Arabia

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Arabia , peninsula (1991 est. pop. 35,000,000), c.1,000,000 sq mi (2,590,000 sq km), SW Asia. It is bordered on the W by the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea, on the S by the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea, on the E by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, and on the N by Iraq and Jordan. Politically, Arabia consists of Saudi Arabia (the largest and most populous state), Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Except for the inland cities of Riyadh and Hail, in Saudi Arabia, most of Arabia's large urban centers are on or near the coast. Principal cities include Jidda, Mecca, and Medina (Saudi Arabia); Sana, Aden, and Mukalla (Yemen); Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates); Muscat (Oman); Al Manamah (Bahrain); and Kuwait City (Kuwait).

Geography and Climate

Arabia is mainly a great plateau of ancient crystalline rock, largely covered with limestone and sandstone. It rises steeply from the narrow Red Sea coastal plain, achieving its greatest height (c.12,000 ft/3,700 m) in SW Arabia, and slopes gently E to the Persian Gulf; the Oman Mts., SE Arabia, rise to c.10,000 ft (3,000 m). The coastal mountains catch what little moisture is carried by the dry winds that cross Arabia, making the interior so arid (4 in./10 cm annual precipitation) that there is not a single perennial stream; thus, large areas lack water. The basin-shaped interior consists of alternating steppe and desert landscape; the Nafud desert in the north is connected with the great Rub al-Khali in the south (one of the world's largest sand deserts) by the Dahna, a narrow sand corridor.

Extensive and varied agriculture (coffee, grains, fruits) exists only in SW Arabia, particularly in Yemen, where high coastal mountains intercept the moist southwest monsoon winds during the summer. The northeast coast of Oman has a climate similar to that of Yemen, but in most of Arabia rainfall occurs only in winter. The coastal lands, however, are much more humid than the interior; fog and dew are common. Desalination plants supply much of the population's drinking needs. Osmosis distillation processes take brackish underground water and make it useful for agriculture and industry.

People and Economy

The majority of the Arabian population is sedentary, concentrated around oases, notably in the Nejd (central Arabia) and the Hejaz (along the northeast coast of the Red Sea). Agriculture is the main occupation, with dates, grains, and fruits the chief crops; pastoral nomads raise goats, cattle, sheep, and poultry. Until the mid-20th cent., when oil was discovered in E Arabia, the peninsula's main exports were hides, wool, coffee, spices, camels, and the famed, highly bred Arabian horses; in W Arabia pearls were exported. With the exception of Aden, Arabia did not have a good port until after World War II, when modern port facilities were constructed, especially along the Persian Gulf. Arabia has the largest oil reserves in the world, in addition to great amounts of natural gas. Saudi Arabia is the world's leading exporter of oil. Until the early 1970s, oil firms from the United States, Britain, and to a lesser extent Japan, had a monopoly on drilling concessions. However, the Arabian nations acquired much greater control over oil exploration, production, and price controls after 1970. Modern technology and the huge wealth generated by oil resources have profoundly altered traditional life in Arabia. Flourishing private enterprise, new transportation links, rapidly growing cities, a large foreign labor presence, and rising education and living standards characterize much of the peninsula.

History

Archaeological evidence points to ancient trade ties between Yemen and the NE African coast. However, little is definitely known of Arabian history in the period preceding the oldest inscriptions discovered—those dating from c.1000 BC In those times much of SW Arabia was divided among the domains of Ma'in, Sheba , and Himyar. Political unity in Sheba seems to have been hastened by Darius's conquest of N Arabia.

No ancient power ever attempted the complete conquest of Arabia because of the formidable obstacles of crossing the deserts. Rome invaded (24 BC) N Arabia but soon withdrew, although for a long period it held N Hejaz. Ethiopia, during its great expansion under the Aksumite kings (see Aksum ), twice (AD 300-378 and 525-70) held Yemen and the Hadhramaut . In 570 the Sassanids of Persia drove out the Ethiopians and established a short-lived hegemony over the peninsula.

Arabia was briefly unified after the founding of Islam by Muhammad , the prophet of Mecca, in the 7th cent. His dynamic faith, furthered by his successors, reconciled the warring Arab tribes and soon sent them out on a career of conquest. They overran N Africa and SW Asia and gained control of Spain and S France until they were stopped in the west by the Frankish ruler Charles Martel in 732 and in the east by the Byzantine Empire c.750. However, the tremendous territorial expansion of Islam diminished its exclusively Arab character, and the need for a more centralized administrative center led to the transfer of the seat of the caliphate from Medina to Damascus. Independent emirates arose in Yemen, Oman, and elsewhere. In the 10th cent. a semblance of unity was imposed by the Karmathians , a Muslim sect, but in the 11th cent. anarchic conditions again prevailed.

After the discovery of the route to India around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498, European powers were attracted to Arabia as a site for trading bases. The Portuguese seized Oman in 1508 but were driven out in 1659 by the Ottoman Empire, which attempted, but never with complete success, to control all Arabia. Great Britain established a physical presence in Arabia in 1799 by occupying Perim Island in the Bab al-Mandeb; and in 1839 the Ottoman Empire lost Aden to the British. In 1853 Britain and the E Arabian sheikhs signed the Perpetual Maritime Truce, by which the Arabs agreed not to harass British shipping in the Arabian Sea and recognized Britain as the dominant foreign power in the Persian Gulf. The truce confirmed the temporary truces of 1820 and 1835; the sheikhdoms were thus called the Trucial States.

