On 15 July 1935, a group of residents in the small port town of Aqaba sent a rough handwritten petition to the prime minister of Transjordan. Its clumsy script betrayed the humble origins of its signatories.1
The documents cited here and later are in the government archive section of Jordan's National Library in Amman (hereafter, NLA), file 21/1/1, “Baladiyyat,” doc. 3, 15 July 1935, people of Aqaba to prime minister.
Inscribing their destitution in virtually every clause, the petitioners wrote:
Because we, the common people and notables of Aqaba and its bedouins (ahālī wa-wujūh al- al-
Aqaba wa-
urbānuha) are in a state of poverty, our town being very poor, and since our poverty and our wretched conditions are not hidden from Your Eminence, our desire is for the cancellation of the municipality of
Aqaba. Our town does not merit a municipality because it is poor and small, and many of its people have migrated over the past two years to Ma
an for the sake of making a living, and only the very poor remain in it. And the municipal administration of
Aqaba has cut off from us the bedouins and others we depend on. Last year, they estimated the municipal budget at £P 60 [Palestine pounds] and it was not collected justly. Therefore we ask the mercy of Your Eminence in cancelling the municipality.
About seven months later, another, longer petition was submitted by a group that styled itself “the notables and common people of Aqaba (wujūh wa-ahālī al-
Aqaba).” It is probably no accident that the notables are named first. Written in a decidedly better hand, its locutions were more eloquent; references to poverty were absent; and the bedouins were not mentioned at all.
2 Ibid., doc. 8, 25 February 1936, people of Aqaba to provincial governor (Mutasarrif Liwa') of Ma
an.
Writing to the provincial governor in Ma
an, they formulated their request as follows:
We have been informed that the High Executive Council has decided to cancel the municipal administration of Aqaba as of 1 April 1936. But it is not hidden from Your Grace that the presence of a municipal administration in each town is obligatory, and necessary for the improvement of its condition with respect to sanitation and construction, nor will it be absent from Your Grace's awareness that the town of Aqaba is ever drawing the attention of travelers and foreigners who betake themselves to it from every direction…. The absence of a municipal administration in the town will occasion the disordering of its affairs with respect to sanitation and construction, and in addition this cancellation will diminish civic morale (quhiyyat al-balad al-ma
nawiyya)…. Therefore we ask the mercy of Your Grace in entreating the competent authorities for its re-establishment on a permanent basis.
Like all such documents, these petitions presuppose an upright and beneficent authority as the basis of their appeals.3
Lex Heerma van Voss, ed., “Introduction,” Petitions in Social History, International Review of Social History, suppl. 9 (2001): 5.
The beneficent authority was in this case the government of Emir Abdullah, who had assumed control over Transjordan with Britain's approval in 1921. As the successor to Ottoman rule in the territory, the emir's government stood in a long tradition of acting as the guarantor of justice and the object of appeals, and there was therefore nothing unusual about the act of petitioning the government. However, the issue that brought about these petitions
was unusual. This was something more than a complaint about a tyrannical official, a demand for protection against marauders, or a request for tax relief as the result of a crop failure, conjunctures that had brought appeals to the government from time immemorial. Rather, the petitions interrogate the existence and purpose of an entire institutional structure that formed an integral part of Transjordan's administration. That institution was the municipality—or, as it was called in Arabic, the
baladiyya.
In fact, these two documents from Aqaba are part of a corpus of petitions indicating that the baladiyya was a subject of intense and heated debate in several of Transjordan's towns and villages in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. The existence of this literature raises several significant questions for historical analysis. First, how did the baladiyya originate and function, and what was its raison d'être? More broadly, how was the concept of urbanism articulated in the institution of the baladiyya constituted discursively and empirically? A second question deals with how the institution was perceived. Simply put, what were the pros and cons of a baladiyya in the eyes of the town populations? A third question considers the institution's social impact. How did the presence of a baladiyya affect class and communal relations in the towns, and how did it alter the larger social and economic networks in which the towns were embedded?
Finally, what is the significance of the baladiyya for the historiography of Jordan and the wider region? Until now, the history of Jordan and other post-Ottoman states has been written with hardly any reference to municipal administrations.4
There are some important exceptions to this generalization. Municipal administrations in the great cities have been studied—for example, in the monumental work of Robert Ilbert, Alexandrie, 1830–1930, 2 vols. (Cairo: Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, 1996), and in several works on Istanbul, such as Steven T. Rosenthal, The Politics of Dependency: Urban Reform in Istanbul (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), and Zeynep Çelik, The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986). There are also many solid studies of the small towns of Transjordan published by Jordanian scholars. Among these works are Ahmad Sidqi Shuqayrat, Ta
rikh al-idara al-
uthmaniyyah fi sharq al-Urdun 1864–1918 (Amman: Matba
a al-Iman, 1992); Muhammad Salim al-Tarawneh, Ta
rikh mantiqat al-Balqa
wa-Ma
an wa-Karak, 1864–1919 (Amman: Ministry of Culture, 1992); Noufan Raja al-Hmoud al-Swarieh, Amman wa-jiwaruha, 1864–1921 (Amman: Business Bank Publications, 1994); Hind Ghassan Abu-Sha
ar, Irbid wa-jiwaruha, 1850–1928 (Amman: Business Bank Publications, 1996); George Farid Tarif Dawud, al-Salt wa-jiwaruha, 1864–1921 (Amman: Business Bank Publications, 1995); Mohammad A. Khriesat, Dirasat fi ta
rikh madinat Salt (Amman: Ministry of Culture, 1997); Hani al-Amad, al-Salt, 2 vols. (Amman: Municipality of Greater Amman, 2001–2).
But there is also a growing revisionist trend that seeks to decenter the history of modernizing regimes in the Middle East by narrating events from the point of view of social, institutional, and topographical peripheries. Among other things, the recent literature demonstrates that the differences between official articulations of reform and the actual implementation of reform at the local level produced radically divergent perceptions of modernity, depending on one's social position or economic interests. A study of the controversy over the
baladiyya in Transjordan as a quintessentially “modern” institution contributes to this ongoing reassessment of post-Ottoman state–society relations. Thus, in spite of the historiographical invisibility of the
baladiyya, it is clear that people in many of Transjordan's towns and villages were galvanized politically by this institution. They differed sharply over its value and carried their arguments in writing to provincial governors and prime ministers, and sometimes to the emir himself. The textuality of the petitions is in itself very significant given the perdurable orality of local culture and the emir's preemptive discouragement of written protests.
5 On the orality of Transjordan's tribal culture, see Andrew Shryock, Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), chap. 1. The emir's discouragement of petitions is attested to in a report of comments made by Tawfiq Pasha Abu al-Huda. Thus, “The Amir is very democratic. Every man is free to come to him and speak both on political and personal matters. H.H. the Amir does not encourage the public to resort to telegrams and petitions, and when he is informed that such action is about to be taken he prevents it”: “Interview Between Taufiq Pasha Abul Hudda [sic] and the Secretary of State for the Colonies,” 16, 19 January 1939, CO 831/50/18, reprinted in Records of Jordan, 1919–1965, 14 vols., ed. Jane Priestland (Southampton: Archive Editions, 1996), 5:6–7.
And petitions do not appear out of thin air. Inasmuch as every petition has a prehistory of meetings, discussions, agreements, and signings,
6 Van Voss, “Introduction,” 4.
it is clear that the issue of the
baladiyya gave rise to a substantial amount of sustained subaltern activism in Transjordan.
Furthermore, a study of the debate over this ostensibly marginal institution illuminates rifts within town populations, as well as the fractious conversation taking place between localities and the state. State authorities were for their part forced to respond to local concerns and did so in various ways. The variety of their responses had something to do with individual circumstances, but it also suggests that state itself had conflicting agendas.7
The post–Ottoman state was like the Ottoman state in this regard. A splendid example of these conflicting agendas as they emerged in the resolving of a local dispute by Ottoman authorities is found in Beshara Doumani's pioneering study, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants of Jabal Nablus, 1700–1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 171–81.
These disharmonies within the state apparatus were no secret, and the evidence indicates that the petitioning parties grasped the possibilities for achieving their ends by finding and exploiting them. Indeed, the controversies brought about by the
baladiyya can be seen as part of a larger and longer clash in teleologies of governance that had been working themselves out throughout the region since the beginning of the Tanzimat and that cut across both state and society. It was a teleological struggle that was probably at its most intense in the provincial towns because of their ambiguous position. Conceptually, these towns were located on a continuum of “progress” between two ideal-typical extremes: on the one hand, the lethargy and disorder of the rural districts; on the other, the activity and discipline of the great cities, where the Ottoman project of modernization had been definitively domiciled.
8 Or “localized.” The concept is borrowed from M. P. Smith and T. Bender's introductory article, “The Localization of Modernity,” in City and Nation: Rethinking Place and Identity (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001), 1–14.
Post-Ottoman states inherited that project as well as the debate about its merits and modalities, a debate in which townspeople took part by pushing for or against the establishment of a
baladiyya.
