ABSTRACT Title of Document: CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT: MANDATE ERA AMMAN AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE HASHEMITE STATE, 1921-1946. Harrison Brent Guthorn, Doctor of Philosophy, 2015 Directed By: Associate Professor Peter Wien, History This dissertation explores the modern history of Amman during the British Mandate and how the city’s development was closely tied to the evolution of the Hashemite state. This study explores the significant cultural and political hybridization of the local population in Amman because of the state’s centralization project. Few historians of the Middle East have examined in depth the formation of capital cities in nascent nation-states and even fewer have studied the city of Amman. The development of Amman must be understood in its regional context because it acts as a mirror for the development of the Jordanian state as a whole. This dissertation posits that Amman developed as a hybridized amalgam of Ottoman, Arab, and British characteristics. The Transjordanian state could not have existed if it had not borrowed countless Ottoman institutions and practices. The Anglo-Hashemite state used the Legislative Council of Transjordan to incorporate formerly autonomous elites into the machinery of the Jordanian state, transforming Amman into a Hashemite Versailles. By the end of the Mandate, Amman’s gilded cage both constrained and supported the elites within. The cage of Amman simultaneously limited elite influence and power, while protecting and reifying their muted authority as Transjordanian officials. Furthermore, Amman’s urban fabric was a reflection of its diverse heritage and cultural practices. The development of Amman as a “dual city,” divided between prosperous Westernized “West Amman” and the impoverished traditional “East Amman,” originated in the Mandate period. Finally, Amman’s central square, Feisal Square, became the figurative embodiment of the heart of Amman and the heart of the state. CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT: MANDATE ERA AMMAN AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE HASHEMITE STATE, 1921-1946. By Harrison Brent Guthorn Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Advisory Committee: Professor Peter Wien, Chair Professor Madeline Zilfi Professor Bernard Cooperman Professor Valerie Anishchenkova Professor Elizabeth Thompson © Copyright by Harrison Brent Guthorn 2015 Acknowledgments This project was funded by the Fulbright IIE Fellowship, the University of Maryland Department of History, the University of Maryland Graduate School, and the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C. I am immensely thankful and indebted to these institutions for supporting my work. This dissertation would not have been possible without the help of the archivists and librarians at the British National Archives, the Jordanian National Library, the Jordanian Parliamentary Library, and the Imperial War Museum. I would particularly like to thank Ms. Debbie Usher at the Middle East Center Archive at St Antony’s College, Oxford for her hours of tireless support and assistance. While in Amman, Dr. Rami Daher offered me countless hours of his time and expertize in the exploration of Amman’s urban heritage and culture. His insight and advice were most helpful in the completion of this dissertation. My friends and colleagues in Jordan including Riad al-Khouri, Jose Ciro Martinez, Jose Dario Martinez, Matt DeMaio, and Eda Pepi tolerated my constant musings and curiosity about the city of Amman. I am also immensely thankful for the entire Adarbeh family, in particular my friends Ziad and Ayman, for taking me into their lives and making me feel at home in Amman. I am also indebted to Ziad Fahmy at Cornell who first introduced me to Middle East History as my adviser, and has continued to help me for many years as my friend. At Maryland, Madeline Zilfi, Bernard Cooperman, Marsha Rozenblit, Julie Greene, Antoine Borrut, Ahmed Karamustafa, Valerie Anishchenkova, and Anne Rush all helped me to develop as a historian and a teacher. Peter Wien, my adviser, constantly pushed me to improve my topic and believed in it even before I did. His years of guidance have made me the scholar I am today for which I am forever grateful. My friends in Maryland who tolerated my dissertation-induced delirium and supported me for these six long years. None of this would have been possible without you. Finally, and most importantly, to my family whose unwavering support and love made this possible. Thank you for always making me keep things in perspective and look on the brighter side. Meghan, my patient and saintly wife, this is for you. ii “Capital Development: Mandate Era Amman and the Construction of the Hashemite State, 1921-1946” Dissertation Table of Contents: 1. Introduction 1 Part I: Building Amman’s infrastructure 2. For the Sake of Security: Infrastructural and Institutional Development of Amman 45 3. Extraordinary Finance: City Infrastructure in the Midst of Imperial