Arabia

/euh ray"bee euh/, n.

a peninsula in SW Asia, including Saudi Arabia, Yemen Arab Republic, People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait: divided in ancient times into Arabia Deserta, Arabia Petraea, and Arabia Felix. 17,800,000; ab. 1,000,000 sq. mi. (2,600,000 sq. km). Also called Arabian Peninsula.

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(as used in expressions)

Lawrence of Arabia

Saudi Arabia

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

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▪ Roman province

      Roman province created out of the former kingdom of the Nabataeans and the adjacent Syrian cities of Gerasa and Philadelphia (modern Jarash and ʿAmmān, Jordan, respectively), after the formal annexation of the Nabataean kingdom by the Roman emperor Trajan in AD 105. The province was bounded by the western coast of the Sinai Peninsula, the present Syrian-Lebanese border to a line south of Damascus, and the eastern coast of the Red Sea as far as Egra (Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ in the Hejaz). It prospered economically in the 2nd century, and it became a source of customs revenue to the Romans because of the South Arabian caravan and maritime trade in incense and other Far Eastern commodities that passed through the area. Under the Romans, Bostra (Bozrah; now Buṣrá ash-Shām, Syria) in the extreme north became the capital and legionary camp, but the old royal capital of Petra remained the religious centre. By constructing a road linking Damascus, via Bostra, Gerasa, Philadelphia, and Petra, to Aelana on the Gulf of Aqaba, the Romans further strengthened the province's communications and secured control over restless Bedouin tribes to the east.

      At the end of the 3rd century, the Roman emperor Diocletian divided Arabia into a northern province, enlarged by the Palestinian regions of Auranitis and Trachonitis, with Bozrah as the capital, and a southern province, with Petra as capital. The southern province, united to Palestine by the emperor Constantine I the Great, became known as Palaestina Salutaris (or Tertia) when detached again in AD 357–358. The cities of both provinces enjoyed a marked revival of prosperity in the 5th and 6th centuries and fell into decay only after the Arab conquest in 632–636.

▪ peninsula, Asia

Introduction

Arabic  Jazīrat Al-ʿArab (“Island of the Arabs”),  

      peninsular region, together with offshore islands, located in the extreme southwestern corner of Asia. The Arabian Peninsula is bounded by the Red Sea on the west and southwest, the Gulf of Aden on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south and southeast, and the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf (also called the Arabian Gulf) on the northeast. Geographically the peninsula and the Syrian Desert merge in the north with no clear line of demarcation, but the northern boundaries of Saudi Arabia and of Kuwait are generally taken as marking the limit of Arabia there.

      The peninsula's total area is about 1,000,000 square miles (2,590,000 square kilometres). The length, bordering the Red Sea, is approximately 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometres) and the maximum breadth, from Yemen to Oman, 1,300 miles. The largest political division is Saudi Arabia; it is followed, in order of size, by Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain. The island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, about 200 miles southeast of the mainland, has strong ethnographic links to Arabia; politically it is part of Yemen.

      The geographic cohesiveness of the Arabian Peninsula is reflected in a shared interior of desert and a shared exterior of coast, ports, and relatively greater opportunities for agriculture. The fact that most of the peninsula is unfavourable for settled agriculture is of enormous significance. Competition for habitable land is keen, and efficient use of land and water is crucial to the welfare of each state. Social characteristics reinforce the geophysical factors that have created a somewhat similar environment throughout the peninsula: a homogeneity among the people is seen in a degree of similarity in language, religion, culture, and political experience.

      The vast majority of Arabians are ethnic Arabs, and a large number are able to trace their ancestry back through many generations living in the same area. Nearly all speak Arabic, and differences in dialects, though substantial, do not bar mutual intelligibility. Since the Islāmic expansion of the mid-7th century, most Arabians have been Muslim. Differences in sects are important locally, as in Bahrain and Yemen, but the historic commitment of the peninsula to the faith of its son, the Prophet Muḥammad, has done more to unite than divide it.

      Culture has found expression in forms that are the joint inheritance of all the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula, and that inheritance is shared with Arab and Muslim societies beyond the region. Poetry, religious laws and precepts, and values associated with heroism permeated the culture of the past, but the innovations associated with Western culture have reached the entire peninsula in the 20th century and have substantially influenced art, mores, and behaviour.