9 I wish to acknowledge my debt to the first published examination of the baladiyya debate, found in the meticulously documented and extremely useful work of Muhammad Ahmad al-Salah, al-Idara fi-imarat sharq al-Urdun (Irbid: Dar al-Malahi, 1984), 351–86, esp. 356 ff.
In the process, they produced a fascinating record documenting their perceptions of modernity, with its attendant benefits and costs.
THE ORIGINS AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE BALADIYYA: LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE CONTINUITIES IN TRANSJORDAN
Municipal administrations emerged out of the Ottoman Vilayet Law of 1864 and the subsequent elaborations of it.10
Translated text in George Young, Corps de Droit Ottoman, 7 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1905–1906), 1:36–44.
The law created for the first time a unified and nested hierarchy of provincial offices with their corresponding administrative divisions. The four-tiered system consisted of
valis and
vilayets;
mutasarrifs and
sanjaks;
kaymakams and
kazas; and an assortment of communal headmen,
mudirs, and
mukhtārs, who presided over small towns and villages. The 1864 law had little to say about municipalities per se. Towns are confusingly subsumed under the rubric of
kazas or smaller subdistricts. This confusion is perpetuated in the 1871 revision of the
Vilayet Law, which at first seems to distinguish between municipal and village affairs, then ascribes municipal attributes to villages.
11 Young, Corps de Droit, 1:47–69.
The 1871 law thus fails to make any clear administrative or legal demarcation between urban and rural in the provinces. A decisive change in this regard occurred in 1877, when the Ottoman parliament enacted a long and detailed provincial municipality code (
wilayat belediyye kanunu).
12 Rosenthal, Politics of Dependency, 200; the reform is also analyzed in B. Lewis, s.v. “Baladiyya—Turkey,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., 1:974.
The Municipal Code of 1877 consisted of sixty-seven articles.13
Young, Corps de Droit, 1:69–84.
In spite of some continuing ambiguities in distinguishing between town and village, Article 3 prescribed a long list of duties for the new municipalities, some of which were plainly irrelevant to village conditions. These included the opening of new streets, the paving and widening of old ones, illuminating public ways, cleaning and regulating markets, certifying the use of standard weights and measures, improving sanitation, controlling and improving the circulation of traffic, removing refuse, designating areas for burials, licensing and inspecting construction and demolitions, and ensuring the availability of potable water to urban residents. The duties of the municipality are further elaborated in Articles 62–64. Of the thirty-five illegal actions named in Article 62, nearly all had to with four general areas of concern: public health (including the sale of comestibles), public safety, traffic circulation, and prevention of cruelty to animals. To be sure, none of these concerns is without precedent in the Islamic and customary laws that had been applied by the
qadis for centuries. Nevertheless, a survey of the items forbidden yields the cumulative impression that the Ottoman government was seeking to inculcate what might be termed a new and distinctive urban esthetic. Despite the lack of a formal legal distinction between town and village, the municipal administration clearly exists to organize the urban environment and to “civilize” its inhabitants. It seeks to prevent them from behaving like ill-bred peasants or nomads, scattering refuse hither and yon, dumping manure in the streets, driving their animals down thoroughfares, beating their donkeys and camels, cooking meat outdoors on braziers, chopping wood in the streets, and bathing naked in streams and ponds.
14 At a presentation I gave at American Center of Oriental Research in Amman in 1998, Andrew Shryock made the interesting suggestion that these regulations were perhaps a conscious attempt to dissociate towns from villages and encampments by laying down norms that implicitly condemned the behavior of rural subjects.
The 1877 code also provides for the formation of municipal councils. Their duties include approving the budget superintending accounts; acquiring and disposing of municipal property; sanctioning contracts; and appointing and dismissing municipal officials. The Ottoman government retains the right to appoint the presiding official, the “mayor,” who is the sole member of the council to be remunerated. As the municipality's executive agent, he was to prepare the budget, collect and disburse revenue, and report to the council regarding municipal finance. As it turned out, balancing the books was no mean feat. While the record of Ottoman municipal administration is sketchy, meeting the budget was probably the biggest obstacle faced by the new town councils. Thus, the first Ottoman experiment in municipal government, the Galata district of Istanbul, failed disastrously in its duty to collect taxes from district residents, in spite of the fact that a local property tax had been authorized by the Porte. After just three years in existence, the municipality had run up a paralyzing debt of 32 million piasters.15
Rosenthal, Politics of Dependency, 88–96.
Indeed, the drafters of the 1877 law foresaw that deficits were likely to arise and tried to prevent them by limiting municipal expenditures for paying officials, renting building space, and buying stationery, fuel, and miscellaneous items to no more than one-tenth of total income, or one-fifth on a temporary basis. In fact, this rule was routinely ignored. A note appended to the French translation of the law, done in 1906, reads as follows: “[d]ans la plupart des municipalités, les frais mentionnés dépassent le cinquième et quelquefois plus; par exemple, à Salonique ils excèdent la moitié des recettes” (“In most municipalitics the costs referred to are in excess of one-fifth and sometimes much more; for instance, in Salonica they exceed one-half of the receipts”).”
16 Young, Corps de Droit, 1:72, n. 5.
These fiscal problems weakened the baladiyyas, but they did continue to function. They survived World War I and its aftermath and were formally reaffirmed in legislation passed by the post–Ottoman states. Thus, when Transjordan promulgated its first municipality law in 1925, the Qanun al-baladiyyat, it followed closely the text of the Ottoman Municipal Code of 1877.17
Text in Official Gazette, 4, 11, and 18 May 1925. Note: The Arabic title of this publication of the government of Transjordan was at first al-Sharq al-
Arabi; later it became al-Jarida al-rasmiyya (Official Gazette). For the sake of simplicity, Official Gazette is used throughout this article.
A comparison of the laws reveals very large areas of continuity and agreement.
18 A detailed comparison of the two laws is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that the categories of duties assigned to the baladiyyas are very similar, and in many cases it is clear that the Ottoman law has simply been rendered into Arabic with some modification.
Many of the same practical problems remained, as well. In particular, financial problems persisted into post–Ottoman times. This becomes evident from a reading of various laws and reports concerning the municipalities of Transjordan. In the first decade of the emirate, the under-funded municipal administrations were failing to carry out many of their most essential tasks. Thus, immediately after enacting its first municipality law, the emir's government found it necessary to establish a Municipal Advisory Board (Lajnat al-Baladiyyat al-Istishariyya).
19 Official Gazette, 15 November 1926 (Qanun ta
lif lajnat al-baladiyyat al-istishariyya, Article 3). On the location of meetings and details concerning the operations of the Municipal Advisory Board, see the careful archival work in al-Salah, al-Idara, 365–74.
The law establishing the board states that methods of financial control in the
baladiyyas are unsatisfactory and that the
baladiyyas are in breach of the laws concerning the collection of rates (
rusūm). A further piece of legislation in 1927 notes the continuing difficulty of town authorities in collecting rates and stiffens penalties for nonpayment.
20 Official Gazette, 1 September 1927. According to this new law, failure to pay fees charged by the baladiyya could result in the sale of a person's movable property or three months' imprisonment.
But the problem remained. A consular report of 1931 commented, “Lack of funds prevent the municipalities undertaking any constructive public works, which are practically nonexistent save in Amman.”
21 P. Knabenshue, U.S Consul-General in Jerusalem, “Economic and Political Situation in Transjordan,” report, 15 September 1931, National Archives Record Group 59, U.S. State Department Decimal File 89i.00/10.
Having examined briefly some of the laws, concepts, and constraints on Ottoman and post–Ottoman municipal governance, we turn to consider the origin and evolution of the baladiyya in certain Transjordanian towns. To do so, it will be useful first to review the history of the territory as a whole.
The turning point in Ottoman relations with southern Syria came during Mehmed Rashid Pasha's tenure as vali of the province of Damascus in 1866–71, a period that witnessed an “unprecedented Ottoman intrusion into Jordan.”
22 Eugene Rogan, “Bringing the State Back: The Limits of Ottoman Rule in Jordan, 1840–1910,” in Village, Steppe, and State: The Social Origins of Modern Jordan, ed. Eugene Rogan and Tariq Tell (London: British Academic Press, 1994), 38–41.
Eugene Rogan has documented the changes in economy and society this intrusion entailed,
23 See Eugene Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
but there is unfortunately little extant information about the new governing institutions such as the
kaza administrative councils or the municipal councils set up during the second half of the 19th century. The first evidence of administrative councils for the
kaza of
Ajlun, centered in Irbid, dates from 1872.
24 Abu-Sha
ar, Irbid, 203–204.
These councils may have been the first to be elected by popular vote, although the details about electoral procedures are murky. While the supplementary law on elections from the year 1875
25 Young, Corps de Droit, 1:45–47.
stipulates that administrators are not to interfere in the electoral process, several complaints were lodged against them for precisely this reason. Thus, a
kaymakam was alleged to have required money from a candidate before ratifying his election to the administrative council; a
mutasarrif was accused of certifying that a tribesman who could not read or write was literate, since literacy was a qualification for council membership.