Funds, Private Capital, and Local Actors 118 Part II: The Creation of a Hashemite Versailles: Elites Coercion and Amman 4. A Point of Order: A Battle for Autonomy in the First Legislative Council of Transjordan 162 5. Elite Manipulation in the Legislative Council: The Creation of a Hashemite Versailles 203 Part III: Building the Heart of Amman 6. Public Celebration and Government Control: The Development of Amman’s Urban Fabric 253 7. Conclusion 311 Appendices 317 Bibliography 339 iii List of acronyms and abbreviations BNA British National Archives BR British Resident CDAC Colonial Development Advisory Committee CDF Colonial Development Fund CMS Christian Missionary Society CO Colonial Office CUP Committee of Union and Progress EC Executive Council ECNC Executive Committee for the National Congress ENJC Executive Committee for the Jordanian Conference FA Financial Adviser FO Foreign Office GAM Greater Amman Municipality HBM His British Majesty HC High Commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan HMG His Majesty’s Government ICC Imperial Communications Committee IPC Iraq Petroleum Company IWM Imperial War Museum JA Judicial Adviser JARA Jabal Amman Residence Association JNL Jordanian National Library JPL Jordanian Parliamentary Library LC Legislative Council LOC Library of Congress LP Palestine Pound MECA Middle East Center Archives, St Antony’s College, Oxford MESC Middle East Supply Center OETA Occupied Enemy Territory Administration OG Official Gazette of Transjordan/Jordan SoS Secretary of State for the Colonies iv A Note on Transliteration Arabic names found in the British records have been left in their original spelling in order to be faithful to the archival material. Places and proper names that are commonly used in the English language have been spelled according to standard journalistic norms (e.g. Amman, not ‘Amman). Similarly, Arabic author’s names have been spelled according to the Romanized way in which the author spells his or her name. All Arabic names, newspaper, and book titles have been transliterated according to standard IJMES practice but I have chosen not to use full diacritics (e.g. Filastin, not Filastīn, or ‘Abd al-Rahman Munif, not ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Munīf). Technical words have all been italicized (dunum or musha‘). v 1: Introduction - Figure 1-1 image of the main entrance of Darat al-Funun on Nadeem Al Mallah St next to a public staircase (author’s image) Hidden behind a high stonewall and through an innocuous metal gate in the Jabal al-Weibdeh neighborhood of Amman is one of Amman’s premier art spaces, Darat al- Funun (House of Art). This art gallery is a compound of three homes built in the early 1920s. The Khalid Shoman Foundation renovated the main building (also known as the Humud House) and turned it into a gallery space in 1993. However, before these buildings became exhibition halls, they had a former life. The main building of Darat al- Funun (Darat I), was the home of Arab Legion Commander Colonel Frederick G. Peake from 1921 until he retired and left Transjordan in 1939. Peake, one of the two most powerful British administrators (along with British Resident Henry Cox) shaped the development of Transjordan’s armed forces from within these halls. When John Bagot 1 Guthorn Glubb Pasha replaced Peake in Amman, the house became a residence for British officers and an army officer’s club until the Arabization of the army in 1956.1 The rest of the Darat al-Funun compound (Darat II and Darat III) also has strong connections to Amman’s Mandate era past. Ismail Haqqi Abdo built both homes in the 1920s. Abdo served as the Ottoman Governor of Acre before moving to Amman in the 1920s, where he acted as an adviser to Peake through the mid-1930s. Darat II, named “the Blue House” for its Circassian wooden porch, served as Abdo’s residence during the Mandate. Darat III’s most famous residents were the Great Arab Revolt poet Sheikh Fouad al-Khateeb and Prime Minister Suleiman Nablusi (who held the office in the 1950s).2 Below these three buildings, at the bottom of the sloped compound, lie the ruins of a Byzantine Church with an impressive vista of Amman’s citadel. As you descend the steps that flank the Darat al-Funun complex into the central corridor of downtown Amman, al-balad, you are simultaneously experiencing Amman’s past and present. This collection of buildings span Amman’s entire history connecting the ancient city of Philadelphia to the small village of Mandate era Amman, all the way to the modern metropolis of Amman with its population of well over two million people. This physical embodiment of Amman’s storied past underscores its complex and at times hidden lineage. Unlike the more traditional cities of the Levant, such as Damascus and Jerusalem, in Amman you have to search for its urban heritage. This hidden and obscured legacy motivated anthropologist Seteney Shami to proclaim famously, “Amman is not a 1 Mohammad al-Asad and Bill Lyons, eds., Old Houses of Jordan: Amman 1920-1950 (Amman: Turab, 1997), 84.