Nations are not measured only by the size of their land, nor defined solely by military strength or natural resources. Above all, nations are known by their narrative, by the story they tell about themselves and pass from one generation to the next, answering the essential questions: Who are we? How did we come to be? And why did we endure?
Jordan, my son, is not a country that appeared suddenly in history, nor a political entity drawn accidentally on the maps of victors. It is a long, continuous story, written by land and people, by civilization and mission, by tribe and state, by blood and patience, and by an identity that never broke.
You may have heard parts of this story from me before. Your grandfather, who shares your name, may have told you fragments of it. Perhaps you encountered pieces in a school textbook, an article, or a passing lecture. But in this humble attempt, I wanted to gather it for you into one narrative, not a claim of completeness, nor a monopoly over truth, but a personal vision: the vision of a Jordanian, a son of a tribe, a son of this land, and a father who fears that a story untold, or told by the wrong voices, may be lost. I write this narrative to you as a long letter, not a lecture; as a detailed story, not a rigid history lesson. It is a text that seeks to balance breadth with simplicity, precision with emotion, written history with living memory, memory preserved in the hearts of the men who made Jordan.
I will speak to you, my son, about Jordan from the time it was a cradle of human civilization, before borders were known, before flags were raised, before modern names were coined. I will tell you of a land that knew agriculture and bread before many others, that mastered trade, passage, and settlement, and that knew humanity before humanity itself understood the meaning of homeland. Then I will walk with you into Jordan as the land of divine messages, the land of prophets, of divine promise, of remembrance in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. A land through which Abraham passed, where God spoke to Moses, where Jesus was baptized, and where the final message of Muhammad, peace be upon them all, affirmed what came before.
We will pause, because pausing is a duty, at the Jordanian tribes: not merely as social structures, but as bearers of identity, pillars of independence, and the backbone of the state. We will tell how they resisted injustice, rejected subjugation, practiced politics before ministries existed, and paid a heavy price, blood, exile, and imprisonment, so that Jordan could be born free.
I will tell you the story of independence, not as it is condensed in official dates, but as it was lived by men who signed documents while in chains, who formed governments under occupation, who paid for their positions with execution and exile, and who then returned, along with their children and grandchildren, to build a state instead of seeking revenge.
And I will walk with you through the journey of the modern state: from foundation, to wars, to institution-building, to Jordan’s resilience in the face of storms, until we reach our present day, the Jordan we live in now, with its achievements and its challenges, with its leadership, and with your generation.
My Son… I write this because I believe that whoever does not own their narrative will have their history stolen by others. Whoever does not tell their story to their children will find those children believing the stories of others, some honest but incomplete, which is natural and acceptable; and others dishonest, ignorant, corrupt, opportunistic, or theatrical, people who do not even possess a narrative of their own, yet dare to fabricate a narrative for a nation.
I write this for you so that you may know: Jordan was never a burden on its people, nor a gift from anyone. It was a trust carried by Jordanians, protected, and handed down from generation to generation. This is not a story of a past that ended. It is the story of a homeland still being written. And now, Thougan, I place it in your hands, to read, to preserve, and to complete.
My Son… Thougan When we return to the history of Jordan, we do not return to the birth of a state, but to the birth of humanity itself. Jordan, my son, is not a page in a history book, it is a chapter in the book of human civilization. Thousands of years before Christ, when humans began searching for a safe place to settle, the highlands and valleys east of the Jordan River were among the first lands to embrace them. At Ain Ghazal, we do not merely find an archaeological site; we encounter a silent civilizational revolution, the transition from hunting to agriculture, from nomadism to settlement, from cave to village.
The plaster statues with their piercing eyes, single-headed and double-headed, dating back more than nine thousand years, represent the earliest artistic expression of human self-awareness. Here, humanity learned to cultivate wheat and barley, to store food, to bake bread, and to organize society. Here, the idea of homeland was born, long before the word itself existed.
As societies evolved over thousands of years before Christ, settlement developed into political entities. The Kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, and Edom emerged on Jordanian land, known in ancient texts as Ha’ardanim, the land beyond the Jordan River. These were not marginal kingdoms; they played central roles in trade between the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, controlled major routes, and engaged in regional alliances and conflicts. Here, the ancient Jordanian learned politics, alliance-building, and the defense of land.
Then came a great turning point: the Nabataeans, the first organized Arab state, centuries before and after Christ. Arabs who came from the depth of the Arabian Peninsula, they did not merely pass through; they built a complete state. Petra became a political capital, a global trade center, and a masterpiece of water engineering, financial management, and urban planning. Rock was carved not for ornament, but as a declaration of political and civilizational identity. The Nabataeans taught the world how to build a state in the desert, how geography can become economic power, and how Arab identity can be a civilization, not merely a tribe. When the Romans annexed the region, Jordan became an open city for centuries, not erased, but integrated. In Jerash, Umm Qais, and Philadelphia (Amman), cities rose with councils, theaters, and planned streets. Jordan became part of the civilized world, not its periphery.
My Son… When we say Jordan is ancient, we do not mean ancient stones, we mean the continuity of human presence. Civilizations came and went, but the land remained Jordanian, and its role remained central: a cradle of settlement, a bridge of civilization, a meeting point rather than a battlefield.
This continuity explains why, when the era of the modern state arrived, the Jordanian was not alien to the meaning of homeland. It was a natural extension of a long history of awareness of land and identity.
My Son… Thougan If places possess memory, then Jordan’s memory is not made only of stone and inscription, but of revelation that passed through this land, settled in it, and left an enduring mark on history and conscience. Jordan was never a neutral stage for the heavenly messages; it was part of a precise divine wisdom, a deliberate choice of place, just as time and people are chosen.
Here, in the heart of Greater Syria, where continents meet, routes intersect, and the distance between heaven and earth narrows, this land was prepared to be a land of prophethood, a land of trial, and a land of blessing.
God tells us in the Holy Qur’an that He saved Abraham and Lot, peace be upon them, to the land which He blessed for all people. From that moment, Jordan entered, geographically and historically, the core of the divine narrative of monotheism. Abraham, peace be upon him, passed through this land during his great journey: a journey from idolatry to faith, from fear to certainty. His passage was not incidental, but foundational. The blessing attributed to this land was not a blessing of stillness, but a blessing of preparation for the messages yet to come.
On this land as well, Lot, peace be upon him, lived and confronted his people, and God saved him from their tyranny, an early scene linking Jordan to the moral idea of salvation in the face of oppression.
Then came the moment of Moses, peace be upon him, a moment heavy with meaning and profound in symbolism. On Jordanian land, specifically on Mount Nebo, the journey of a prophet who led his people through forty years of wandering came to an end. Moses stood there, saw with his own eyes the land he had been promised, then surrendered his soul. Thus, this land became witness to one of the greatest lessons of prophethood: that leadership is duty, not entitlement.
On the banks of the Jordan River, water itself acquired a new meaning in human religious history. Here, at Al-Maghtas, Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, was baptized, and from here his message began, one that would change the face of the world. The choice of place was not incidental. It affirmed Jordan’s centrality in early Christianity. That is why the world’s churches, the Vatican, and UNESCO recognized this Jordanian site as the authentic location of the baptism of Christ. Jordan here was not a passage, it was the beginning of a universal message.
Then came the final message, that of Muhammad ﷺ, which did not erase what came before it, but confirmed it. Jordan’s presence became clearer in meaning and place. God says in the verse of Al-Isra’: “To Al-Aqsa Mosque, whose surroundings We have blessed.” And in the story of the People of the Cave mentioned in the Qur’an, Jordan appears once again as a refuge of faith in times of oppression, young men who fled with their belief and found in this land shelter and divine protection. As if history repeats itself: whenever faith is constricted elsewhere, this land expands to contain it.
My Son… Thougan After Jordan had been a passage for prophets and a recipient of blessing, there came a time when faith became action rather than words, and belief was tested on the battlefield. On this land, decisive battles were fought in Islamic history, not for plunder, nor for expansion of power, but in defense of a message meant to be conveyed with integrity.
At Mu’tah, Zaid bin Harithah carried the banner of Islam and fell as a martyr. Then Ja’far bin Abi Talib carried it, fought until his arms were severed, embraced the banner with his shoulders, and fell as a martyr. Then Abdullah bin Rawahah followed, firm of heart, until he met God. Three commanders, three martyrs, on the same day, on Jordanian land, as if from that moment it was destined to be the land of dignity.
Then came Yarmouk. Khalid bin Al-Walid, the Sword of God, led a battle that did not merely redraw borders, but changed the course of history, where faith, military genius, and organization triumphed over imperial numbers. The eastern Mediterranean opened, and the illusion that power alone determines destiny collapsed.
At Fihl (Pella), Shurahbil bin Hasana and his companions consolidated the conquest, not as a fleeting advance, but as a project of justice and governance.
Jordan was not only a battlefield; it became the resting place of great men. In its soil lived and died Abu Ubaidah Amer bin Al-Jarrah, the Trustworthy One of this nation. Shurahbil bin Hasana and other companions were buried here. The land thus bore witness that the message did not merely pass through, it settled, nourished by pure blood.
For this reason, when the era of tribes, then revolution, then state arrived, the Jordanian was never foreign to the meaning of sacrifice. A land that knew Mu’tah and Yarmouk knows how to give birth to men who carry the banner, until the very end.
My Son… When you read all of this, you understand that Jordan was never outside the sacred narrative, nor on the margins of divine messages. It was part of their logic and their path. Whoever lives on land walked by prophets and saturated with blessing cannot be alien to sacrifice, to justice, or to the rejection of oppression.
That is why, when we reach the era of revolution, independence, and statehood in this narrative, we will understand that what Jordanians did was not an anomaly in their history, but a natural extension of a land that learned, thousands of years ago, to stand with truth, whatever the cost.
My Son… Thougan To understand why Jordan was born as a state, you must first understand why it could no longer remain without one. History, my son, does not create political entities suddenly. It prepares the ground for them when oppression accumulates until eruption becomes a moral necessity.
By the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire had entered political old age. It was no longer the state that had carried the banner of the Caliphate for centuries, nor the power that unified much of the Islamic world. Gradually, it became a confused entity, pulled by European pressures from outside and eaten away by internal conflict.
Then came the Committee of Union and Progress, not as a genuine reform project, but as a coup against the very spirit of the state. It raised slogans of modernization, but practiced the harshest forms of Turkification and exclusion. Arabs were no longer partners in the state; they became burdens in the eyes of the new authority. Their language was removed from administration, their history marginalized, their thought monitored, and anyone who called for dignity or reform was persecuted.
Oppression was not theoretical, it was lived reality. Executions in the squares of Damascus and Beirut, prisons, exile, the confiscation of newspapers, and the criminalization of thought before action. Greater Syria, including Transjordan, bore a heavy share of this late injustice.
My Son… Thougan Thus, the closure of newspapers was not an administrative measure, nor were executions exceptional actions, they were a systematic policy to silence an entire identity. When words are shut down, peoples are left with action.
Peoples may endure oppression for a long time, my son, but they do not forget. They may tolerate injustice, but they do not accept the erasure of their identity. Here, Arab consciousness began to form, not as blind tribalism, but as a political and moral right. Arab societies emerged, intellectual elites mobilized, and the great question arose: Can a state survive while denying its people their language and dignity?
In this historical context, Sharif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and descendant of the Prophet’s household, emerged, not as a political adventurer, but as a man of his moment. He did not raise the banner of revolution in pursuit of power, but in defense of Arab dignity and the right to self-rule within a just state.
He entered into correspondence with the British High Commissioner Henry McMahon, known historically as the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence, seeking recognition of Arab independence in return for confronting Ottoman injustice. Despite the betrayals that would later follow, these letters represented the first modern political document calling for comprehensive Arab independence, not partial reforms or symbolic privileges.
In 1916, the Great Arab Revolt was launched, not as a fleeting rebellion, but as a revolution with a project: freedom, independence, and unity of Arab land.
Here, my son, Transjordan entered a new phase of its history. This land was neither distant from the revolt nor a mere observer. It was part of its geography and its people. Revolutionary forces passed through its south, found support among its tribes, strategic depth in its routes, and a natural understanding of freedom among its people.
When Aqaba was liberated in 1917, it was not merely a military victory. It was the breaking of political geography and the opening of a northern route toward Arab Damascus.
But history, as we later learned, is not straight. While Arabs fought for independence, the great powers were drawing other maps. Secret agreements and contradictory promises, Sykes–Picot in 1916 and the ominous Balfour Declaration in 1917, a promise from one who does not own to one who does not deserve, as your grandfather described it.
Yet the moment of revolution was not wasted. It planted in the consciousness of this land an irreversible truth: freedom is not granted, it is taken; and the state is not a gift, but the fruit of long struggle.
My Son… Thougan Thus, my son, the Great Arab Revolt was not born of emptiness, nor was it a moment of emotional rebellion. It was a historical response to historical oppression. When Ottoman authority collapsed in this region after the end of the First World War in 1918, it was not merely the fall of a governing system, it was the collapse of a long-standing illusion: that injustice could last forever.
Yet when the war ended, Transjordan did not become a political vacuum, nor a land without awareness. The absence left behind by the Ottoman administration was administrative, not national. Jordanians quickly filled it through their national leaderships and self-initiated efforts to govern and organize, rooted in a society that had managed its own affairs long before the rise of centralized modern states.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Jordanian national consciousness was already taking shape, organized and active. In 1910, early Jordanian leaders contributed to the establishment of the first Jordanian national political movement: the Jordanian Independence Party, an extension of the Independence Party in Syria that the French Mandate later dissolved in Damascus.
Among the founders of this national current was your great-grandfather, Salem Pasha Hindawi, one of Jordan’s prominent leaders of that era. This movement brought together men from across the country: Hussein Pasha Al-Tarawneh from Karak, Abdul Qader Ahmad Al-Tal from Irbid, Suleiman Pasha Al-Soudi Al-Rousan from Bani Kinana, Rashid Pasha Al-Khaza’i Al-Freihat from Ajloun, Naji Pasha Al-Azzam from Irbid, Ali Khulqi Pasha Al-Sharari, Majid Pasha Al-Adwan, Mithqal Pasha Al-Fayez, Abdul Rahman Irshidat, and Kaed Al-Muflih Al-Ubaidat, who would later be martyred on Palestinian soil, becoming the first Jordanian martyr there, a wreath of honor passed down from generation to generation. These were not merely names. They were the early architects of Jordanian political consciousness.
After the Ottoman collapse in 1918, this awareness moved from political organization to administrative action. In northern Jordan, specifically in Ajloun, a local government was formed in 1920, known historically as the Ajloun Government. It was the first practical attempt to manage people’s affairs independently of any external authority.
In Deir Youssef, near Irbid, another local government emerged, responsible for security, tribal judiciary functions, resource management, and village protection. These were not states in the legal sense, but they were early declarations of rejecting both chaos and foreign guardianship, clear proof that Jordanian society was capable of governing itself.
My Son… Thougan The Um Qais Conference: When Jordanian Will Spoke the Language of Independence. In the spring of 1920, on the edge of history and geography, one of the most honorable and consequential political gatherings in modern Jordanian history took place in the town of Um Qais in northern Jordan. It is a moment your generation must know, understand, and fully grasp.
This was not a casual meeting of local notables, nor a spontaneous reaction to unfolding events. It was early, conscious awareness, translating what Jordanians carried in their hearts into a written, unmistakable political position. There, the Um Qais Document was born, not as a protest statement, but as a comprehensive national program that outlined the contours of independence a quarter of a century before the state was formally declared.
The document’s clauses were bold for their time, direct in language, and advanced beyond their regional and international context. It demanded the establishment of an independent Arab national government in Transjordan, rejected the Mandate in all its forms, categorically refused the Balfour Declaration, rejected the transformation of Palestine into a Jewish national homeland, and demanded the prevention of Zionist immigration.
It affirmed that political legitimacy does not originate from external decisions, but from the will of the local population, and that any authority lacking the people’s consent is morally and nationally illegitimate. This was not a list of demands, it was a declaration of sovereignty before sovereignty existed.
The document was signed by leading Jordanian sheikhs and figures, representing their tribes and communities, in the first organized collective expression of Jordanian political will. Among them were Ali Khulqi Pasha Al-Sharari, your great-grandfather Salem Pasha Hindawi, Naji Pasha Al-Azzam, Suleiman Pasha Al-Soudi Al-Rousan, Rashid Pasha Al-Khaza’i Al-Freihat, Mohammed AlHmoud, Saad Al-Ali Al-Battayneh, Abdul Rahman Irshidat, Turki Kayed Al-Ubaidat, Odeh Al-Qassous, and others.
They did not sign as individuals, but as trustees of a rising collective consciousness, aware of what it wanted, aware of what it rejected, and unafraid to say so.
The significance of the Um Qais Document lies in the fact that it planted the seeds of independence when doing so was costly and dangerous. It bridged awareness and organization, tribe and state, local action and national demand. From it flowed a chain of positions, conferences, governments, trials, exile, and imprisonment, culminating in the Fifth Legislative Council and Independence Day on 25 May 1946. For this reason, the Um Qais Document is not a page in a book. It is the cornerstone of Jordanian political memory.
And so, my son, Jordanian national memory has a duty to preserve the names of the Um Qais signatories, not because they stood alone, but because they were the first to dare write the words “we want” in the name of Jordan. Those who do not remember the sowers have no right to boast of the harvest.
My Son… Thougan While Britain sought to arrange an administrative framework that would secure its influence, Jordanians were already moving one step further ahead. In 1921, the Jordanian Independence Party formed the first central government in Transjordan, headed by Rashid Talie’, by mandate of Prince Abdullah bin Al-Hussein, despite clear British opposition to the formation of such a government because of the party’s nationalist orientation and its founders’ explicit call for independence.
Though short-lived, that government was a bold political step. It was formed without recognition from the British Mandate and sought to establish the foundations of a state, not merely a local administration. It was quickly confronted by firm British rejection, precisely because it represented an unmistakable independence-oriented direction.
By the late 1920s, when the 1928 Treaty was imposed, severely restricting Jordanian sovereignty, the national movement responded by organizing the Jordanian National Conferences of 1928, 1929, and 1930. These conferences demanded an elected parliament, a nationally accountable government, and a genuine end to the Mandate. Such a level of national organization was intolerable to colonial authority. The response was harsh.
In 1937, amid the escalation of the Great Palestinian Revolt, widespread arrests and trials were launched against northern Jordanian leaders. They were accused of supporting the Palestinian revolt with men, funds, and weapons; attempting to overthrow the Mandate government; cutting communication lines; and burning government buildings.
Death sentences were issued against several of these leaders, among them Mohammad Ali Beik Al-Ajlouni, Salem Pasha Hindawi, Suleiman Pasha Al-Soudi Al-Rousan, and Rashid Pasha Al-Khaza’i Al-Freihat, among others. They fled to Syria, were tried in absentia, later handed over to British Mandate authorities, and imprisoned in Aqaba in preparation for execution. From there, they managed to escape to the Arabian Peninsula, where they remained for three years. In 1941, Prince Abdullah I issued a special pardon, allowing them to return to the homeland and resume political life.
This moment was not merely a legal event, it was a moral one. It demonstrated that Jordan’s political struggle was not driven by vengeance, but by responsibility. Those who had faced execution returned not to settle scores, but to build a state. At the heart of this era emerged a rare ethical model in public life, embodied by your great-uncle Qasem Beik Hindawi. In his renowned speech at the Jordanian People’s Conference of 1933, he warned clearly of the Zionist danger and called for genuine readiness to sacrifice in defense of the land.
Then, in 1934, he resigned from the government of Ibrahim Hashem, a rare precedent, declaring that remaining in office when it no longer served the nation was an added calamity upon the people. He offered an early lesson that politics is, before all else, a matter of conscience, not power.
Time, Thougan, was working in favor of the idea, not against it. The exiled leaders returned. They ran in the elections of the Fifth Legislative Council, won the confidence of the people, and it was they themselves who would later declare independence.
On 25 May 1946, they proclaimed the independence of the country and the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Independence was not a sudden moment. It was the fruit of a long journey of awareness, organization, and sacrifice, a journey in which the state was formed in the collective conscience before it was declared on paper.
My Son… Thougan When we remember independence, we are not recalling a date on a calendar, nor celebrating an administrative decision. We are summoning entire lifetimes spent cheaply for the sake of the homeland.
We remember men who were true to their covenant, who gave everything they had, and paid prices that were neither easy nor brief: blood, sweat, and tears; resistance and confrontation; prison, exile, and displacement; and martyrdom for those who chose the path to its very end.
Independence was not a moment of triumph, it was the culmination of decades of silent and open struggle, carried by tribes, led by national leaderships, accumulated through documents, conferences, prisons, and exile, until the moment matured… and freedom arrived.
On the morning of Saturday, 25 May 1946, at exactly eight o’clock, the Fifth Jordanian Legislative Council convened its third extraordinary session, an exceptional moment in the nation’s history, dedicated to discussing the collective will of the Jordanian people for full liberation and independence from the British Mandate.