      Most of the states of the peninsula share common political systems. Nearly all are or have been monarchies, based in large part on principles of religious legitimacy. In the 20th century, and especially since World War II, they have aimed at gradual change in political life while trying to achieve rapid economic and social advancement. Although the peninsula's available natural resources are not distributed equally among its states—those in the south and southwest derive far less wealth from oil, for example—similar economic transformations have taken place, or are taking place, in all the societies. Urbanization, greater access to health care and education, secularization, and the settling of many nomads have changed the fabric of daily life throughout the area.

      The various sections of the Arabian Peninsula have only seldom been united under one government. In the 16th century, for instance, the Ottoman Empire was able to conquer most of the coasts, but it could take neither the interior of the peninsula nor the southeast. In the 19th century Great Britain or the Ottomans controlled much of the peninsula, but the central interior almost continually remained independent under the Saudis.

      Arabia, from the advent of Islām in the 7th century, maintained close ties with other parts of the Middle East through commercial, religious, social, military, and political interactions. In modern times the Arabian Peninsula's growing importance to the rest of the world, resulting primarily from the petroleum discoveries of the 20th century, led to increased contacts with the West. The blending of Middle Eastern and external influences presents both opportunities and problems for the peoples and countries of the peninsula.

      Despite the political disunity of the past and the considerable variety of national experiences in the present, the Arabian Peninsula continues to share an underlying unity of environment, society, culture, and faith.

William L. Ochsenwald

The land

 

       Arabia may be described as a vast plateau, edged with deeply dissected escarpments on three sides and sloping gently northeastward from the Red Sea to the eastern lowlands adjoining the Persian Gulf. The peninsula's highest peak, An-Nabī Shuʿayb, at 12,008 feet (3,660 metres), is located approximately 20 miles northwest of Sanaa in Yemen.

Geology

      The bulk of Arabia consists of two main geomorphological areas: the Arabian shield in the west; and sedimentary areas dipping away from the shield to the northeast, east, and southeast into the great basin consisting of lower Iraq, the Persian Gulf, and the eastern part of the Rubʿ al-Khali (the Empty Quarter) desert. The eastern edge of the shield curves eastward from the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, a northern extension of the Red Sea, to a point midway across the peninsula and then trends southwestward and southward to the Yemeni highlands. Extinct volcanoes overlie the shield; their eruptions, which ceased seven centuries ago, produced the broad black lava beds (ḥārrahs) that are characteristic of the western Arabian landscape.

      The sedimentary areas, younger in age than the shield, represent the deposits of ancient seas. The surface sedimentary strata have been extensively eroded. The harder members, more resistant to erosion, now stand as westward-facing escarpments following the curve of the shield. The sedimentary province consists primarily of limestone, together with much sandstone and shale. The first deposits are early Paleozoic (395 to 570 million years old), which in eastern Arabia dip to almost six miles below the surface. In the Jurassic and Cretaceous limestone (65 to 190 million years old) oil and gas occur at depths of two miles or less. Some of the limestone strata take in rainfall at outcrops in the western highlands and carry it underground to the Persian Gulf coastal areas.

      The Yemeni highlands are physiographically very different from those of the shield; they are not mountains but the deeply dissected edge of the Arabian plateau. From the west the formations rise abruptly from the narrow coastal plain in Yemen; they reach heights of about 10,000 to 12,000 feet above sea level, and eastward they decrease gradually in elevation. The highlands along the southern coast are basically sedimentary in origin. The Omani highlands are geologically more closely related to the Zagros Mountains of western Iran than to other mountains in Arabia. (The sea is only about 50 miles wide at the Strait of Hormuz.)