26 The latter issue was an acute one in a frontier region such as Transjordan, where both Ottoman administrators and local tribesmen wanted to ensure that tribal views were represented. In part, this was a response to demographic realities, but it was also an Ottoman tactic to offset the power of the local
effendiyya who tended to dominate such councils.
27 It is a reminder that the implementation of Tanzimat legislation in the provinces was attended by all sorts of irregularities. The rules were bent not only, or even primarily, because the people mistrusted the reform, but because agents of the state itself acted out of self-interest or with a view to ulterior political ends.
The first baladiyya in Transjordan appeared in Irbid sometime before 1883.
28 Ottoman yearbooks from the period list the names of the mayor, the members of the municipal council, and leading officials. According to Hind Ghassan Abu Sha
ar, the town council was elected not by the populace, as is mandated by the 1877 code, but by the kaza's administrative council. This is plausible inasmuch as the 1877 law, while regulating many aspects of the electoral process, says nothing about the way in which candidates are to be nominated, and the institution was still quite unfamiliar to the local population. Since council members, and perhaps even the mayor at this stage, served without remuneration, it is not at all surprising to find that the council is made up of large landowners and that, with a few exceptions, the council's membership remained the same from year to year.
29 Government records allow us to trace the growth of municipal officialdom. The sparse data show that the Ottoman vision of a comprehensive municipal regime was only incrementally fulfilled. The first council in Irbid for which there is any information consisted of a mayor, three ordinary members, and a clerk. A jilwaz (a peripatetic municipal inspector) was added to the staff of the baladiyya in 1889, a physician in 1900, and a pharmacist in 1917. There is no record of the appointment of a chief engineer, which casts doubt on the ability of the baladiyya to monitor construction and demolition work. There is only one report of a street being repaired. The baladiyya did oversee the operations of a livestock market (suq al-halal), collecting fees for selling and slaughtering animals. Islamic court records indicate that the baladiyya served as part of a larger regulatory apparatus within the kaza, since the kaymakam and other officials used the baladiyya as a conduit for animals and other goods seized in distraint or in retaliatory actions of other kinds.30
The creation of other baladiyyas followed that of Irbid. These included Salt (c. 1888), Karak (c. 1894), Ma
an (c. 1898), al-Husn (c. 1908), Amman (before 1909), Tafila (before 1909), and Madaba (c. 1912).
31 Dawud, al-Salt, 169; Shuqayrat, Ta
rikh al-idara, 170, 199, 210–11; Abu-Sha
ar, Irbid, 209; al-Tarawneh, Tarikh mantiqat al-Balqa
, 102.
There were thus at least eight municipalities in Transjordan by the end of the Ottoman period. The
baladiyya whose existence is best documented is that of Salt.
32 Thanks to the careful work of Dawud. For the following, see Dawud, al-Salt, 166–74.
The first town council was elected about 1888 and consisted of a mayor and four members. The council grew until it normally comprised six or more members; a
jilwaz was appointed in 1898. According to George Dawud, a physician named Muharram Effendi was made mayor in 1899. This was technically contrary to Ottoman municipal law, but the code also laid such emphasis on the
baladiyya's responsibilities for sanitation and public health that medical professionals came to play a major role in municipal administration.
33 For example, a report from September 1934 notes that the town of Tafila in southern Transjordan was being run very efficiently by the government physician: see al-Salah, al-Idara, 303.
In fact, the insalubrious state of the town was well known and had become the subject of newspaper commentary in 1894. Salt was growing rapidly in the 1890s because of an influx of merchants from Nablus, Damascus, and other parts of Syria.
34 On the growing web of connections between Nablus and Transjordan in the 19th century, see Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine, 47–48; on the influx of merchants from other parts of Syria, see Rogan, Frontiers of the State, 95 ff.
Around 1900, the same newspaper criticized the town council, remarking sarcastically that the 30,000 piasters it was receiving in municipal revenues were obviously insufficient to cover the costs of cleaning up the place.
35 These complaints may explain the willingness of the council to accept a physician as head. It also shows that the composition and activity of the town council was by no means a matter of indifference. In addition to the complaints lodged against the council's performance with respect to public hygiene, newspapers registered the complaints of many people in Salt to the Ottoman government's disregard for proper electoral procedures in 1909. So many telegrams were received that new elections were ordered in 1910, and an almost entirely new slate was elected.
36 A comparison of the membership of the town council in the late 1890s and the membership elected in the special elections of 1910 reveals an almost complete turnover: see Dawud, al-Salt, 182; al-Amad, al-Salt, 1:20.
The credibility of the town council was restored, and its performance appears to have improved; documents from the 1920s show a busy and tightly structured municipal organization in Salt, an obvious institutional legacy of the Ottoman state.
37 For further documentation, see the major works of Hani al-Amad, al-Salt.
Unfortunately, information about other baladiyyas in the late Ottoman period is almost nonexistent. We have only lists of members of Karak's council, 1894–1900. These show that, as in Irbid and Salt, the corps of functionaries expanded gradually, adding a clerk–bookkeeper, then a town physician, then a pharmacist.
38 Shuqayrat, Ta
rikh al-idara, 171.
Ahmad Shuqayrat gives the names of members of a council in Ma
an formed in 1900,
39 but there is virtually no information from the late Ottoman period about other municipal administrations. Even with regard to Salt, there is no information available about the town council's composition in 1899–1918 or about
baladiyya activities before 1923.
The oldest records documenting the day-to-day business of Transjordan's baladiyyas is found in a register from Salt that begins recording cases in March 1923.40
The register is titled Daftar qararat al-baladiyya al-
ayid li-sanat 1923 maliyya (Register of the Municipality's Decisions Covering the Fiscal Year 1923) for the baladiyya of Salt.
Abd al-Rahman al-Hiyari, Salt's municipal director, allowed me access to these valuable records during several visits to the town and helped me in many other ways by answering questions about local history.
The organization and language of the 1923 register suggest that the
baladiyya was carrying out tasks and issuing decisions that were mostly routine and with which the local population was entirely familiar. The register is replete with inspectors' reports on violations of the sanitary code, requests for construction permits, council decisions regarding the prices of essential foodstuffs, notices concerning the auctioning of concessionary offices, notarizations of guarantors for merchants and artisans, reports regarding the surveillance of street markets, orders for repairs to water conduits, and so on. In cases where violations are reported, reference is consistently made to the 1877 Ottoman code, Article 65, which states that persons contravening provisions of the law or notices issued by the municipality are liable to punishment under the penal code.
In summary, the late Ottoman period witnessed a sustained intervention by the state in Transjordan. An attempt was made to implement the concept of urbanism embodied in the Tanzimat codes through the gradual establishment of municipal agencies in many of the area's larger settlements. It comes as no surprise to find that there were many structural and discursive continuities between the Ottoman and Anglo-Hashemite regimes in the ordering of municipal affairs. The Ottoman municipal system remained in place and supplied, in spite of its deficiencies, an important element of stability in the postwar era.41
See R. L. Hill, s.v. “Baladiyya—Arab East,” EI2, 1:975.
Indeed, once the emir's government established a semblance of control over the territory of Transjordan, it sought to carry forward the Ottoman urban project by extending municipal government into new areas. Thus, the first municipal law in Transjordan, enacted in 1925, took the Tanzimat Law of 1877 as its prototype. In both its Ottoman and post-Ottoman incarnations, municipal administration existed to realize an ideal of urbanism characterized first and foremost by a strict sanitary regime, but also by carefully planned street grids, orderly traffic, regulated construction, new norms of external adornment, and the rigorous spatial segregation of functions. But while the
baladiyya had become firmly rooted in the larger towns of Transjordan, people in smaller, outlying settlements were not at all in agreement over the value of municipal institutions for their communities. A study of the petitions they produced reveals why official urgings to become urban and modern were not uniformly persuasive.
VOX POPULI: DEBATING THE VALUE OF MUNICIPAL INSTITUTIONS
By 1927, twelve towns or villages in Transjordan had been organized as baladiyyas: Irbid, Salt, Karak, Ma
an, Amman, Tafila, Madaba, al-Husn, al-Ramtha, Aqaba,
Ajlun, and Jerash. An example of the process by which a new baladiyya was formed is seen in the case of al-Ramtha. On 1 February 1926, the government gazetted the establishment of a baladiyya in this small town in northern Transjordan:
Ministerial decision confirmed by royal order regarding the formation of a municipal council in the village (nāhiya) of al-Ramtha.
