Mudawwara ( ar, 'المدورة) is the most southerly settlement in

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

. It is administratively part of the

Ma'an Governorate Ma'an ( ar, معان) is one of the governorates of Jordan, it is located south of Amman, Jordan's capital. Its capital is the city of Ma'an. This governorate is the largest in the kingdom of Jordan by area. History The land of the Governorate ...

. The village had a population of 691 in the 2015 census.

Etymology

The Arabic toponym, ''Mudawwara'', translates approximately to "a large round thing" but does not refer to the many green, circular irrigated agriculture plots that can be found in the area, rather to a group of

conical hill A conical hill (also cone or conical mountain) is a landform with a distinctly conical shape. It is usually isolated or rises above other surrounding foothills, and is often of volcanic origin. Conical hills or mountains occur in different sha ...

s to the northwest of the modern town.

History

Mudawwara is first mentioned in the 9th century as one of the principal stops on the Syrian Hajj route. It appears to have been by-passed in the 14th century and is listed again in the 16th century. Transport and communications together with that all important of desert commodities, water, have been the ''raisons d'être'' of this settlement for centuries. Mudawwara lies on the traditional trade-route that links with the wider Mediterranean world, the Levant and greater Syria with the Arabian Peninsula and Yemen. This route has been used for thousands of years by nomads and traders. From the seventh century onwards Islam spread across the North African coastal strip and through, what is today, the Middle East. The followers of Islam who were required to make the Hajj pilgrimage to the holy cities of Medina and Mecca travelled through this area along ancient routes. During the

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

period (661-750 AD) a route from Syria and Anatolia developed and passed through the settlements of

Ma'an Ma'an ( ar, مَعان, Maʿān) is a city in southern Jordan, southwest of the capital Amman. It serves as the capital of the Ma'an Governorate. Its population was approximately 41,055 in 2015. Civilizations with the name of Ma'an have existed ...

and Mudawwara. Mudawwara was thrust into modernity and the twentieth century with the arrival of the telegraph in 1900 connecting this remote outpost with the centre of Ottoman control in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

. Shortly afterwards the Hejaz railway arrived in 1906 connecting it to

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

, to the north, and

Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the Holiest sites in Islam, second-holiest city in Islam, ...

, to the south.

T.E. Lawrence Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–191 ...

led an attack on the railway in Sept. 1917 during the

Arab Revolt The Arab Revolt ( ar, الثورة العربية, ) or the Great Arab Revolt ( ar, الثورة العربية الكبرى, ) was a military uprising of Arab forces against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. On t ...

. Destroying a bridge along the line between Mudawwara Station and Hallat Ammar Station, the attack also took out 2 locomotives pulling 10 box wagons of Turkish soldiers. The result was 70 Turkish soldiers killed, 30 wounded and 90 taken prisoner. The station was captured during the Battle of Mudawwara on 8 Aug. 1918, along with 80 miles of Hejaz railway to

, and 7 stations.

The village

The modern village of Mudawwara has grown alongside the N5 Highway that heads southwards toward the border post with

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. It comprises low concrete block buildings and a few stores and vehicle repair shops. The many telecommunications towers link the village and the security posts to the administrative centres in Ma'an.

Ottoman Fort

A large stone fort, Qalat Mudawwara, was constructed in the 18th century by the Ottoman administration to afford protection to the

hajj The Hajj (; ar, حَجّ '; sometimes also spelled Hadj, Hadji or Haj in English) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried ...

pilgrims. There are references to a fortification at this site as early as the 9th and 16th centuries. The first Western description of the fort is given by

Charles Montagu Doughty Charles Montagu Doughty (19 August 1843 – 20 January 1926) was an English poet, writer, explorer, adventurer and traveller, best known for his two-volume 1888 travel book '' Travels in Arabia Deserta''. Early life and education Son of Rev. Ch ...

in an account first published in 1888. He describes Medowwara (sic) "...the kellat Medowwara, where we came to water. The place lies very desolate; the fort is built at a spring, defended now by a vault from the Beduin's hostility. We felt the noon here very sultry and the sun glancing again from the sand we were between two heats. ..." This was used as a first aid post by Major Buxton during the attack on Mudawwara in August 1918 and was reused by

Glubb Pasha Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ, KPM (16 April 1897 – 17 March 1986), known as Glubb Pasha, was a British soldier, scholar, and author, who led and trained Transjordan's Arab Legion between 1939 a ...

during the mid-20th century. The fort was vandalised, in the 1980s, by looters using bulldozers looking for gold and causing the south elevation to collapse. Today, it can be found, in a state of imminent collapse, to the west of the station.

The Hejaz railway

The Hejaz railway, the pilgrim railway that linked Damascus with Medinah, arrived in Mudawwara in 1905. Mudawwara was an important stop as it was one of only six stations along the entire railway that had water reserves. A water tower comprising "two 50 cubic-meter iron tanks on a stone tower", wind and steam operated pumps were constructed to extract and store water.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite book , last = Doughty , first = C.M. , last2 = Lawrence , first2 = T.E. , title = Travels in Arabia Deserta , publisher = Cosimo Classics , year = 2010 , isbn = 978-1-61640-516-8 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=xQEOFILsy1oC&pg=PA58 , access-date = February 18, 2018 , page = 58 {{cite book , last = Hulagu , first = Metin , title = The Hejaz Railway: The Construction of a New Hope , publisher = Blue Dome Press , year = 2010 , isbn = 978-1-935295-03-7 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=os3rQwAACAAJ , access-date = February 18, 2018 , page = 90 {{cite web , last = Khammash , first = Ammar , title = Hajj Hotels , website = Khammash Architects , date = November 15, 2002 , url = http://www.khammash.com/research/hajj-hotels , archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180218220505/http://www.khammash.com/research/hajj-hotels , archive-date = February 18, 2018 , url-status = live , access-date = February 18, 2018 {{cite book , last = Ozyuksel , first = Murat , title = The Hejaz Railway and the Ottoman Empire: Modernity, Industrialisation and Ottoman Decline , publisher = Tauris Academic Studies , series = Library of Ottoman Studies , year = 2014 , isbn = 978-1-78076-364-4 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4-2TBQAAQBAJ , access-date = February 18, 2018 , page = 131 {{cite book , last = Petersen , first = Andrew , title = The Medieval and Ottoman Hajj Route in Jordan: An Archaeological and Historical Study , publisher = Oxbow Books , series = Levant supplementary series , year = 2012 , isbn = 978-1-84217-502-6 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cXL9uQAACAAJ , access-date = February 18, 2018 , page = 124–125 {{cite book , last = Philipp , first = T. , last2 = Schäbler , first2 = B. , title = The Syrian Land: Processes of Integration and Fragmentation : Bilād Al-Shām from the 18th to the 20th Century , publisher = F. Steiner , series = Beiruter Texte Und Studien , year = 1998 , isbn = 978-3-515-07309-7 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=B-iDgNPVuhAC&pg=PA117 , access-date = February 19, 2018 , page = 117 {{cite book , last = Vatikiotis , first = P.J. , title = Politics and the Military in Jordan: A Study of the Arab Legion, 1921–1957 , publisher = Taylor & Francis , series = Routledge Library Editions: Jordan , year = 2017 , isbn = 978-1-351-78303-3 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=3zgkDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT47 , access-date = February 19, 2018 , page = 47 Populated places in Ma'an Governorate