Professional Documents
Culture Documents
the term Arab (_arab) carried the semantic notion of the desert
the Hijaz, became the dominant language of the Arabs, and it,
along with its cognate dialects, formed the Arabic known today.
Arabia, Pre-Islam
___ __ ___
______
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Aksum
(Ethiopia)
Berytus
Al-Mausil
Al-Bas∫ra
Al-˚Uqayr
Busra
Ma˚a\n Sakaka
Nineveh
Ctesiphon
Wa\sit
Suh∫ar
˚Adan
Mukha
Ma^rib
Al-Fa\w
Mecca
Al-Dafena
Yathrib¶Medina
Fadak
San˚a&
Al-Ja\r
Khaybar
Al-Hijr
Tabuk
Masqat ∫_
Fajr
Tayma&
0 200 400 km
Religion of
Pre-Islamic Arabia
Modern border
Christianity
Judaism
Makkan religion
Zoroastrianism
Empty Quarter. Both the Red Sea on the west and the Gulf
on the east are barriers to entry with few natural ports. There
are no permanent water-courses in Arabia and only scattered
natura maligna for Arabia, and even when using Arabia Felix,
“Happy Arabia,” for the south, they intended some irony. Its
average rainfall is less than three inches per year, and much of
History
Bible, but sound historical records only come from the period
from Arabic.
Inhabitants
evidence that they used the interior route of the Wadi Sirhan
Arabia, Pre-Islam
and Aretas III issued coins with Greek legends after 82 B.C.E.
They used a form of Arabic as their language for trade within
larger numbers into Arabia. Around this time the apostle Paul
Roman Arabia
coast of the Red Sea as far as Egra (Mada_in Salih in the Hijaz).
third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E. The Nabataeans were a
ART ARCHIVE
into decay only after the Arab conquest after 632 C.E.
finds, were well connected not only with Palestine but also
Arabia, Pre-Islam
Southern Arabia
Sabaeans.
southern Arabia.
the land of Punt. They were used for funerary and liturgical
luxury items from Africa and India made the west coast of
the Red Sea. The Syrian Seleucids promoted the use of the
end of the first century B.C.E., the Sabaean kingdom was under
Ethiopic Christianity.
Arabia, Pre-Islam
in Arabia.
goods and traffic into the settled areas. Because the buffer
Religions
Shortly before the birth of Muhammad in 570 C.E., Mecca and
that Islam came from there, but it is also in part because the
some political and economic hold over the region. The tribe
Arabia, Pre-Islam
56 I s l am and the Mus l im Wor ld
The ruins of the Mar_ib Dam, created circa the sixth century B.C.E. in Mar_ib, Yemen, by the Sabaens,
one of four major kingdoms of southern
Arabia to predate Islam. Aqueducts and dams were an important part of the Sabaeans’s infrastructure
and rise to power. Secular historians
have postulated that the decline of pre-Islamic kingdoms may have had to do with the breakdown of
their dams and aqueducts; the Qu_ran
attributes the destruction of the Mar_ib Dam to divine punishment of the Sabaeans’s sins. The Balaq
mountains are in the background.
Literary Legacy
new terms and concepts within the language itself. It was also
Arabia, Pre-Islam
I s l a m and the Muslim World 57
seer.