Relief, drainage, and soils

The Hejaz and Asir

 A virtually unbroken escarpment runs the length of the peninsula above the Red Sea. The stretch from the Gulf of Aqaba to a point about 200 miles south of Mecca is called the Hejaz (Al-Ḥijāz, meaning “The Barrier”), and the higher stretch from there to the Najrān region near the Yemeni border has acquired the name of Asir (ʿAsīr; from the name, meaning “Difficult,” of a prominent highland tribal confederation). In places the escarpment has two parallel ranges, with the lower range closer to the coast. In Midian (Madyan), the northernmost part of the Hejaz, the peaks have a maximum elevation of nearly 9,500 feet. The elevation decreases to the south, with an occasional upward surge such as Mount Raḍwā west of Medina (Al-Madīnah). Wadi Al-Ḥamḍ, an intermittent river drawing water from the Medina Basin on the inner side of the escarpment, breaks through the mountains to reach the Red Sea. Another pass leads to Mecca and Aṭ-Ṭāʾif in the highlands. The mountains become higher again in Asir, where some peaks rise to more than 9,000 feet. The passes there are particularly difficult. A lava field descending from the mountains and reaching the sea near Ḥalī long formed the natural southern boundary of the Hejaz. The high plateau of Asir, within the area watered by the Indian Ocean monsoon, is more fertile than the rural Hejaz.

      The Red Sea coastal plain is constricted throughout its length, attaining its greatest widths, 40 to 50 miles, south of Medina and south of Mecca. The name Tihāmah, used for the whole plain, is sometimes subdivided into Tihāmat Al-Ḥijāz and Tihāmat ʿAsīr. There are no natural harbours adequate for large vessels, but the many inlets are well suited for sailing craft. Islands are particularly numerous along the southern part of the coast, where the Farasān Archipelago lies, and coral reefs are common.

      In the northwestern interior the sandstone plateau of Ḥismā has an elevation of about 4,000 feet. South of it are great lava fields such as the ʿUwayriḍ, while others ring Medina. Tongues of lava south of Medina, lapping over the mountains, descend almost to the coast. The sand plain of Rakbah unrolls south of the Kishb Lava Field, which is southeast of Medina. Among the lava fields east of Mecca is one surrounding the mountains of Ḥaḍan (Ḥiḍn), the traditional border area between the Hejaz and Najd.

Najd

      The western part of Najd (Nejd, meaning “Highland”), known as Upper Najd, lies within the Arabian shield with an average elevation of 4,000 feet; the eastern part falls within the sedimentary province with the city of Riyadh (Ar-Riyāḍ), near the eastern edge, having an elevation of about 1,950 feet. The principal drainage of Najd consists of a number of eastward-flowing wadi systems that carry water only seasonally.

 In the north, the parallel ridges of Ajāʾ and Salmāh tower above the plateau to form Jabal Shammar (named after the Shammār tribe), the northernmost district of Najd. Just south of the Mecca-Riyadh road are the An-Nīr Hills. East of the Hejaz highlands and Mecca lie the Subayʿ sand dunes (named after the tribe of Banū as-Subayʿ), which constitute the largest sand desert within the shield.

      The broad mountain-studded plateau gives way in central and eastern Najd to a series of escarpments curving from north to south along the contour of the shield: Al-Khuff, Jilh Al-ʿIshār, the Ṭuwayq Mountains, and Al-ʿArmah. Of these the longest and highest are the Ṭuwayq Mountains, which with their length of 800 miles constitute the backbone of the most densely settled part of Najd. The steep western face of the Ṭuwayq, rising about 800 feet above the plains to the west, is pierced by half a dozen wadis, of which the most spectacular is Wadi Birk, a tributary of Wadi As-Sahbāʾ. West of the Ṭuwayq a series of sand deserts (ʿirqs and nafūds) forms an almost continuous link between the great desert known as An-Nafūd to the north and the Rubʿ al-Khali to the south; the sand deserts also conform to the curve of the shield.

An-Nafūd (Nafūd, An-) (Great Nafūd)

      The second largest sand desert in the Arabian Peninsula, An-Nafūd, marks the northern limit of Najd. Lying just beyond the shield, it occupies an area of about 25,000 square miles. Its sands almost reach the oasis towns of Taymāʾ (Taima) in the west, Al-Jawf and Sakākah in the north, and Ḥāʾil in the south. The sands are gradually moving toward the southeast, where they enter either the Mazhur sand dunes, the first of the deserts lying west of the Ṭuwayq Mountains, or Ad-Dahnāʾ.

Northern Arabia

      The Wadi As-Sirḥān, a depression rather than a true wadi, is about 200 miles long and 1,000 feet below the adjacent plateau. Northeast of Wadi As-Sirḥān are wide lava fields and chert plains belonging to the southern part of Al-Ḥamād, the Syrian Desert. The basin containing An-Nafūd is rimmed on the north by escarpments, down the northern slope of which run the ʿAnizah Wadis (the wadis of the tribe of ʿAnizah), to empty into the Euphrates valley; among the largest of these are Wadi ʿArʿar and Wadi Al-Khurr.