Arab nationalist opposition to the Ottoman Turks was aroused in the mid-19th cent. by a rekindling of the Wahhabi , a reform movement within Islam; it waned toward the end of the century. Just before World War I, Ibn Saud revived Wahhabi ideology, and during the war he signed a military pact with Britain against the Turks. His strongest rival, Husayn ibn Ali of the influential Hashemite family, led a successful revolt against the Turks in the Hejaz and set up an independent state there. After the war, however, the Saud family prevailed in a violent struggle against Husayn and other Arab families, and Ibn Saud was proclaimed king of the Hejaz in 1926. In 1932 the Hejaz and outlying areas were incorporated officially into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Hashemites were rewarded for their war efforts on behalf of the Allies by being installed in Transjordan and Iraq. Between the world wars, Britain was the dominant foreign power in Arabia, holding protectorates over the Arab sheikhdoms. The post-World War II era witnessed a significant decline of Britain's presence, culminating in the withdrawal of British military forces E of Suez in the late 1960s.

Both the United States and the USSR sought to fill the vacuum created by Britain's withdrawal from the oil-rich, strategically important peninsula. By the early 1970s, however, the Arab nations were asserting their independence with growing success, primarily due to the enormous oil revenues brought to many of the Arabian countries. The Arab oil boycott in 1973, marked by international oil price increases (particularly notable in the United States), exemplified growing Arabian economic power. By the mid-1980s, Saudi Arabia had acquired complete control of the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), which had first discovered oil there in the 1930s and was previously owned by American firms. The economic power of the Arabian countries has continued to grow as oil exports have increased. These countries account for some of the highest per capita incomes in the world. Although they were only peripherally involved in the Arab-Israeli Wars , Arabian oil interests were dangerously threatened as a result of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88). The area became directly involved militarily and territorially after Iraq invaded Kuwait in Aug., 1990. (see Kuwait and Persian Gulf War ).

Bibliography

See T. E. Lawrence, Revolt in the Desert (1927); P. K. Hitti, History of the Arabs (10th ed. 1970); F. Stark, The Southern Gates of Arabia (1972); K. S. Salibi, History of Arabia (1980); S. M. Zwemer, Arabia: The Cradle of Islam (1980); C. Forster, The Historical Geography of Arabia (1985); I. R. Netton, Arabia and the Gulf: From Traditional Society to Modern States (1986).

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.

Federation of South Arabia federation, 1963-67, S Arabian peninsula, formed by the merger of the British colony of Aden with the Federation of the Emirates of the South, a British protectorate. The Federation of the Emirates of the South was formed (Feb., 1959) by the union of six emirates, sultanates, and sheikhdoms; by the end of 1960 there were 10 members. In Jan., 1963, the Aden colony joined the federation, which was then renamed the Federation of South Arabia. The British-sponsored federation met with considerable opposition from the people of Aden, who feared domination by the conservative tribal states. Two rival nationalist groups emerged in the aftermath of the federation—the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY). By late 1967 the NLF had become the dominant group and forced the collapse of the federal government. British forces were withdrawn in Nov., 1967, and Aden and South Arabia became the independent state of South Yemen (see Yemen ). South Yemen and (northern) Yemen united as a single nation in 1990.

Arabia Peninsular region of sw Asia bordered by the Persian Gulf (e), the Arabian Sea (s), the Syrian Desert (n), and the Red Sea (w). The original homeland of the Arabs, it is the world's largest peninsula, consisting largely of a plateau of crystalline rock. It is mostly desert, including the vast, barren Rub al-Khali (Empty Quarter) in the s and the An Nafud in the n. Muslims unified Arabia in the 7th century, and Ottoman Turks dominated it after 1517. In 1916, Hussein ibn Ali led a successful revolt against the Turks and founded an independent state in the Hejaz region, but he was subsequently defeated by the Saud family, who founded Saudi Arabia in 1925. After World War II independent Arab states emerged, many of them exploiting the peninsula's vast reserves of oil. Area: c.2.6 million sq km (1 million sq mi).

Arabia a peninsula of SW Asia, largely desert, lying between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf and bounded on the north by Jordan and Iraq, which is the original homeland of the Arabs and the historic centre of Islam; in literary use, it may be referred to as a rich and distant eastern land (Araby is an archaic variant of the name).
Arabian bird a phoenix, a unique specimen; the phrase comes originally from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (1606–7).
The Arabian Nights a collection of stories and romances written in Arabic. The king of Samarkand has killed all his wives after one night's marriage until he marries Scheherazade, who saves her life by entertaining him with stories. The stories include the tales of Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor. The collection is also known as The Thousand and One Nights.

Arabia The vast desert between Iraq in the east and the Red Sea in the west. In the Bible the name was probably used for all the desert area in the east of Palestine, including Sinai. The climate is severe, with extremes of hot and cold and little rain except in the mountains, but caravans of camels kept open an important north–south trade route. There were Arabs in Jerusalem at Pentecost (Acts 2: 11), and Paul explains that immediately after his call on the road to Damascus he went off to Arabia (Gal. 1: 17), which was probably the Nabataean kingdom, not a great distance from Damascus, which was in the Roman province of Syria.

Federation of South Arabia see South Arabia, Federation of .

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