This was no ceremonial session. Its words were not scripted in advance. It was an authentic expression of a people who had paid dearly for their freedom and dignity, and who had supported the Palestinian struggle against injustice and aggression, grounded in international principles and the inherent right of peoples to self-determination.
After deliberations heavy with historical responsibility, the Fifth Legislative Council unanimously issued its decisive declaration: Jordan is a fully independent, sovereign state, a hereditary constitutional monarchy with parliamentary governance, and allegiance is pledged to the leader of the country and founder of its entity, heir to the Arab renaissance, Prince Abdullah bin Al-Hussein, as constitutional King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
With this decision, not only was a state declared, the chapter of the Mandate was closed forever, and the chapter of national sovereignty was opened by the will of the people’s representatives, not by external decree.
To honor the magnitude of the moment, the Legislative Council selected four of its members, representing the regions of the country, to convey the nation’s decision to the founding leader and pledge allegiance on behalf of all Jordanians: Majid Pasha Al-Adwan – representing Balqa, Ma’arek Pasha Al-Majali – representing Karak, Salem Pasha Hindawi – representing Ajloun, Hamad Pasha Al-Jazi – representing Ma’an / the Badia
They were not merely names in official minutes. They were the culmination of a long tribal and national struggle. They carried the people’s decision and delivered it to King Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein, the founding monarch, inaugurating the era of the independent state, one that had been built in consciousness before it was proclaimed in law.
My Son… Thougan When Jordan’s independence was declared on 25 May 1946, that day did not mark the end of a struggle, it marked the beginning of the hardest test the young state would face. Nations, my son, are not measured by the moment of their birth, but by their ability to endure when storms rise around them.
When your great-grandfather and his peers, members of the Fifth Legislative Council, proclaimed the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and pledged allegiance to King Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein as a constitutional monarch, His Majesty was not an accidental ruler. He was a seasoned statesman, shaped in the heart of the Great Arab Revolt, carrying a clear project: to build an independent Arab state capable of survival in a region that shows little mercy to the weak.
Independence came at a moment of extreme regional complexity. The British Mandate was withdrawing in form, yet its influence remained. At the same time, the region stood on the brink of a political earthquake whose epicenter was Palestine.
Barely two years after independence, the 1948 war erupted, a war that tested not only armies, but the legitimacy of newly formed Arab states and their capacity for action. Jordan entered the war with an army that was not the largest in number, but the most organized and disciplined: the Arab Army.
This army was not assembled hastily. It was the result of years of training, organization, and a clear doctrine: that the soldier does not defend a regime, but a land, a dignity, and an identity. The Arab Army fought decisive battles in Jerusalem, Latrun, and Bab Al-Wad, playing a critical role in defending and preserving East Jerusalem as Arab land, through military action, not declarations. In a time marked by widespread Arab failures, the Jordanian military role stood out for its cohesion and realism.
Yet the war was neither pure victory nor total defeat, it was an open wound. A ceasefire was imposed, borders changed, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees flowed into Jordan. Suddenly, Jordan was not only a newly independent state, but a state carrying a cause larger than its resources.
After the war, a new political reality emerged. The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, came under Jordanian administration. This reality was later formalized through the Unity of the Two Banks in 1950, a political decision that reflected the Jordanian leadership’s understanding of the shared destiny of the two peoples.
The decision was controversial regionally and internationally, but in the Jordanian context it was not an act of expansion. It was an assumption of responsibility, taken at the request of the people concerned. Jordan never viewed Palestine as a bargaining chip, but as its own cause, one of justice, existence, and moral obligation.
On 20 July 1951, tragedy struck. King Abdullah I was assassinated at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. In the two weeks preceding this assassination, your great-grandfather Salem Pasha Hindawi was assassinated in the tribal guesthouse in Na’imeh, and Riad Al-Solh, Prime Minister of Lebanon, was assassinated in Amman.
Three national Arab leaders were killed within two weeks, likely by the same hand of treachery that sought to bury their Arab-national vision at a moment of extreme regional volatility. The assassination of King Abdullah was not an isolated internal event, but the direct result of international conspiracies, overlapping conflicts, and competing regional projects. With his death, Jordan lost the founder of its state at a time when it was still consolidating its foundations.
King Talal bin Abdullah ascended the throne in a brief but deeply consequential reign. During his rule, the 1952 Constitution was drafted, later recognized as one of the most progressive constitutions in the Arab world. It enshrined constitutional monarchy, separation of powers, and citizens’ rights.
Though illness did not grant King Talal time, his constitutional legacy endured, forming the legal backbone of the modern Jordanian state.
We also remember the men and women of the nation who contributed to drafting the constitution and the foundational laws of the Kingdom, among them Ibrahim Hashem, Suleiman Touqan, Abdul Rahman Irshidat, Ali Hindawi, Dhaifallah Al-Hmoud, and Emily Bisharat.
My Son… Between 1946 and 1951, Jordan lived what many nations experience over decades: independence, war, mass displacement, unity, assassination, and constitutional birth. And yet, the state did not collapse. It emerged from those harsh years more resilient and more conscious of the meaning of survival.
When the late King Hussein bin Talal, may God rest his soul, ascended the throne in 1952, he did not inherit a stable country. He assumed leadership of a young state, surrounded by storms, recently independent, burdened by war, and exposed to merciless regional conflicts.
The early years of his reign were a true test of statehood itself. The army was still being built, the economy was limited in resources, and Arab politics were deeply polarized, between unity projects, revolutionary rhetoric, and military coups. The 1950s became years of consolidating sovereignty and national decision-making.
In the mid-1950s, Jordan took one of its most decisive sovereign steps: ending British military presence and Arabizing the command of the Arab Army in 1956. This was not an administrative move, but a declaration of genuine independence over military and political decision-making.
With this decision, the Arab Army became fully national, led by Jordanian officers, most notably Radi Annab and Habis Al-Majali, who would later become a national military symbol, especially after the Battle of Karameh.
My Son… Thougan From the early 1950s onward, the challenge facing Jordan was no longer merely building state institutions, it was protecting the very idea of the state itself. Jordan was a small, resource-limited country in a region boiling with coups, transnational ideologies, and slogans that denied borders and the sovereignty of small nations. Political decision-making was not a luxury; it was a risk. Public office was not prestige, it was exposure to sacrifice.
In this context emerged Hazza’ Al-Majali as Prime Minister in the late 1950s, representing the firm face of the state that refused to gamble with Jordan’s security and independence. He was clear in position, decisive in action, and convinced that independence paid for dearly could not be managed through appeasement or hesitation.
When he was assassinated in 1960 in his office, the attack was not aimed at a man alone, it was an attempt to strike the authority of the Jordanian state at a critical moment of consolidating sovereignty.
Jordan did not break. Pain turned into awareness, and grief into determination. The country emerged from the tragedy with a bitter but decisive lesson: the path of statehood is paved with sacrifice, and national decision-making may demand the blood of great men.
My Son… Thougan Jordan entered the 1960s carrying a heavy burden. The state had stabilized its foundations, but the region around it was unraveling. Then came the 1967 war, swift and devastating. Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and with that loss came a wound that has never fully healed.
The loss was painful, but the state did not collapse. Society did not disintegrate. Instead, the most dangerous question emerged, one that struck at the heart of existence itself: How do you protect Jordan while carrying Palestine within your heart and your reality at the same time? The answer was not theoretical. It was forged in action.
In March 1968, the Battle of Karameh took place, a moment that became a psychological and political turning point. The Jordanian Arab Army confronted invading Israeli forces, inflicted heavy losses, and forced them to withdraw.
Karameh was not a conventional military victory measured by territory gained. It was a victory of dignity, morale, and will. It proved that the Jordanian soldier could fight, defend his land, and stand firm. In a period when Arab despair ran deep, Karameh restored belief, not only to Jordan, but to the wider Arab conscience.
Then came September 1970, the most dangerous moment in the modern history of the Jordanian state. The threat was no longer external alone, it was existential. Weapons beyond state control, immense regional pressure, and a sharp collision between the logic of the state and the logic of revolutionary chaos.
In those heavy days, decisions were taken that were painful, costly, and unavoidable. The choice was clear: protect the state first, because the collapse of the state would mean the collapse of all causes, foremost among them the Palestinian cause itself.
Jordan emerged from September wounded, but intact. It emerged having confirmed a harsh but decisive truth: the state is not an emotional slogan, but a moral and historical responsibility that does not tolerate hesitation.
From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, this meaning was embodied once again in Wasfi Al-Tal, a statesman of rare clarity. He was firm, honest in a time of bargaining, and deeply convinced that Jordan was a final state, not a temporary phase.
He believed that self-reliance was the foundation of dignity and sovereignty. When Wasfi Al-Tal was assassinated in Cairo in 1971, his killing was not an isolated act. It was another attempt to destabilize a state that had chosen order when chaos appeared easier. Yet again, Jordan did not fall. Blood did not turn into revenge, nor grief into disorder. Instead, the meaning of the state became more deeply rooted. It became clear that Jordan does not rest on individuals, no matter how great, but on values they plant, and on a people who understood that the alternative to the state is not freedom, but loss.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, modern Jordanian consciousness was forged not in comfort, but in fire; not in slogans, but in trial. What Wasfi Al-Tal and Hazza’ Al-Majali planted in integrity, discipline, honesty, and moral courage remains alive in the conscience of the state, and will remain so, as long as Jordan understands the meaning of men who place the homeland above themselves.
Between 1951 and 1999, Jordan did not build skyscrapers or empires. It built a state that knew its limits, understood its role, and protected its people. This long era taught Jordanians that survival is not accidental, it is a daily, difficult decision. Despite what is said about corruption that touched some who passed through public office, Jordanian memory retains names that resist distortion, because they were written not in ink, but in stance. Men who carried the state as a trust, not a prize, and who left office without wealth, privilege, or unanswered questions.
At the forefront of these was Wasfi Al-Tal, who entered power and left it with clean hands and unwavering conviction, paying with his life for his belief that the state cannot be governed through compromise.
Alongside him stood Thougan Hindawi, a living example of how education, knowledge, and culture can serve as the conscience of power. He led public service for decades, then returned quietly to his people, his family, and his books, without losing self-respect, divine approval, or the love and respect of the people.
Beside them stood Falah Al-Madadha, Fadel Al-Dalqamouni, Dhaifallah Al-Hmoud, Trad Al-Qadi, Mohammad Ouda Al-Qar’an, Mohammad Al-Saqqaf, Marwan Al-Hmoud, and many others, men of state who believed that integrity, honesty, uprightness, and honor were the true ceiling of public service, beyond law and regulation. They left office as they entered it, quietly, without gain or spectacle, leaving behind clean legacies that require no defense.
To recall these names today is not nostalgia, nor an attempt to highlight others’ mistakes. It is a reminder that this homeland, despite all its setbacks, produced exemplary men who understood responsibility as a moral test before it was a position, and whose names stand as proof that integrity was, and remains, possible.
My Son… Parallel to the integrity and uprightness of those men, Jordan waged, between the 1960s and the 1990s, one of its greatest and most successful quiet battles: the battle of education and health, as the solid foundation for building both the human being and the state.
During those decisive decades, education was neither a luxury nor a secondary option. It was a sovereign decision, taken with early awareness, when the state placed universal basic education and the entrenchment of free schooling at the very top of national priorities. The school network expanded across cities, villages, and the desert alike, culminating in a bold decision: to build a school in every population cluster with ten students or more, a clear message that education is a right, not a favor, and that knowledge is neither monopolized nor postponed.
This path was reinforced under Ministers of Education who carried the national project before the headlines, foremost among them your grandfather, Zouqan Hindawi, a name so deeply intertwined with education that it became part of Jordan’s national memory. He remains the most devoted Minister of Education in Jordan’s history, and the educational leader who led curriculum reform, built the national school, strengthened identity through education, and connected knowledge to public consciousness rather than rote memorization. He thus rightfully earned the title by which many still know him: “The Father of Education in Jordan.”
Under his stewardship, the school was not a warehouse for information, but a space for character formation, the consolidation of belonging, and the fortification of awareness. This vision was clearly reflected in his book “The Palestinian Cause”, which he embedded in the curriculum not as an exam subject, but as a matter of consciousness and identity.
With the arrival of the 1980s, Jordanian education entered a phase of qualitative expansion. Modern educational administration took root, secondary education expanded, and this growth coincided with the rise of higher education and the establishment of national universities, foremost among them the University of Jordan, the mother of universities, followed by Yarmouk University and the Jordan University of Science and Technology, alongside the creation of Al-Hussein Youth City.
All of this unfolded within a state vision that did not treat education as a service delivered, nor youth as passive recipients, but as national wealth and future sovereignty.
During this period, Jordan ranked first in the Arab world in educational quality and literacy rates relative to population, and among the leading countries globally in qualitative education indicators. It became a producer and exporter of knowledge, not merely a consumer of it. Thousands of Jordanian teachers were dispatched to sister Arab states, where they contributed to building educational systems and advancing administrative, economic, and scientific development. The Jordanian teacher became, in those classrooms, an ambassador of his homeland, a model of seriousness, discipline, and moderation.
The impact of this achievement did not stop at the regional level. It earned high international recognition, when prestigious global universities, foremost among them the University of Cambridge, honored the Jordanian educational experience by establishing scholarships bearing the name Zouqan Hindawi, in recognition of his pioneering role in educational reform and the influence that extended beyond national borders into the global educational sphere.
Thus, education during those decades was not merely one sector among others. It was a project of renaissance, sovereignty, and soft power, one of the pillars of Jordanian stability, and a luminous proof that when this nation wagers on the human being, it prevails.In health, transformation began in the 1970s, evolving from limited services into a national healthcare system. This accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s under physician-statesmen, foremost among them Dr. Abdul Salam Al-Majali, whose name became linked to modernizing healthcare infrastructure, developing public hospitals, and institutionalizing medical training. Under his leadership, King Hussein Medical City emerged as one of the most prominent medical institutions in the Arab world.
Subsequent Ministers of Health focused on preventive medicine, expanding health centers, and ensuring equitable access, aligning Jordan’s healthcare sector with international standards.
Thus, the advancement of education and health was not the product of abundance or circumstance, but the result of a deliberate state choice sustained over decades, rooted in the belief that an educated, healthy citizen is the deepest line of defense for stability and sovereignty.
And so the saying of the builder King became ingrained: “The human being is our most precious asset.”
My Son… Thougan While the region around Jordan boiled with coups, wars, and shifting alliances, decision-making in Jordan was never impulsive. It was the product of a royal mind that surrounded itself with men who understood politics as a historical responsibility rather than fleeting cleverness.
Samir Al-Rifai was among the earliest to help entrench an institutional approach to governance in the years following independence. He contributed to shaping a balanced diplomatic posture and anchoring internal legitimacy at a time when the Arab environment was volatile and unforgiving.
Bahjat Al-Talhouni later emerged as a voice of wisdom during some of the most sensitive moments in Jordan’s modern history, particularly in the aftermath of the wars of 1967 and 1973. His presence provided internal balance and helped the state avoid reckless adventures whose costs would have been unbearable.
Zaid Al-Rifai distinguished himself during the Cold War era, managing complex regional and international balances while safeguarding the independence of Jordanian decision-making amid intense polarization and pressure.
At the heart of decision-making, The Royal Hashemite Court, Sharif/ Prince Zaid Bin Shaker, Thougan Hindawi and Adnan Abu Odeh served as strategic minds, witnesses to and shapers of pivotal moments in the management of the state internally and in the administration of the Arab–Israeli conflict. They helped articulate a rational Jordanian discourse at times when emotion threatened to overwhelm judgment.
Alongside them, Dr. Abdul Salam Al-Majali, Marwan Al-Qassem, and Dr. Kamel Abu Jaber quietly and professionally managed sensitive diplomatic channels, conveying Jordan’s balanced position to influential capitals.
Then came Taher Al-Masri, who embodied a different political school, one grounded in listening to society and respecting pluralism. When he led the government in 1991, during the return of parliamentary life and political openness, his voice supported reform and guided democratic transition without confrontation or chaos.
These were not solitary decision-makers, but minds of state working alongside an exceptional leader. Through their counsel and experience, Jordan emerged time and again from a burning region with the least possible losses and the greatest measure of dignity and sovereignty.
If politics is tested at turning points, then soldiering is tested when the homeland becomes heavier than life itself. There, the Arab Army wrote its most honest chapter.
In 1948, Jerusalem was not a slogan, it was a position defended by arms. Habis Pasha Al-Majali led the battles of Latrun and Bab Al-Wad, halting the Israeli advance toward the city and securing East Jerusalem as Arab land through military action, not statements. Across the battlefronts of the West Bank, Jordanian positions held firm at moments when collapse seemed imminent. Then came Karameh in 1968, not as a morale speech but as a complete battle. Habis Al-Majali and Mashhour Haditha Al-Jazi led Jordanian forces that forced the Israeli army to withdraw, leaving behind destroyed equipment, marking its first genuine battlefield retreat.
In the October War of 1973, Khaled Al-Hajjaj Al-Majali, the armored warfare tactician, prevented enemy counter-attacks in the Golan from turning victory into defeat. He rebuilt defensive lines, reorganized command and control, and preserved the cohesion of the army at one of the war’s most delicate moments.
In the skies, pilots were not observers, they were fighters. Firas Al-Ajlouni and his comrade Moufaq Al-Salti were martyred during combat missions in Al-Samu’ in 1966 and during the 1967 war, defending Jordan’s skies.
On the ground, in a moment when the nation was reduced to a single position, the soldier Khader Shukri Dankjian spoke words that transcended war into history during the Battle of Karameh in 1968:“The target is my position… I bear witness that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God… Fire… Fire… Over…” His words halted enemy advance and immortalized soldiering as an act of sacrifice, not survival.
Thus, the heroism of the Arab Army was not crafted in memory, but in the field, not inherited as a tale, but embedded as a doctrine of defending a homeland whose men knew when to fight… and when to fall.
If the Arab Army safeguarded the nation’s borders, Jordan’s security institutions bore the burden of protecting the state from within, in a silent battle rarely documented except in blood.
Leaders understood that security is not brute force, but awareness, discipline, and anticipation. Mohammad Rasul Al-Kilani helped establish a professional security doctrine that prioritized loyalty to the state and institutional integrity, preserving Jordan during its most sensitive phases. He, and Nathir Rashid after him, entrenched the concept of preventive security, neutralizing threats before they exploded, protecting society without exhausting it. Mudar Badran combined security expertise with political leadership, heading governments at critical moments while preserving stability without sliding into disorder. At another pivotal stage, Ahmad Obeidat assumed responsibility for national security and later the premiership, confronting challenges with the logic of statecraft rather than reactive impulse. All their successors followed suit.
Alongside these leaders stood men of the field, front-line officers who paid with their lives to protect Jordan from terrorism. Foremost among them were the martyrs Muath Al-Kasasbeh, Rashid Al-Zyoud, and Saed Al-Maaytah, who fell during counter-terror operations, alongside other martyrs from Public Security, Gendarmerie, and Intelligence.
They sought no fame and appeared in no photographs. Their blood was the unseen line that preserved national stability, proof that Jordan’s security was never accidental, but the product of constant vigilance and unannounced sacrifice.
Jordan’s achievements in education, health, and stability were not isolated governmental efforts. They unfolded within a national economic structure made possible by stability and endurance.
Alongside the school, hospital, and barracks stood an economy that produced, financed, and endured, led by national families who viewed investment as partnership with the state, not speculation upon it.
In finance and banking, the Shoman and Al-Masri families contributed to establishing national banks and strengthening confidence in currency and credit, providing long-term foundations for trade, industry, and growth.
In industry and pharmaceuticals, the Al-Sakhtian, Darwazeh, and Al-Tabbaa families localized pharmaceutical and commercial industries that reached regional markets, transferring knowledge and creating real added value.
In construction, infrastructure, engineering, and services, the Naqel, Jardaneh, and Al-Qadi families led major national projects that shaped Jordan’s modern urban and industrial landscape.
In trade, services, and manufacturing, families such as Al-Sayigh, Abu Khader, Al-Fakhouri, Abu Jaber, Al-Dajani, Al-Salfeiti, Al-Ma’shar, and Ghorghor employed thousands of Jordanians and expanded the real economy.
In later phases, families such as Al-Kurdi and Al-Manaseer emerged in energy and heavy industry, investing in strategic projects that enhanced energy security and diversified the productive base.
Thus, Jordan’s economy was built through patient accumulation of national capital, capital that believed in the state, invested at home, and anchored its presence in work rather than rent-seeking, becoming an authentic partner in stability and development.
My Son… Thougan The Jordanian state was not built on paper alone, nor protected first by laws before values. Its foundation rested on a cohesive society that preceded the state and embraced it. During the formative years, Jordanian tribes constituted the backbone of security and stability, and the true support of governance and administration, at a time when the Arab Army had not yet reached its full strength, and security institutions were still in their infancy.