Whereas the Irbid Administrative Council has decided to found a municipal administration in the village of al-Ramtha for clear reasons, viz. the size of the built-up area, the population which has exceeded 7,000, and its ever growing commercial relations with the Syrian territory, since it lies on the northern border; and whereas the revenues of this municipality may equal £E 500 [500 Egyptian pounds] in the coming year, according to the estimate of the Irbid Administrative Council; and inasmuch as keeping the village of al-Ramtha without municipal organs, in view of the conditions which distinguish it from other villages, would impede its civil and economic progress, and since the first article of the Municipality Law [of 1877] stipulates that a municipal council be formed in every large and small town; it has been decided to form a municipal council in the village of al-Ramtha with the understanding that its actions will comply with the municipal laws in force now and in the future.42
Official Gazette, 1 February 1926. Again, the continuity between regimes is evident. The announcement translated here cites Article 1 of the Ottoman Municipal Code of 1877, even though the notice postdates the 1925 municipal code in Transjordan. The terminology reflects Ottoman usage, designating a large town a shahir (rather than madina or bandar) and a small town a qasaba.
This document furnishes insights into the process by which the state turned small towns and villages into municipalities and the reasoning it used to justify such changes. First, we see that the initiative was taken by Irbid's administrative council (majlis idārat Irbid) under the presidency of the provincial governor. It recalls the fact that, since the vilayet law of 1864, such officials had been the state's main agents in implementing reforms in the provinces, and that they remained influential in post-Ottoman states. Second, the administrative council's decision is obviously related to al-Ramtha's ability to carry a heavier burden of taxation to cover the provision of services in the town. As in the case of Ottoman reforms, a major goal was increased revenue. It is clear that Irbid's council did not have the right to make this change without the approval of the central government and the emir. Third, certain quantitative criteria had to be met by prospective baladiyyas, which included a minimum population (7,000 persons) and tax base (presumably a potential income of £E 500, at least in the 1920s). Fourth, the government order implies that a municipal administration is a kind of privilege conferred on localities that have attained a certain distinction. In this case, the distinction is al-Ramtha's growing role in commerce with Syria.
The history of al-Ramtha also introduces us to the dynamics of creating and dissolving baladiyyas and the controversy attending these transitions. In the case of al-Ramtha, public outcry and accusations of corruption against the mayor caused the government of Transjordan to suspend and then dissolve the baladiyya just four years after it had been established. Warning signs had appeared already in March 1928, when one Sa
ud al-Husayn al-Musa appealed directly to the prime minister for justice against
Azzam al-Barakat, the mayor of al-Ramtha. In a substantial deposition, Sa
ud claimed that the mayor had exploited his position to seize the goods of merchants and other citizens of al-Ramtha. Sa
ud had assumed the concession for grain measuring (al-kayala) under specified conditions, which the mayor allegedly changed to suit himself. In particular, it appears that he used the concession to obtain credit for himself and his cronies by “borrowing” against the revenues Sa
ud was obligated to pay to the baladiyya when purchasing goods from Sa
ud's business. This, of course, was tantamount to embezzling municipal funds. Moreover, he asked Sa
ud to forgive the debts of his friends and began to use Sa
ud as a conduit for goods he wished to import from Syria, including crystal, teacups, braziers, feathers, trays, china, coffee, sweetmeats, and tobacco. Sa
ud's complaint was first lodged with the provincial authorities and then taken to court, but he accused the mayor of continuing to threaten him daily by means of the jilwaz.
43 NLA, file 21/10/7, “Muwazzifu al-Baladiyyat,” doc. 43, 15 March 1928, petition of Sa
ud al-Husayn al-Musa to prime minister.
We have no record of the outcome of Sa
ud's appeal, but in August 1928, an investigative report submitted to the Municipal Advisory Board uncovered irregularities in the conduct of municipal business.
44 Ibid., doc. 15, 12 July 1928, decision no. 60, Municipal Advisory Board.
The report provides evidence of the kinds of activities that engaged a newly formed
baladiyya and the opportunities for peculation afforded by the institution. Thus, the mayor ordered the establishment of a new slaughtering ground for al-Ramtha but apparently did so by transferring funds from one municipal account to another. Such transfers were supposed to be approved by the local council or the prime minister's office, but the mayor appears to have made this and other transfers unilaterally. Complaints were lodged against him by residents of the town for having purchased 216 trees with municipal funds, which were subsequently planted on his own private lands, and for having obtained water supplies in a similar fashion. (Presumably the new trees needed to be watered.) There was suspicion that he received kickbacks from the Nabulsi builder had who won the contract to put up the town hall because the Nabulsi's bid was thought to have been significantly higher than other bids. Meanwhile, the town's new gas lamps had ceased to operate by midyear. The mayor claimed that the budget for gas had been depleted through ordinary expenditures, but it was guessed that the mayor had overpaid the concessionaire and that the rest of the funds had been plundered for other purposes. A subsequent report confirmed that the operations of al-Ramtha's
baladiyya were highly irregular (
shadhdhan), that some of its employees were acting illegally, and that municipal elections had not been conducted properly.
45 Ibid., doc. 20, 29 July 1929, secretary-general of Municipal Advisory Board to prime minister.
The case of al-Ramtha indicates why there was skepticism about the benefits of a baladiyya. Quite simply, while municipal funds were supposed to be used to provide new services and amenities, there was plenty of potential for abuse. Indeed, the temptations to malfeasance were greater than in the past, because the spoils to be had were richer and could be obtained under a new and opaque institutional cover. Thus, while the modernity of the Tanzimat state and its successors expressed an abstract commitment to equity and the rule of law, the modernity localized in the provinces was frequently associated with new forms of personal privilege and corruption. The situation was serious enough for the emir's executive council to suspend al-Ramtha's baladiyya in August 1929.
46 Al-Salah, al-Idara, 355–56. To be precise, al-Salah does not mention corruption as a cause. He cites the government's argument that the dissolution of the baladiyyas is due to economic conditions and the euphemistic statement that the benefit derived from these baladiyyas was not commensurate with expenditures.
The
baladiyya of al-Husn was suspended at the same time. Since both towns lay in the district of
Ajlun, the order included a proposal for a committee consisting of the mayor of Irbid, a Muslim qadi, and an accountant, to liquidate the accounts of the two municipalities. Interestingly, the government carried through its intention in the face of a protest by the British Resident, who urged that the two towns had sufficient population to maintain a baladiyya.
47 NLA, file 21/7/1, “Tasfiyat hisabat baladiyyatay al-Ramtha wa-l-Husn,” doc. 10, 6 March 1930, British Resident to prime minister. Sir Henry Cox was the British Resident at the time and put his case forcefully: “I strongly advise that the municipalities of Remtha and Hosn should be formed again since both these places contain a considerable number of inhabitants.” The Transjordanian government did not comply.
It should be stressed that al-Ramtha was not the only dysfunctional municipality in Transjordan. The central government complained that other baladiyyas were also failing miserably in their duties.48
For example, the complaint of the prime minister against Amman, Irbid, Madaba, Salt, and Jerash in Official Gazette, 1 July 1926, dealing with their inertia with respect to sanitation. Similarly, the prime minister sharply criticized the baladiyyas and provincial governors for the general neglect of their duties on the spurious grounds of lacking legal authority to enforce regulations: see NLA, file 21/10/7, “Muwazzifu al-Baladiyyat,” doc. 54, 22 June 1935, Prime Minister's notice regarding baladiyyas.
But despite the lassitude of existing
baladiyyas, the government continued to plan for the creation of new ones. It also supported the re-establishment of
baladiyyas in towns where they had been dissolved. These initiatives provoked considerable anxiety in the towns targeted for reform. Al-Husn will serve as a second case study in the wide difference between the central government's view and provincial perceptions of the
baladiyya.
Al-Husn was a large village on the main road between Amman and Irbid, in the fertile highlands of northern Transjordan. In April 1938, the provincial governor of
Ajlun proposed to the prime minister the re-establishment of a baladiyya in al-Husn. Citing the prestige (jasāma), building activity (
umran), and wealth (tharā
) of al-Husn, he noted that it was the foremost village in the area. Moreover, al-Husn, as we have seen, had experience in municipal administration, though its baladiyya had failed due to what was vaguely called the “neglect of those responsible for its operation (ihmāl al-qā
imīn alayha).” The governor also mentions that he had tried a couple of years before to re-start the baladiyya, but that the majority of the residents opposed the idea.
49 NLA, file 21/1/1, “Baladiyyat,” doc. 16, 10 April 1938, provincial governor of
Ajlun to prime minister.
Indeed, correspondence between the governor and the prime minister reveals that the people of al-Husn had organized an effective boycott of municipal elections in 1935. The governor suggested that the people had opposed his plan because they wanted to forestall the imposition of a building-and-lands tax legislated in 1926 and applied in all municipalities.
50 Ibid., doc. 1, 22 April 1935, provincial governor of
Ajlun to prime minister.
Nevertheless, a few years later he was prepared to push again for the project. He argued that the appalling lack of sanitation and the disorder of the streets made the re-establishment of a
baladiyya imperative. The prime minister replied by asking about the local tax base and possible boundaries of a
baladiyya.
