Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula (in Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية šibh al-jazīra al-ʻarabīya or جزيرة العرب jazīrat al-ʻarab), Arabia, or Arabistan [1] is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia. The area is an important part of the Middle East and plays a critically important geopolitical role because of its vast reserves of oil and natural gas.

Contents

Geography

The modern coasts of the peninsula are, on the west the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, on the southeast the Arabian Sea (part of the Indian Ocean), and on the northeast, the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Persian Gulf. Its northern limit is defined by the Iranian and Iraqi mountain range of the Zagros collision zone, a mountainous uplift where a continental collision between the Arabian Plate and Asia is occurring. It merges with the Syrian Desert with no clear line of demarcation.

The geographers, historians, and inhabitants of the ancient Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab empires viewed the lands of Ancient Arabia located on the Arabian Plate, together with the Sinai subplate, as part of the Arabian peninsula and subcontinent. See for example the Tabula Rogeriana. That anachronistic view continued to be reflected in the writings of many 18th and 19th century explorers and authors.[2] The Arabian plate extends from the Red Sea to the Zagros mountains and from the Gulf of Aden along the Mediterranean Sea coast to the northwestern limit defined by the Taurus Mountains of southern Turkey. During this period, portions of Iran west of the Zagros Mountains, the Levant, and Sinai were all considered part of the larger Arabian peninsula. For example, the region around Eilat Israel, Aqaba Jordan, and Taba, Egypt was once part of Arabia Petraea.

Geographically, the Arabian Peninsula includes the western regions of Iraq and parts of Syria. Politically, however, the peninsula is separated from the rest of Asia by the Euphrates river.

The following countries either are now, or at one time have been, considered part of the peninsula:

With the exception of some regions in northern Syria and northern Iraq, the countries mentioned above are geographically and historically part of the peninsula. However, only six countries of the above list are politically considered part of the peninsula. They form the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), mainly known as the Arab gulf states.

As of 2008, the estimated population of the Arabian Peninsula is 77,983,936.[3]

The Arabian Peninsula

Ancient history

In his book, 'The Real Eve', Oppenheimer claims based on mitochondrial evidence in conjunction with the contemporary environment (ie glaciation, sea levels) corresponding to these molecular clock timelines that the very first humans to leave Africa crossed the virtually dry mouth of the Red Sea onto the Arabian peninsula. They travelled along the coastline of the peninsula before crossing into Southern Asia.

Wadi Shab, Oman
The old part of Sana, Yemen
Emirates towers in United Arab Emirates; the eastern part of Arabian Peninsula

Until comparatively recent times knowledge of the Arabian Peninsula was limited to that provided by ancient Greek and Roman writers and by early Arab geographers; much of this material was unreliable. In the 20th century, however, archaeological exploration has added considerably to the knowledge of the area.

The earliest known events in Arabian history are migrations from the peninsula into neighbouring areas [4]. Around 3500 BC, Semitic-speaking peoples of Arabian origin migrated into the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia, supplanted the Summerians, as the Akkadians (see Babylonia and Assyria). Some archeologists argue that another group of Semites left Arabia around 2500 BC during the Early Bronze Age Amorites and settled along the Levant mixing in with the local populations there. These Amorites eventually became the Arameans and Canaanites of later times Bernard Lewis mentions in his book The Arabs in History:

"According to this, Arabia was originally a land of great fertility and the first home of the Semitic peoples. Through the millennia it has been undergoing a process of steady desiccation, a drying up of wealth and waterways and a spread of the desert at the expense of the cultivable land. The declining productivity of the peninsula, together with the increase in the number of the inhabitants, led to a series of crises of overpopulation and consequently to a recurring cycle of invasions of the neighbouring countries by the Semitic peoples of the peninsula. It was these crises that carried the Assyrians, Aramaeans, Canaanites (including the Phoenicians and Hebrews), and finally the Arabs themselves into the Fertile Crescent."[5]

