Arabia

Arabia (Jazīrat al‐'Arab or al‐Jazīrah al‐'Arabīyāh)1. ‘Island of the Arabs’: a huge peninsula in south‐west Asia bounded by the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf and, in the north, Jordan and Iraq. Its area comprises seven countries: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait; and parts of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq.2. Ptolemy^† divided Arabia into three parts: Arabia Petraea ‘Rocky Arabia’ in the north‐west; Arabia Felix ‘Arabia the Fortunate’ in the south and south‐west (larger than the present state of Yemen) because of its rainfall and thus fertility; and Arabia Deserta, ‘Desert Arabia’, in the north and centre.3. Arabia was a Roman province during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. It comprised what is now the Sinai Peninsula, much of Jordan and a slice of the east coast of the Red Sea as far south as Madā᾽in Ṣāliḥ. It was divided into two provinces at the end of the 3rd century.4. Named originally after the Arabs, al‐'arab, of the central and northern Arabian peninsula whose name derives from a Semitic root denoting a nomadic lifestyle. In Arabic 'araba means ‘to cross’. In due course, Greek and Roman writers used the term ‘Arabia’ and ‘Arab’ to cover the entire peninsula. There is no Arabic word for Arabia. An Arab now is considered to be anybody who speaks Arabic as their native language.5. It inspired the word ‘arabesque’, meaning ‘in the Arabic style’, from a decorative style that originated in Arabic and Moorish art, and is applied to ballet and music. It also gives its name to the Arabian Sea.