51 Ibid., doc. 20, 19 May 1938; ibid., doc. 21, 23 May 1938; ibid., doc. 22, 4 July 1938; ibid., doc. 27, 6 September 1938, prime minister's inquiries regarding tax base, boundaries of al-Husn, and replies from various offices.
By November 1938, the people of al-Husn had gotten wind of these discussions. Two documents, both dated 14 November 1938 and signed and sealed by several village headmen, attest to their assimilation of the discourse of municipal improvement and, more generally, of state-directed modernization. In one of these documents, the mukhtārs and affiliated inhabitants petition for the re-establishment of a baladiyya. The focus of the petition is on the unregulated expansion of the village, and especially on what are seen as anarchic building practices. There are four major concerns: (1) al-Husn is growing rapidly and constantly, having attained a surface area of six square kilometers and a population of about 5,000 (probably an inflated estimate); (2) many individuals are putting up houses without regard for the alignment of roads and failing to ensure proper communications between different parts of the village (ta
mīn al-ittiṣāl
alā shakl handasī maqbūl); (3) the new builders do not even heed their own interests, since the new buildings are without windows to admit light and lack basic modern amenities; and (4) the result has been that the village has only narrow and badly congested roads unsuited for automobile traffic, a terrible disgrace “in this age which is called the age of speed (fī hadhā al-
aṣr al-mawsūm bi-
aṣr al-sur
a).” It is understood that a baladiyya would put a stop to the chaos, widen streets according to a plan, forbid the piling of rubbish, prevent the swirling summer dust and miasmic winter bogs, and guide the people in matters of public health. In short, a baladiyya would turn al-Husn into a “modern city (madīna ḥadītha).”
52 Ibid., doc. 44, 14 November 1938, petition from mukhtārs et al. of al-Husn to provincial governor of Irbid (sic).
A second document of the same date, and presumably from the same interest group, thanks the government for its intention to re-establish a municipality in al-Husn, noting again how important it is to public health and order. This letter also remarks that travelers and foreigners frequently visit houses of worship in al-Husn and implies that the country's image is somehow involved in cleaning up the village. Thus, the letter says rather grandly that a
baladiyya for al-Husn is in “the general national interest (
al-manfaa al-waṭaniyya al-
amma).”
53 Ibid., doc. 43, 14 November 1938, petition of mukhtārs et al. of al-Husn to prime minister. If watan means nation, it is possible that its older meaning of a home town or village is intended.
Meanwhile, the impending creation of a baladiyya galvanized another group of villagers into action. Two weeks later, they composed a long petition addressed to the prime minister, in which they forcefully stated their opposition to the re-establishment of a municipal council, revealing in the process much about local views of the area's history, government, and economic conditions.54
Ibid., doc. 34, 28 November 1938, petition of mukhtārs et al. of al-Husn to prime minister.
We the people of the community of al-Husn—it having come to our attention that the government intends to establish a municipal council in our village, and since this public institution existed in our community for sixteen years and its presence was the cause of disputes, disagreements, and factionalism (al-munāza
āt wa-l-ikhtilāfāt wa-l-taḥazzubāt) among us, while the municipality brought no advantage nor did it undertake any beneficial improvement for the community—therefore, we now set forth to Your Excellency the evil effects which the establishment of a baladiyya has had upon us in our village of al-Husn, as follows:
First, the revenues of the baladiyya in our village are a tiny sum, even after the alteration in the municipality law [1938] which is in effect now, and this sum is not sufficient to pay the salaries of the officials of the baladiyya and its necessary expenses.
Second, our community does not have any external resources such as are found in some of the large towns and the administrative centers, and the income [of a baladiyya] is limited to [what is given by] the residents of the community only, and the residents are already crying out on account of the payments they are obliged to make because of taxes and debts.
Third, the economic condition of our community is known to Your Excellency, especially in such desolate years as we have passed through, on account of which most of the people have resorted to our noble government to seek loans from the agricultural fund (al-masraf al-zirā
ī) on the security of the produce of their lands, and those who were unable to [obtain government help] were forced to borrow from the merchants on the security of their land itself.
Fourth, our community of al-Husn is devoid of administrative apparatus (markaz hukūmī) to assist in the operation of the baladiyya and the collection of taxes and the maintenance of security [needed] because of the quarrels among the people which result from the demand from them for taxes.
Fifth, if there are some persons who have applied to the government to re-establish a baladiyya in our community, they are only seeking their private advantage, thinking that the government will entrust to them its administration, disregarding the harm to the community.
Sixth, the government has mercy and compassion on its people and pays heed to their interest and livelihood; since the time that the previous baladiyya was dissolved we have been at perfect peace (bi-rāḥa tāmma) in the shadow of His Highness Our Emir, therefore we beseech Your Excellency to call to mind what we have presented in the way of evils which have affected us from the founding of a baladiyya in our village, and we beg acceptance of our complaint.
This was the beginning of a barrage of petitions, letters, and telegrams containing accusations and counteraccusations. Both pro- and anti-baladiyya parties claim that their opponents are a small minority; both parties allege that the others are looking only to their private interests.
55 Ibid., doc. 36, 6 December 1938, telegram of mukhtārs to emir (asserting that the opposition to a baladiyya is a minority representing their personal interests); ibid., doc. 38, 6 December 1938, telegram from twelve residents to emir (asserting essentially the same and arguing that
Uqla Basha and his faction did not represent al-Husn, as restated later).
Clearly, al-Husn's “perfect peace” had been shattered by this proposal. The provincial governor thought that the majority was in favor of a
baladiyya, but since he was the first to lobby for its re-establishment, his opinion is open to doubt. A curious fact about the history of the first
baladiyya in al-Husn is that the last mayor,
Uqla al-Muhammad
Abd al-Rahman ibn Nusayr, was created a pasha by the emir in 1928. The award of his title was noted in the Official Gazette with the ceremonial comment that it was bestowed “based on his devotion to the royal personage and his unwavering commitment to the Hashemite throne (binā
an
alā ikhlāṣihi li-l-dhāt al-saniya wa-l-irtibāṭihi al-thābit li-l-
arsh al-hāshimī).”
56 Official Gazette, 1 June 1928.
Just one year later, in 1929, the
baladiyya of al-Husn was suspended amid allegations of malfeasance. With this background, the arguments of the anti-
baladiyya forces seem to have given the government pause. In particular, the anti-
baladiyya party emphasized the tribal and confessional heterogeneity of their community and the real possibility of intercommunal strife. Moreover, the petitioners, who included merchants and cultivators, note the frictions produced in the past by the
baladiyya's imposition of unequal taxation. In a statement that recalls the petition from the poor folk of Aqaba, they accuse the
baladiyya of causing the oppression of the poor.
57 NLA, file 21/1/1, “Baladiyyat,” doc. 47, 19 January 1939, petition from mukhtārs et al. to prime minister.
In a provocative comment, one of the 1938 telegrams of the anti-
baladiyya party states that “
Uqla Basha al-Muhammad and a few other persons do not represent al-Husn,” hinting that the former mayor was seeking to renew his domination of the village.
58 Ibid., doc. 38, 6 December 1938, telegram from twelve residents of al-Husn to emir.
As it turned out, it was only after four more years had elapsed, in 1942, that a new
baladiyya was finally authorized for al-Husn.
59 The case of al-Husn highlights another aspect of the problems caused by the baladiyya. It is clear that the population of al-Husn was divided into a welter of tribal and confessional groupings. While there were hierarchies within and among these groups, the vertical social divisions traditionally dictated an informal and collegial leadership exercised by notables representing the various groups.60
One finds this phenomenon in Lebanon, for example. On the tension between traditions of notable politics and modern political structures, see Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 59–66. It is brilliantly described in Ottoman Bosnia by Ivo Andrič in The Bridge on the Drina (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 77 ff.
If the allegations of the anti-
baladiyya party are at all accurate, the customary equilibrium upheld by this body had been overthrown by the autocratic ambitions of one man and some allies among the
mukhtārs, who saw their opportunity in the establishment of a
baladiyya. Again, modernity, though ostensibly offering a wider degree of participation through democratic self-government, was paradoxically, through the institution of the
baladiyya, identified with petty despotism in the minds of many people in al-Husn.
A third case study in the baladiyya debate has to do with Mafraq, a small settlement in the
Ajlun district of northern Transjordan. The discussion began with the prime minister asking the provincial governor to advise concerning the possibility of organizing a municipality in Mafraq in 1939 because of its recent growth and the establishment of petroleum company offices in the village.
61 NLA, file 21/1/1, “Baladiyyat,” doc. 50, 19 July 1939, Amman, prime minister to provincial governor of the Balqa
. (It is unclear why this memorandum is addressed to the governor of the Balqa
rather than
Ajlun, except that the Balqa
's governor was staying in Amman at the time.)
A study of the situation revealed that Mafraq, with only 250 inhabitants, was much too small and poor to support a municipal administration, and its population included a substantial number of laborers who resided there only when work for the petroleum company or in road construction was available.