Tribes such as Bani Sakhr, Bani Hassan, Abbad, Bani Hamida, and Al-Da’jah, alongside Al-Huweitat, Al-Ajarmeh, Al-Adwan, Al-Sarhan, and other Jordanian tribes whose roots run deep into the earth and whose branches reach the sky, played a decisive role in safeguarding Jordan, maintaining order, and building the state.
From the very beginning, they protected trade routes, secured deserts, safeguarded villages and towns, and enforced civil peace, working in full parallel with the emergence of the Arab Army and the development of state institutions. These tribes were not forces outside the state; they were the state in its earliest social form. From them came officers and soldiers, leaders and administrators. And when governance stabilized, they handed over their natural role to state institutions without conflict, because their objective was never power or privilege, but a secure and viable homeland.
Thus emerged the unique Jordanian model: a modern state grounded in a disciplined army, professional institutions, and a socially conscious tribal fabric that chose to be the guardian of stability rather than its alternative, and a partner in construction rather than an obstacle to it. This is why Jordan remained resilient while others collapsed, because its roots were not anchored in authority alone, but in tribes that understood early on that the strength of the state was their strength, and that preserving the homeland was the highest form of honor.
The Jordanian state was never the possession of a single origin, nor the product of one group. It was the outcome of converging destinies on one land. From the earliest days, Jordanians of diverse backgrounds and origins contributed to building the state and protecting its security and stability, not as guests or temporary residents, but as full citizens in belonging.
Circassians and Chechens were among the first to establish towns, protect roads, and join early the army and security services, becoming models of discipline and loyalty to the emerging state.
Armenians contributed through their craftsmanship, professionalism, and skill to the economy, urban development, and administration, becoming a pillar of civil construction.
Jordanian Christians, the salt of the land, stood from the foundation as full partners in governance, parliament, the army, judiciary, and education, carrying the values of citizenship and moderation, and affirming that national identity is measured not by religion, but by commitment and belonging.
Thus took shape the distinctive Jordanian model: a state secure because its people, despite their varied origins, agreed on one homeland, one law, and one shared destiny. Diversity here was not a source of weakness, but a source of strength and stability, because everyone chose to be a partner in protection and construction, not a spectator to history.
In Jordan, national unity was never a slogan in a speech, nor a temporary compromise. It was the essence of the state and the core of its resilience. We do not define ourselves by origins, but by stance, belonging, and shared fate.
We are all Jordanians at home, bearing one indivisible state, one law without favoritism, and one flag that is never lowered. And we are all Palestinians abroad, carrying one cause that is neither negotiable nor delegable. Palestine was never the cause of “brothers” alone; it was always Jordan’s own cause: historically, geographically, existentially, and morally. History taught us this before politics. Our parents and grandparents instilled it long before books did.
Even in the era of the early Islamic conquests, this land was not fragmented by narrow identities. Jund Filastin extended south of the Dead Sea east and west, while Jund Al-Urdunn lay to the north, stretching east and west along the Jordan River to the Mediterranean coast.
Our elders used to tell us how traveling from Irbid to Nablus, or from Karak to Hebron, was far easier than traveling from Irbid to Karak. Geography and belief together seemed to declare that this land was one indivisible whole.
What binds us, therefore, is deeper than cherished symbols, deeper than Al-Faisaly and Al-Wehdat, deeper than mansaf and molokhia, deeper than red or black keffiyehs. What binds us is unity of history and unity of destiny in the face of a project that never ceased to target Jordan as it targeted Palestine.
From this deep understanding emerged Jordan’s role in Jerusalem, not as an act of solidarity, but as a sovereign, moral, and historical responsibility. The Hashemite custodianship over Islamic and Christian holy sites was never a political privilege nor a ceremonial title. It was a solemn trust carried since Sharif Hussein bin Ali, reinforced by Hashemite kings, and today stands as the first line of defense for Jerusalem’s Arab, Islamic, and Christian identity.
Jordan never stood neutral over Jerusalem. It never bargained, nor altered its constants. It defended Al-Aqsa Mosque, protected holy sites, and confronted attempts at Judaization, paying the political and economic price because it understands that abandoning Jerusalem is abandoning Jordanian identity itself.
Thus, when hostile projects attempted to manipulate identities within Jordan to fracture it from within, they failed, because this people understood early on that Palestine was not a burden on Jordan, but part of its self-definition, and that Jerusalem was not a distant symbol, but an unbreakable national compass.
This is how Jordan remained strong and cohesive: one state, one people, one position, aware that unity is not a political option, but a historical destiny, an irreversible fate, and a red line beyond testing.
My Son… Thougan The 1990s marked a phase of political realism, shaped by necessity and clouded by uncertainty. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of bipolar global order, the world changed rapidly, leaving little room for hesitation by small states.
Jordan entered the decade burdened by heavy pressures: a fragile economy, limited resources, an undeclared regional siege, and the repercussions of the Gulf War, which weakened its traditional alliances and strained its economic and political security. In this suffocating international environment, Jordanian leadership faced difficult choices, each costly, each carrying risk.
The decision to sign the 1994 peace treaty with Israel was not the product of illusionary trust, but the decision of a state seeking to secure its existence and protect its higher interests in a volatile region. Jordan understood, with hard realism, that the international balance of power did not favor absolute rejection, especially after the Palestinians themselves had signed the Oslo Accords the year before.
Remaining outside emerging arrangements risked exposing Jordan’s security and economy to pressures it could not bear. The treaty was seen as a means to regulate borders, secure water resources, curb forced displacement, protect Jordan’s role in Jerusalem, and manage the conflict through political tools rather than have force imposed upon it.
Yet Jordan entered this path without illusions of comprehensive peace, and without forgetting Israel’s history or its known ambitions in Jordan and Palestine. Both the state and the people were acutely aware that Israel would not abandon policies of domination or threats to Jordanian security and sovereignty when opportunities arose.
Thus, the treaty was never viewed as abandonment of Palestine, but as a forced management of conflict, while maintaining firm positions in support of Palestinian rights and rejecting resettlement or the alternative homeland.
Within this deep national debate, principled positions emerged from within the state itself, expressing concern over the ambiguity of the agreement and the limits of its guarantees.
Foremost among these was the resignation of Thougan Hindawi from the government of Dr. Abdul Salam Al-Majali. His resignation was not opposition to the state nor to its legitimacy, but a political and moral stance rooted in firm conviction that the agreement, by its structure and references, carried long-term strategic risks.
He believed that the ambiguity surrounding some of its provisions could later be used to pressure Jordan and threaten its security and historical role. Time would prove that these reservations were not pessimism nor political posturing, but early foresight and sober reading of a reality that did not fundamentally change.
Nearly three decades after the treaty, Israel continues its expansionist policies and persistent threats, direct and indirect, to Jordanian security, while evading ethical and political commitments. In this light, the value of recorded positions becomes clear, not as opposition, but as honest national testimony for history.
This is how the 1990s must be understood in the Jordanian narrative: a period in which the state chose harsh realism over reckless adventure, and in which statesmen recorded their positions with clarity, some bearing the weight of decision, others bearing the cost of dissent.
Despite all of this, Jordan remained faithful to its essence: a state that knows its limits, protects itself, and does not compromise its identity, even while walking the most difficult paths.
My Son… Thougan Parallel to the course of political and developmental state-building, the role of His Royal Highness Prince Hassan bin Talal emerged as the quiet mind of the state, a mind that worked patiently on the future, with foresight and depth, under the direct guidance of the late King Hussein bin Talal.
From the 1960s through the 1990s, Prince Hassan assumed a pivotal role in shaping and guiding Jordan’s path of sustainable economic and social development, laying the intellectual and institutional foundations for long-term planning in a country limited in resources yet vast in ambition. Comprehensive five-year and ten-year national development plans were conceived and implemented under his direction, patronage, and close follow-up.
Under this vision, schools, hospitals, universities, research centers, and intellectual forums were built, among them the Higher Council for Science and Technology, the Royal Scientific Society, Princess Sumaya University for Technology, and the Arab Thought Forum. Industries were established, cement, phosphate, potash, electricity, and others, alongside nationwide networks of roads, water, electricity, and communications, extending from one end of the country to the other, in service of both homeland and citizen.
His role was neither fleeting nor merely administrative. It was the role of a strategic intellect that sought to connect education with the economy, development with justice, and growth with sustainability. He contributed to launching intellectual and developmental initiatives aimed at building the human being before the structure, and at balancing the demands of the present with the rights of future generations.
At the same time, Prince Hassan became the voice of Jordanian wisdom to the world, and a global reference in interfaith and intercultural dialogue, defending the values of moderation and coexistence, and affirming that religion, at its core, is a bridge of communication, not an instrument of conflict.
In this role, he did not merely represent Jordan; he offered an ethical and intellectual model of a small state that believes its stature is built through reason and knowledge, just as it is built through principled positions.
With the passing of the torch, Prince Hassan remained steadfast in his unwavering support for the state’s journey, standing firmly behind His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and his reform and modernization project, and affirming his full support for the beloved Crown Prince, His Royal Highness Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II, as the natural extension of a Hashemite path founded on wisdom, continuity, and historical responsibility.
Thus, the picture was complete: a leadership that builds, a mind that plans, and an intellectual reference that safeguards the compass, so that Jordan may remain, as it has always been, a state of balance and prudence in a region where balance is rare and turmoil abundant.
My Son… Thougan When His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein assumed his constitutional powers in 1999, Jordan was not merely entering a new era; it was entering an entirely different century, a century of accelerated globalization, digital revolution, open-ended regional turbulence, and the collapse of long-held certainties.
He inherited a state that was politically stable, yet whose resources were underutilized, surrounded by a region that knew no calm. The greatest challenge before him was to preserve a delicate balance: to modernize the state without stripping it of its identity, to open Jordan to the world without dissolving into it, and to safeguard stability without freezing ambition.
He did not promise Jordanians miracles, nor did he sell them illusions. Instead, he chose the harder path, the path of building the state under pressure, not escaping reality. He led a demanding course of political, economic, and administrative modernization at a time when reform was not a luxury, but a condition for survival.
Over a quarter of a century, Jordan faced crises that, had they converged elsewhere, would have brought states to their knees: scarce energy, chronic water shortage, global financial crises, wars that shut down markets, and a geography that shifted from blessing to burden. Not a single year passed without a shock, Iraq, the Arab Spring, Syria, terrorism, COVID-19, the Russian-Ukrainian war, culminating in the most horrific crime of this era: genocide, war crimes, and forced displacement in Gaza.
And yet, Jordan did not break. It did not lose its compass. It did not bargain away its security or its dignity.
Reform in the Eye of the Storm
At the heart of the storm, and under His Majesty’s leadership and vision, the state did not freeze, it worked.
The Political Modernization Vision was launched to expand participation and build genuine party life. The constitution and laws governing parties, elections, and political life were amended, opening real pathways for youth and women, not as decorative slogans, but as an emerging political force.
The Economic Modernization Program was introduced to transform constraints into opportunities. The economy diversified, exports grew, and Jordanian industries emerged with global competitiveness, in pharmaceuticals, technology, mining, garments, and beyond. Major national projects, new cities, and infrastructure were launched despite relentless pressure.
Administrative modernization advanced through digital services and unified platforms, affirming that a strong state is measured by its ability to serve its citizens with efficiency, fairness, and dignity.
Not all ambitions were realized, my son, but the undeniable truth is that Jordan preserved its cohesion and avoided the collapse that struck states larger, stronger, and far wealthier.
Wisdom in a Burning Region
In a region ablaze, Jordan, under His Majesty’s leadership, was the voice of wisdom, not the noise of reckless adventure. It did not slide into chaos, nor did it export crises. It safeguarded internal security and social cohesion, and opened its doors to refugees with rare humanity, despite the heavy cost.
This was possible because leadership was calm, institutions were resilient, and the people were conscious, aware that the alternative to the state is not freedom, but chaos.
On the international stage, Jordan’s position was neither courtesy nor performance; it was a stance of necessity and conscience.
Jordan defended Palestine with constancy, warned against extremism, carried the message of moderation and dialogue, and stood firmly against injustice wherever it appeared.
Gaza: When Leadership Meets the Pulse of the People
This stance was most evident in Gaza, when Jordan spoke with absolute clarity: no to genocide, no to forced displacement, no to war crimes.
His Majesty raised his voice in every forum, without hesitation or ambiguity. Leadership aligned with the pulse of the street, and the national position unified. When His Majesty and the beloved Crown Prince returned home, millions of Jordanians filled the streets, chanting for their leader, welcoming him with flowers, in a spontaneous and sincere scene that told the world: here is a people who know their leader, and here is a leadership that speaks for its people.
The People as the Ultimate Anchor
Through all of this, my son, the Jordanian people remained the true pillar of their leadership and their homeland, rallying around it, standing firm with it, and holding on with unwavering resolve.
Whatever is said about governments, their leaders, personalities, policies, or performance, positively or negatively, the greatest achievement of this era has been the preservation of Jordanian social cohesion.
A society diverse in origin, limited in resources or constrained by circumstance, burdened by responsibilities, yet steadfast, proud of its state, and united around its leadership in the hardest moments. This unity was not born of fear, but of collective awareness: that the alternative to the state is not freedom, but chaos.
My Son… Thougan
When I look at Jordan today, I do not see a country without problems, nor do I present it to you, or your generation, as a perfect homeland. I present it as a story of continuous resilience.
The story of a small country that refused to be a victim of geography or politics, and chose instead to be an actor, despite all constraints.
This is my Jordanian narrative. I place it in your hands not so that you merely understand it, memorize it, or recite it, but so that you complete it, as your great-grandfather, your grandfather, myself, and the men of our time did.
Jordan, my son, was not created to be a memory. It is a project open to the future.
And if one day someone asks you: Why did Jordan endure?
Tell them: Because it has a narrative… and because its people, in every generation, chose to remain faithful to it. The narrative is complete, my son. And the responsibility has begun.
May God protect Jordan.
Dr. Ahmad Thougan Hindawi
My Son… Thougan
Nations are not measured only by the size of their land, nor defined solely by military strength or natural resources. Above all, nations are known by their narrative, by the story they tell about themselves and pass from one generation to the next, answering the essential questions: Who are we? How did we come to be? And why did we endure?
Jordan, my son, is not a country that appeared suddenly in history, nor a political entity drawn accidentally on the maps of victors. It is a long, continuous story, written by land and people, by civilization and mission, by tribe and state, by blood and patience, and by an identity that never broke.
You may have heard parts of this story from me before. Your grandfather, who shares your name, may have told you fragments of it. Perhaps you encountered pieces in a school textbook, an article, or a passing lecture. But in this humble attempt, I wanted to gather it for you into one narrative, not a claim of completeness, nor a monopoly over truth, but a personal vision: the vision of a Jordanian, a son of a tribe, a son of this land, and a father who fears that a story untold, or told by the wrong voices, may be lost. I write this narrative to you as a long letter, not a lecture; as a detailed story, not a rigid history lesson. It is a text that seeks to balance breadth with simplicity, precision with emotion, written history with living memory, memory preserved in the hearts of the men who made Jordan.
I will speak to you, my son, about Jordan from the time it was a cradle of human civilization, before borders were known, before flags were raised, before modern names were coined. I will tell you of a land that knew agriculture and bread before many others, that mastered trade, passage, and settlement, and that knew humanity before humanity itself understood the meaning of homeland. Then I will walk with you into Jordan as the land of divine messages, the land of prophets, of divine promise, of remembrance in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. A land through which Abraham passed, where God spoke to Moses, where Jesus was baptized, and where the final message of Muhammad, peace be upon them all, affirmed what came before.
We will pause, because pausing is a duty, at the Jordanian tribes: not merely as social structures, but as bearers of identity, pillars of independence, and the backbone of the state. We will tell how they resisted injustice, rejected subjugation, practiced politics before ministries existed, and paid a heavy price, blood, exile, and imprisonment, so that Jordan could be born free.
I will tell you the story of independence, not as it is condensed in official dates, but as it was lived by men who signed documents while in chains, who formed governments under occupation, who paid for their positions with execution and exile, and who then returned, along with their children and grandchildren, to build a state instead of seeking revenge.
And I will walk with you through the journey of the modern state: from foundation, to wars, to institution-building, to Jordan’s resilience in the face of storms, until we reach our present day, the Jordan we live in now, with its achievements and its challenges, with its leadership, and with your generation.
My Son… I write this because I believe that whoever does not own their narrative will have their history stolen by others. Whoever does not tell their story to their children will find those children believing the stories of others, some honest but incomplete, which is natural and acceptable; and others dishonest, ignorant, corrupt, opportunistic, or theatrical, people who do not even possess a narrative of their own, yet dare to fabricate a narrative for a nation.
I write this for you so that you may know: Jordan was never a burden on its people, nor a gift from anyone. It was a trust carried by Jordanians, protected, and handed down from generation to generation. This is not a story of a past that ended. It is the story of a homeland still being written. And now, Thougan, I place it in your hands, to read, to preserve, and to complete.
My Son… Thougan When we return to the history of Jordan, we do not return to the birth of a state, but to the birth of humanity itself. Jordan, my son, is not a page in a history book, it is a chapter in the book of human civilization. Thousands of years before Christ, when humans began searching for a safe place to settle, the highlands and valleys east of the Jordan River were among the first lands to embrace them. At Ain Ghazal, we do not merely find an archaeological site; we encounter a silent civilizational revolution, the transition from hunting to agriculture, from nomadism to settlement, from cave to village.
The plaster statues with their piercing eyes, single-headed and double-headed, dating back more than nine thousand years, represent the earliest artistic expression of human self-awareness. Here, humanity learned to cultivate wheat and barley, to store food, to bake bread, and to organize society. Here, the idea of homeland was born, long before the word itself existed.
As societies evolved over thousands of years before Christ, settlement developed into political entities. The Kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, and Edom emerged on Jordanian land, known in ancient texts as Ha’ardanim, the land beyond the Jordan River. These were not marginal kingdoms; they played central roles in trade between the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, controlled major routes, and engaged in regional alliances and conflicts. Here, the ancient Jordanian learned politics, alliance-building, and the defense of land.
Then came a great turning point: the Nabataeans, the first organized Arab state, centuries before and after Christ. Arabs who came from the depth of the Arabian Peninsula, they did not merely pass through; they built a complete state. Petra became a political capital, a global trade center, and a masterpiece of water engineering, financial management, and urban planning. Rock was carved not for ornament, but as a declaration of political and civilizational identity. The Nabataeans taught the world how to build a state in the desert, how geography can become economic power, and how Arab identity can be a civilization, not merely a tribe. When the Romans annexed the region, Jordan became an open city for centuries, not erased, but integrated. In Jerash, Umm Qais, and Philadelphia (Amman), cities rose with councils, theaters, and planned streets. Jordan became part of the civilized world, not its periphery.
My Son… When we say Jordan is ancient, we do not mean ancient stones, we mean the continuity of human presence. Civilizations came and went, but the land remained Jordanian, and its role remained central: a cradle of settlement, a bridge of civilization, a meeting point rather than a battlefield.
This continuity explains why, when the era of the modern state arrived, the Jordanian was not alien to the meaning of homeland. It was a natural extension of a long history of awareness of land and identity.
My Son… Thougan If places possess memory, then Jordan’s memory is not made only of stone and inscription, but of revelation that passed through this land, settled in it, and left an enduring mark on history and conscience. Jordan was never a neutral stage for the heavenly messages; it was part of a precise divine wisdom, a deliberate choice of place, just as time and people are chosen.
Here, in the heart of Greater Syria, where continents meet, routes intersect, and the distance between heaven and earth narrows, this land was prepared to be a land of prophethood, a land of trial, and a land of blessing.
God tells us in the Holy Qur’an that He saved Abraham and Lot, peace be upon them, to the land which He blessed for all people. From that moment, Jordan entered, geographically and historically, the core of the divine narrative of monotheism. Abraham, peace be upon him, passed through this land during his great journey: a journey from idolatry to faith, from fear to certainty. His passage was not incidental, but foundational. The blessing attributed to this land was not a blessing of stillness, but a blessing of preparation for the messages yet to come.
On this land as well, Lot, peace be upon him, lived and confronted his people, and God saved him from their tyranny, an early scene linking Jordan to the moral idea of salvation in the face of oppression.
Then came the moment of Moses, peace be upon him, a moment heavy with meaning and profound in symbolism. On Jordanian land, specifically on Mount Nebo, the journey of a prophet who led his people through forty years of wandering came to an end. Moses stood there, saw with his own eyes the land he had been promised, then surrendered his soul. Thus, this land became witness to one of the greatest lessons of prophethood: that leadership is duty, not entitlement.
On the banks of the Jordan River, water itself acquired a new meaning in human religious history. Here, at Al-Maghtas, Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, was baptized, and from here his message began, one that would change the face of the world. The choice of place was not incidental. It affirmed Jordan’s centrality in early Christianity. That is why the world’s churches, the Vatican, and UNESCO recognized this Jordanian site as the authentic location of the baptism of Christ. Jordan here was not a passage, it was the beginning of a universal message.
