. Transjordan became, for a short time, a no man's land.[2][5]

In August 1920, Sir Herbert Samuel's request to extend the frontier of British territory beyond the River Jordan and to bring Transjordan under his administrative control was rejected. The British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, proposed instead that British influence in Transjordan should be advanced by sending a few political officers, without military escort, to encourage self-government and give advice to local leaders in the territory. Following Curzon's instruction Samuel set up a meeting with Transjordanian leaders where he presented British plans for the territory. The local leaders were reassured that Transjordan would not come under Palestinian administration and that there would be no disarmament or conscription. Samuel's terms were accepted, he returned to Jerusalem, leaving Captain Alec Kirkbride as the British representative east of the Jordan[6][7] until the arrival on 21 November 1920 of Abdullah, the brother of recently deposed king Faisal, who marched into Ma'an at the head of an army of 300 men. Without facing opposition Abdullah and his army had effectively occupied most of Transjordan by March 1921.[8][9]

In early 1921, prior to the convening of the Cairo Conference, the Middle East Department of the Colonial Office set out the situation as follows:

📷 British Government proposal to include Transjordan within the Palestine Mandate via what became "Article 25"

The Cairo Conference of March 1921 was convened by Winston Churchill, then Britain's Colonial Secretary. With the mandates of Palestine and Iraq awarded to Britain, Churchill wished to consult with Middle East experts. At his request, Gertrude Bell, Sir Percy Cox, T. E. Lawrence, Sir Kinahan Cornwallis, Sir Arnold T. Wilson, Iraqi minister of war Jaʿfar alAskari, Iraqi minister of finance Sasun Effendi (Sasson Heskayl), and others gathered in Cairo, Egypt. An additional outstanding question was the policy to be adopted in Transjordan to prevent anti-French military actions from being launched within the allied British zone of influence. The Hashemites were Associated Powers during the war, and a peaceful solution was urgently needed. The two most significant decisions of the conference were to offer the throne of Iraq to emir Faisal ibn Hussein (who became Faisal I of Iraq) and an emirate of Transjordan (now Jordan) to his brother Abdullah ibn Hussein (who became Abdullah I of Jordan). The conference provided the political blueprint for British administration in both Iraq and Transjordan, and in offering these two regions to the sons of Hussein bin Ali, Churchill stated that the spirit, if not the letter, of Britain's wartime promises to the Arabs might be fulfilled. After further discussions between Churchill and Abdullah in Jerusalem, it was mutually agreed that Transjordan was accepted into the mandatory area as an Arab country apart from Palestine with the proviso that it would be, initially for six months, under the nominal rule of the emir Abdullah and that it would not form part of the Jewish national home to be established west of the River Jordan.[11][12][13][14] Abdullah was then appointed Emir of the Transjordania region in April 1921.[15]

📷 First general election in Transjordan took place on 2 April 1929

On 21 March 1921, the Foreign and Colonial office legal advisers decided to introduce Article 25 into the Mandatory Palestine, which brought Transjordan under the mandate and stated that in that territory, Britain could 'postpone or withhold' those articles of the Mandate concerning a Jewish national home. It was approved by Curzon on 31 March 1921, and the revised final draft of the mandate (including Transjordan) was forwarded to the League of Nations on 22 July 1922.[16][17] In August 1922, the British government presented a memorandum to the League of Nations stating that Transjordan would be excluded from all the provisions dealing with Jewish settlement, and this memorandum was approved by the League on 12 August.

Abdullah established his government on 11 April 1921.[18] Britain administered the part west of the Jordan as Palestine, and the part east of the Jordan as Transjordan.[19] Technically they remained one mandate, but most official documents referred to them as if they were two separate mandates. In May 1923 Transjordan was granted a degree of independence with Abdullah as ruler and St John Philby as chief representative.[20]

The Hashemite emir Abdullah, elder son of Britain's wartime Arab ally Hussein bin Ali, was placed on the throne of Transjordan. The applicable parts of the Mandate for Palestine were stated in a decision of 16 September 1922, which provided for the separate administration of Transjordan. The government of the territory was, subject to the mandate, formed by Abdullah, brother of King Faisal I of Iraq, who had been at Amman since February 1921. Britain recognized Transjordan as an independent government on 15 May 1923, and gradually relinquished control, limiting its oversight to financial, military and foreign policy matters. This affected the goals of Revisionist Zionism, which sought a state on both banks of the Jordan. The movement claimed that it effectively severed Transjordan from Palestine, and so reduced the area on which a future Jewish state in the region could be established.

Governance

Transfer of authority to an Arab government took place gradually in Transjordan, starting with Abdullah's appointment as Emir of Transjordan on 1 April 1921, and the formation of his first government on 11 April 1921.[a] The independent administration was recognised in a statement made in Amman on 25 April 1923: "Subject to the approval of the League of Nations, His Britannic Majesty will recognise the existence of an independent Government in Trans-jordan under the rule of His Highness the Amir Abdullah, provided that such Government is constitutional and places His Britannic Majesty in a position to fulfil his international obligations in respect of the territory by means of an Agreement to be concluded with His Highness"[24][b]

During the eleventh session of the League of Nations' Permanent Mandates Commission in 1927, Sir John Shuckburgh summarised the status of Transjordan:

Transfer of most administrative functions occurred in 1928, including the creation of the post of High Commissioner for Transjordan.[c] The status of the mandate was not altered by the agreement between the United Kingdom and the Emirate concluded on 20 February 1928.[28] It recognised the existence of an independent government in Transjordan and defined and limited its powers. The ratifications were exchanged on 31 October 1929."[d][30]

Britain retained mandatory authority over the region until it became independent as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946. The juridical status of the mandate under the Palestine Mandate Convention remained unchanged pending a decision on the Palestine question by the United Nations or Transjordan's admission to the United Nations as an independent state. See Termination of the Mandate.