Fallujah pontoon bridges were not merely crossings installed to join the west and east banks of the Euphrates River, they also represented a vital link in the land transport network that connected Iraq to the outside world in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. With the growth of Fallujah's economic role on the international commercial map in the late fifteenth and early sixeenth centuries, the pontoon bridges gained a huge commercial and military significance (demonstrated by the Ottomans’ repeated attempts to install such pontoon bridges along the Euphrates banks near Fallujah). The local authorities in Iraq regulated the toll tax imposed on crossing bridges and using ferries in Fallujah. However, toll tax regulation was considerably developed under the Hashemite monarchy. This is the key focus of this paper, which evaluates the development of the toll tax regulations, investigating unpublished official documents produced during the Hashemite monarchy.
Keywords: Fallujah, Modern History, Pontoon bridges, Toll tax regulation.