The better-watered, higher portions of the extreme south-west portion of the Arabian Peninsula supported three early kingdoms. The first, the Minaean, was centered in the interior of what is now Yemen, but probably embraced most of southern Arabia. Although dating is difficult, it is generally believed that the Minaean Kingdom existed from 1200 to 650 BC The second kingdom, the Sabaean (see Sheba), was founded around 930 BC and lasted until around 115 BC; it probably supplanted the Minaean Kingdom and occupied substantially the same territory. The Sabaean capital and chief city, Ma’rib, probably flourished as did no other city of ancient Arabia, partly because of its controlling position on the caravan routes linking the seaports of the Mediterranean with the frankincense-growing region of the Hadhramaut and partly because a large nearby dam provided water for irrigation. The Sabaean Kingdom was widely referred to as Saba, and it has been suggested that the Queen of Sheba mentioned in the Bible and the Quran, who visited King Solomon of Israel in Jerusalem in the 10th century BC, was Sabaean. Both the Bible and the Quran mention that under Soloman's rule the Kingdom of Israel included territories on the peninsula east of the Jordan river. The Islamic view of Solomon holds that those territories reached as far south as Yemen. The Himyarites followed the Sabaeans as the leaders in southern Arabia; the Himyarite Kingdom lasted from around 115 BC to around AD 525. In 24 BC the Roman emperor Augustus sent the prefect of Egypt, Aelius Gallus, against the Himyarites, but his army of 10,000, which was unsuccessful, returned to Egypt. The Himyarites prospered in the frankincense, myrrh, and spice trade until the Romans began to open the sea routes through the Red Sea.

During the Roman period the peninsula was divided by three districts: Arabia Felix, Arabia Deserta, and Arabia Petraea. The latter included the Sinai Peninsula, which is no longer considered part of the modern Arabian Peninsula.

In the 3rd century, The East African Christian Kingdom of Aksum began interfering in South Arabian affairs, controlling at times the western Tihama region among other areas. The Kingdom of Aksum at its height extended its territory in Arabia across most of Yemen and southern and western Saudi Arabia before being eventually driven out by the Persians. There is evidence of a Sabaean inscription about the alliance between the Himyarite king Shamir Yuhahmid and Aksum under King `DBH in the first quarter of the 3rd century AD. They have been living alongside the Sabaeans who lived across the Red Sea from them for many centuries:

Shamir of Dhu-Raydan and Himyar had called in the help of the clans of Habashat for war against the kings of Saba; but Ilmuqah granted . . . the submission of Shamir of Dhu-Raydan and the clans of Habashat.[6]

The ruins of Siraf, a legendary ancient port, are located on the north shore of the Iranian coast on the Persian Gulf. The Persian Gulf was a boat route between the Arabian Peninsula and India made feasible for small boats by staying close to the coast with land always in sight.[7] The historical importance of Siraf to ancient trade is only now being realised. Discovered there in past archaeological excavations are ivory objects from east Africa, pieces of stone from India, and lapis from Afghanistan. Sirif dates back to the Parthian era.[8]

There is a lost city in The Empty Quarter known as Iram of the Pillars and Thamud. It is estimated that it lasted from around 3000 BC to the first century AD. The Arabian Peninsula is also one of the few places that comprise the Cradle of Humanity.

Medieval history

Main articles: Muslim conquests, Arab Empire, and Islamic Golden Age

Arabia and Arabistan

The Romans, Greeks, and Persians simply added the suffix '-ia', '-ya', or 'stan' to form nouns for the land of the Arabs. So far as the Arabs and Ottomans were concerned, the entire region where the Arabs lived was 'the land of the Arabs' - bilad al-Arab (Arabia or Arabistan).

The Ottomans used the term Arabistan in a broad sense for the entire region starting from Cilicia, where the Euphrates river makes its descent into Syria, through Palestine, and the remainder of the Arabian peninsula. The provincial Ottoman Army for Arabia (Arabistan Ordusu) was based at Damascus and was put in charge of Syria, Cilicia, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula.[9]

The Damascus Protocol provides an illustration of the regional relationships. Arabs living in one of the existing districts of the Arabian peninsula, the Emirate of Hejaz, asked for a British guarantee of independence on behalf of 'the whole Arab nation'. Their proposal included all Arab lands south of a line roughly corresponding to the northern frontiers of present-day Syria and Iraq. They envisioned a new Arab state, or confederation of states, adjoining the southern Arabian Peninsula. It would have been comprised of Cilicia - İskenderun and Mersin, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine.[10]

