Jordan 5 Dinars 2022 UNC—King Abdullah I—Treasury of Petra

Own this banknote from Jordan — one face bearing the founder of the Hashemite Kingdom, the other the carved sandstone facade of Al-Khazneh, the Treasury at Petra, a city cut entirely from rose-red rock by a civilization that vanished and was lost to the Western world for a thousand years.

Banknote Characteristics

• Varieties:
  • TBB# 236a, 1443H (2022): Signatures: Mohamad Al Ississ & Dr. Ziad Fariz ← this listing
  • TBB# 236b, 1447H (2025): Signatures: Al-Shibli & Al-Sharkas
• Color: Obverse: blue and green; Reverse: blue and green
• Front: Portrait of King Abdullah I ibn Hussain (1853–1931), founder of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; Al-Khazneh (Treasury of the Pharaoh), Petra
• Back: Central tholos (round temple) detail of Al-Khazneh, Petra
• Watermark: King Abdullah I ibn Hussain; electrotype 5 with Arabic text
• Composition: Paper
• Size: 137 × 74 mm
• Issuing entity: Central Bank of Jordan (البنك المركزي الاردني)
• Printer: De La Rue, London (1821–date)
• Demonetized: No — current legal tender
• Signatures: Gov. Mohamad Al Ississ & Dr. Ziad Fariz (Minister of Finance)
• Currency: Jordanian dinar (1949–date)

About Jordan

• Capital: Amman (city pop ~4.2 million; metro pop ~4.7 million, UN 2023) — similar to Los Angeles or Madrid
• Population: ~10.8 million (UN 2023) — similar to Sweden or Michigan
• Area: 89,342 km² (~34,495 mi²) — similar to Portugal or Indiana
• GDP per capita at PPP: ~$13,500 USD (IMF 2023) — ranks ~108th out of 193 globally
• Main exports: Potash, phosphates, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, clothing
• Borders: Syria (north), Iraq (northeast), Saudi Arabia (east and south), Israel and the West Bank (west); short Red Sea coast at Aqaba
• Official languages: Arabic
• Spoken languages: Jordanian Arabic (dominant), English (widely used in business and education), Chechen and Circassian (small communities descended from 19th-century refugees from the Caucasus)
• Sovereignty:
  • Part of the Ottoman Empire (until 1918)
  • British Mandate — Emirate of Transjordan (1921–1946)
  • Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (25 May 1946–date) — this note issued during this period

Jordan Unfiltered

• Petra was the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom — a civilization of Arab traders who grew fabulously wealthy controlling the incense routes between Arabia, Egypt, and Rome. They carved an entire city from sandstone cliffs, built sophisticated water systems in a desert, and then vanished so completely that the Western world forgot Petra existed for nearly a thousand years. A Swiss explorer “rediscovered” it in 1812.
• Jordan has absorbed more refugees per capita than almost any country on earth — Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, Iraqis after 2003, Syrians after 2011. Roughly half of Jordan's population today is of Palestinian origin. The country has been a pressure valve for every regional crisis for 75 years.
• The Jordanian dinar is one of the highest-valued currency units in the world — pegged to the US dollar at roughly 1 JOD = $1.41. Jordan has almost no oil. The dinar's strength is a political choice, maintained through foreign aid and remittances.
• King Abdullah I — the man on this note — was assassinated at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in 1951 by a Palestinian nationalist who feared he would make a separate peace with Israel. His grandson, the young Hussein, was standing next to him and survived only because a medal on his chest deflected the bullet aimed at him.
• Jordan is one of only two Arab countries to have signed a formal peace treaty with Israel (1994), the other being Egypt. The treaty has held, but it has never been popular with the Jordanian public.

The City That Shouldn't Exist

Imagine building a capital city in a desert canyon — no river, scarce rainfall, surrounded by cliffs — and making it one of the wealthiest trading hubs in the ancient world. That's what the Nabataeans did at Petra. They carved temples, tombs, and theaters directly into rose-red sandstone. They engineered an elaborate system of pipes, cisterns, and dams that collected every drop of rain and flash flood water. At its peak, Petra may have held 30,000 people in a landscape that looks like it could support almost none.

The Treasury — Al-Khazneh — is the most photographed facade, but it's actually a tomb, probably built for the Nabataean king Aretas IV around the 1st century BCE. The name “Treasury” comes from a Bedouin legend that an Egyptian pharaoh hid his treasure in the stone urn at the top. Locals used to shoot at the urn hoping to break it open. The urn is solid rock.

The King Who Founded a Country and Was Killed for It

Abdullah I ibn Hussain — the face on this note — was a Hashemite prince from the Hejaz who ended up ruling a piece of desert that nobody particularly wanted. The British drew the borders of Transjordan almost as an afterthought in 1921, and Abdullah made something of it. He built institutions, kept the peace between warring tribes, and navigated the impossible politics of the region with enough skill that the kingdom survived.

He was shot dead at the entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1951. His grandson Hussein — who would go on to rule Jordan for 46 years — was standing beside him. A medal on the boy's chest stopped the bullet meant for him. The Hashemite dynasty has been one assassination away from extinction more than once. It's still there.

A Kingdom That Survives by Being Useful to Everyone

Jordan has no oil, almost no water, and borders that touch every flashpoint in the Middle East. It has survived by being indispensable — to the US, to Israel, to the Gulf states, to the Palestinians. It hosts American military bases. It has a peace treaty with Israel that its own population mostly opposes. It has taken in more refugees than it can comfortably hold and kept functioning anyway.

The dinar on this note is worth more than the dollar. That's not an accident — it's a policy decision, maintained through foreign aid and the remittances of Jordanians working abroad. The currency is a statement: we are stable. In a neighborhood that has not been stable for a very long time, that's worth something.

Own This Note From the Kingdom That Guards the Rose-Red City

This is a current-issue note from Jordan's Fifth Series, printed by De La Rue in London and issued in 2022. It is legal tender, uncirculated, and carries two views of Al-Khazneh — the full facade on the front, the central tholos detail on the back.

Petra was lost for a thousand years. It took a Swiss explorer disguised as a Muslim pilgrim to find it again. The Nabataeans who built it are gone. The sandstone they carved is still there, and so is this note.