Jordan is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, around 95 to 97 percent per estimates including Pew Research's Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020, with a Christian minority of roughly 2 to 3 percent, chiefly Greek Orthodox alongside smaller Catholic and Protestant communities, among the oldest continuously present Christian populations in the region.
Jordan's Hashemite monarchy traces its legitimacy partly to a claimed direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima, a genealogy that underpins the king's constitutional role as guardian of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, administered through the Jerusalem-based Waqf. The region holds significant biblical and early Christian heritage, including Mount Nebo, where tradition holds Moses viewed the Promised Land before his death, and the Baptism Site at Bethany beyond the Jordan on the river's east bank, identified by archaeological and textual evidence as the likely location of Jesus's baptism by John the Baptist and recognized by UNESCO.
Petra, the Nabataean rock-cut city, served religious functions in Nabataean polytheistic worship before its gradual Christianization in the Byzantine era. Crusader-era fortresses such as Kerak Castle, built by Frankish lords in the twelfth century to guard pilgrim routes to Jerusalem before falling to Saladin's forces in 1188, mark a further layer of the territory's contested religious and military history between the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the surrounding Muslim states.