62 Ibid., doc. 51, 23 October 1939, mayor of Amman to minister of interior.
Strangely, these observations did not quash the idea of a municipality for Mafraq. A physician assigned to road workers commented to the director of health that the town lacked rudimentary sanitary facilities, implying the need for a baladiyya to enforce the health laws.63
Ibid., doc. 55, 15 January 1940, physician for Haifa–Baghdad road to director of health.
Frederick Peake (Peake Pasha), the commander of the Arab Legion, offered his own analysis of Mafraq's problems by summarizing its recent history.
64 Ibid., doc. 56–57, 27 January 1940, Peake Pasha to director of health.
Mafraq had started out the 1930s as a small settlement of Maghribis. It had begun to grow when it became a link on the pipeline for the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), a station on the Haifa–Baghdad road, and an outpost for the tribal forces commanded by Peake. The presence of a new population with cash to spend had attracted merchants, mostly Syrians, whose property and families were in Amman and Irbid. These merchants were the main source of Mafraq's wealth but also the cause of its problems. The people in Mafraq most able to defray the cost of essential services had no interest in doing so, since they were merely temporary residents and their business depended on the fluctuating demands of petroleum and road workers. The lack of local or merchant initiative in supplying the town with infrastructure was shown by the fact that, despite Mafraq's growth, the town still did not have a single well in 1940. Peake insisted that the merchants had the ability to pay and ought to be made to share the cost of the town's improvement. He seems to have ignored the possible contribution of the companies, which soon after became the substance of a proposal by the Municipal Advisory Board.
65 Ibid., doc. 61, 6 February 1940, Municipal Advisory Board to prime minister.
Until 1941, there is no record that the people of Mafraq were party to this discussion. However, sometime in that year an unknown group of the town's residents must have asked for the organization of a baladiyya. The response was a sharply worded petition from another group calling itself simply “the common people of the village of Mafraq (ahālī qariyat al-Mafraq).”66
Ibid., doc. 75, 4 October 1941, petition of people of Mafraq to prime minister.
We the common people of the village of Mafraq, merchants and cultivators, understand that some informers (wushshah) and special interests (dhū al-maqāṣid) have asked the government [lit., have knocked on the doors of justice] to arrange for a town council in our village. This, despite the fact that this request is illegal; that our village's population does not exceed 200 souls, great and small, as Your Excellency knows from the registers of the Department of Health; and that there is a number of persons, most of whom are workers, who are not permanent residents; and that our village is poor and small and does not merit a town council, as Your Excellency knows, since we are destitute…. For these reasons we have made this our petition, supplying this information.
A second petition by the anti-
baladiyya party in 1942 contained much the same message, noting incidentally that the population had grown to 500 persons and thus confirming one of the reasons that a
baladiyya was proposed in the first place, though the level of population was still far below that which ordinarily justified the establishment of a municipality.
67 Ibid., doc. 90, 10 June 1942, petition of people of Mafraq to prime minister.
Inevitably, the “informers,” as they were termed by the anti-baladiyya faction, responded in kind.68
Ibid., doc. 102, 3 November 1942, petition of people of Mafraq to provincial governor of
Ajlun.
As we have seen, the rhetorical strategy of pro-
baladiyya groups used modernist tropes, emphasizing the village's continuing expansion, its position as a crossroads (not coincidentally the literal meaning of
mafraq), and its role as a supply station for military units and as a market for goods imported from Syria and Iraq. Mafraq is introduced as a “modern village (
qariya ḥadītha)” because it has grown up as a result of modern communications and industries—that is, roads, railroads, and pipelines. It has a “brilliant future (
mustaqbal bāhir)” ahead, but it must regularize matters of construction and public health now, for which a municipality is deemed essential. The question of finance is never raised in this or any other pro-
baladiyya petition. The “informers” probably earned this epithet because they had inside knowledge of the profits being made by merchants in Mafraq and used it to support their case with the government. Nevertheless, the division of opinion caused the government to hesitate, and approval of a
baladiyya had to wait for another two years.
69 Ibid., doc. 108, 9 February 1944, Cabinet of Ministers' decision to establish the municipality of Mafraq.
The case of Mafraq presents a few variations on some now familiar themes. The anti-baladiyya party's main concern seems to have been the financial costs involved in setting up a baladiyya. The barrenness of the surrounding area, the small and fluctuating population, and the poverty of the village's few permanent residents suggest that Mafraq really did not have a sufficient tax base to support a baladiyya. In fact, Mafraq's residents were perfectly cognizant of the demographic and financial requirements for a baladiyya and stated quite accurately that it was illegal to constitute a baladiyya in their village. Why, then, was it even proposed? It is important to note here that the initiative for a baladiyya in Mafraq came from the prime minister's office and not, as far as we can tell, from a group of townspeople, although some of them subsequently supported the initiative. The answer in this case lies in international rather than domestic affairs. In 1941, Transjordan became a staging ground for British military operations in Iraq and Syria, in which Transjordan's military took part. Mafraq's importance is signaled by several events of that year: in May, the British army announced a plan to asphalt the road between Mafraq and Amman; in June, an aerial attack on road workers in Mafraq occurred, and the railway line was damaged in a raid. In the same month, the depot of Transjordan's Desert Mechanized Regiment was moved to Mafraq, and the local garrison was reinforced.70
A. Kirkbride, “Report on the Political Situation for the Month of June 1941,” 1 July 1941, Amman, CO 831/58/2, in Priestland, Records of Jordan, 5:191–92.
There was also the security of the IPC pipeline to consider. Thus, the strategic value of the town to British military operations must be taken into account. In addition, it is not unlikely that the IPC wanted better conditions for its staff and laborers and saw the creation of a
baladiyya as a convenient way to obtain them. Thus, while the petitions for a
baladiyya deploy the same tropes we have seen in other controversies, they also hint at the overriding interest of Transjordan's suzerain by referring directly to the new networks of defense and supply in which Mafraq was a link. Still, as we have seen, the project was delayed until 1944 due to the Municipal Advisory Board's reluctance and the outspoken opposition of many townspeople.
71 NLA, file 21/1/1, “Baladiyyat,” doc. 108.
A fourth and final case study in local tensions relating to the baladiyya returns us to the petitions cited earlier from the town of Aqaba. It will be recalled that, in 1935–36, petitions were lodged with state authorities from two groups. The first petition emphasized the poverty of Aqaba and criticized the baladiyya for having somehow damaged ties between the town and the bedouin. As suggested earlier, if one may judge from the spelling, grammar, and handwriting, it seems likely that this first petition really did originate with Aqaba's poor residents. Accepting their demand, Transjordan's executive council issued an order dissolving the Aqaba baladiyya.
However, it will also be recalled that, before the order was executed, a second petition was lodged with the provincial governor in Ma
an by a different group of residents. This petition contained even more signatures than the first and was written in a better hand. What is most interesting about the second petition, however, is that it proves that notables in this remote corner of Transjordan had thoroughly assimilated the discourse of urban reform on which the baladiyya system had been erected. Thus, the petitioners warned that the dissolution of the baladiyya would have dire and disorganizing effects on the sanitary regime and built form of the town. They went on to argue that, because Aqaba was a place to which travelers and foreigners resorted, the image of Transjordan before the wider world depended on the appearance of Aqaba. Strikingly, it was alleged that foreign travelers frequently inquired about the baladiyya and the mayor and that the order to dissolve the baladiyya had undermined civic morale.
The prime minister refused to revisit the subject,
72 Ibid., doc. 10, 29 February 1936, prime minister to provincial governor of Ma
an.
but a continuing campaign by the pro-
baladiyya faction demonstrated its complete mastery of the rhetoric of municipal ideals. Thus, the factor's second petition, dated 26 December 1936, catalogued the ills that had appeared since the
baladiyya was dissolved:
[S]qualor is spreading in the streets and lanes, refuse and filth are piling up in the roadways, sanitation is neglected in this city, which is leading toward ever more evil consequences for public health…. Whereas the function of municipalities is the improvement of the city and its built environment, and the maintenance of its streets and lanes and its sanitation, that its appearance should be worthy of its inhabitants…. And it is known to Your Excellency that the city of Aqaba is the object of visits by travelers and foreigners.73
Ibid., doc. 13, 26 December 1936, petition of notables et al. of Aqaba to provincial governor of Ma
an.
The case for a
baladiyya was taken up by the provincial governor in Ma
an, as well, in a long letter to the prime minister describing the upturn in economic conditions that allegedly warranted the reinstatement of a municipal administration. Aqaba's merchants were selling goods to garrisons posted to the northern Hijaz, southern Palestine, and the Egyptian Sinai, and to soldiers and their families who were staying in the area; the crescendo of violence in Palestine in 1936 had caused Arabian livestock merchants to take their animals through Aqaba, resulting in an increase in the dues collected (rusūm al-mawashi); many tourists bound for Petra were passing through Aqaba; and many British and Arab officials, employees, and sailors were staying and spending their money in Aqaba. For all these reasons, it was argued, Aqaba had a significance that was disproportionate to its size and needed a municipal administration.