Then came the final message, that of Muhammad ﷺ, which did not erase what came before it, but confirmed it. Jordan’s presence became clearer in meaning and place. God says in the verse of Al-Isra’: “To Al-Aqsa Mosque, whose surroundings We have blessed.” And in the story of the People of the Cave mentioned in the Qur’an, Jordan appears once again as a refuge of faith in times of oppression, young men who fled with their belief and found in this land shelter and divine protection. As if history repeats itself: whenever faith is constricted elsewhere, this land expands to contain it.
My Son… Thougan After Jordan had been a passage for prophets and a recipient of blessing, there came a time when faith became action rather than words, and belief was tested on the battlefield. On this land, decisive battles were fought in Islamic history, not for plunder, nor for expansion of power, but in defense of a message meant to be conveyed with integrity.
At Mu’tah, Zaid bin Harithah carried the banner of Islam and fell as a martyr. Then Ja’far bin Abi Talib carried it, fought until his arms were severed, embraced the banner with his shoulders, and fell as a martyr. Then Abdullah bin Rawahah followed, firm of heart, until he met God. Three commanders, three martyrs, on the same day, on Jordanian land, as if from that moment it was destined to be the land of dignity.
Then came Yarmouk. Khalid bin Al-Walid, the Sword of God, led a battle that did not merely redraw borders, but changed the course of history, where faith, military genius, and organization triumphed over imperial numbers. The eastern Mediterranean opened, and the illusion that power alone determines destiny collapsed.
At Fihl (Pella), Shurahbil bin Hasana and his companions consolidated the conquest, not as a fleeting advance, but as a project of justice and governance.
Jordan was not only a battlefield; it became the resting place of great men. In its soil lived and died Abu Ubaidah Amer bin Al-Jarrah, the Trustworthy One of this nation. Shurahbil bin Hasana and other companions were buried here. The land thus bore witness that the message did not merely pass through, it settled, nourished by pure blood.
For this reason, when the era of tribes, then revolution, then state arrived, the Jordanian was never foreign to the meaning of sacrifice. A land that knew Mu’tah and Yarmouk knows how to give birth to men who carry the banner, until the very end.
My Son… When you read all of this, you understand that Jordan was never outside the sacred narrative, nor on the margins of divine messages. It was part of their logic and their path. Whoever lives on land walked by prophets and saturated with blessing cannot be alien to sacrifice, to justice, or to the rejection of oppression.
That is why, when we reach the era of revolution, independence, and statehood in this narrative, we will understand that what Jordanians did was not an anomaly in their history, but a natural extension of a land that learned, thousands of years ago, to stand with truth, whatever the cost.
My Son… Thougan To understand why Jordan was born as a state, you must first understand why it could no longer remain without one. History, my son, does not create political entities suddenly. It prepares the ground for them when oppression accumulates until eruption becomes a moral necessity.
By the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire had entered political old age. It was no longer the state that had carried the banner of the Caliphate for centuries, nor the power that unified much of the Islamic world. Gradually, it became a confused entity, pulled by European pressures from outside and eaten away by internal conflict.
Then came the Committee of Union and Progress, not as a genuine reform project, but as a coup against the very spirit of the state. It raised slogans of modernization, but practiced the harshest forms of Turkification and exclusion. Arabs were no longer partners in the state; they became burdens in the eyes of the new authority. Their language was removed from administration, their history marginalized, their thought monitored, and anyone who called for dignity or reform was persecuted.
Oppression was not theoretical, it was lived reality. Executions in the squares of Damascus and Beirut, prisons, exile, the confiscation of newspapers, and the criminalization of thought before action. Greater Syria, including Transjordan, bore a heavy share of this late injustice.
My Son… Thougan Thus, the closure of newspapers was not an administrative measure, nor were executions exceptional actions, they were a systematic policy to silence an entire identity. When words are shut down, peoples are left with action.
Peoples may endure oppression for a long time, my son, but they do not forget. They may tolerate injustice, but they do not accept the erasure of their identity. Here, Arab consciousness began to form, not as blind tribalism, but as a political and moral right. Arab societies emerged, intellectual elites mobilized, and the great question arose: Can a state survive while denying its people their language and dignity?
In this historical context, Sharif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and descendant of the Prophet’s household, emerged, not as a political adventurer, but as a man of his moment. He did not raise the banner of revolution in pursuit of power, but in defense of Arab dignity and the right to self-rule within a just state.
He entered into correspondence with the British High Commissioner Henry McMahon, known historically as the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence, seeking recognition of Arab independence in return for confronting Ottoman injustice. Despite the betrayals that would later follow, these letters represented the first modern political document calling for comprehensive Arab independence, not partial reforms or symbolic privileges.
In 1916, the Great Arab Revolt was launched, not as a fleeting rebellion, but as a revolution with a project: freedom, independence, and unity of Arab land.
Here, my son, Transjordan entered a new phase of its history. This land was neither distant from the revolt nor a mere observer. It was part of its geography and its people. Revolutionary forces passed through its south, found support among its tribes, strategic depth in its routes, and a natural understanding of freedom among its people.
When Aqaba was liberated in 1917, it was not merely a military victory. It was the breaking of political geography and the opening of a northern route toward Arab Damascus.
But history, as we later learned, is not straight. While Arabs fought for independence, the great powers were drawing other maps. Secret agreements and contradictory promises, Sykes–Picot in 1916 and the ominous Balfour Declaration in 1917, a promise from one who does not own to one who does not deserve, as your grandfather described it.
Yet the moment of revolution was not wasted. It planted in the consciousness of this land an irreversible truth: freedom is not granted, it is taken; and the state is not a gift, but the fruit of long struggle.
My Son… Thougan Thus, my son, the Great Arab Revolt was not born of emptiness, nor was it a moment of emotional rebellion. It was a historical response to historical oppression. When Ottoman authority collapsed in this region after the end of the First World War in 1918, it was not merely the fall of a governing system, it was the collapse of a long-standing illusion: that injustice could last forever.
Yet when the war ended, Transjordan did not become a political vacuum, nor a land without awareness. The absence left behind by the Ottoman administration was administrative, not national. Jordanians quickly filled it through their national leaderships and self-initiated efforts to govern and organize, rooted in a society that had managed its own affairs long before the rise of centralized modern states.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Jordanian national consciousness was already taking shape, organized and active. In 1910, early Jordanian leaders contributed to the establishment of the first Jordanian national political movement: the Jordanian Independence Party, an extension of the Independence Party in Syria that the French Mandate later dissolved in Damascus.
Among the founders of this national current was your great-grandfather, Salem Pasha Hindawi, one of Jordan’s prominent leaders of that era. This movement brought together men from across the country: Hussein Pasha Al-Tarawneh from Karak, Abdul Qader Ahmad Al-Tal from Irbid, Suleiman Pasha Al-Soudi Al-Rousan from Bani Kinana, Rashid Pasha Al-Khaza’i Al-Freihat from Ajloun, Naji Pasha Al-Azzam from Irbid, Ali Khulqi Pasha Al-Sharari, Majid Pasha Al-Adwan, Mithqal Pasha Al-Fayez, Abdul Rahman Irshidat, and Kaed Al-Muflih Al-Ubaidat, who would later be martyred on Palestinian soil, becoming the first Jordanian martyr there, a wreath of honor passed down from generation to generation. These were not merely names. They were the early architects of Jordanian political consciousness.
After the Ottoman collapse in 1918, this awareness moved from political organization to administrative action. In northern Jordan, specifically in Ajloun, a local government was formed in 1920, known historically as the Ajloun Government. It was the first practical attempt to manage people’s affairs independently of any external authority.
In Deir Youssef, near Irbid, another local government emerged, responsible for security, tribal judiciary functions, resource management, and village protection. These were not states in the legal sense, but they were early declarations of rejecting both chaos and foreign guardianship, clear proof that Jordanian society was capable of governing itself.
My Son… Thougan The Um Qais Conference: When Jordanian Will Spoke the Language of Independence. In the spring of 1920, on the edge of history and geography, one of the most honorable and consequential political gatherings in modern Jordanian history took place in the town of Um Qais in northern Jordan. It is a moment your generation must know, understand, and fully grasp.
This was not a casual meeting of local notables, nor a spontaneous reaction to unfolding events. It was early, conscious awareness, translating what Jordanians carried in their hearts into a written, unmistakable political position. There, the Um Qais Document was born, not as a protest statement, but as a comprehensive national program that outlined the contours of independence a quarter of a century before the state was formally declared.
The document’s clauses were bold for their time, direct in language, and advanced beyond their regional and international context. It demanded the establishment of an independent Arab national government in Transjordan, rejected the Mandate in all its forms, categorically refused the Balfour Declaration, rejected the transformation of Palestine into a Jewish national homeland, and demanded the prevention of Zionist immigration.
It affirmed that political legitimacy does not originate from external decisions, but from the will of the local population, and that any authority lacking the people’s consent is morally and nationally illegitimate. This was not a list of demands, it was a declaration of sovereignty before sovereignty existed.
The document was signed by leading Jordanian sheikhs and figures, representing their tribes and communities, in the first organized collective expression of Jordanian political will. Among them were Ali Khulqi Pasha Al-Sharari, your great-grandfather Salem Pasha Hindawi, Naji Pasha Al-Azzam, Suleiman Pasha Al-Soudi Al-Rousan, Rashid Pasha Al-Khaza’i Al-Freihat, Mohammed AlHmoud, Saad Al-Ali Al-Battayneh, Abdul Rahman Irshidat, Turki Kayed Al-Ubaidat, Odeh Al-Qassous, and others.
They did not sign as individuals, but as trustees of a rising collective consciousness, aware of what it wanted, aware of what it rejected, and unafraid to say so.
The significance of the Um Qais Document lies in the fact that it planted the seeds of independence when doing so was costly and dangerous. It bridged awareness and organization, tribe and state, local action and national demand. From it flowed a chain of positions, conferences, governments, trials, exile, and imprisonment, culminating in the Fifth Legislative Council and Independence Day on 25 May 1946. For this reason, the Um Qais Document is not a page in a book. It is the cornerstone of Jordanian political memory.
And so, my son, Jordanian national memory has a duty to preserve the names of the Um Qais signatories, not because they stood alone, but because they were the first to dare write the words “we want” in the name of Jordan. Those who do not remember the sowers have no right to boast of the harvest.
My Son… Thougan While Britain sought to arrange an administrative framework that would secure its influence, Jordanians were already moving one step further ahead. In 1921, the Jordanian Independence Party formed the first central government in Transjordan, headed by Rashid Talie’, by mandate of Prince Abdullah bin Al-Hussein, despite clear British opposition to the formation of such a government because of the party’s nationalist orientation and its founders’ explicit call for independence.
Though short-lived, that government was a bold political step. It was formed without recognition from the British Mandate and sought to establish the foundations of a state, not merely a local administration. It was quickly confronted by firm British rejection, precisely because it represented an unmistakable independence-oriented direction.
By the late 1920s, when the 1928 Treaty was imposed, severely restricting Jordanian sovereignty, the national movement responded by organizing the Jordanian National Conferences of 1928, 1929, and 1930. These conferences demanded an elected parliament, a nationally accountable government, and a genuine end to the Mandate. Such a level of national organization was intolerable to colonial authority. The response was harsh.
In 1937, amid the escalation of the Great Palestinian Revolt, widespread arrests and trials were launched against northern Jordanian leaders. They were accused of supporting the Palestinian revolt with men, funds, and weapons; attempting to overthrow the Mandate government; cutting communication lines; and burning government buildings.
Death sentences were issued against several of these leaders, among them Mohammad Ali Beik Al-Ajlouni, Salem Pasha Hindawi, Suleiman Pasha Al-Soudi Al-Rousan, and Rashid Pasha Al-Khaza’i Al-Freihat, among others. They fled to Syria, were tried in absentia, later handed over to British Mandate authorities, and imprisoned in Aqaba in preparation for execution. From there, they managed to escape to the Arabian Peninsula, where they remained for three years. In 1941, Prince Abdullah I issued a special pardon, allowing them to return to the homeland and resume political life.
This moment was not merely a legal event, it was a moral one. It demonstrated that Jordan’s political struggle was not driven by vengeance, but by responsibility. Those who had faced execution returned not to settle scores, but to build a state. At the heart of this era emerged a rare ethical model in public life, embodied by your great-uncle Qasem Beik Hindawi. In his renowned speech at the Jordanian People’s Conference of 1933, he warned clearly of the Zionist danger and called for genuine readiness to sacrifice in defense of the land.
Then, in 1934, he resigned from the government of Ibrahim Hashem, a rare precedent, declaring that remaining in office when it no longer served the nation was an added calamity upon the people. He offered an early lesson that politics is, before all else, a matter of conscience, not power.
Time, Thougan, was working in favor of the idea, not against it. The exiled leaders returned. They ran in the elections of the Fifth Legislative Council, won the confidence of the people, and it was they themselves who would later declare independence.
On 25 May 1946, they proclaimed the independence of the country and the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Independence was not a sudden moment. It was the fruit of a long journey of awareness, organization, and sacrifice, a journey in which the state was formed in the collective conscience before it was declared on paper.
My Son… Thougan When we remember independence, we are not recalling a date on a calendar, nor celebrating an administrative decision. We are summoning entire lifetimes spent cheaply for the sake of the homeland.
We remember men who were true to their covenant, who gave everything they had, and paid prices that were neither easy nor brief: blood, sweat, and tears; resistance and confrontation; prison, exile, and displacement; and martyrdom for those who chose the path to its very end.
Independence was not a moment of triumph, it was the culmination of decades of silent and open struggle, carried by tribes, led by national leaderships, accumulated through documents, conferences, prisons, and exile, until the moment matured… and freedom arrived.
On the morning of Saturday, 25 May 1946, at exactly eight o’clock, the Fifth Jordanian Legislative Council convened its third extraordinary session, an exceptional moment in the nation’s history, dedicated to discussing the collective will of the Jordanian people for full liberation and independence from the British Mandate.
This was no ceremonial session. Its words were not scripted in advance. It was an authentic expression of a people who had paid dearly for their freedom and dignity, and who had supported the Palestinian struggle against injustice and aggression, grounded in international principles and the inherent right of peoples to self-determination.
After deliberations heavy with historical responsibility, the Fifth Legislative Council unanimously issued its decisive declaration: Jordan is a fully independent, sovereign state, a hereditary constitutional monarchy with parliamentary governance, and allegiance is pledged to the leader of the country and founder of its entity, heir to the Arab renaissance, Prince Abdullah bin Al-Hussein, as constitutional King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
With this decision, not only was a state declared, the chapter of the Mandate was closed forever, and the chapter of national sovereignty was opened by the will of the people’s representatives, not by external decree.
To honor the magnitude of the moment, the Legislative Council selected four of its members, representing the regions of the country, to convey the nation’s decision to the founding leader and pledge allegiance on behalf of all Jordanians: Majid Pasha Al-Adwan – representing Balqa, Ma’arek Pasha Al-Majali – representing Karak, Salem Pasha Hindawi – representing Ajloun, Hamad Pasha Al-Jazi – representing Ma’an / the Badia
They were not merely names in official minutes. They were the culmination of a long tribal and national struggle. They carried the people’s decision and delivered it to King Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein, the founding monarch, inaugurating the era of the independent state, one that had been built in consciousness before it was proclaimed in law.
My Son… Thougan When Jordan’s independence was declared on 25 May 1946, that day did not mark the end of a struggle, it marked the beginning of the hardest test the young state would face. Nations, my son, are not measured by the moment of their birth, but by their ability to endure when storms rise around them.
When your great-grandfather and his peers, members of the Fifth Legislative Council, proclaimed the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and pledged allegiance to King Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein as a constitutional monarch, His Majesty was not an accidental ruler. He was a seasoned statesman, shaped in the heart of the Great Arab Revolt, carrying a clear project: to build an independent Arab state capable of survival in a region that shows little mercy to the weak.
Independence came at a moment of extreme regional complexity. The British Mandate was withdrawing in form, yet its influence remained. At the same time, the region stood on the brink of a political earthquake whose epicenter was Palestine.
Barely two years after independence, the 1948 war erupted, a war that tested not only armies, but the legitimacy of newly formed Arab states and their capacity for action. Jordan entered the war with an army that was not the largest in number, but the most organized and disciplined: the Arab Army.
This army was not assembled hastily. It was the result of years of training, organization, and a clear doctrine: that the soldier does not defend a regime, but a land, a dignity, and an identity. The Arab Army fought decisive battles in Jerusalem, Latrun, and Bab Al-Wad, playing a critical role in defending and preserving East Jerusalem as Arab land, through military action, not declarations. In a time marked by widespread Arab failures, the Jordanian military role stood out for its cohesion and realism.
Yet the war was neither pure victory nor total defeat, it was an open wound. A ceasefire was imposed, borders changed, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees flowed into Jordan. Suddenly, Jordan was not only a newly independent state, but a state carrying a cause larger than its resources.
After the war, a new political reality emerged. The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, came under Jordanian administration. This reality was later formalized through the Unity of the Two Banks in 1950, a political decision that reflected the Jordanian leadership’s understanding of the shared destiny of the two peoples.
The decision was controversial regionally and internationally, but in the Jordanian context it was not an act of expansion. It was an assumption of responsibility, taken at the request of the people concerned. Jordan never viewed Palestine as a bargaining chip, but as its own cause, one of justice, existence, and moral obligation.
On 20 July 1951, tragedy struck. King Abdullah I was assassinated at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. In the two weeks preceding this assassination, your great-grandfather Salem Pasha Hindawi was assassinated in the tribal guesthouse in Na’imeh, and Riad Al-Solh, Prime Minister of Lebanon, was assassinated in Amman.
Three national Arab leaders were killed within two weeks, likely by the same hand of treachery that sought to bury their Arab-national vision at a moment of extreme regional volatility. The assassination of King Abdullah was not an isolated internal event, but the direct result of international conspiracies, overlapping conflicts, and competing regional projects. With his death, Jordan lost the founder of its state at a time when it was still consolidating its foundations.
King Talal bin Abdullah ascended the throne in a brief but deeply consequential reign. During his rule, the 1952 Constitution was drafted, later recognized as one of the most progressive constitutions in the Arab world. It enshrined constitutional monarchy, separation of powers, and citizens’ rights.
Though illness did not grant King Talal time, his constitutional legacy endured, forming the legal backbone of the modern Jordanian state.
We also remember the men and women of the nation who contributed to drafting the constitution and the foundational laws of the Kingdom, among them Ibrahim Hashem, Suleiman Touqan, Abdul Rahman Irshidat, Ali Hindawi, Dhaifallah Al-Hmoud, and Emily Bisharat.
My Son… Between 1946 and 1951, Jordan lived what many nations experience over decades: independence, war, mass displacement, unity, assassination, and constitutional birth. And yet, the state did not collapse. It emerged from those harsh years more resilient and more conscious of the meaning of survival.
When the late King Hussein bin Talal, may God rest his soul, ascended the throne in 1952, he did not inherit a stable country. He assumed leadership of a young state, surrounded by storms, recently independent, burdened by war, and exposed to merciless regional conflicts.
The early years of his reign were a true test of statehood itself. The army was still being built, the economy was limited in resources, and Arab politics were deeply polarized, between unity projects, revolutionary rhetoric, and military coups. The 1950s became years of consolidating sovereignty and national decision-making.
In the mid-1950s, Jordan took one of its most decisive sovereign steps: ending British military presence and Arabizing the command of the Arab Army in 1956. This was not an administrative move, but a declaration of genuine independence over military and political decision-making.
With this decision, the Arab Army became fully national, led by Jordanian officers, most notably Radi Annab and Habis Al-Majali, who would later become a national military symbol, especially after the Battle of Karameh.
My Son… Thougan From the early 1950s onward, the challenge facing Jordan was no longer merely building state institutions, it was protecting the very idea of the state itself. Jordan was a small, resource-limited country in a region boiling with coups, transnational ideologies, and slogans that denied borders and the sovereignty of small nations. Political decision-making was not a luxury; it was a risk. Public office was not prestige, it was exposure to sacrifice.
In this context emerged Hazza’ Al-Majali as Prime Minister in the late 1950s, representing the firm face of the state that refused to gamble with Jordan’s security and independence. He was clear in position, decisive in action, and convinced that independence paid for dearly could not be managed through appeasement or hesitation.
When he was assassinated in 1960 in his office, the attack was not aimed at a man alone, it was an attempt to strike the authority of the Jordanian state at a critical moment of consolidating sovereignty.
Jordan did not break. Pain turned into awareness, and grief into determination. The country emerged from the tragedy with a bitter but decisive lesson: the path of statehood is paved with sacrifice, and national decision-making may demand the blood of great men.