Ad-Dahnāʾ (Dahnāʾ, ad-)

      The Ad-Dahnāʾ belt, separating Najd from eastern Arabia, is a sand stream moving slowly over 800 miles from An-Nafūd to the Rubʿ al-Khali. Usually it is no more than 50 miles wide. The sands, frequently reddish in colour, vary greatly in form; particularly in the central stretches, long parallel ridges rise to heights of approximately 150 feet, while some dunes are three times that height. Ad-Dahnāʾ also provides pasture in winter and spring. In 1957 the Khurayṣ oil field was discovered beneath its sands.

The Rubʿ al-Khali

 The largest uninterrupted sand desert in the world, the Rubʿ al-Khali covers an area estimated at about 250,000 square miles. The name Rubʿ al-Khali is not commonly used by the few nomadic Bedouin who live there; they call it simply Ar-Ramlah (“The Sand”). Shrub vegetation is widely spaced over the porous, sandy surfaces and is almost nonexistent on the occasional rock and salt surfaces. Only about 37 species have been identified, most of which are perennial. The desert has been intensively explored by oil companies since 1950.

      Some areas of the Rubʿ al-Khali may have droughts of more than 10 years' duration, while others sometimes have thunderstorms or high summer humidity. In the west the gravel plains of Raydāʾ and Abū Baḥr separate the Rubʿ al-Khali from the southern end of Ad-Dahnāʾ, while another gravel plain, Al-Jaladah, lies within the Rubʿ al-Khali. What appears to be a northern extension of the Rubʿ al-Khali, Al-Jāfūrah, is regarded by the Arabs as an independent desert. Southeast of Qatar the sands give way before the vast salt flat of the Maṭṭi salt marsh, which runs north about 60 miles to the Persian Gulf coast. East of the Maṭṭi the oasis hamlets of Al-Jiwāʾ (Liwāʾ in the United Arab Emirates) lie among the dunes on the desert's northeastern fringe. The largest dunes of the Rubʿ al-Khali are in the far east, where heights of more than 800 feet are reached and sand ridges extend for more than 30 miles, with salt flats as the usual floor in between. In the east, along the Oman edge of the desert, is the large salt flat of Umm As-Samīm. In the southwest, sand ridges reach a length of 150 miles.

      Most of the Rubʿ al-Khali falls within Saudi Arabia, but boundaries with Oman in the south and Yemen in the southeast have been disputed. In 1974 Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates reached an agreement over a disputed eastern boundary.

The Persian Gulf lowland

 A low-lying region follows the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf from Kuwait around to the Al-Ḥajar mountains of Oman at the mouth of the gulf. The gravel plain of Ad-Dibdibah lies inland southwest of Kuwait. Adjacent to Ad-Dahnāʾ is the low plateau of Aṣ-Ṣummān; between it and the coast scattered hills rise a few hundred feet. Broad patches of sand occur here and there, and salt flats are numerous along the coast. The Persian Gulf on this side provides no good deep-draft natural harbours, but many inlets offer shelter to sailing craft, and modern ports have been built in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar. This lowland region is relatively well supplied with underground water from springs and wells. Deep in the sedimentary strata enormous accumulations of oil and gas are found.

Yemen

      Arabia's highest mountains occur in Yemen: An-Nabī Shuʿayb, northwest of Sanaa, reaches 12,008 feet. The Tihāmah in Yemen, broader and more habitable than the Tihāmah farther north in Saudi Arabia, supports some towns. Monsoon rains make the mountains and high plateaus of Yemen the most fruitful region in Arabia. The easy slope from the highlands to the southwestern corner of the Rubʿ al-Khali was the principal home of the pre-Islāmic civilization of southern Arabia, and the ruins of the Maʾrib dam, the greatest monument of that age, still stand there. The seaward descent from the mountains of Al-Kawr at the southern end of Yemen is precipitous.

      The harbour of Aden is formed by two volcanic peninsulas of the lowland below the southern mountain face of Yemen. The coastal plain, about 30 miles wide behind Aden, is narrower nearly everywhere else. Along this coast the stream of Wadi Ḥajr, perhaps the only truly perennial river in Arabia, flows about 60 miles to the sea.

