ARABIA

Arabic Jazirat Al-'Arab (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 Isl amic 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 Muhammad, 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 statesthose in the south and southwest derive far less wealth from oil, for examplesimilar 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 Islam 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 Arabic Jazirat Al-'arab (Island of the Arabs), peninsular region, together with offshore islands, located in southwestern Asia. It is bounded by the Red Sea (west and southwest), the Gulf of Aden (south), the Arabian Sea (south and southeast), the Gulf of Oman and the Persian (or Arabian) Gulf (northeast), and Iraq, Jordan, and the Gulf of Aqaba (north). Its area is about 1,000,000 square miles (2,590,000 square km). Politically, Arabia comprises the territory of seven sovereign countries: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (the largest political division); the Republic of Yemen; the Sultanate of Oman; and the Persian Gulf states of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. There is also a small, nonsovereign Neutral Zone, shared by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The population of the peninsula in 1990 was approximately 32,138,000. Roman province created out of the former kingdom of the Nabataeans and the adjacent Syrian cities of Gerasa and Philadelphia (modern Jarash and 'Amman, 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 (Mada'in Salih 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 Busr ash-Sham, 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 357358. 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 632636. 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 Sdarabien (1967). Religious life and history are detailed in Gonzague Ryckmans, Les Religions arabes prislamiques, 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. (191336), 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).