It is not known when the city was first inhabited, but it is believed to have been built by the
Macedonian army during the reign of
Alexander the Great. The city was known as
Saltus in
Byzantine times and was the seat of a
bishopric. At this time, the city was considered to be the principal settlement on the
East Bank of the
Jordan River. The settlement was destroyed by the
Mongols and then rebuilt during the reign of the
Mamluk sultan
Baibars (1260–1277). Salt was once the most important settlement in the area between the Jordan Valley and the eastern desert. Because of its history as an important trading link between the eastern desert and the west, it was a significant place for the region's many rulers. The Romans, Byzantines and Mameluks all contributed to the growth of the city, but it was at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, when the
Ottomans established a regional administrative capital in Salt and encouraged settlement from other parts of their empire, that Salt enjoyed its most prosperous period.
Ottoman period In 1596, during the
Ottoman Empire, Salt was noted in the
census as being located in the
nahiya of Salt in the
liwa of
Ajlun, with a
Muslim population of 40 households and 5 bachelors; and a
Christian population of 25 households. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 25% on various agricultural products; including wheat, barley, olive trees/vineyards, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues and a market toll; a total of 12,000
akçe. By the end of the 18th century, Salt was the sole permanent settlement in the
Balqa region, a situation which persisted well into the 19th century. The rest of the Balqa was dominated by the local Bedouin tribes. It was the most developed city and commercial center of Transjordan from the 18th century until the early years of the
Emirate of Transjordan. The city's drinking water was supplied by two abundant springs, which also irrigated the town gardens along the
Wadi Shu'ayb stream. It was situated along the slopes of a conical hill, at the top of which stood a fort, and along the ridges of two deep abutting valleys, which provided a natural defense against encroachments by neighboring Bedouin tribes. Salt's inhabitants negotiated terms with the tribes, who guaranteed the townspeople access to their wheat fields in the Balqa's eastern plains in return for giving the tribesmen access to the town's extensive markets. Sharecropping agreements were formed with the tribes whereby Salt townspeople would encamp in Amman and Wadi Wala in the spring until harvest and paid an annual tribute to the dominant tribe of the Balqa. Until around the 1810s, the paramount tribe was the
Adwan, known as "lords of the Balqa". Afterward, the Banu Sakhr overtook the Adwan and collected the tribute from Salt. The city's defenses and isolation in a land practically controlled by Bedouin tribes also enabled its inhabitants to ignore the impositions of the Ottoman authorities without consequence. Western travelers in the early 19th century reported that the leader of the town effectively wielded the same authority as any of the provincial governors of
Ottoman Syria appointed by the sultan. In the early 19th century, the townspeople mostly belonged to the clans of Fakhoury, Akrad, Awamila and Qatishat. Each clan was headed by its own sheikh, one or two of whom would act as the
shaykh al-balad (city leader), who was based in the fort and was in charge of protecting Salt from Bedouin attack. The population consisted of about four hundred Muslim and eighty Christian families. According to the observations of Buckingham in the 1820s, roughly 100 Christians in Salt were immigrants from
Nazareth who moved to the town to avoid the exactions of
Jazzar Pasha, the Ottoman governor of
Acre. Muslim–Christian relations were amicable and the two communities shared the same lifestyles, dress and the Arabic language. Salt was organized into quarters, each controlled by one of three main clans, and contained a number of mosques, a church and about twenty shops during this period. Salt served the surrounding countryside as far as
Karak, which lacked a market until the late 19th century, and goods in its market originated as far as
Tyre and Egypt. It exported raisins,
sumac leaves for the tanneries of
Jerusalem,
qili (a type of ash, a key ingredient of
Nabulsi soap) to
Nablus, and ostrich feathers supplied by the Bedouin to Damascus. Nablus was Salt's primary partner, and Salt served as the Transjordanian center of the Nablus-based
Tuqan family. Although most of the inhabitants were farmers, there were also craftsmen and smaller numbers of shopkeepers, the latter of whom were commissioned by merchants in Nablus, Nazareth and Damascus. In 1834 the townspeople and local Bedouin fought together to drive out the forces of the practically autonomous province of
Egypt led by
Ibrahim Pasha, the first recorded clash of the
Peasants' revolt in Palestine. Ottoman rule in the Levant was restored in 1840, but Salt remained only nominally part of the Empire. In 1866–1867, the governor of Damascus
Mehmed Rashid Pasha (1866–1871) extended the imperial
Tanzimat centralization and modernization reforms in Transjordan. He led a large force of Bedouin tribesmen from the
Rwala,
Wuld Ali and Banu Hasan,
Hauran plainsmen,
Druze mountaineers and regular infantry, cavalry and artillery troops toward Salt, stopping three hours north of the city. From there, he offered to pardon Salt's inhabitants for allying with the Adwan and Banu Sakhr against the authorities. The city organized a delegation of Muslim and Christian grandees who negotiated the unopposed entry of the Ottomans into Salt on 17 August. Rashid Pasha repaired the damaged fort where he garrisoned 400 troops. He appointed the Damascene Kurd Faris Agha Kadru as Salt's first district governor and established an elected administrative council composed of Salt's elite families. Rashid Pasha confiscated huge qualities of grain and livestock from the town as compensation for tax arrears. Salt's heyday was in the late 19th century, when traders arrived from
Nablus to expand their trading network eastwards beyond the
Jordan River. As a result of the influx of newcomers this period saw the rapid expansion of Salt from a simple village into a city with many architecturally elegant buildings, many built in the
Nablusi style from the attractive honey-coloured local stone. A large number of buildings from this era survive .
British Mandate, Emirate, and independence During
World War I, Salt was
captured from the Ottomans by the third battalion of the
Jewish Legion of the
British expeditionary corps, and its commander,
Eliezer Margolin, was made military governor of Salt. After the war, the town was the site which
Herbert Samuel, British High Commissioner of Palestine, chose to make his announcement that the British favoured a
Hejazi
Hashemite ruled entity on the East Bank of the Mandatory Palestine (current Jordan). This wish became reality in 1921 when
Abdullah I became Emir of Transjordan. Salt seemed to be the city that would be chosen as the capital of the new emirate since most of the industry and commerce flowed through Salt. During this period Salt had no high schools. Even so, Abdullah picked the city as the capital of his emerging emirate but later changed his mind and moved his compound and entourage to Amman when he and the notables of Salt had a disagreement. Amman at that time was a small city of only 20,000 people which experienced rapid growth. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 16,176 inhabitants in Al-Salt, of whom 2,157 were Christian. ==Municipal districts==