My Son… Thougan Jordan entered the 1960s carrying a heavy burden. The state had stabilized its foundations, but the region around it was unraveling. Then came the 1967 war, swift and devastating. Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and with that loss came a wound that has never fully healed.
The loss was painful, but the state did not collapse. Society did not disintegrate. Instead, the most dangerous question emerged, one that struck at the heart of existence itself: How do you protect Jordan while carrying Palestine within your heart and your reality at the same time? The answer was not theoretical. It was forged in action.
In March 1968, the Battle of Karameh took place, a moment that became a psychological and political turning point. The Jordanian Arab Army confronted invading Israeli forces, inflicted heavy losses, and forced them to withdraw.
Karameh was not a conventional military victory measured by territory gained. It was a victory of dignity, morale, and will. It proved that the Jordanian soldier could fight, defend his land, and stand firm. In a period when Arab despair ran deep, Karameh restored belief, not only to Jordan, but to the wider Arab conscience.
Then came September 1970, the most dangerous moment in the modern history of the Jordanian state. The threat was no longer external alone, it was existential. Weapons beyond state control, immense regional pressure, and a sharp collision between the logic of the state and the logic of revolutionary chaos.
In those heavy days, decisions were taken that were painful, costly, and unavoidable. The choice was clear: protect the state first, because the collapse of the state would mean the collapse of all causes, foremost among them the Palestinian cause itself.
Jordan emerged from September wounded, but intact. It emerged having confirmed a harsh but decisive truth: the state is not an emotional slogan, but a moral and historical responsibility that does not tolerate hesitation.
From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, this meaning was embodied once again in Wasfi Al-Tal, a statesman of rare clarity. He was firm, honest in a time of bargaining, and deeply convinced that Jordan was a final state, not a temporary phase.
He believed that self-reliance was the foundation of dignity and sovereignty. When Wasfi Al-Tal was assassinated in Cairo in 1971, his killing was not an isolated act. It was another attempt to destabilize a state that had chosen order when chaos appeared easier. Yet again, Jordan did not fall. Blood did not turn into revenge, nor grief into disorder. Instead, the meaning of the state became more deeply rooted. It became clear that Jordan does not rest on individuals, no matter how great, but on values they plant, and on a people who understood that the alternative to the state is not freedom, but loss.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, modern Jordanian consciousness was forged not in comfort, but in fire; not in slogans, but in trial. What Wasfi Al-Tal and Hazza’ Al-Majali planted in integrity, discipline, honesty, and moral courage remains alive in the conscience of the state, and will remain so, as long as Jordan understands the meaning of men who place the homeland above themselves.
Between 1951 and 1999, Jordan did not build skyscrapers or empires. It built a state that knew its limits, understood its role, and protected its people. This long era taught Jordanians that survival is not accidental, it is a daily, difficult decision. Despite what is said about corruption that touched some who passed through public office, Jordanian memory retains names that resist distortion, because they were written not in ink, but in stance. Men who carried the state as a trust, not a prize, and who left office without wealth, privilege, or unanswered questions.
At the forefront of these was Wasfi Al-Tal, who entered power and left it with clean hands and unwavering conviction, paying with his life for his belief that the state cannot be governed through compromise.
Alongside him stood Thougan Hindawi, a living example of how education, knowledge, and culture can serve as the conscience of power. He led public service for decades, then returned quietly to his people, his family, and his books, without losing self-respect, divine approval, or the love and respect of the people.
Beside them stood Falah Al-Madadha, Fadel Al-Dalqamouni, Dhaifallah Al-Hmoud, Trad Al-Qadi, Mohammad Ouda Al-Qar’an, Mohammad Al-Saqqaf, Marwan Al-Hmoud, and many others, men of state who believed that integrity, honesty, uprightness, and honor were the true ceiling of public service, beyond law and regulation. They left office as they entered it, quietly, without gain or spectacle, leaving behind clean legacies that require no defense.
To recall these names today is not nostalgia, nor an attempt to highlight others’ mistakes. It is a reminder that this homeland, despite all its setbacks, produced exemplary men who understood responsibility as a moral test before it was a position, and whose names stand as proof that integrity was, and remains, possible.
My Son… Parallel to the integrity and uprightness of those men, Jordan waged, between the 1960s and the 1990s, one of its greatest and most successful quiet battles: the battle of education and health, as the solid foundation for building both the human being and the state.
During those decisive decades, education was neither a luxury nor a secondary option. It was a sovereign decision, taken with early awareness, when the state placed universal basic education and the entrenchment of free schooling at the very top of national priorities. The school network expanded across cities, villages, and the desert alike, culminating in a bold decision: to build a school in every population cluster with ten students or more, a clear message that education is a right, not a favor, and that knowledge is neither monopolized nor postponed.
This path was reinforced under Ministers of Education who carried the national project before the headlines, foremost among them your grandfather, Zouqan Hindawi, a name so deeply intertwined with education that it became part of Jordan’s national memory. He remains the most devoted Minister of Education in Jordan’s history, and the educational leader who led curriculum reform, built the national school, strengthened identity through education, and connected knowledge to public consciousness rather than rote memorization. He thus rightfully earned the title by which many still know him: “The Father of Education in Jordan.”
Under his stewardship, the school was not a warehouse for information, but a space for character formation, the consolidation of belonging, and the fortification of awareness. This vision was clearly reflected in his book “The Palestinian Cause”, which he embedded in the curriculum not as an exam subject, but as a matter of consciousness and identity.
With the arrival of the 1980s, Jordanian education entered a phase of qualitative expansion. Modern educational administration took root, secondary education expanded, and this growth coincided with the rise of higher education and the establishment of national universities, foremost among them the University of Jordan, the mother of universities, followed by Yarmouk University and the Jordan University of Science and Technology, alongside the creation of Al-Hussein Youth City.
All of this unfolded within a state vision that did not treat education as a service delivered, nor youth as passive recipients, but as national wealth and future sovereignty.
During this period, Jordan ranked first in the Arab world in educational quality and literacy rates relative to population, and among the leading countries globally in qualitative education indicators. It became a producer and exporter of knowledge, not merely a consumer of it. Thousands of Jordanian teachers were dispatched to sister Arab states, where they contributed to building educational systems and advancing administrative, economic, and scientific development. The Jordanian teacher became, in those classrooms, an ambassador of his homeland, a model of seriousness, discipline, and moderation.
The impact of this achievement did not stop at the regional level. It earned high international recognition, when prestigious global universities, foremost among them the University of Cambridge, honored the Jordanian educational experience by establishing scholarships bearing the name Zouqan Hindawi, in recognition of his pioneering role in educational reform and the influence that extended beyond national borders into the global educational sphere.
Thus, education during those decades was not merely one sector among others. It was a project of renaissance, sovereignty, and soft power, one of the pillars of Jordanian stability, and a luminous proof that when this nation wagers on the human being, it prevails.In health, transformation began in the 1970s, evolving from limited services into a national healthcare system. This accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s under physician-statesmen, foremost among them Dr. Abdul Salam Al-Majali, whose name became linked to modernizing healthcare infrastructure, developing public hospitals, and institutionalizing medical training. Under his leadership, King Hussein Medical City emerged as one of the most prominent medical institutions in the Arab world.
Subsequent Ministers of Health focused on preventive medicine, expanding health centers, and ensuring equitable access, aligning Jordan’s healthcare sector with international standards.
Thus, the advancement of education and health was not the product of abundance or circumstance, but the result of a deliberate state choice sustained over decades, rooted in the belief that an educated, healthy citizen is the deepest line of defense for stability and sovereignty.
And so the saying of the builder King became ingrained: “The human being is our most precious asset.”
My Son… Thougan While the region around Jordan boiled with coups, wars, and shifting alliances, decision-making in Jordan was never impulsive. It was the product of a royal mind that surrounded itself with men who understood politics as a historical responsibility rather than fleeting cleverness.
Samir Al-Rifai was among the earliest to help entrench an institutional approach to governance in the years following independence. He contributed to shaping a balanced diplomatic posture and anchoring internal legitimacy at a time when the Arab environment was volatile and unforgiving.
Bahjat Al-Talhouni later emerged as a voice of wisdom during some of the most sensitive moments in Jordan’s modern history, particularly in the aftermath of the wars of 1967 and 1973. His presence provided internal balance and helped the state avoid reckless adventures whose costs would have been unbearable.
Zaid Al-Rifai distinguished himself during the Cold War era, managing complex regional and international balances while safeguarding the independence of Jordanian decision-making amid intense polarization and pressure.
At the heart of decision-making, The Royal Hashemite Court, Sharif/ Prince Zaid Bin Shaker, Thougan Hindawi and Adnan Abu Odeh served as strategic minds, witnesses to and shapers of pivotal moments in the management of the state internally and in the administration of the Arab–Israeli conflict. They helped articulate a rational Jordanian discourse at times when emotion threatened to overwhelm judgment.
Alongside them, Dr. Abdul Salam Al-Majali, Marwan Al-Qassem, and Dr. Kamel Abu Jaber quietly and professionally managed sensitive diplomatic channels, conveying Jordan’s balanced position to influential capitals.
Then came Taher Al-Masri, who embodied a different political school, one grounded in listening to society and respecting pluralism. When he led the government in 1991, during the return of parliamentary life and political openness, his voice supported reform and guided democratic transition without confrontation or chaos.
These were not solitary decision-makers, but minds of state working alongside an exceptional leader. Through their counsel and experience, Jordan emerged time and again from a burning region with the least possible losses and the greatest measure of dignity and sovereignty.
If politics is tested at turning points, then soldiering is tested when the homeland becomes heavier than life itself. There, the Arab Army wrote its most honest chapter.
In 1948, Jerusalem was not a slogan, it was a position defended by arms. Habis Pasha Al-Majali led the battles of Latrun and Bab Al-Wad, halting the Israeli advance toward the city and securing East Jerusalem as Arab land through military action, not statements. Across the battlefronts of the West Bank, Jordanian positions held firm at moments when collapse seemed imminent. Then came Karameh in 1968, not as a morale speech but as a complete battle. Habis Al-Majali and Mashhour Haditha Al-Jazi led Jordanian forces that forced the Israeli army to withdraw, leaving behind destroyed equipment, marking its first genuine battlefield retreat.
In the October War of 1973, Khaled Al-Hajjaj Al-Majali, the armored warfare tactician, prevented enemy counter-attacks in the Golan from turning victory into defeat. He rebuilt defensive lines, reorganized command and control, and preserved the cohesion of the army at one of the war’s most delicate moments.
In the skies, pilots were not observers, they were fighters. Firas Al-Ajlouni and his comrade Moufaq Al-Salti were martyred during combat missions in Al-Samu’ in 1966 and during the 1967 war, defending Jordan’s skies.
On the ground, in a moment when the nation was reduced to a single position, the soldier Khader Shukri Dankjian spoke words that transcended war into history during the Battle of Karameh in 1968:“The target is my position… I bear witness that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God… Fire… Fire… Over…” His words halted enemy advance and immortalized soldiering as an act of sacrifice, not survival.
Thus, the heroism of the Arab Army was not crafted in memory, but in the field, not inherited as a tale, but embedded as a doctrine of defending a homeland whose men knew when to fight… and when to fall.
If the Arab Army safeguarded the nation’s borders, Jordan’s security institutions bore the burden of protecting the state from within, in a silent battle rarely documented except in blood.
Leaders understood that security is not brute force, but awareness, discipline, and anticipation. Mohammad Rasul Al-Kilani helped establish a professional security doctrine that prioritized loyalty to the state and institutional integrity, preserving Jordan during its most sensitive phases. He, and Nathir Rashid after him, entrenched the concept of preventive security, neutralizing threats before they exploded, protecting society without exhausting it. Mudar Badran combined security expertise with political leadership, heading governments at critical moments while preserving stability without sliding into disorder. At another pivotal stage, Ahmad Obeidat assumed responsibility for national security and later the premiership, confronting challenges with the logic of statecraft rather than reactive impulse. All their successors followed suit.
Alongside these leaders stood men of the field, front-line officers who paid with their lives to protect Jordan from terrorism. Foremost among them were the martyrs Muath Al-Kasasbeh, Rashid Al-Zyoud, and Saed Al-Maaytah, who fell during counter-terror operations, alongside other martyrs from Public Security, Gendarmerie, and Intelligence.
They sought no fame and appeared in no photographs. Their blood was the unseen line that preserved national stability, proof that Jordan’s security was never accidental, but the product of constant vigilance and unannounced sacrifice.
Jordan’s achievements in education, health, and stability were not isolated governmental efforts. They unfolded within a national economic structure made possible by stability and endurance.
Alongside the school, hospital, and barracks stood an economy that produced, financed, and endured, led by national families who viewed investment as partnership with the state, not speculation upon it.
In finance and banking, the Shoman and Al-Masri families contributed to establishing national banks and strengthening confidence in currency and credit, providing long-term foundations for trade, industry, and growth.
In industry and pharmaceuticals, the Al-Sakhtian, Darwazeh, and Al-Tabbaa families localized pharmaceutical and commercial industries that reached regional markets, transferring knowledge and creating real added value.
In construction, infrastructure, engineering, and services, the Naqel, Jardaneh, and Al-Qadi families led major national projects that shaped Jordan’s modern urban and industrial landscape.
In trade, services, and manufacturing, families such as Al-Sayigh, Abu Khader, Al-Fakhouri, Abu Jaber, Al-Dajani, Al-Salfeiti, Al-Ma’shar, and Ghorghor employed thousands of Jordanians and expanded the real economy.
In later phases, families such as Al-Kurdi and Al-Manaseer emerged in energy and heavy industry, investing in strategic projects that enhanced energy security and diversified the productive base.
Thus, Jordan’s economy was built through patient accumulation of national capital, capital that believed in the state, invested at home, and anchored its presence in work rather than rent-seeking, becoming an authentic partner in stability and development.
My Son… Thougan The Jordanian state was not built on paper alone, nor protected first by laws before values. Its foundation rested on a cohesive society that preceded the state and embraced it. During the formative years, Jordanian tribes constituted the backbone of security and stability, and the true support of governance and administration, at a time when the Arab Army had not yet reached its full strength, and security institutions were still in their infancy.
Tribes such as Bani Sakhr, Bani Hassan, Abbad, Bani Hamida, and Al-Da’jah, alongside Al-Huweitat, Al-Ajarmeh, Al-Adwan, Al-Sarhan, and other Jordanian tribes whose roots run deep into the earth and whose branches reach the sky, played a decisive role in safeguarding Jordan, maintaining order, and building the state.
From the very beginning, they protected trade routes, secured deserts, safeguarded villages and towns, and enforced civil peace, working in full parallel with the emergence of the Arab Army and the development of state institutions. These tribes were not forces outside the state; they were the state in its earliest social form. From them came officers and soldiers, leaders and administrators. And when governance stabilized, they handed over their natural role to state institutions without conflict, because their objective was never power or privilege, but a secure and viable homeland.
Thus emerged the unique Jordanian model: a modern state grounded in a disciplined army, professional institutions, and a socially conscious tribal fabric that chose to be the guardian of stability rather than its alternative, and a partner in construction rather than an obstacle to it. This is why Jordan remained resilient while others collapsed, because its roots were not anchored in authority alone, but in tribes that understood early on that the strength of the state was their strength, and that preserving the homeland was the highest form of honor.
The Jordanian state was never the possession of a single origin, nor the product of one group. It was the outcome of converging destinies on one land. From the earliest days, Jordanians of diverse backgrounds and origins contributed to building the state and protecting its security and stability, not as guests or temporary residents, but as full citizens in belonging.
Circassians and Chechens were among the first to establish towns, protect roads, and join early the army and security services, becoming models of discipline and loyalty to the emerging state.
Armenians contributed through their craftsmanship, professionalism, and skill to the economy, urban development, and administration, becoming a pillar of civil construction.
Jordanian Christians, the salt of the land, stood from the foundation as full partners in governance, parliament, the army, judiciary, and education, carrying the values of citizenship and moderation, and affirming that national identity is measured not by religion, but by commitment and belonging.
Thus took shape the distinctive Jordanian model: a state secure because its people, despite their varied origins, agreed on one homeland, one law, and one shared destiny. Diversity here was not a source of weakness, but a source of strength and stability, because everyone chose to be a partner in protection and construction, not a spectator to history.
In Jordan, national unity was never a slogan in a speech, nor a temporary compromise. It was the essence of the state and the core of its resilience. We do not define ourselves by origins, but by stance, belonging, and shared fate.
We are all Jordanians at home, bearing one indivisible state, one law without favoritism, and one flag that is never lowered. And we are all Palestinians abroad, carrying one cause that is neither negotiable nor delegable. Palestine was never the cause of “brothers” alone; it was always Jordan’s own cause: historically, geographically, existentially, and morally. History taught us this before politics. Our parents and grandparents instilled it long before books did.
Even in the era of the early Islamic conquests, this land was not fragmented by narrow identities. Jund Filastin extended south of the Dead Sea east and west, while Jund Al-Urdunn lay to the north, stretching east and west along the Jordan River to the Mediterranean coast.
Our elders used to tell us how traveling from Irbid to Nablus, or from Karak to Hebron, was far easier than traveling from Irbid to Karak. Geography and belief together seemed to declare that this land was one indivisible whole.
What binds us, therefore, is deeper than cherished symbols, deeper than Al-Faisaly and Al-Wehdat, deeper than mansaf and molokhia, deeper than red or black keffiyehs. What binds us is unity of history and unity of destiny in the face of a project that never ceased to target Jordan as it targeted Palestine.
From this deep understanding emerged Jordan’s role in Jerusalem, not as an act of solidarity, but as a sovereign, moral, and historical responsibility. The Hashemite custodianship over Islamic and Christian holy sites was never a political privilege nor a ceremonial title. It was a solemn trust carried since Sharif Hussein bin Ali, reinforced by Hashemite kings, and today stands as the first line of defense for Jerusalem’s Arab, Islamic, and Christian identity.
Jordan never stood neutral over Jerusalem. It never bargained, nor altered its constants. It defended Al-Aqsa Mosque, protected holy sites, and confronted attempts at Judaization, paying the political and economic price because it understands that abandoning Jerusalem is abandoning Jordanian identity itself.
Thus, when hostile projects attempted to manipulate identities within Jordan to fracture it from within, they failed, because this people understood early on that Palestine was not a burden on Jordan, but part of its self-definition, and that Jerusalem was not a distant symbol, but an unbreakable national compass.
This is how Jordan remained strong and cohesive: one state, one people, one position, aware that unity is not a political option, but a historical destiny, an irreversible fate, and a red line beyond testing.
My Son… Thougan The 1990s marked a phase of political realism, shaped by necessity and clouded by uncertainty. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of bipolar global order, the world changed rapidly, leaving little room for hesitation by small states.
Jordan entered the decade burdened by heavy pressures: a fragile economy, limited resources, an undeclared regional siege, and the repercussions of the Gulf War, which weakened its traditional alliances and strained its economic and political security. In this suffocating international environment, Jordanian leadership faced difficult choices, each costly, each carrying risk.
The decision to sign the 1994 peace treaty with Israel was not the product of illusionary trust, but the decision of a state seeking to secure its existence and protect its higher interests in a volatile region. Jordan understood, with hard realism, that the international balance of power did not favor absolute rejection, especially after the Palestinians themselves had signed the Oslo Accords the year before.
Remaining outside emerging arrangements risked exposing Jordan’s security and economy to pressures it could not bear. The treaty was seen as a means to regulate borders, secure water resources, curb forced displacement, protect Jordan’s role in Jerusalem, and manage the conflict through political tools rather than have force imposed upon it.
Yet Jordan entered this path without illusions of comprehensive peace, and without forgetting Israel’s history or its known ambitions in Jordan and Palestine. Both the state and the people were acutely aware that Israel would not abandon policies of domination or threats to Jordanian security and sovereignty when opportunities arose.
Thus, the treaty was never viewed as abandonment of Palestine, but as a forced management of conflict, while maintaining firm positions in support of Palestinian rights and rejecting resettlement or the alternative homeland.
Within this deep national debate, principled positions emerged from within the state itself, expressing concern over the ambiguity of the agreement and the limits of its guarantees.
Foremost among these was the resignation of Thougan Hindawi from the government of Dr. Abdul Salam Al-Majali. His resignation was not opposition to the state nor to its legitimacy, but a political and moral stance rooted in firm conviction that the agreement, by its structure and references, carried long-term strategic risks.
He believed that the ambiguity surrounding some of its provisions could later be used to pressure Jordan and threaten its security and historical role. Time would prove that these reservations were not pessimism nor political posturing, but early foresight and sober reading of a reality that did not fundamentally change.
Nearly three decades after the treaty, Israel continues its expansionist policies and persistent threats, direct and indirect, to Jordanian security, while evading ethical and political commitments. In this light, the value of recorded positions becomes clear, not as opposition, but as honest national testimony for history.
This is how the 1990s must be understood in the Jordanian narrative: a period in which the state chose harsh realism over reckless adventure, and in which statesmen recorded their positions with clarity, some bearing the weight of decision, others bearing the cost of dissent.
