History of Jordan

Jordan has a very long history going all the way to biblical times. This country was partly owned by the ancient Israelites with the tribes of Reuben, Gad, East Manasseh having their tribal allotments here and the later kingdom of Israel also. And other parts of the country were owned by Moab and Edom. At the Jordan Museum in Amman, I read a tablet written by the king of Moab about fighting the Israelites and taking the vessels of Yahweh and offering them to their gods.

The country has been owned by lots of empires throughout history and changed hands numerous times. It was owned by the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbassid Caliphates, the Ottoman Empire, and the British Empire, before becoming independent.

During Roman times, as I wrote in one of my earlier blogs, Jesus walked in this country, He was baptized here. So after Jesus’ life, Christianity grew in Jordan despite it being illegal and persecuted in the Roman Empire. With the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., Christianity became allowed in the empire. Then later on in 380 A.D., Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica. Christianity has been around in Jordan since the death of Christ and was the majority of the population until after the Muslim conquests. 

In the 630s right after the death of Muhammed, the founder of Islam, their prophet, his successors went on to conquer the lands of Jordan, Syria, Israel, Egypt, and the rest of North Africa from the Byzantine Empire. With the Rashidun caliphate’s conquest of these lands, they introduced Islam. 

Jordan today is 95% Muslim but that didn’t happen immediately after the early Muslim conquests. Non-muslims didn’t have all the rights that Muslims had. The biggest thing that lead people to convert from Christianity to Islam though was the “jizya.” This was a tax that non-muslims had to pay for living under Muslim rule and having Muslim protection. This tax led lots of people to convert to Islam. Centuries of this led to a Muslim majority. 

After the caliphates came and went the next biggest power to rule over Jordan was the Ottoman Empire. Who ruled over Jordan for four centuries from the early 16th century until the end of WW1 in the 20th century. 

With the Ottoman Empire losing WW1 they lost Jordan to the British Empire. The British Empire put the Hashemite Dynasty in control of Jordan while still being a British protectorate. The British ruled over Jordan for 28 years when Jordan declared independence in 1946 after WW2.

So that is a brief history of Jordan. A land that has changed hands multiple times by numerous different empires throughout its history. Having believers from the moment that Christ rose all the way to the present day it is now a country that is filled with people who desperately need to know Jesus.