Arabistan was also used in the context of the Greater Syria and Arab nationalism movements. For example, Butrus al-Bustani wrote that 'Syria which is widely known as barr ash-Sham and Arabistan is our fatherland [watan] in all its diverse plains, rugged terrains, coasts and mountains. And the people of Syria, whichever their creed, community, racial origin or groups are the sons of the fatherland.'[11]

In classic Arabic, the Cilician-Syrian frontage on the Gulf of İskenderun was called 'Ash Sham', the 'Left'. Syria was called Bilad al-Sham, (also Bilad ash-Sham and Barr ash-Sham) the 'Land of the Left', meaning North. The hinterland of the Arabian peninsula, where Abraham and Ishmael reportedly rebuilt the Ka’ba edifice, was called 'Yaman', the 'Right'. Bilad al-Yaman simply meant the 'Land of the South'. The area adjacent to the Persian frontier was known as Bilad al-Iraq, meaning the 'Land of the River Banks'. The 'Left' and 'Right' were the northern and southern halves of Ottoman 'Arabistan'.[12]

In the modern era, the term bilad al-Yaman came to refer specifically to the southwestern parts of the peninsula. Arab geographers started to refer to the whole peninsula as 'jazirat al-Arab', or the peninsula of the Arabs.[13]

The concept of the geographical unit that became Arabistan with these left and right regions predates the current era. For example, in the tradition of the Abrahamic religions Genesis 14:15 explained that Hobath was 'on the left hand of Damascus'. Genesis 15:2 indicates that Abraham and his kinsmen lived in the vicinity of Damascus. All of Jacob's sons were reportedly born somewhere in the 'Land of the Left', except one son who was born in the vicinity of Bethlehem (Genesis 35:18). Jacob named that son Benjamin (Ben Yemen), the 'son of the Right Hand'.[14]. The story of Abraham, his kinsmen, and the covenants are cited by the inhabitants as the basis for many of the ancient boundaries in the region.

Modern history

The oil boom in Kuwait converted Kuwait City from a small city to a financial hub.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the greater part of the peninsula. The majority of the population of the peninsula live in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen. The peninsula contains the world's largest reserves of oil. It is home to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, both of which are in Saudi Arabia. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, a small peninsula in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home of the famous Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera and its English-language subsidiary Al Jazeera English. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, was claimed as an Iraqi province and invaded by Saddam Hussein during the first Persian Gulf War; it is an important country strategically, forming one of the main staging grounds for coalition forces mounting the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The peninsula is one of the possible original homelands of the Proto-Semitic language ancestors of all the Semitic-speaking peoples in the region — the Akkadians, Arabs, Assyrians, Babylonians, Hebrews, etc. Linguistically, the peninsula was the cradle of the Arabic language (spread beyond the peninsula with the Islamic religion during the expansion of Islam beginning in the 7th century AD) and still maintains tiny populations of speakers of Semitic languages such as Mehri and Shehri, remnants of the language family that was spoken in earlier historical periods to the East of the kingdoms of Sheba and Hadramout which flourished in the southern part of the peninsula (modern-day Yemen and Oman).

Landscape

Ras Aljinz, southeastern Arabia (Oman) also known as the 'Turtle Beach'

Geologically, this region is perhaps more appropriately called the Arabian subcontinent because it lies on a tectonic plate of its own, the Arabian Plate, which has been moving incrementally away from northeast Africa (forming the Red Sea) and north into the Eurasian plate (forming the Zagros mountains). The rocks exposed vary systematically across Arabia, with the oldest rocks exposed in the Arabian-Nubian Shield near the Red Sea, overlain by earlier sediments that become younger towards the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the best-preserved ophiolite on Earth, Semail ophiolite, lies exposed in the mountains of the UAE and northern Oman.

The peninsula consists of:

  1. a central plateau, known as Nejd, with fertile valleys and pastures used for the grazing of sheep and other livestock.
  2. a range of deserts, the Nefud in the north, stony; the Rub' Al-Khali or Great Arabian Desert, in the south, with sand estimated to extend 600 ft. below the surface; and between them, the Dahna.
  3. stretches of dry or marshy coastland with coral reefs on the Red Sea side (Tihamah).
  4. ranges of mountains, primarily paralleling the Red Sea on the western (e.g. Asir province) and southeastern end (Oman). The highest, Jabal Al-Nabi Sho'aib in Yemen, is 3666 m high.

