Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula, or simply Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia. It accounts for the majority of the land situated on the Arabian plate. With an area of 3,237,500 km2 (1.25 million mi2), it is the world's largest peninsula—roughly comparable in size to India. Nine countries are located on the Arabian Peninsula: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, as well as the southern halves of Iraq and Jordan.
Geographically, the Arabian Peninsula is bounded by Mesopotamia and the Levant to the north and northwest and therewithal surrounded by the Indian Ocean: the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman to the east and northeast; the Arabian Sea to the southeast; and the Gulf of Aden to the south, the Strait of Mandeb to the southwest, and the Red Sea to the west. Prior to the 7th century AD, it was widely considered to include the Sinai Peninsula, which is partly separated from it by the Gulf of Aqaba and situated on the African plate. Most of the peninsula is covered by the Arabian Desert, which is an extension of the Sahara Desert.
Between 56 and 23 million years ago, the peninsula was formed as a result of the Red Sea Rift involving the African and Arabian plates. It was among the first regions to be occupied by modern humans following their departure from Africa during the Paleolithic. The historical record of the Arabian Peninsula is thought to have begun in the early 1st millennium BC, when writing systems were introduced to the region. For much of the peninsula's ancient history, it was sparsely populated by Arab tribes and home to a variety of local and foreign religious practices, while numerous empires and kingdoms exercised limited political authority in different areas. However, in the 7th century AD, the entire Arabian Peninsula was politically, culturally, and religiously united by the Arab leader Muhammad after he claimed prophethood and founded Islam, thus enabling the Arabization of many non-Arab civilizations throughout much of Asia and Africa.
While the Greco-Roman world had known the Arabian Peninsula in three large regions—Petraea for the north, Deserta for the centre, and Felix for the south—medieval Muslim geographers instead divided it into four main regions: the Central Plateau (Najd and Al-Yamama), South Arabia (Yemen, Hadhramaut, and southwestern Oman), Al-Bahrain (Eastern Arabia or Al-Hassa), and the Hejaz (Tihamah for the western coast). Since the 20th century, it has been of critical significance in both Arab and global geopolitics due to the discovery and subsequent industrialization of vast reserves of oil and natural gas. Most of the peninsula's countries are petrocracies and accordingly play a key role in the petroleum politics defining the contemporary Middle East.
1001 Nights
- 2017-08-04T00:00:00.000000Z
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