A significant amount of documentation has become available to the Jordanian researcher, and the national document has become protected under the National Documents Law issued in 2017. Although the law suffers from a lack of enforcement, national institutions have been the faithful custodians of their documents, such as the Royal Hashemite Court, the Prime Ministry, the Jordanian Arab Army, the National Library (Documents Center), and other institutions. This makes it easier for historical writing to keep pace with this documentary accumulation, and to re-read many of the events and turning points that the Jordanian state has gone through, not with the aim of changing history, but with the aim of approaching it as revealed by its sources.
Writing history is not merely a restoration of the past, nor is it a collection and chronological arrangement of events; rather, it is a reading of the document, an analysis of the context, and an understanding of the transformations that built the homeland and shaped its identity. Hence, the national document is not a paper kept in an archive, but a part of the state's memory, a witness to its journey, and a fundamental component in building the narrative through which we know ourselves and present our history to generations.
The experiences of other countries reveal the importance of the document in rebuilding the historical narrative. In some countries, a trend of "new historians" emerged decades ago, working to uncover these documents, especially the important ones, publish them, and open a wide discussion about a number of prevailing narratives, based on archival documents that have been uncovered and re-read. Regardless of the stance on the theses of this trend, the experience confirms that opening the archive to research can stir questions and renew academic debate about history.
Here, our need in Jordan emerges for a more active historical debate based on "preserved archives," and for transforming the national document into living material in universities, research centers, books, and the press. We possess an important momentum of documents, some of which have not received their due study and analysis, and documents existing outside Jordan could add to our understanding of our political, social, and economic history.
Today, the issue is no longer just opening the "archive," but digitizing and making it accessible. The new battle is the battle of digital memory. If our documents remain trapped in iron boxes, our history will be written via search engines with artificial intelligence fed by others with their own sources. We are facing a new generation that does not go to public libraries or the National Library, but searches on their phones. Have we provided them with the Jordanian document in a digital, documented, verified, and modern language?
Leaving the document unread means leaving part of the national memory outside the circle of consciousness. Also, leaving our historical narrative to others may make our image of ourselves linked to what others write about us, instead of stemming from our own sources, experience, and memory.
Therefore, we need an integrated national project: a Jordanian school of historical writing that makes the document the basis for research, identity the framework for understanding its implications, a unified national digital archive that includes state, tribal, and family documents, and the introduction of "National Document" material into university curricula.
History is not a disconnected past, but one of the roots of the present and the legitimacy of the future. A state that preserves its documents preserves its identity. And a state that writes its history with its own hand, no one can write its end for it.