      Eastward the mountains of Al-Kawr merge with the highlands of Hadhramaut known as the jawl (“plateau”). Hadhramaut, strictly speaking, is a great interior valley cleaving through the jawl, with its lower course reaching the sea under the name Wadi Al-Masīlah. In the interior the sand desert of Ramlat As-Sabʿatayn lies on the slope descending from Al-Kawr to the Rubʿ al-Khali, which is gentle both here and going down from the jawl.

Dhofar (Ẓufār)

      The Qarāʾ Mountains in Dhofar, the southern province of the sultanate of Oman, are about 3,000 feet high, with one peak higher than 5,000 feet. The monsoon keeps the seaward (southern) side of the mountains, as well as the coastal plain, fertile. A gradual slope leads northward from the water divide to the Rubʿ al-Khali; valleys from the slope converge on Ramlat Al-Mughshin at the desert's edge.

Oman

 The Al-Ḥajar (Ḥajar, al-) mountain range is divided into Eastern Al-Ḥajar and Western Al-Ḥajar. The range, which exceeds a height of 9,000 feet in places, differs from other Arabian coastal highlands in being steep on both sides. Plains at the foot of the mountains fall away almost imperceptibly from the numerous towns of interior Oman to the Rubʿ al-Khali basin. No mountains bar Oman's outlet to the Arabian Sea in the south; the plateau along the coast has an average elevation of about 500 feet.

Climate

      The Tropic of Cancer virtually bisects the Arabian Peninsula, passing just south of Medina. The summer heat is intense everywhere, reaching as high as 129° F (54° C) in places. Much of the interior is dry, but along the coasts and in some of the southern highlands and deserts the humidity is extreme in the summer. Fogs and dews occur in the humid areas, dew often serving as a substitute for rain. In the dry zones the sun blazes fiercely throughout the summer. Spring and autumn are pleasant seasons, and biting cold and snow are rare in winter, except at high elevations and in the far north.

      Rainfall is scanty in all parts beyond the reach of the Indian Ocean monsoon (Monsoon Current), averaging only 3 to 4 inches (77 to 102 millimetres) a year. The desert rains are torrential on occasion, causing flash floods in the wadis; sometimes these rains turn into hailstorms. It is not unusual for a drought to last several years. The monsoon increases the precipitation fourfold or more in the southwest and south. Lying within the trade wind belt, northern Arabia receives westerlies from the Mediterranean that blow toward the Persian Gulf and then south and southwest through the Rubʿ al-Khali toward Yemen. The monsoon strikes Arabia from the opposite direction. In midwinter and again in early summer the Persian Gulf experiences seasonal winds laden with dust and sand similar to the Egyptian khamsin; in Arabia these are called shamāl (shamal) (“north”), though the prevailing direction is actually from the north-northwest. In contrast to the shamāl is the less frequent qaws from the southeast. The wind regimes of Najd and the Rubʿ al-Khali are complex, particularly during spring. The winds may come from any point of the compass and vary in intensity from zephyr to gale.

Plant life

      The date palm grows almost everywhere, except at very high elevations and in Dhofar, on the coast of which it is replaced by the coconut palm. The date is a source of food, and uses are found for the trunk, branches, and fibre of the date palm. Among places noted for high-quality date-palm production are Medina, Bīshah, and Al-Ḥasā. Alfalfa (lucerne), widely used as fodder, often fills the space between palms. The principal grains are wheat, sorghum, barley, and millet. Rice supplements wheat as a food, but little is raised locally. Cotton does well in a few places, such as Abyān near Aden. In general the people of Arabia have a greater fondness for fruits than for vegetables. Melons, pomegranates, and the jujube are particularly favoured, and Al-Buraymī is noted for its mangoes. Figs, grapes, bananas, prickly pears, and other fruits are also grown, and citron and Java almond flourish in the oases.

      Although Arabia is no longer as renowned as formerly for its coffee (coffee production), fair amounts are still cultivated on the terraced mountainsides of Yemen. In places coffee has given way to the more profitable qāt (khat; Catha edulis), the leaves of which produce a stimulant. Tobacco is a product of the Hadhramaut coast.

      The world's chief source of incense in antiquity, Arabia still numbers various aromatics among its herbs, though the trade in frankincense and myrrh has long been languishing. Mimosas and acacias are widespread, but little advantage is taken commercially of their gums. Indigo and other native dyes are used in the south, both for cloth and for personal adornment. Cactus, cactiform Euphorbia, and the aloe grow profusely in some areas.