74 Ibid., doc. 14, 27 December 1936, provincial governor of Ma
an to prime minister.
The prime minister remained unmoved. The coup de grace was delivered by Peake Pasha in a short memorandum in which he gave his assessment after visiting the town. According to Peake, several persons approached him to oppose the reinstatement of a baladiyya, in which he concurred, because “a small village such as Aqaba can in no way benefit from a Municipality.” Peake stated that all the residents were opposed to a baladiyya, but that “one or two” persons in Ma
an wanted to see a baladiyya in Aqaba.
75 Ibid., doc. 16, 28 February 1937, Peake to prime minister.
Of course, Peake may have been wrong about the wishes of the population, but he had property in Aqaba and appears to have had sound local connections.
76 I have it from Michael Fischbach, an authority on the history of Jordan, that Peake owned property in
Aqaba.
In any event, the evidence indicates that some people in Ma
an did have an interest in keeping a baladiyya operating in Aqaba. Soon after the first petition to liquidate the baladiyya was submitted, a military officer in Ma
an, Muhammad Khatir, commented to the provincial governor that the baladiyya in Aqaba served several useful purposes. According to this officer, some people in Aqaba detested the mayor because the baladiyya was assisting the government in the census of livestock, while the municipal clerk reported to Ma
an on livestock smuggled into Transjordan from the Hijaz by various routes.
77 NLA, file 21/1/1, “Baladiyyat,” doc. 4, 5 August 1935, Officer Muhammad Khatir to provincial governor of Ma
an.
It is not unreasonable to suppose that the interests of the bedouin around Aqaba, who were hit by livestock taxes and probably engaged in smuggling, were thus opposed to a
baladiyya, which would explain the mysterious comment about a rupture between the people of the town and the neighboring tribes. But why would people in Ma
an care whether there was a baladiyya in Aqaba? Two reasons can be suggested. First, the head of the Aqaba municipality was appointed by the provincial governor in Ma
an, which gave the latter town some influence over the former. Second, Ma
an, as the chief town of the southern district, also had a livestock market, which was the source of considerable revenue. As in Aqaba, this livestock was brought in from the Hijaz. A British report to the League of Nations in 1935 notes that the development of trade between Saudi Arabia and Transjordan centered on Ma
an, where animal and animal products were exchanged for grain, cloth, and other items. To encourage this trade, merchants coming from Saudi Arabia were exempted from quarantine and passport regulations at Ma
an.
78 Great Britain, Colonial Office, Report to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Transjordan (1935), 279.
Given that Ma
an and Aqaba were the only settlements of any size in southern Transjordan, it seems fair to suggest a certain rivalry between them. Ma
an had for a long time been the nexus in overland trade between Syria and Egypt, on the one hand, and the Hijaz, on the other. The dissolution of the baladiyya in Aqaba, which was plausibly the wish of most of its inhabitants, would mean the elimination of a vexatious apparatus that regulated and taxed this travel and trade. This would make Aqaba a facile conduit for bedouins, merchants, and smugglers, and would probably depress the trade at Ma
an. As it turned out, the baladiyya of Aqaba was not re-established until 1949, by which time the port had increased enormously in its importance to Transjordan because of the loss of access to the sea through Palestine.
CONCLUSION
It is clear that, in spite of certain potential benefits provided by a baladiyya, such as local self-government, various new amenities, and improved sanitation, there was determined resistance to the institution in several of Transjordan's towns. There were three inter-related reasons for this resistance. The first was money; the second was the baladiyya's impact on intercommunal relations; and the third was the negative experience some townspeople had had with a baladiyya in the past.
The most often stated reason for opposition to a baladiyya had to do with the increased burden of taxes and fees, which were used to pay the salaries and expenses that such administrations incurred. There were at least three aspects to the financial issue. First, the emphasis in the pro-baladiyya petitions on public sanitation indicates that this was a major responsibility of the baladiyya; some of the poor residents resented the special sanitation-related imposts they were called on to pay.79
Thus, for example, the baladiyya of Ma
an pleaded in 1935 that the poverty of the village made it impossible to collect the required sanitary dues from inhabitants: see NLA, file 21/18/1, “Wajibat al-baladiyyat al-sihhiyya—nizafa—taftish al-baladiyyat,” doc. 8, 17 July 1935, decision of the town council of Ma
an (communicated to provincial governor).
The building-and-lands tax was a second aspect of the financial question. Since the vast majority of Transjordanians depended on agriculture and animal husbandry for their livelihood, they were already subject to land and livestock taxes. The application of an essentially urban tax such as the building-and-lands tax meant that families would be obliged to pay taxes as both villagers and townspeople.
80 Actually, this was not quite true. In the case of al-Husn, the director of the Lands and Survey Department noted that the incorporation of the village as a municipality would require a removal of the current land tax to avoid double taxation: see NLA, file 21/1/1, “Baladiyyat,” doc. 27, 6 September 1938, director of Lands and Survey to prime minister. However, the following document in this file (doc. 27, 24 September 1938, prime minister to provincial governor of
Ajlun) affirms that new taxes will be required of residents and clearly implies that the aggregate tax burden will increase if a baladiyya is formed.
As Rogan shows in his study of the Karak revolt in 1910, villagers regarded double taxation as an impossible and unjust burden.
81 Rogan, Frontiers of the State, 185.
A third aspect of the financial issue was the economic depression: during much of the period in question, many communities were living at subsistence level. They perceived the creation of a
baladiyya as simply adding to their difficulties. In all of the foregoing, a latent friction between social classes appears. In general, poor townspeople did not want a
baladiyya, whereas the well-to-do were more favorably disposed toward it.
Second, a baladiyya had the potential, often enough realized, to provoke quarrels between different social groups. Again, there were three aspects to this. First, under the 1925 law the baladiyya had the right to dispose of some revenues and make some appointments without reference to the central government or the provincial governor, which furnished mayors with an opportunity for nepotism and malfeasance. The fact that, until 1935, there was no systematic audit of municipal accounts made the temptation of graft even greater.
82 Colonial Office, Report to League of Nations (1935), 277–78.
Second, the town governments reported to the provincial authorities concerning activities such as smuggling and regulated and taxed the exchange of livestock and other goods. This drove up prices for traders and sometimes caused friction with the bedouins, as at
Aqaba. Third, a baladiyya in towns with diverse populations may have eroded communal autonomies and older patterns of shared leadership by centralizing executive power in the hands of the mayor and his allies and diminishing his need for the goodwill and cooperation of a broad range of groups.
A third reason for rejecting a baladiyya, closely related to the first two, had to do with a distrust of the institution based on past experience. The corruption and abuse associated with a baladiyya in the recent past convinced many townspeople that a revival of the institution would lead to more of the same. The central government in Amman was still in its infancy and, until at least the late 1930s, was too weak to exercise effective oversight of the baladiyyas. It also lacked the financial resources to fund the capital works for which a baladiyya was theoretically responsible.
The result was that people in several towns and villages sought to dissolve a baladiyya that they felt had been imposed on them and was doing them more harm than good. Some localities—for example, al-Ramtha and al-Husn—oscillated between the status of unincorporated village and incorporated town. As we have seen, al-Ramtha had become a baladiyya in 1926, and al-Husn had become one some years before. Their administrations were suspended in 1929 and then dissolved. The cabinet's decision to liquidate the two municipalities cited “current economic conditions.” But the anti-baladiyya petitioners' charges of corruption, cronyism, and factionalism were probably the chief factors in the government's decision to dismantle the municipalities. Interestingly, this was one area in which the Hashemite government operated with considerable latitude vis-à-vis the British Residency. In spite of the British Resident's stated opposition to the dissolution of the baladiyyas of al-Ramtha and al-Husn, both administrations were in fact dissolved by the emir's government. The matter either was not important enough to pursue or the government succeeded in convincing the Resident of the correctness of its decision.
Most intriguing of all is the spate of written protests in the 1930s emanating from the populations of small towns in various parts of Transjordan—al-Husn, Aqaba, and Mafraq—in which the notables and people seek to pre-empt government plans to establish or re-establish a baladiyya in their town or to cancel an existing administration. Here, again, the hardships of the 1930s that resulted from crop failures, political unrest in Palestine, and budgetary retrenchments in the metropole caused many inhabitants of Transjordan to view the baladiyya as an unnecessary and expensive appurtenance. However, in each of the three cases cited, it is also important to recall that the townspeople were divided. Petitions against the establishment of a baladiyya are matched by petitions for the establishment of a baladiyya. There is no readily discernible difference in the size of the opposing constituencies and no way to know precisely how these groups were constituted. But the content of the petitions and the historical context offer some clues. We know that the government in Transjordan since the days of the Tanzimat had sought to extend municipal organization to the base of the administrative pyramid, including the smallest towns and villages. Pro-baladiyya forces calculated that they would benefit materially from the establishment of a baladiyya by controlling its leadership and directing its activities, and so posed as allies of the central government. In most cases, this group consisted of leading merchants and men of property. That merchants and proprietors would support a baladiyya is perfectly rational, since improvements in infrastructure would facilitate the movement of goods and raise property values. However, there were situations, as in Mafraq, where merchants, because they were not long-term residents, opposed a baladiyya. But what is perhaps most interesting, taking all the cases in account, is that the anti-baladiyya parties were reasonably successful in blocking or delaying what they regarded as an intrusive regulatory apparatus and an aggressive new tax regime under the direction of a few politically enterprising notables.