Despite all of this, Jordan remained faithful to its essence: a state that knows its limits, protects itself, and does not compromise its identity, even while walking the most difficult paths.
My Son… Thougan Parallel to the course of political and developmental state-building, the role of His Royal Highness Prince Hassan bin Talal emerged as the quiet mind of the state, a mind that worked patiently on the future, with foresight and depth, under the direct guidance of the late King Hussein bin Talal.
From the 1960s through the 1990s, Prince Hassan assumed a pivotal role in shaping and guiding Jordan’s path of sustainable economic and social development, laying the intellectual and institutional foundations for long-term planning in a country limited in resources yet vast in ambition. Comprehensive five-year and ten-year national development plans were conceived and implemented under his direction, patronage, and close follow-up.
Under this vision, schools, hospitals, universities, research centers, and intellectual forums were built, among them the Higher Council for Science and Technology, the Royal Scientific Society, Princess Sumaya University for Technology, and the Arab Thought Forum. Industries were established, cement, phosphate, potash, electricity, and others, alongside nationwide networks of roads, water, electricity, and communications, extending from one end of the country to the other, in service of both homeland and citizen.
His role was neither fleeting nor merely administrative. It was the role of a strategic intellect that sought to connect education with the economy, development with justice, and growth with sustainability. He contributed to launching intellectual and developmental initiatives aimed at building the human being before the structure, and at balancing the demands of the present with the rights of future generations.
At the same time, Prince Hassan became the voice of Jordanian wisdom to the world, and a global reference in interfaith and intercultural dialogue, defending the values of moderation and coexistence, and affirming that religion, at its core, is a bridge of communication, not an instrument of conflict.
In this role, he did not merely represent Jordan; he offered an ethical and intellectual model of a small state that believes its stature is built through reason and knowledge, just as it is built through principled positions.
With the passing of the torch, Prince Hassan remained steadfast in his unwavering support for the state’s journey, standing firmly behind His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and his reform and modernization project, and affirming his full support for the beloved Crown Prince, His Royal Highness Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II, as the natural extension of a Hashemite path founded on wisdom, continuity, and historical responsibility.
Thus, the picture was complete: a leadership that builds, a mind that plans, and an intellectual reference that safeguards the compass, so that Jordan may remain, as it has always been, a state of balance and prudence in a region where balance is rare and turmoil abundant.
My Son… Thougan When His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein assumed his constitutional powers in 1999, Jordan was not merely entering a new era; it was entering an entirely different century, a century of accelerated globalization, digital revolution, open-ended regional turbulence, and the collapse of long-held certainties.
He inherited a state that was politically stable, yet whose resources were underutilized, surrounded by a region that knew no calm. The greatest challenge before him was to preserve a delicate balance: to modernize the state without stripping it of its identity, to open Jordan to the world without dissolving into it, and to safeguard stability without freezing ambition.
He did not promise Jordanians miracles, nor did he sell them illusions. Instead, he chose the harder path, the path of building the state under pressure, not escaping reality. He led a demanding course of political, economic, and administrative modernization at a time when reform was not a luxury, but a condition for survival.
Over a quarter of a century, Jordan faced crises that, had they converged elsewhere, would have brought states to their knees: scarce energy, chronic water shortage, global financial crises, wars that shut down markets, and a geography that shifted from blessing to burden. Not a single year passed without a shock, Iraq, the Arab Spring, Syria, terrorism, COVID-19, the Russian-Ukrainian war, culminating in the most horrific crime of this era: genocide, war crimes, and forced displacement in Gaza.
And yet, Jordan did not break. It did not lose its compass. It did not bargain away its security or its dignity.
Reform in the Eye of the Storm
At the heart of the storm, and under His Majesty’s leadership and vision, the state did not freeze, it worked.
The Political Modernization Vision was launched to expand participation and build genuine party life. The constitution and laws governing parties, elections, and political life were amended, opening real pathways for youth and women, not as decorative slogans, but as an emerging political force.
The Economic Modernization Program was introduced to transform constraints into opportunities. The economy diversified, exports grew, and Jordanian industries emerged with global competitiveness, in pharmaceuticals, technology, mining, garments, and beyond. Major national projects, new cities, and infrastructure were launched despite relentless pressure.
Administrative modernization advanced through digital services and unified platforms, affirming that a strong state is measured by its ability to serve its citizens with efficiency, fairness, and dignity.
Not all ambitions were realized, my son, but the undeniable truth is that Jordan preserved its cohesion and avoided the collapse that struck states larger, stronger, and far wealthier.
Wisdom in a Burning Region
In a region ablaze, Jordan, under His Majesty’s leadership, was the voice of wisdom, not the noise of reckless adventure. It did not slide into chaos, nor did it export crises. It safeguarded internal security and social cohesion, and opened its doors to refugees with rare humanity, despite the heavy cost.
This was possible because leadership was calm, institutions were resilient, and the people were conscious, aware that the alternative to the state is not freedom, but chaos.
On the international stage, Jordan’s position was neither courtesy nor performance; it was a stance of necessity and conscience.
Jordan defended Palestine with constancy, warned against extremism, carried the message of moderation and dialogue, and stood firmly against injustice wherever it appeared.
Gaza: When Leadership Meets the Pulse of the People
This stance was most evident in Gaza, when Jordan spoke with absolute clarity: no to genocide, no to forced displacement, no to war crimes.
His Majesty raised his voice in every forum, without hesitation or ambiguity. Leadership aligned with the pulse of the street, and the national position unified. When His Majesty and the beloved Crown Prince returned home, millions of Jordanians filled the streets, chanting for their leader, welcoming him with flowers, in a spontaneous and sincere scene that told the world: here is a people who know their leader, and here is a leadership that speaks for its people.
The People as the Ultimate Anchor
Through all of this, my son, the Jordanian people remained the true pillar of their leadership and their homeland, rallying around it, standing firm with it, and holding on with unwavering resolve.
Whatever is said about governments, their leaders, personalities, policies, or performance, positively or negatively, the greatest achievement of this era has been the preservation of Jordanian social cohesion.
A society diverse in origin, limited in resources or constrained by circumstance, burdened by responsibilities, yet steadfast, proud of its state, and united around its leadership in the hardest moments. This unity was not born of fear, but of collective awareness: that the alternative to the state is not freedom, but chaos.
My Son… Thougan
When I look at Jordan today, I do not see a country without problems, nor do I present it to you, or your generation, as a perfect homeland. I present it as a story of continuous resilience.
The story of a small country that refused to be a victim of geography or politics, and chose instead to be an actor, despite all constraints.
This is my Jordanian narrative. I place it in your hands not so that you merely understand it, memorize it, or recite it, but so that you complete it, as your great-grandfather, your grandfather, myself, and the men of our time did.
Jordan, my son, was not created to be a memory. It is a project open to the future.
And if one day someone asks you: Why did Jordan endure?
Tell them: Because it has a narrative… and because its people, in every generation, chose to remain faithful to it. The narrative is complete, my son. And the responsibility has begun.
May God protect Jordan.
Dr. Ahmad Thougan Hindawi
My Son… Thougan
Nations are not measured only by the size of their land, nor defined solely by military strength or natural resources. Above all, nations are known by their narrative, by the story they tell about themselves and pass from one generation to the next, answering the essential questions: Who are we? How did we come to be? And why did we endure?
Jordan, my son, is not a country that appeared suddenly in history, nor a political entity drawn accidentally on the maps of victors. It is a long, continuous story, written by land and people, by civilization and mission, by tribe and state, by blood and patience, and by an identity that never broke.
You may have heard parts of this story from me before. Your grandfather, who shares your name, may have told you fragments of it. Perhaps you encountered pieces in a school textbook, an article, or a passing lecture. But in this humble attempt, I wanted to gather it for you into one narrative, not a claim of completeness, nor a monopoly over truth, but a personal vision: the vision of a Jordanian, a son of a tribe, a son of this land, and a father who fears that a story untold, or told by the wrong voices, may be lost. I write this narrative to you as a long letter, not a lecture; as a detailed story, not a rigid history lesson. It is a text that seeks to balance breadth with simplicity, precision with emotion, written history with living memory, memory preserved in the hearts of the men who made Jordan.
I will speak to you, my son, about Jordan from the time it was a cradle of human civilization, before borders were known, before flags were raised, before modern names were coined. I will tell you of a land that knew agriculture and bread before many others, that mastered trade, passage, and settlement, and that knew humanity before humanity itself understood the meaning of homeland. Then I will walk with you into Jordan as the land of divine messages, the land of prophets, of divine promise, of remembrance in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. A land through which Abraham passed, where God spoke to Moses, where Jesus was baptized, and where the final message of Muhammad, peace be upon them all, affirmed what came before.
We will pause, because pausing is a duty, at the Jordanian tribes: not merely as social structures, but as bearers of identity, pillars of independence, and the backbone of the state. We will tell how they resisted injustice, rejected subjugation, practiced politics before ministries existed, and paid a heavy price, blood, exile, and imprisonment, so that Jordan could be born free.
I will tell you the story of independence, not as it is condensed in official dates, but as it was lived by men who signed documents while in chains, who formed governments under occupation, who paid for their positions with execution and exile, and who then returned, along with their children and grandchildren, to build a state instead of seeking revenge.
And I will walk with you through the journey of the modern state: from foundation, to wars, to institution-building, to Jordan’s resilience in the face of storms, until we reach our present day, the Jordan we live in now, with its achievements and its challenges, with its leadership, and with your generation.
My Son… I write this because I believe that whoever does not own their narrative will have their history stolen by others. Whoever does not tell their story to their children will find those children believing the stories of others, some honest but incomplete, which is natural and acceptable; and others dishonest, ignorant, corrupt, opportunistic, or theatrical, people who do not even possess a narrative of their own, yet dare to fabricate a narrative for a nation.
I write this for you so that you may know: Jordan was never a burden on its people, nor a gift from anyone. It was a trust carried by Jordanians, protected, and handed down from generation to generation. This is not a story of a past that ended. It is the story of a homeland still being written. And now, Thougan, I place it in your hands, to read, to preserve, and to complete.
My Son… Thougan When we return to the history of Jordan, we do not return to the birth of a state, but to the birth of humanity itself. Jordan, my son, is not a page in a history book, it is a chapter in the book of human civilization. Thousands of years before Christ, when humans began searching for a safe place to settle, the highlands and valleys east of the Jordan River were among the first lands to embrace them. At Ain Ghazal, we do not merely find an archaeological site; we encounter a silent civilizational revolution, the transition from hunting to agriculture, from nomadism to settlement, from cave to village.
The plaster statues with their piercing eyes, single-headed and double-headed, dating back more than nine thousand years, represent the earliest artistic expression of human self-awareness. Here, humanity learned to cultivate wheat and barley, to store food, to bake bread, and to organize society. Here, the idea of homeland was born, long before the word itself existed.
As societies evolved over thousands of years before Christ, settlement developed into political entities. The Kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, and Edom emerged on Jordanian land, known in ancient texts as Ha’ardanim, the land beyond the Jordan River. These were not marginal kingdoms; they played central roles in trade between the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, controlled major routes, and engaged in regional alliances and conflicts. Here, the ancient Jordanian learned politics, alliance-building, and the defense of land.
Then came a great turning point: the Nabataeans, the first organized Arab state, centuries before and after Christ. Arabs who came from the depth of the Arabian Peninsula, they did not merely pass through; they built a complete state. Petra became a political capital, a global trade center, and a masterpiece of water engineering, financial management, and urban planning. Rock was carved not for ornament, but as a declaration of political and civilizational identity. The Nabataeans taught the world how to build a state in the desert, how geography can become economic power, and how Arab identity can be a civilization, not merely a tribe. When the Romans annexed the region, Jordan became an open city for centuries, not erased, but integrated. In Jerash, Umm Qais, and Philadelphia (Amman), cities rose with councils, theaters, and planned streets. Jordan became part of the civilized world, not its periphery.
My Son… When we say Jordan is ancient, we do not mean ancient stones, we mean the continuity of human presence. Civilizations came and went, but the land remained Jordanian, and its role remained central: a cradle of settlement, a bridge of civilization, a meeting point rather than a battlefield.
This continuity explains why, when the era of the modern state arrived, the Jordanian was not alien to the meaning of homeland. It was a natural extension of a long history of awareness of land and identity.
My Son… Thougan If places possess memory, then Jordan’s memory is not made only of stone and inscription, but of revelation that passed through this land, settled in it, and left an enduring mark on history and conscience. Jordan was never a neutral stage for the heavenly messages; it was part of a precise divine wisdom, a deliberate choice of place, just as time and people are chosen.
Here, in the heart of Greater Syria, where continents meet, routes intersect, and the distance between heaven and earth narrows, this land was prepared to be a land of prophethood, a land of trial, and a land of blessing.
God tells us in the Holy Qur’an that He saved Abraham and Lot, peace be upon them, to the land which He blessed for all people. From that moment, Jordan entered, geographically and historically, the core of the divine narrative of monotheism. Abraham, peace be upon him, passed through this land during his great journey: a journey from idolatry to faith, from fear to certainty. His passage was not incidental, but foundational. The blessing attributed to this land was not a blessing of stillness, but a blessing of preparation for the messages yet to come.
On this land as well, Lot, peace be upon him, lived and confronted his people, and God saved him from their tyranny, an early scene linking Jordan to the moral idea of salvation in the face of oppression.
Then came the moment of Moses, peace be upon him, a moment heavy with meaning and profound in symbolism. On Jordanian land, specifically on Mount Nebo, the journey of a prophet who led his people through forty years of wandering came to an end. Moses stood there, saw with his own eyes the land he had been promised, then surrendered his soul. Thus, this land became witness to one of the greatest lessons of prophethood: that leadership is duty, not entitlement.
On the banks of the Jordan River, water itself acquired a new meaning in human religious history. Here, at Al-Maghtas, Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, was baptized, and from here his message began, one that would change the face of the world. The choice of place was not incidental. It affirmed Jordan’s centrality in early Christianity. That is why the world’s churches, the Vatican, and UNESCO recognized this Jordanian site as the authentic location of the baptism of Christ. Jordan here was not a passage, it was the beginning of a universal message.
Then came the final message, that of Muhammad ﷺ, which did not erase what came before it, but confirmed it. Jordan’s presence became clearer in meaning and place. God says in the verse of Al-Isra’: “To Al-Aqsa Mosque, whose surroundings We have blessed.” And in the story of the People of the Cave mentioned in the Qur’an, Jordan appears once again as a refuge of faith in times of oppression, young men who fled with their belief and found in this land shelter and divine protection. As if history repeats itself: whenever faith is constricted elsewhere, this land expands to contain it.
My Son… Thougan After Jordan had been a passage for prophets and a recipient of blessing, there came a time when faith became action rather than words, and belief was tested on the battlefield. On this land, decisive battles were fought in Islamic history, not for plunder, nor for expansion of power, but in defense of a message meant to be conveyed with integrity.
At Mu’tah, Zaid bin Harithah carried the banner of Islam and fell as a martyr. Then Ja’far bin Abi Talib carried it, fought until his arms were severed, embraced the banner with his shoulders, and fell as a martyr. Then Abdullah bin Rawahah followed, firm of heart, until he met God. Three commanders, three martyrs, on the same day, on Jordanian land, as if from that moment it was destined to be the land of dignity.
Then came Yarmouk. Khalid bin Al-Walid, the Sword of God, led a battle that did not merely redraw borders, but changed the course of history, where faith, military genius, and organization triumphed over imperial numbers. The eastern Mediterranean opened, and the illusion that power alone determines destiny collapsed.
At Fihl (Pella), Shurahbil bin Hasana and his companions consolidated the conquest, not as a fleeting advance, but as a project of justice and governance.
Jordan was not only a battlefield; it became the resting place of great men. In its soil lived and died Abu Ubaidah Amer bin Al-Jarrah, the Trustworthy One of this nation. Shurahbil bin Hasana and other companions were buried here. The land thus bore witness that the message did not merely pass through, it settled, nourished by pure blood.
For this reason, when the era of tribes, then revolution, then state arrived, the Jordanian was never foreign to the meaning of sacrifice. A land that knew Mu’tah and Yarmouk knows how to give birth to men who carry the banner, until the very end.
My Son… When you read all of this, you understand that Jordan was never outside the sacred narrative, nor on the margins of divine messages. It was part of their logic and their path. Whoever lives on land walked by prophets and saturated with blessing cannot be alien to sacrifice, to justice, or to the rejection of oppression.
That is why, when we reach the era of revolution, independence, and statehood in this narrative, we will understand that what Jordanians did was not an anomaly in their history, but a natural extension of a land that learned, thousands of years ago, to stand with truth, whatever the cost.
My Son… Thougan To understand why Jordan was born as a state, you must first understand why it could no longer remain without one. History, my son, does not create political entities suddenly. It prepares the ground for them when oppression accumulates until eruption becomes a moral necessity.
By the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire had entered political old age. It was no longer the state that had carried the banner of the Caliphate for centuries, nor the power that unified much of the Islamic world. Gradually, it became a confused entity, pulled by European pressures from outside and eaten away by internal conflict.
Then came the Committee of Union and Progress, not as a genuine reform project, but as a coup against the very spirit of the state. It raised slogans of modernization, but practiced the harshest forms of Turkification and exclusion. Arabs were no longer partners in the state; they became burdens in the eyes of the new authority. Their language was removed from administration, their history marginalized, their thought monitored, and anyone who called for dignity or reform was persecuted.
Oppression was not theoretical, it was lived reality. Executions in the squares of Damascus and Beirut, prisons, exile, the confiscation of newspapers, and the criminalization of thought before action. Greater Syria, including Transjordan, bore a heavy share of this late injustice.
My Son… Thougan Thus, the closure of newspapers was not an administrative measure, nor were executions exceptional actions, they were a systematic policy to silence an entire identity. When words are shut down, peoples are left with action.
Peoples may endure oppression for a long time, my son, but they do not forget. They may tolerate injustice, but they do not accept the erasure of their identity. Here, Arab consciousness began to form, not as blind tribalism, but as a political and moral right. Arab societies emerged, intellectual elites mobilized, and the great question arose: Can a state survive while denying its people their language and dignity?
In this historical context, Sharif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and descendant of the Prophet’s household, emerged, not as a political adventurer, but as a man of his moment. He did not raise the banner of revolution in pursuit of power, but in defense of Arab dignity and the right to self-rule within a just state.
He entered into correspondence with the British High Commissioner Henry McMahon, known historically as the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence, seeking recognition of Arab independence in return for confronting Ottoman injustice. Despite the betrayals that would later follow, these letters represented the first modern political document calling for comprehensive Arab independence, not partial reforms or symbolic privileges.
In 1916, the Great Arab Revolt was launched, not as a fleeting rebellion, but as a revolution with a project: freedom, independence, and unity of Arab land.
Here, my son, Transjordan entered a new phase of its history. This land was neither distant from the revolt nor a mere observer. It was part of its geography and its people. Revolutionary forces passed through its south, found support among its tribes, strategic depth in its routes, and a natural understanding of freedom among its people.
When Aqaba was liberated in 1917, it was not merely a military victory. It was the breaking of political geography and the opening of a northern route toward Arab Damascus.
But history, as we later learned, is not straight. While Arabs fought for independence, the great powers were drawing other maps. Secret agreements and contradictory promises, Sykes–Picot in 1916 and the ominous Balfour Declaration in 1917, a promise from one who does not own to one who does not deserve, as your grandfather described it.
Yet the moment of revolution was not wasted. It planted in the consciousness of this land an irreversible truth: freedom is not granted, it is taken; and the state is not a gift, but the fruit of long struggle.
My Son… Thougan Thus, my son, the Great Arab Revolt was not born of emptiness, nor was it a moment of emotional rebellion. It was a historical response to historical oppression. When Ottoman authority collapsed in this region after the end of the First World War in 1918, it was not merely the fall of a governing system, it was the collapse of a long-standing illusion: that injustice could last forever.
Yet when the war ended, Transjordan did not become a political vacuum, nor a land without awareness. The absence left behind by the Ottoman administration was administrative, not national. Jordanians quickly filled it through their national leaderships and self-initiated efforts to govern and organize, rooted in a society that had managed its own affairs long before the rise of centralized modern states.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Jordanian national consciousness was already taking shape, organized and active. In 1910, early Jordanian leaders contributed to the establishment of the first Jordanian national political movement: the Jordanian Independence Party, an extension of the Independence Party in Syria that the French Mandate later dissolved in Damascus.