      Arabia is not the most hospitable of lands for flowers, but the roses of Aṭ-Ṭāʾif are well-known, the oleander thrives in a desert environment, and other flowers sometimes brighten the general bleakness of the landscape.

      The peninsula is almost devoid of trees. Clumps of junipers in the southwestern highlands make the closest approach to true forests. The tamarisk, which grows well without much water, is often planted in rows to retard the encroachment of drift sand. Trees are so rare that the standard Arabic word for tree, shajar, is ordinarily used by the Bedouin for bushes in the desert that furnish grazing for his animals and firewood for his tent. The leaves of varieties called hamd have enough salinity to satisfy the camel's need for salt. The tough perennials are as essential to life as the tender annuals nourished by the rains of winter and spring. The rains also assist in growing the truffle, which the Bedouin dig out of the ground.

Animal life

 The camel has traditionally been the chief support of nomadic life in Arabia. Without the camel, the Bedouin could never have moved far from water fit for human beings; with the camel, he could survive for months on its milk and penetrate deep into the deserts. The camel also furnished food, clothing, fuel (dung), transportation, and power for drawing water or for plowing. For the Bedouin the camel represented the best form of capital and the most valuable article of commerce. The noblest breeds of camel came from Oman, but some of the more plebeian breeds showed greater stamina. Today the camel, which has been for the most part supplanted by four-wheel-drive vehicles as a means of transport, is used primarily as livestock.

 Sheep and goats, known collectively in Arabic as ghanam, are numerous, but they are kept in small numbers rather than in large herds. Mutton and lamb are the favourite meats, and goat's milk is used for making cheese. The Arabian horse, noted for its beauty and endurance, is a disappearing strain in Arabia, where only a few thousand remain, though the breed is now fostered in other countries. Many Bedouin own Salukis (see photograph—>), a breed of speedy hunting dog; trained falcons are also used in the chase. Gazelles once ranged the plains in large numbers, but unrestricted hunting decimated them. Very few oryx are left in the Rubʿ al-Khali, their last stronghold, and the ibex has also become rare. Other large wild animals are the hyena, wolf, and jackal. The lion is frequently mentioned in early Arabic literature, but lions seem now to be extinct in the peninsula. Baboons were once abundant in the southern highlands. Among the smaller animals are the fox, ratel, rabbit, hedgehog, and jerboa.

      Deadly desert snakes are the horned viper and a species of cobra differing considerably from the Indian. The striped sea snakes are also poisonous. Lizards include the large desert monitor and the smaller sand-swimming skink.

      Ostriches have become extinct. Eagles, vultures, and owls are common, and the lesser bustard is often hunted with falcons. Flamingos, pelicans, egrets, and other sea birds frequent the coasts. Smaller birds found in the towns and oases include the pigeon, cuckoo, swallow, and hoopoe, while the sand grouse, lark, and courser inhabit the desert.

      Swarms of locusts periodically descend as a plague, devouring every green plant in their path. Other common insects are the fly, which appears even in the depths of the desert, mosquito, tick, beetle, scorpion, and ant. In some places bees are kept for their honey.

      The seas around Arabia contain mackerel, groupers, tuna, porgies, and other food fish, as well as shrimps. Sharks and sardines are plentiful off the southern coast, and whales occasionally enter the Persian Gulf.

George S. Rentz Basheer K. Nijim

The people

Ethnic groups

      According to tradition, Arabs (Arab) are descended from a southern Arabian (Arabia) ancestor, Qaḥṭān, forebear of the “pure” or “genuine” Arabs (known as al-ʿArab al-ʿĀribah), and a northern Arabian ancestor, ʿAdnān, forebear of the “Arabicized” Arabs (al-ʿArab al-Mustaʿribah). A tradition, seemingly derived from the Bible, makes ʿAdnān, and perhaps Qaḥṭān also, descend from Ismāʿīl (Ishmael), son of Abraham. The rivalry between the two groups spread, with the Muslim conquests, beyond Arabia; it even recurred in northern Yemen in the 1950s when the Zaydī imams, descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad, a “northern” Arab, were called “ʿAdnānī.”