The rhetoric of the petitions is a study in itself. Both pro-baladiyya and anti-baladiyya factions appeal to the need for “order” in their communities. The pro-baladiyya petitioners suggest that only a baladiyya can bring order to the chaotic condition of the streets and provide adequate sanitation for a growing population. They appeal to the model of urbanism that underlay the Ottoman law of 1877, which was reiterated in Transjordan's municipal code of 1925. Again and again it is asserted that the conditions in unincorporated towns and villages are incompatible with the modern age, “the age of speed,” modern civilization, urban reform, “progress.” Against this rhetorical onslaught, the anti-baladiyya party countered by pleading poverty and the lack of an adequate administrative infrastructure. More ominously, they raised the specter of the intercommunal disorder that would be brought about by struggles for leadership and the control of finances within the new municipality. These appeals were sometimes enough to postpone the creation of a municipality or even to dissolve an existing one. They could not, however, reverse a long-term trend: government legislation since the days of the Tanzimat had defined “progress” in terms of the advance of municipal organization.
The larger context of the debate indicates that defeat was inevitable for the anti-baladiyya petitioners. For one thing, there was never a question of dismantling older and more established baladiyyas in such places as Irbid, Salt, Amman, Madaba, Karak, or Ma
an. There was some laxity in the enforcement of codes, but there is also evidence that some baladiyyas, such as Salt, operated in a relatively efficient manner in the post-war period. But even at their most lethargic, the baladiyyas were accepted by the central government as indispensable representative organs and regulatory agencies. They possessed a solid local legitimacy based on their longevity, their establishment antedating that of the Anglo-Hashemite regime.
However, as the central government grew in size and complexity, it began to encroach on this and other forms of local autonomy. In fact, state consolidation made the baladiyyas of Jordan historiographically invisible. In spite of this invisibility, their significance is considerable and can be summarized in three theses.
First, it will be recalled that town administrations in Transjordan were set up beginning with Irbid and Salt in the 1880s. These and other administrative changes inaugurated a definitive shift from tribe to town as the locus of political control in Transjordan. This contrast can be overstated, of course, since tribal and clan identities remained important even in the largest towns, and the state could and did mobilize tribespeople to intimidate townspeople. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, Ottoman provincial government was constrained by an ideal of modernity that included sedentarizing nomads and, more important, assimilating all settled communities into a bureaucratically defined, legally precise, and hierarchically organized system. This was the underlying reason for the lack of a delimitation between town and village, since ultimately every settled community was to operate according to similar codes and carry out essentially the same functions. The Anglo-Hashemite government inherited Ottoman codes and the same totalizing tendencies, though it took time to develop an apparatus by which it could carry out its intentions. This, by the way, helps to explain why the baladiyya was pressed on towns and villages where it was demonstrably unpopular with a large section of the population and even where its establishment violated requirements previously enunciated by the government.
Second, the study of small-town politics is an indispensable part of any revisionist project in Middle East history. In the case of Jordan, several recent works have pursued a revisionist agenda.83
In addition to Shryock's work, the work by Joseph Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), offers a radical, post-colonial critique of nation-making in Jordan.
In particular, Andrew Shryock's work contrasts the fragmented and fractious conceptions of history among tribespeople with the urban-literate renderings that have long dominated the historiography of the Middle East. As he has helpfully pointed out, the privileging of urban-literate meta-narratives has, in the case of Jordan, derived from a priori ideas about the nature of modern Arab history, the legitimacy of the ruling family, and the political coherence of the state. It is worth emphasizing that this teleological re-telling of Jordan's history elides provincial perspectives and imposes a variety of deceptive unities on town populations. The accusations against mayors and protests against the
baladiyyas reveal a subaltern struggle against exploitation by persons and groups allied to the state. These popular responses to state-sponsored reforms generated a petitionary literature that documents small-town tensions and proves the organizational skills and discursive adaptability of the various classes and interest groups that made up the provincial population.
A third and last thesis must be introduced with a qualification that acknowledges that town administrations, since they touched only a small section of the total population, were by no means the most important aspect of social and political life in Transjordan. Their history is subsidiary to that of peasant and tribal communities.84
On the peasantry, the newest and most significant work is Michael Fischbach, State, Society, and Land in Jordan (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000); the most theoretically engaging work in English on the tribes is Shryock, Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination.
Nevertheless, the legal and administrative structures created in towns were a significant element in the state-building policies of both Ottoman and post–Ottoman governments. State interventions to regulate public health, construction, water use and sewage, refuse removal, and the disposition of urban space were all mediated through the
baladiyyas or agencies affiliated to it. Urban reform was therefore seen as a vital part of a larger program for consolidating the state. It was believed as an article of faith that the successful implementation of this reform would result in a healthier, more active, more productive, and more unified population that identified itself with the larger national community. Thus, the first code for the organization of provincial municipalities, issued in 1877, stated categorically that municipal councils were to be created in every city and town throughout the empire. The Anglo-Hashemite regime affirmed and extended this legacy in Transjordan. Its actions attest to an agenda shared by Ottoman and post–Ottoman states, in which provincial towns were expected not only to embody modernity but also to act as nodes of modernization in rural districts. In spite of repeated failures in this area, neither the Ottomans nor their successors ever gave up the effort to turn the towns into paragons of public hygiene, intercommunal cooperation, commercial prosperity, and civic self-regulation.
The problem was that the realization of these goals required a visionary local leadership, the rigorous enforcement of codes, and, most controversially, substantial financial outlays for new projects and personnel. The reality in Transjordan and elsewhere was that few towns could meet these requirements. Nevertheless, the state's commitment to the baladiyya provoked a lively debate over the pros and cons of the institution. That debate, besides exposing tensions within the towns and between the state apparatus and town populations, also disclosed certain contradictions within the state itself. On the one hand, the state-supported baladiyya made onerous demands on small communities and sought to enforce new controls on behavior to approximate an idealized urbanism. On the other hand, the state could not afford to ignore prescriptive rights and relations if it would subvert the social equilibrium. Ministers and officials could not reach a consensus on how to resolve these tensions, and the resulting vacillation meant that in some places municipalities were created and dissolved and created again. Ultimately, the central government's continuing frustration with the performance of the baladiyyas led to the issuance of a new municipal code for Transjordan in 1938, which reduced the representative character and fiscal prerogatives of baladiyya councils.85
The 1938 code increased the central government's influence in the baladiyyas by authorizing the prime minister to appoint all mayors at his discretion and to appoint some of the members of every town council, although the majority were still elected. In addition, the prime minister was authorized to dismiss municipal councils at any time, send representatives to attend meetings, approve all municipal budgets and tranfers within budgets, order external audits of municipal accounts, and appoint an official to collect back taxes owed to the baladiyyas: see Official Gazette, 1 February 1938.
As elsewhere in the Middle East, the conflict between centralizing and de-centralizing tendencies in administration that was present even in the Tanzimat
86 Referring to the Vilayet Law of 1864, see Roderic Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), 164: “Even in theory the system was not perfect. The jurist Cevdet Pasha criticized the tergiversations of reforming statesmen who had not decided whether the empire was really to be governed on centralizing or decentralizing principles and had fallen somewhere between the two.”
was definitively settled in favor of centrally managed reform. It is a sign of the growing sophistication and power of the government in Amman that it was able to move decisively in this direction by the late 1930s. At the same time, the new legal provisions for
baladiyyas severely compromised local self-government; it has been argued that this law set an anti-democratic precedent that had a damaging long-term effect on Jordan's political development.
87 Shaher Ali al-Rawashdeh, al-Idara al-mahalliyya fi al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashimiyya (Amman: Dar Majdalawi, 1987), 97 ff.
This assertion may have some validity, but it must be stressed that the petitions we have examined, whether for or against a
baladiyya, omit any reference to the intrinsic value of self-government. The assumption made by everyone was that a
baladiyya existed not for the sake of democracy but to bring into being a modern form of order. The 1938 code was certainly consistent with this conception of municipal government. The government in Transjordan thus proved itself a true heir of the last Ottoman government in its willingness to sacrifice democratic praxis in the localities to achieve “union and progress.”
Author's note: The author thanks the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman and American University in Cairo for research support. Many thanks also to Muhammad Yunus al-
Abbadi and the staff of the National Library in Amman for their kind help, and to Editor Juan Cole and three reviewers for their insightful comments and criticisms on an earlier draft of this article.
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