Among the founders of this national current was your great-grandfather, Salem Pasha Hindawi, one of Jordan’s prominent leaders of that era. This movement brought together men from across the country: Hussein Pasha Al-Tarawneh from Karak, Abdul Qader Ahmad Al-Tal from Irbid, Suleiman Pasha Al-Soudi Al-Rousan from Bani Kinana, Rashid Pasha Al-Khaza’i Al-Freihat from Ajloun, Naji Pasha Al-Azzam from Irbid, Ali Khulqi Pasha Al-Sharari, Majid Pasha Al-Adwan, Mithqal Pasha Al-Fayez, Abdul Rahman Irshidat, and Kaed Al-Muflih Al-Ubaidat, who would later be martyred on Palestinian soil, becoming the first Jordanian martyr there, a wreath of honor passed down from generation to generation. These were not merely names. They were the early architects of Jordanian political consciousness.
After the Ottoman collapse in 1918, this awareness moved from political organization to administrative action. In northern Jordan, specifically in Ajloun, a local government was formed in 1920, known historically as the Ajloun Government. It was the first practical attempt to manage people’s affairs independently of any external authority.
In Deir Youssef, near Irbid, another local government emerged, responsible for security, tribal judiciary functions, resource management, and village protection. These were not states in the legal sense, but they were early declarations of rejecting both chaos and foreign guardianship, clear proof that Jordanian society was capable of governing itself.
My Son… Thougan The Um Qais Conference: When Jordanian Will Spoke the Language of Independence. In the spring of 1920, on the edge of history and geography, one of the most honorable and consequential political gatherings in modern Jordanian history took place in the town of Um Qais in northern Jordan. It is a moment your generation must know, understand, and fully grasp.
This was not a casual meeting of local notables, nor a spontaneous reaction to unfolding events. It was early, conscious awareness, translating what Jordanians carried in their hearts into a written, unmistakable political position. There, the Um Qais Document was born, not as a protest statement, but as a comprehensive national program that outlined the contours of independence a quarter of a century before the state was formally declared.
The document’s clauses were bold for their time, direct in language, and advanced beyond their regional and international context. It demanded the establishment of an independent Arab national government in Transjordan, rejected the Mandate in all its forms, categorically refused the Balfour Declaration, rejected the transformation of Palestine into a Jewish national homeland, and demanded the prevention of Zionist immigration.
It affirmed that political legitimacy does not originate from external decisions, but from the will of the local population, and that any authority lacking the people’s consent is morally and nationally illegitimate. This was not a list of demands, it was a declaration of sovereignty before sovereignty existed.
The document was signed by leading Jordanian sheikhs and figures, representing their tribes and communities, in the first organized collective expression of Jordanian political will. Among them were Ali Khulqi Pasha Al-Sharari, your great-grandfather Salem Pasha Hindawi, Naji Pasha Al-Azzam, Suleiman Pasha Al-Soudi Al-Rousan, Rashid Pasha Al-Khaza’i Al-Freihat, Mohammed AlHmoud, Saad Al-Ali Al-Battayneh, Abdul Rahman Irshidat, Turki Kayed Al-Ubaidat, Odeh Al-Qassous, and others.
They did not sign as individuals, but as trustees of a rising collective consciousness, aware of what it wanted, aware of what it rejected, and unafraid to say so.
The significance of the Um Qais Document lies in the fact that it planted the seeds of independence when doing so was costly and dangerous. It bridged awareness and organization, tribe and state, local action and national demand. From it flowed a chain of positions, conferences, governments, trials, exile, and imprisonment, culminating in the Fifth Legislative Council and Independence Day on 25 May 1946. For this reason, the Um Qais Document is not a page in a book. It is the cornerstone of Jordanian political memory.
And so, my son, Jordanian national memory has a duty to preserve the names of the Um Qais signatories, not because they stood alone, but because they were the first to dare write the words “we want” in the name of Jordan. Those who do not remember the sowers have no right to boast of the harvest.
My Son… Thougan While Britain sought to arrange an administrative framework that would secure its influence, Jordanians were already moving one step further ahead. In 1921, the Jordanian Independence Party formed the first central government in Transjordan, headed by Rashid Talie’, by mandate of Prince Abdullah bin Al-Hussein, despite clear British opposition to the formation of such a government because of the party’s nationalist orientation and its founders’ explicit call for independence.
Though short-lived, that government was a bold political step. It was formed without recognition from the British Mandate and sought to establish the foundations of a state, not merely a local administration. It was quickly confronted by firm British rejection, precisely because it represented an unmistakable independence-oriented direction.
By the late 1920s, when the 1928 Treaty was imposed, severely restricting Jordanian sovereignty, the national movement responded by organizing the Jordanian National Conferences of 1928, 1929, and 1930. These conferences demanded an elected parliament, a nationally accountable government, and a genuine end to the Mandate. Such a level of national organization was intolerable to colonial authority. The response was harsh.
In 1937, amid the escalation of the Great Palestinian Revolt, widespread arrests and trials were launched against northern Jordanian leaders. They were accused of supporting the Palestinian revolt with men, funds, and weapons; attempting to overthrow the Mandate government; cutting communication lines; and burning government buildings.
Death sentences were issued against several of these leaders, among them Mohammad Ali Beik Al-Ajlouni, Salem Pasha Hindawi, Suleiman Pasha Al-Soudi Al-Rousan, and Rashid Pasha Al-Khaza’i Al-Freihat, among others. They fled to Syria, were tried in absentia, later handed over to British Mandate authorities, and imprisoned in Aqaba in preparation for execution. From there, they managed to escape to the Arabian Peninsula, where they remained for three years. In 1941, Prince Abdullah I issued a special pardon, allowing them to return to the homeland and resume political life.
This moment was not merely a legal event, it was a moral one. It demonstrated that Jordan’s political struggle was not driven by vengeance, but by responsibility. Those who had faced execution returned not to settle scores, but to build a state. At the heart of this era emerged a rare ethical model in public life, embodied by your great-uncle Qasem Beik Hindawi. In his renowned speech at the Jordanian People’s Conference of 1933, he warned clearly of the Zionist danger and called for genuine readiness to sacrifice in defense of the land.
Then, in 1934, he resigned from the government of Ibrahim Hashem, a rare precedent, declaring that remaining in office when it no longer served the nation was an added calamity upon the people. He offered an early lesson that politics is, before all else, a matter of conscience, not power.
Time, Thougan, was working in favor of the idea, not against it. The exiled leaders returned. They ran in the elections of the Fifth Legislative Council, won the confidence of the people, and it was they themselves who would later declare independence.
On 25 May 1946, they proclaimed the independence of the country and the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Independence was not a sudden moment. It was the fruit of a long journey of awareness, organization, and sacrifice, a journey in which the state was formed in the collective conscience before it was declared on paper.
My Son… Thougan When we remember independence, we are not recalling a date on a calendar, nor celebrating an administrative decision. We are summoning entire lifetimes spent cheaply for the sake of the homeland.
We remember men who were true to their covenant, who gave everything they had, and paid prices that were neither easy nor brief: blood, sweat, and tears; resistance and confrontation; prison, exile, and displacement; and martyrdom for those who chose the path to its very end.
Independence was not a moment of triumph, it was the culmination of decades of silent and open struggle, carried by tribes, led by national leaderships, accumulated through documents, conferences, prisons, and exile, until the moment matured… and freedom arrived.
On the morning of Saturday, 25 May 1946, at exactly eight o’clock, the Fifth Jordanian Legislative Council convened its third extraordinary session, an exceptional moment in the nation’s history, dedicated to discussing the collective will of the Jordanian people for full liberation and independence from the British Mandate.
This was no ceremonial session. Its words were not scripted in advance. It was an authentic expression of a people who had paid dearly for their freedom and dignity, and who had supported the Palestinian struggle against injustice and aggression, grounded in international principles and the inherent right of peoples to self-determination.
After deliberations heavy with historical responsibility, the Fifth Legislative Council unanimously issued its decisive declaration: Jordan is a fully independent, sovereign state, a hereditary constitutional monarchy with parliamentary governance, and allegiance is pledged to the leader of the country and founder of its entity, heir to the Arab renaissance, Prince Abdullah bin Al-Hussein, as constitutional King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
With this decision, not only was a state declared, the chapter of the Mandate was closed forever, and the chapter of national sovereignty was opened by the will of the people’s representatives, not by external decree.
To honor the magnitude of the moment, the Legislative Council selected four of its members, representing the regions of the country, to convey the nation’s decision to the founding leader and pledge allegiance on behalf of all Jordanians: Majid Pasha Al-Adwan – representing Balqa, Ma’arek Pasha Al-Majali – representing Karak, Salem Pasha Hindawi – representing Ajloun, Hamad Pasha Al-Jazi – representing Ma’an / the Badia
They were not merely names in official minutes. They were the culmination of a long tribal and national struggle. They carried the people’s decision and delivered it to King Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein, the founding monarch, inaugurating the era of the independent state, one that had been built in consciousness before it was proclaimed in law.
My Son… Thougan When Jordan’s independence was declared on 25 May 1946, that day did not mark the end of a struggle, it marked the beginning of the hardest test the young state would face. Nations, my son, are not measured by the moment of their birth, but by their ability to endure when storms rise around them.
When your great-grandfather and his peers, members of the Fifth Legislative Council, proclaimed the establishment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and pledged allegiance to King Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein as a constitutional monarch, His Majesty was not an accidental ruler. He was a seasoned statesman, shaped in the heart of the Great Arab Revolt, carrying a clear project: to build an independent Arab state capable of survival in a region that shows little mercy to the weak.
Independence came at a moment of extreme regional complexity. The British Mandate was withdrawing in form, yet its influence remained. At the same time, the region stood on the brink of a political earthquake whose epicenter was Palestine.
Barely two years after independence, the 1948 war erupted, a war that tested not only armies, but the legitimacy of newly formed Arab states and their capacity for action. Jordan entered the war with an army that was not the largest in number, but the most organized and disciplined: the Arab Army.
This army was not assembled hastily. It was the result of years of training, organization, and a clear doctrine: that the soldier does not defend a regime, but a land, a dignity, and an identity. The Arab Army fought decisive battles in Jerusalem, Latrun, and Bab Al-Wad, playing a critical role in defending and preserving East Jerusalem as Arab land, through military action, not declarations. In a time marked by widespread Arab failures, the Jordanian military role stood out for its cohesion and realism.
Yet the war was neither pure victory nor total defeat, it was an open wound. A ceasefire was imposed, borders changed, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees flowed into Jordan. Suddenly, Jordan was not only a newly independent state, but a state carrying a cause larger than its resources.
After the war, a new political reality emerged. The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, came under Jordanian administration. This reality was later formalized through the Unity of the Two Banks in 1950, a political decision that reflected the Jordanian leadership’s understanding of the shared destiny of the two peoples.
The decision was controversial regionally and internationally, but in the Jordanian context it was not an act of expansion. It was an assumption of responsibility, taken at the request of the people concerned. Jordan never viewed Palestine as a bargaining chip, but as its own cause, one of justice, existence, and moral obligation.
On 20 July 1951, tragedy struck. King Abdullah I was assassinated at the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. In the two weeks preceding this assassination, your great-grandfather Salem Pasha Hindawi was assassinated in the tribal guesthouse in Na’imeh, and Riad Al-Solh, Prime Minister of Lebanon, was assassinated in Amman.
Three national Arab leaders were killed within two weeks, likely by the same hand of treachery that sought to bury their Arab-national vision at a moment of extreme regional volatility. The assassination of King Abdullah was not an isolated internal event, but the direct result of international conspiracies, overlapping conflicts, and competing regional projects. With his death, Jordan lost the founder of its state at a time when it was still consolidating its foundations.
King Talal bin Abdullah ascended the throne in a brief but deeply consequential reign. During his rule, the 1952 Constitution was drafted, later recognized as one of the most progressive constitutions in the Arab world. It enshrined constitutional monarchy, separation of powers, and citizens’ rights.
Though illness did not grant King Talal time, his constitutional legacy endured, forming the legal backbone of the modern Jordanian state.
We also remember the men and women of the nation who contributed to drafting the constitution and the foundational laws of the Kingdom, among them Ibrahim Hashem, Suleiman Touqan, Abdul Rahman Irshidat, Ali Hindawi, Dhaifallah Al-Hmoud, and Emily Bisharat.
My Son… Between 1946 and 1951, Jordan lived what many nations experience over decades: independence, war, mass displacement, unity, assassination, and constitutional birth. And yet, the state did not collapse. It emerged from those harsh years more resilient and more conscious of the meaning of survival.
When the late King Hussein bin Talal, may God rest his soul, ascended the throne in 1952, he did not inherit a stable country. He assumed leadership of a young state, surrounded by storms, recently independent, burdened by war, and exposed to merciless regional conflicts.
The early years of his reign were a true test of statehood itself. The army was still being built, the economy was limited in resources, and Arab politics were deeply polarized, between unity projects, revolutionary rhetoric, and military coups. The 1950s became years of consolidating sovereignty and national decision-making.
In the mid-1950s, Jordan took one of its most decisive sovereign steps: ending British military presence and Arabizing the command of the Arab Army in 1956. This was not an administrative move, but a declaration of genuine independence over military and political decision-making.
With this decision, the Arab Army became fully national, led by Jordanian officers, most notably Radi Annab and Habis Al-Majali, who would later become a national military symbol, especially after the Battle of Karameh.
My Son… Thougan From the early 1950s onward, the challenge facing Jordan was no longer merely building state institutions, it was protecting the very idea of the state itself. Jordan was a small, resource-limited country in a region boiling with coups, transnational ideologies, and slogans that denied borders and the sovereignty of small nations. Political decision-making was not a luxury; it was a risk. Public office was not prestige, it was exposure to sacrifice.
In this context emerged Hazza’ Al-Majali as Prime Minister in the late 1950s, representing the firm face of the state that refused to gamble with Jordan’s security and independence. He was clear in position, decisive in action, and convinced that independence paid for dearly could not be managed through appeasement or hesitation.
When he was assassinated in 1960 in his office, the attack was not aimed at a man alone, it was an attempt to strike the authority of the Jordanian state at a critical moment of consolidating sovereignty.
Jordan did not break. Pain turned into awareness, and grief into determination. The country emerged from the tragedy with a bitter but decisive lesson: the path of statehood is paved with sacrifice, and national decision-making may demand the blood of great men.
My Son… Thougan Jordan entered the 1960s carrying a heavy burden. The state had stabilized its foundations, but the region around it was unraveling. Then came the 1967 war, swift and devastating. Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and with that loss came a wound that has never fully healed.
The loss was painful, but the state did not collapse. Society did not disintegrate. Instead, the most dangerous question emerged, one that struck at the heart of existence itself: How do you protect Jordan while carrying Palestine within your heart and your reality at the same time? The answer was not theoretical. It was forged in action.
In March 1968, the Battle of Karameh took place, a moment that became a psychological and political turning point. The Jordanian Arab Army confronted invading Israeli forces, inflicted heavy losses, and forced them to withdraw.
Karameh was not a conventional military victory measured by territory gained. It was a victory of dignity, morale, and will. It proved that the Jordanian soldier could fight, defend his land, and stand firm. In a period when Arab despair ran deep, Karameh restored belief, not only to Jordan, but to the wider Arab conscience.
Then came September 1970, the most dangerous moment in the modern history of the Jordanian state. The threat was no longer external alone, it was existential. Weapons beyond state control, immense regional pressure, and a sharp collision between the logic of the state and the logic of revolutionary chaos.
In those heavy days, decisions were taken that were painful, costly, and unavoidable. The choice was clear: protect the state first, because the collapse of the state would mean the collapse of all causes, foremost among them the Palestinian cause itself.
Jordan emerged from September wounded, but intact. It emerged having confirmed a harsh but decisive truth: the state is not an emotional slogan, but a moral and historical responsibility that does not tolerate hesitation.
From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, this meaning was embodied once again in Wasfi Al-Tal, a statesman of rare clarity. He was firm, honest in a time of bargaining, and deeply convinced that Jordan was a final state, not a temporary phase.
He believed that self-reliance was the foundation of dignity and sovereignty. When Wasfi Al-Tal was assassinated in Cairo in 1971, his killing was not an isolated act. It was another attempt to destabilize a state that had chosen order when chaos appeared easier. Yet again, Jordan did not fall. Blood did not turn into revenge, nor grief into disorder. Instead, the meaning of the state became more deeply rooted. It became clear that Jordan does not rest on individuals, no matter how great, but on values they plant, and on a people who understood that the alternative to the state is not freedom, but loss.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, modern Jordanian consciousness was forged not in comfort, but in fire; not in slogans, but in trial. What Wasfi Al-Tal and Hazza’ Al-Majali planted in integrity, discipline, honesty, and moral courage remains alive in the conscience of the state, and will remain so, as long as Jordan understands the meaning of men who place the homeland above themselves.
Between 1951 and 1999, Jordan did not build skyscrapers or empires. It built a state that knew its limits, understood its role, and protected its people. This long era taught Jordanians that survival is not accidental, it is a daily, difficult decision. Despite what is said about corruption that touched some who passed through public office, Jordanian memory retains names that resist distortion, because they were written not in ink, but in stance. Men who carried the state as a trust, not a prize, and who left office without wealth, privilege, or unanswered questions.
At the forefront of these was Wasfi Al-Tal, who entered power and left it with clean hands and unwavering conviction, paying with his life for his belief that the state cannot be governed through compromise.
Alongside him stood Thougan Hindawi, a living example of how education, knowledge, and culture can serve as the conscience of power. He led public service for decades, then returned quietly to his people, his family, and his books, without losing self-respect, divine approval, or the love and respect of the people.
Beside them stood Falah Al-Madadha, Fadel Al-Dalqamouni, Dhaifallah Al-Hmoud, Trad Al-Qadi, Mohammad Ouda Al-Qar’an, Mohammad Al-Saqqaf, Marwan Al-Hmoud, and many others, men of state who believed that integrity, honesty, uprightness, and honor were the true ceiling of public service, beyond law and regulation. They left office as they entered it, quietly, without gain or spectacle, leaving behind clean legacies that require no defense.
To recall these names today is not nostalgia, nor an attempt to highlight others’ mistakes. It is a reminder that this homeland, despite all its setbacks, produced exemplary men who understood responsibility as a moral test before it was a position, and whose names stand as proof that integrity was, and remains, possible.
My Son… Parallel to the integrity and uprightness of those men, Jordan waged, between the 1960s and the 1990s, one of its greatest and most successful quiet battles: the battle of education and health, as the solid foundation for building both the human being and the state.
During those decisive decades, education was neither a luxury nor a secondary option. It was a sovereign decision, taken with early awareness, when the state placed universal basic education and the entrenchment of free schooling at the very top of national priorities. The school network expanded across cities, villages, and the desert alike, culminating in a bold decision: to build a school in every population cluster with ten students or more, a clear message that education is a right, not a favor, and that knowledge is neither monopolized nor postponed.
This path was reinforced under Ministers of Education who carried the national project before the headlines, foremost among them your grandfather, Zouqan Hindawi, a name so deeply intertwined with education that it became part of Jordan’s national memory. He remains the most devoted Minister of Education in Jordan’s history, and the educational leader who led curriculum reform, built the national school, strengthened identity through education, and connected knowledge to public consciousness rather than rote memorization. He thus rightfully earned the title by which many still know him: “The Father of Education in Jordan.”
Under his stewardship, the school was not a warehouse for information, but a space for character formation, the consolidation of belonging, and the fortification of awareness. This vision was clearly reflected in his book “The Palestinian Cause”, which he embedded in the curriculum not as an exam subject, but as a matter of consciousness and identity.
With the arrival of the 1980s, Jordanian education entered a phase of qualitative expansion. Modern educational administration took root, secondary education expanded, and this growth coincided with the rise of higher education and the establishment of national universities, foremost among them the University of Jordan, the mother of universities, followed by Yarmouk University and the Jordan University of Science and Technology, alongside the creation of Al-Hussein Youth City.
All of this unfolded within a state vision that did not treat education as a service delivered, nor youth as passive recipients, but as national wealth and future sovereignty.
During this period, Jordan ranked first in the Arab world in educational quality and literacy rates relative to population, and among the leading countries globally in qualitative education indicators. It became a producer and exporter of knowledge, not merely a consumer of it. Thousands of Jordanian teachers were dispatched to sister Arab states, where they contributed to building educational systems and advancing administrative, economic, and scientific development. The Jordanian teacher became, in those classrooms, an ambassador of his homeland, a model of seriousness, discipline, and moderation.
The impact of this achievement did not stop at the regional level. It earned high international recognition, when prestigious global universities, foremost among them the University of Cambridge, honored the Jordanian educational experience by establishing scholarships bearing the name Zouqan Hindawi, in recognition of his pioneering role in educational reform and the influence that extended beyond national borders into the global educational sphere.
Thus, education during those decades was not merely one sector among others. It was a project of renaissance, sovereignty, and soft power, one of the pillars of Jordanian stability, and a luminous proof that when this nation wagers on the human being, it prevails.In health, transformation began in the 1970s, evolving from limited services into a national healthcare system. This accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s under physician-statesmen, foremost among them Dr. Abdul Salam Al-Majali, whose name became linked to modernizing healthcare infrastructure, developing public hospitals, and institutionalizing medical training. Under his leadership, King Hussein Medical City emerged as one of the most prominent medical institutions in the Arab world.