      A darker-skinned strain occurs in southern Arabia, where also are found the low-status groups called Akhdām and Ṣibyān. In the north are the Ṣulubah, known to the ancient Arabians as qayn, a low-status group regarded as being of non-Arab descent. In Oman the Zuṭṭ, a nomadic Roma (Gypsy) folk, seem to be descendants of Indian emigrants to the gulf in the early 9th century, but the Baloch, whose ancestors immigrated more recently, have formed a sort of warrior tribe there. In the border regions of Oman and Yemen are the Mahra, Ḥarāsīs, Qarā, and others, speaking languages of the South Arabic group, and on the Musandam Peninsula are the Shiḥūḥ.

      From ancient times African slaves were imported to Arabia; Saudi Arabia and the Yemens abolished slavery only in 1962. Some districts such as the oasis of Khaybar in the Hejaz and parts of the Tihāmah are largely populated by black cultivators. The ports always had a large element of Africans, Asians, and others. The oil era brought many Lebanese, Egyptians, Jordanians, and Iraqis with the education and skills the Arabians lacked, and great numbers of Yemenis moved into the oil-producing states as unskilled labourers. Palestinians make up between one-fifth and one-fourth of Kuwait's population, refugees from Yemen occupy entire streets in Abu Dhabi, and so many Pakistanis, Indians, Sri Lankans, Koreans, and Filipinos have flocked to the Persian Gulf states that often they considerably outnumber the native inhabitants. By contrast, almost no Jews, long settled in western Arabia, now remain.

Tribal relations

      Throughout Arabian history, even during phases of foreign rule, it was the free, arms-bearing tribesmen (tribe) who dominated other classes of society, be the tribes nomadic or oasis dwellers, settled farmers in the highlands, or sailors, traders, and pirates gaining their livelihood at sea. The sultans, emirs, and sheikhs were drawn from the tribes, whom they had to cosset to obtain backing. There are, however, descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad, sayyids and sharifs, regarded as superior in the social scale to all others, who have at times exercised a theocratic type of rule as spiritual leaders.

      An age-old antagonism exists between the settled peoples, al-ḥaḍar, and the nomadic (nomadism) or pastoral tribes, known as Bedouin (al-bādiyah), but many settled tribes also have nomadic branches. In Yemen, the fertile southwestern corner of Arabia containing more than one-third of its total population, the same antagonistic feelings exist between city dwellers and qabīlīs, arms-bearing tribes mostly settled in villages. Until after World War I the Bedouin of the northern deserts were able to keep the settled people in constant apprehension of their raiding; the tribes would even attack and plunder the pilgrim hajj caravans to the Holy Cities unless they were bought off or restrained by force. But modern weapons and airplanes, which can be used to search out tribesmen in their desert or mountain fastnesses, have altered the situation. Each tribe used to be at war or in a state of armed truce with others, and protection was required to enter another tribe's territory. Shortly before World War I Ibn Saʿūd, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, began to establish the Bedouin in military and agricultural colonies called hijrah, encouraging them to abandon pastoral life, and programs aimed at the “sedentarization” of the Bedouin have been adopted by states like Jordan and Kuwait.

      Contrary to commonly held belief, the tribes are not egalitarian, and some have the quality of sharaf (sharif) or nobility in greater degree than others; some, such as the Hutaym and Sharārāt of the north, are despised by the noble tribes. A father will not accept a suitor who belongs to an inferior tribe for his daughter's hand, far less a ḥāḍarī suitor. This is the key to social standing in Arabia.

      The nomadic tribes of Arabia are herders of camels, sheep, and goats. They move from pasture to pasture, but they visit tribal markets to purchase dates and grain and to sell their animals, wool, and clarified butter (ghee). The mountain peoples depend more on donkeys than camels, and they raise cattle, which they use for agricultural and irrigation work, as well as sheep and goats.

      Oil's vast revenues, poured into Arabia, have transformed and are fast destroying ancient patterns of living. The population of the Arabian Peninsula as a whole is now incomparably better off in terms of nutrition, welfare, amenities, and education, but the rapidity of the cultural change is unsettling, as are the shifts in the native population. Throughout the peninsula, the new urban centres are drawing in labour from the countryside, and the presence of large numbers of foreigners, many of whom enjoy much higher incomes than the natives, is resented.