Arabia has few lakes or permanent rivers. Most are drained by ephemeral watercourses called wadis, which are dry except during the rainy season. Plentiful ancient aquifers exist beneath much of the peninsula, however, and where this water surfaces, oases form (e.g. Al-Hasa and Qatif, two of the worlds largest oases) and permit agriculture, especially palm trees, which allowed the peninsula to produce more dates than any other region in the world. The climate being extremely hot and arid, the peninsula has no forests, although desert-adapted wildlife is present throughout the region.

A plateau more than 2,500 feet high extends across much of the Arabian Peninsula. The plateau slopes eastwards from the massive, rifted escarpment along the coast of the Red Sea, to the shallow waters of The Gulf. The interior is characterised by cuestas and valleys, drained by a system of wadis. A crescent of sand and gravel deserts lies to the east.

Land and sea

Most of the Arabian Peninsula is unsuited to settled agriculture, making irrigation and land reclamation projects essential. The narrow coastal plain and isolated oases, amounting to less than 1% of the land area, are used to cultivate grains, coffee and exotic fruits. Goats, sheep, and camels are widespread throughout the region.

The fertile soils of Yemen have encouraged settlement of almost all of the land from sea level up to the mountains at 10,000 feet. In the higher reaches elaborate terraces have been constructed to facilitate crop cultivation.

Transport and industry

The extraction and refining of oil and gas are the major industrial activities in the Arabian Peninsula. The region also has an active construction sector, with many cities reflecting the wealth generated by the oil industry. The service sector is dominated by financial and technical institutions, which, like the construction sector, mainly serve the oil industry. Traditional handicrafts such as carpet-weaving are found in rural areas.

References

  1. ↑ see page 61 of Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd Edition, entry for Arabian Peninsula
  2. ↑ One such example is 'Arabistan: or, The land of "The Arabian nights". Being travels through Egypt, Arabia, and Persia, to Bagdad', by Wm. Perry Fogg, published in 1875
  3. ↑ "The World Fact book". Central Intelligence Agency (2007-08-07).
  4. ↑ Philip Khuri Hitti (2002), History of the Arabs, Revised: 10th Edition
  5. ↑ Bernard Lewis (2002), The Arabs in History, Oxford University Press, USA; 6New Ed edition, page 17
  6. ↑ Stuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. pp. 66.
  7. ↑ "The Seas of Sindbad". Retrieved on 2006-12-11.
  8. ↑ "Foreign Experts Talk of Siraf History". Cultural Heritage News Agency. Retrieved on 2006-12-11.
  9. ↑ see History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Stanford J. Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw, Cambridge University Press, 1977, ISBN 0521291666, page 85
  10. ↑ As cited by R, John and S. Hadawi's, Palestine Diary, pp. 30-31, the 'Damascus Protocol' stated:"The recognition by Great Britain of the independence of the Arab countries lying within the following frontiers: North: The Line Mersin_Adana to parallel 37N. and thence along the line Birejek-Urga-Mardin-Kidiat-Jazirat (Ibn 'Unear)-Amadia to the Persian frontier; East: The Persian frontier down to the Persian Gulf; South: The Indian Ocean (with the exclusion of Aden, whose status was to be maintained). West: The Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea back to Mersin. The abolition of all exceptional privileges granted to foreigners under the capitulations. The conclusion of a defensive alliance between Great Britain and the future independent Arab State. The grant of economic preference to Great Britain." see King Husain and the Kingdom of Hejaz, By Randall Baker, Oleander Press, 1979, ISBN 0900891483, pages 64-65
  11. ↑ Antun Sa'adeh: The Man, His Thought: an Anthology, Adel Beshara, Garnet & Ithaca Press, 2007, ISBN 086372308X, page 137.
  12. ↑ Palestine: The Reality, Joseph Mary Nagle Jeffries, Published by Longmans, Green and co. 1939, and Hyperion Press reprint, 1975, ISBN 0883553279, page 4
  13. ↑ A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered, By Kamal Suleiman Salibi, Published by University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0520071964, pages 60-61
  14. ↑ The Jewish Encyclopedia entry for Benjamin explains that: 'Other rabbis interpret the name Benjamin as "son of the South," since he was the only son born to Jacob in Palestine, the others having been born in Mesopotamia, north of Palestine' (Rashi ad loc.; "Sefer ha-Yashar," Wayishlaḥ, ed. Leghorn, p. 56b)

External links

See also