Subsequent Ministers of Health focused on preventive medicine, expanding health centers, and ensuring equitable access, aligning Jordan’s healthcare sector with international standards.
Thus, the advancement of education and health was not the product of abundance or circumstance, but the result of a deliberate state choice sustained over decades, rooted in the belief that an educated, healthy citizen is the deepest line of defense for stability and sovereignty.
And so the saying of the builder King became ingrained: “The human being is our most precious asset.”
My Son… Thougan While the region around Jordan boiled with coups, wars, and shifting alliances, decision-making in Jordan was never impulsive. It was the product of a royal mind that surrounded itself with men who understood politics as a historical responsibility rather than fleeting cleverness.
Samir Al-Rifai was among the earliest to help entrench an institutional approach to governance in the years following independence. He contributed to shaping a balanced diplomatic posture and anchoring internal legitimacy at a time when the Arab environment was volatile and unforgiving.
Bahjat Al-Talhouni later emerged as a voice of wisdom during some of the most sensitive moments in Jordan’s modern history, particularly in the aftermath of the wars of 1967 and 1973. His presence provided internal balance and helped the state avoid reckless adventures whose costs would have been unbearable.
Zaid Al-Rifai distinguished himself during the Cold War era, managing complex regional and international balances while safeguarding the independence of Jordanian decision-making amid intense polarization and pressure.
At the heart of decision-making, The Royal Hashemite Court, Sharif/ Prince Zaid Bin Shaker, Thougan Hindawi and Adnan Abu Odeh served as strategic minds, witnesses to and shapers of pivotal moments in the management of the state internally and in the administration of the Arab–Israeli conflict. They helped articulate a rational Jordanian discourse at times when emotion threatened to overwhelm judgment.
Alongside them, Dr. Abdul Salam Al-Majali, Marwan Al-Qassem, and Dr. Kamel Abu Jaber quietly and professionally managed sensitive diplomatic channels, conveying Jordan’s balanced position to influential capitals.
Then came Taher Al-Masri, who embodied a different political school, one grounded in listening to society and respecting pluralism. When he led the government in 1991, during the return of parliamentary life and political openness, his voice supported reform and guided democratic transition without confrontation or chaos.
These were not solitary decision-makers, but minds of state working alongside an exceptional leader. Through their counsel and experience, Jordan emerged time and again from a burning region with the least possible losses and the greatest measure of dignity and sovereignty.
If politics is tested at turning points, then soldiering is tested when the homeland becomes heavier than life itself. There, the Arab Army wrote its most honest chapter.
In 1948, Jerusalem was not a slogan, it was a position defended by arms. Habis Pasha Al-Majali led the battles of Latrun and Bab Al-Wad, halting the Israeli advance toward the city and securing East Jerusalem as Arab land through military action, not statements. Across the battlefronts of the West Bank, Jordanian positions held firm at moments when collapse seemed imminent. Then came Karameh in 1968, not as a morale speech but as a complete battle. Habis Al-Majali and Mashhour Haditha Al-Jazi led Jordanian forces that forced the Israeli army to withdraw, leaving behind destroyed equipment, marking its first genuine battlefield retreat.
In the October War of 1973, Khaled Al-Hajjaj Al-Majali, the armored warfare tactician, prevented enemy counter-attacks in the Golan from turning victory into defeat. He rebuilt defensive lines, reorganized command and control, and preserved the cohesion of the army at one of the war’s most delicate moments.
In the skies, pilots were not observers, they were fighters. Firas Al-Ajlouni and his comrade Moufaq Al-Salti were martyred during combat missions in Al-Samu’ in 1966 and during the 1967 war, defending Jordan’s skies.
On the ground, in a moment when the nation was reduced to a single position, the soldier Khader Shukri Dankjian spoke words that transcended war into history during the Battle of Karameh in 1968:“The target is my position… I bear witness that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of God… Fire… Fire… Over…” His words halted enemy advance and immortalized soldiering as an act of sacrifice, not survival.
Thus, the heroism of the Arab Army was not crafted in memory, but in the field, not inherited as a tale, but embedded as a doctrine of defending a homeland whose men knew when to fight… and when to fall.
If the Arab Army safeguarded the nation’s borders, Jordan’s security institutions bore the burden of protecting the state from within, in a silent battle rarely documented except in blood.
Leaders understood that security is not brute force, but awareness, discipline, and anticipation. Mohammad Rasul Al-Kilani helped establish a professional security doctrine that prioritized loyalty to the state and institutional integrity, preserving Jordan during its most sensitive phases. He, and Nathir Rashid after him, entrenched the concept of preventive security, neutralizing threats before they exploded, protecting society without exhausting it. Mudar Badran combined security expertise with political leadership, heading governments at critical moments while preserving stability without sliding into disorder. At another pivotal stage, Ahmad Obeidat assumed responsibility for national security and later the premiership, confronting challenges with the logic of statecraft rather than reactive impulse. All their successors followed suit.
Alongside these leaders stood men of the field, front-line officers who paid with their lives to protect Jordan from terrorism. Foremost among them were the martyrs Muath Al-Kasasbeh, Rashid Al-Zyoud, and Saed Al-Maaytah, who fell during counter-terror operations, alongside other martyrs from Public Security, Gendarmerie, and Intelligence.
They sought no fame and appeared in no photographs. Their blood was the unseen line that preserved national stability, proof that Jordan’s security was never accidental, but the product of constant vigilance and unannounced sacrifice.
Jordan’s achievements in education, health, and stability were not isolated governmental efforts. They unfolded within a national economic structure made possible by stability and endurance.
Alongside the school, hospital, and barracks stood an economy that produced, financed, and endured, led by national families who viewed investment as partnership with the state, not speculation upon it.
In finance and banking, the Shoman and Al-Masri families contributed to establishing national banks and strengthening confidence in currency and credit, providing long-term foundations for trade, industry, and growth.
In industry and pharmaceuticals, the Al-Sakhtian, Darwazeh, and Al-Tabbaa families localized pharmaceutical and commercial industries that reached regional markets, transferring knowledge and creating real added value.
In construction, infrastructure, engineering, and services, the Naqel, Jardaneh, and Al-Qadi families led major national projects that shaped Jordan’s modern urban and industrial landscape.
In trade, services, and manufacturing, families such as Al-Sayigh, Abu Khader, Al-Fakhouri, Abu Jaber, Al-Dajani, Al-Salfeiti, Al-Ma’shar, and Ghorghor employed thousands of Jordanians and expanded the real economy.
In later phases, families such as Al-Kurdi and Al-Manaseer emerged in energy and heavy industry, investing in strategic projects that enhanced energy security and diversified the productive base.
Thus, Jordan’s economy was built through patient accumulation of national capital, capital that believed in the state, invested at home, and anchored its presence in work rather than rent-seeking, becoming an authentic partner in stability and development.
My Son… Thougan The Jordanian state was not built on paper alone, nor protected first by laws before values. Its foundation rested on a cohesive society that preceded the state and embraced it. During the formative years, Jordanian tribes constituted the backbone of security and stability, and the true support of governance and administration, at a time when the Arab Army had not yet reached its full strength, and security institutions were still in their infancy.
Tribes such as Bani Sakhr, Bani Hassan, Abbad, Bani Hamida, and Al-Da’jah, alongside Al-Huweitat, Al-Ajarmeh, Al-Adwan, Al-Sarhan, and other Jordanian tribes whose roots run deep into the earth and whose branches reach the sky, played a decisive role in safeguarding Jordan, maintaining order, and building the state.
From the very beginning, they protected trade routes, secured deserts, safeguarded villages and towns, and enforced civil peace, working in full parallel with the emergence of the Arab Army and the development of state institutions. These tribes were not forces outside the state; they were the state in its earliest social form. From them came officers and soldiers, leaders and administrators. And when governance stabilized, they handed over their natural role to state institutions without conflict, because their objective was never power or privilege, but a secure and viable homeland.
Thus emerged the unique Jordanian model: a modern state grounded in a disciplined army, professional institutions, and a socially conscious tribal fabric that chose to be the guardian of stability rather than its alternative, and a partner in construction rather than an obstacle to it. This is why Jordan remained resilient while others collapsed, because its roots were not anchored in authority alone, but in tribes that understood early on that the strength of the state was their strength, and that preserving the homeland was the highest form of honor.
The Jordanian state was never the possession of a single origin, nor the product of one group. It was the outcome of converging destinies on one land. From the earliest days, Jordanians of diverse backgrounds and origins contributed to building the state and protecting its security and stability, not as guests or temporary residents, but as full citizens in belonging.
Circassians and Chechens were among the first to establish towns, protect roads, and join early the army and security services, becoming models of discipline and loyalty to the emerging state.
Armenians contributed through their craftsmanship, professionalism, and skill to the economy, urban development, and administration, becoming a pillar of civil construction.
Jordanian Christians, the salt of the land, stood from the foundation as full partners in governance, parliament, the army, judiciary, and education, carrying the values of citizenship and moderation, and affirming that national identity is measured not by religion, but by commitment and belonging.
Thus took shape the distinctive Jordanian model: a state secure because its people, despite their varied origins, agreed on one homeland, one law, and one shared destiny. Diversity here was not a source of weakness, but a source of strength and stability, because everyone chose to be a partner in protection and construction, not a spectator to history.
In Jordan, national unity was never a slogan in a speech, nor a temporary compromise. It was the essence of the state and the core of its resilience. We do not define ourselves by origins, but by stance, belonging, and shared fate.
We are all Jordanians at home, bearing one indivisible state, one law without favoritism, and one flag that is never lowered. And we are all Palestinians abroad, carrying one cause that is neither negotiable nor delegable. Palestine was never the cause of “brothers” alone; it was always Jordan’s own cause: historically, geographically, existentially, and morally. History taught us this before politics. Our parents and grandparents instilled it long before books did.
Even in the era of the early Islamic conquests, this land was not fragmented by narrow identities. Jund Filastin extended south of the Dead Sea east and west, while Jund Al-Urdunn lay to the north, stretching east and west along the Jordan River to the Mediterranean coast.
Our elders used to tell us how traveling from Irbid to Nablus, or from Karak to Hebron, was far easier than traveling from Irbid to Karak. Geography and belief together seemed to declare that this land was one indivisible whole.
What binds us, therefore, is deeper than cherished symbols, deeper than Al-Faisaly and Al-Wehdat, deeper than mansaf and molokhia, deeper than red or black keffiyehs. What binds us is unity of history and unity of destiny in the face of a project that never ceased to target Jordan as it targeted Palestine.
From this deep understanding emerged Jordan’s role in Jerusalem, not as an act of solidarity, but as a sovereign, moral, and historical responsibility. The Hashemite custodianship over Islamic and Christian holy sites was never a political privilege nor a ceremonial title. It was a solemn trust carried since Sharif Hussein bin Ali, reinforced by Hashemite kings, and today stands as the first line of defense for Jerusalem’s Arab, Islamic, and Christian identity.
Jordan never stood neutral over Jerusalem. It never bargained, nor altered its constants. It defended Al-Aqsa Mosque, protected holy sites, and confronted attempts at Judaization, paying the political and economic price because it understands that abandoning Jerusalem is abandoning Jordanian identity itself.
Thus, when hostile projects attempted to manipulate identities within Jordan to fracture it from within, they failed, because this people understood early on that Palestine was not a burden on Jordan, but part of its self-definition, and that Jerusalem was not a distant symbol, but an unbreakable national compass.
This is how Jordan remained strong and cohesive: one state, one people, one position, aware that unity is not a political option, but a historical destiny, an irreversible fate, and a red line beyond testing.
My Son… Thougan The 1990s marked a phase of political realism, shaped by necessity and clouded by uncertainty. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of bipolar global order, the world changed rapidly, leaving little room for hesitation by small states.
Jordan entered the decade burdened by heavy pressures: a fragile economy, limited resources, an undeclared regional siege, and the repercussions of the Gulf War, which weakened its traditional alliances and strained its economic and political security. In this suffocating international environment, Jordanian leadership faced difficult choices, each costly, each carrying risk.
The decision to sign the 1994 peace treaty with Israel was not the product of illusionary trust, but the decision of a state seeking to secure its existence and protect its higher interests in a volatile region. Jordan understood, with hard realism, that the international balance of power did not favor absolute rejection, especially after the Palestinians themselves had signed the Oslo Accords the year before.
Remaining outside emerging arrangements risked exposing Jordan’s security and economy to pressures it could not bear. The treaty was seen as a means to regulate borders, secure water resources, curb forced displacement, protect Jordan’s role in Jerusalem, and manage the conflict through political tools rather than have force imposed upon it.
Yet Jordan entered this path without illusions of comprehensive peace, and without forgetting Israel’s history or its known ambitions in Jordan and Palestine. Both the state and the people were acutely aware that Israel would not abandon policies of domination or threats to Jordanian security and sovereignty when opportunities arose.
Thus, the treaty was never viewed as abandonment of Palestine, but as a forced management of conflict, while maintaining firm positions in support of Palestinian rights and rejecting resettlement or the alternative homeland.
Within this deep national debate, principled positions emerged from within the state itself, expressing concern over the ambiguity of the agreement and the limits of its guarantees.
Foremost among these was the resignation of Thougan Hindawi from the government of Dr. Abdul Salam Al-Majali. His resignation was not opposition to the state nor to its legitimacy, but a political and moral stance rooted in firm conviction that the agreement, by its structure and references, carried long-term strategic risks.
He believed that the ambiguity surrounding some of its provisions could later be used to pressure Jordan and threaten its security and historical role. Time would prove that these reservations were not pessimism nor political posturing, but early foresight and sober reading of a reality that did not fundamentally change.
Nearly three decades after the treaty, Israel continues its expansionist policies and persistent threats, direct and indirect, to Jordanian security, while evading ethical and political commitments. In this light, the value of recorded positions becomes clear, not as opposition, but as honest national testimony for history.
This is how the 1990s must be understood in the Jordanian narrative: a period in which the state chose harsh realism over reckless adventure, and in which statesmen recorded their positions with clarity, some bearing the weight of decision, others bearing the cost of dissent.
Despite all of this, Jordan remained faithful to its essence: a state that knows its limits, protects itself, and does not compromise its identity, even while walking the most difficult paths.
My Son… Thougan Parallel to the course of political and developmental state-building, the role of His Royal Highness Prince Hassan bin Talal emerged as the quiet mind of the state, a mind that worked patiently on the future, with foresight and depth, under the direct guidance of the late King Hussein bin Talal.
From the 1960s through the 1990s, Prince Hassan assumed a pivotal role in shaping and guiding Jordan’s path of sustainable economic and social development, laying the intellectual and institutional foundations for long-term planning in a country limited in resources yet vast in ambition. Comprehensive five-year and ten-year national development plans were conceived and implemented under his direction, patronage, and close follow-up.
Under this vision, schools, hospitals, universities, research centers, and intellectual forums were built, among them the Higher Council for Science and Technology, the Royal Scientific Society, Princess Sumaya University for Technology, and the Arab Thought Forum. Industries were established, cement, phosphate, potash, electricity, and others, alongside nationwide networks of roads, water, electricity, and communications, extending from one end of the country to the other, in service of both homeland and citizen.
His role was neither fleeting nor merely administrative. It was the role of a strategic intellect that sought to connect education with the economy, development with justice, and growth with sustainability. He contributed to launching intellectual and developmental initiatives aimed at building the human being before the structure, and at balancing the demands of the present with the rights of future generations.
At the same time, Prince Hassan became the voice of Jordanian wisdom to the world, and a global reference in interfaith and intercultural dialogue, defending the values of moderation and coexistence, and affirming that religion, at its core, is a bridge of communication, not an instrument of conflict.
In this role, he did not merely represent Jordan; he offered an ethical and intellectual model of a small state that believes its stature is built through reason and knowledge, just as it is built through principled positions.
With the passing of the torch, Prince Hassan remained steadfast in his unwavering support for the state’s journey, standing firmly behind His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and his reform and modernization project, and affirming his full support for the beloved Crown Prince, His Royal Highness Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II, as the natural extension of a Hashemite path founded on wisdom, continuity, and historical responsibility.
Thus, the picture was complete: a leadership that builds, a mind that plans, and an intellectual reference that safeguards the compass, so that Jordan may remain, as it has always been, a state of balance and prudence in a region where balance is rare and turmoil abundant.
My Son… Thougan When His Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein assumed his constitutional powers in 1999, Jordan was not merely entering a new era; it was entering an entirely different century, a century of accelerated globalization, digital revolution, open-ended regional turbulence, and the collapse of long-held certainties.
He inherited a state that was politically stable, yet whose resources were underutilized, surrounded by a region that knew no calm. The greatest challenge before him was to preserve a delicate balance: to modernize the state without stripping it of its identity, to open Jordan to the world without dissolving into it, and to safeguard stability without freezing ambition.
He did not promise Jordanians miracles, nor did he sell them illusions. Instead, he chose the harder path, the path of building the state under pressure, not escaping reality. He led a demanding course of political, economic, and administrative modernization at a time when reform was not a luxury, but a condition for survival.
Over a quarter of a century, Jordan faced crises that, had they converged elsewhere, would have brought states to their knees: scarce energy, chronic water shortage, global financial crises, wars that shut down markets, and a geography that shifted from blessing to burden. Not a single year passed without a shock, Iraq, the Arab Spring, Syria, terrorism, COVID-19, the Russian-Ukrainian war, culminating in the most horrific crime of this era: genocide, war crimes, and forced displacement in Gaza.
And yet, Jordan did not break. It did not lose its compass. It did not bargain away its security or its dignity.
Reform in the Eye of the Storm
At the heart of the storm, and under His Majesty’s leadership and vision, the state did not freeze, it worked.
The Political Modernization Vision was launched to expand participation and build genuine party life. The constitution and laws governing parties, elections, and political life were amended, opening real pathways for youth and women, not as decorative slogans, but as an emerging political force.
The Economic Modernization Program was introduced to transform constraints into opportunities. The economy diversified, exports grew, and Jordanian industries emerged with global competitiveness, in pharmaceuticals, technology, mining, garments, and beyond. Major national projects, new cities, and infrastructure were launched despite relentless pressure.
Administrative modernization advanced through digital services and unified platforms, affirming that a strong state is measured by its ability to serve its citizens with efficiency, fairness, and dignity.
Not all ambitions were realized, my son, but the undeniable truth is that Jordan preserved its cohesion and avoided the collapse that struck states larger, stronger, and far wealthier.
Wisdom in a Burning Region
In a region ablaze, Jordan, under His Majesty’s leadership, was the voice of wisdom, not the noise of reckless adventure. It did not slide into chaos, nor did it export crises. It safeguarded internal security and social cohesion, and opened its doors to refugees with rare humanity, despite the heavy cost.
This was possible because leadership was calm, institutions were resilient, and the people were conscious, aware that the alternative to the state is not freedom, but chaos.
On the international stage, Jordan’s position was neither courtesy nor performance; it was a stance of necessity and conscience.
Jordan defended Palestine with constancy, warned against extremism, carried the message of moderation and dialogue, and stood firmly against injustice wherever it appeared.
Gaza: When Leadership Meets the Pulse of the People
This stance was most evident in Gaza, when Jordan spoke with absolute clarity: no to genocide, no to forced displacement, no to war crimes.
His Majesty raised his voice in every forum, without hesitation or ambiguity. Leadership aligned with the pulse of the street, and the national position unified. When His Majesty and the beloved Crown Prince returned home, millions of Jordanians filled the streets, chanting for their leader, welcoming him with flowers, in a spontaneous and sincere scene that told the world: here is a people who know their leader, and here is a leadership that speaks for its people.
The People as the Ultimate Anchor
Through all of this, my son, the Jordanian people remained the true pillar of their leadership and their homeland, rallying around it, standing firm with it, and holding on with unwavering resolve.
Whatever is said about governments, their leaders, personalities, policies, or performance, positively or negatively, the greatest achievement of this era has been the preservation of Jordanian social cohesion.
A society diverse in origin, limited in resources or constrained by circumstance, burdened by responsibilities, yet steadfast, proud of its state, and united around its leadership in the hardest moments. This unity was not born of fear, but of collective awareness: that the alternative to the state is not freedom, but chaos.
My Son… Thougan
When I look at Jordan today, I do not see a country without problems, nor do I present it to you, or your generation, as a perfect homeland. I present it as a story of continuous resilience.
The story of a small country that refused to be a victim of geography or politics, and chose instead to be an actor, despite all constraints.
This is my Jordanian narrative. I place it in your hands not so that you merely understand it, memorize it, or recite it, but so that you complete it, as your great-grandfather, your grandfather, myself, and the men of our time did.
Jordan, my son, was not created to be a memory. It is a project open to the future.
And if one day someone asks you: Why did Jordan endure?
Tell them: Because it has a narrative… and because its people, in every generation, chose to remain faithful to it. The narrative is complete, my son. And the responsibility has begun.
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