Robert Bertram Serjeant

The economy

 The mineral resource of greatest value is oil (petroleum). The Arabian Peninsula has the largest oil reserves in the world. With the exception of deposits in Yemen, the Arabian oil fields lie in the same great sedimentary basin as the fields of Iran and Iraq. Although oil was discovered in Iran in 1908, the first field on the Arabian side of the basin, in Bahrain, was not found until 1932. This inspired an intensive search in eastern Arabia that in time reached far into the interior. Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in 1938, in Kuwait and Qatar in 1940, on the mainland of the Saudi Arabia/Kuwait Neutral Zone in 1953, on the mainland of Abu Dhabi in 1960, in Oman in 1964, in South Yemen in 1983, and in North Yemen in 1984. In 1951 oil was discovered in the Persian Gulf off Saudi Arabia, in 1958 in Abu Dhabi offshore, and in 1960 in the Saudi Arabia/Kuwait Neutral Zone offshore.

      In association with the oil are enormous amounts of natural gas. Making use of this gas commercially requires extremely large investments. Some gas is liquefied for local consumption or for export, and some is reinjected into the oil-bearing strata for storage and to help maintain pressure for oil production.

      The Arabian countries are attempting economic diversification, though the abundance of oil is a disincentive. Ancient mining sites bear witness to once-flourishing production of minerals: gold at the old mine of Mahd adh-Dhahab in the Hejaz; silver at a mine in the mountains west of Maʾrib; and very large copper production in Oman (until deforestation exhausted the supplies of wood for on-site smelting). Deposits of iron have been found in the northern Hejaz and Najd. Other resources, some of which are being exploited, are barite, gypsum, salt, lime for cement, clay for bricks and pottery, shale, quartz sand for glass, marble, and building stone.

      For many centuries the oyster beds of the Persian Gulf produced some of the world's finest pearls (pearl), and pearling was once a thriving and profitable occupation. Bahrain was the chief centre, and the Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates), Qatar, and Saudi Arabia also participated. Since about 1931 the trade has declined continuously as a result of the world economic depression, the competition of Japanese cultured pearls, and the siphoning off of labour into other less onerous and more lucrative fields.

      Even in the southwest, where rainfall is heaviest, the water supply is not constant enough for the generation of power. The scarcity of water and the poor quality of the soil have hampered the development of an export trade in agricultural produce. Progress has been made by individual states in improving irrigation systems and expanding cultivated areas.

George S. Rentz Basheer K. Nijim

Additional Reading

Introductions to the area include Sheila A. Scoville (ed.), Gazetteer of Arabia: A Geographical and Tribal History of the Arabian Peninsula, vol. 1 (1979); Robert W. Stookey (ed.), The Arabian Peninsula: Zone of Ferment (1984); Hassan S. Haddad and Basheer K. Nijim (eds.), The Arab World: A Handbook (1978); Alois Musil, Northern Negd (1928, reprinted 1978), on the Najd region of Saudi Arabia; and Derek Hopwood (ed.), The Arabian Peninsula: Society and Politics (1972). See also M.W. Dempsey (comp.), Atlas of the Arab World (1983). Early explorations are chronicled in Robin Bidwell, Travellers in Arabia (1976); and Zahra Freeth and H.V.F. Winstone, Explorers of Arabia: From Renaissance to the End of the Victorian Era (1978). The people of the peninsula are described in Peter Mansfield, The New Arabians (1981); H.R.P. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 3rd ed. rev. and abridged by Robert Wilson and Zahra Freeth (1983); Max Freiherr von Oppenheim, Die Beduinen, 2 vol. (1939, reprinted 1983); and Walter Dostal, Die Beduinen in Südarabien (1967). Religious life and history are detailed in Gonzague Ryckmans, Les Religions arabes préislamiques, 2nd ed. (1951); J. Spencer Trimingham, Christianity Among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times (1979); and A.J. Arberry (ed.), Religion in the Middle East, vol. 2, Islam (1969, reprinted 1976). Articles on the geography, history, and religion of the Arabian Peninsula may be found in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 4 vol. and a suppl. (1913–36), with a new edition in progress, beginning in 1960; and The Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (1953, reprinted 1974), with articles taken from the larger work. Periodicals include Arabian Studies (annual); The Middle East and North Africa (annual); The Middle East Journal (quarterly); and Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies (annual).

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