Arabian Peninsula

Several states are known to have existed in northern Arabia in the pre-Christian and early Christian era. Earliest among these was the Nabataean Kingdom, which for a brief period (about 9 bc to ad 40) extended as far north as Damascus. The ruins in south-west Jordan of Petra, the Nabataean capital city, attest to a high degree of culture. The Nabataean form of writing developed into the Arabic script used in the Koran (Arabic, Quran), the sacred scripture of Islam. Rome gained control of the Nabataean Kingdom in ad 106 and established most of it as the Roman province of Arabia Petraea, which lasted little longer than a century. Other north Arabian states were established by other invading peoples.

In the 3rd century Abyssinians of the Kingdom of Āksum in modern Ethiopia—who had adopted Christianity of the Monophysite type—spread into Arabia, conquering large parts of the south-west. Judaism, too, was introduced into the region. Both religions were established and to a considerable degree supplanted the existing religious beliefs, which were based mainly on astrology and occultism. Late in the following century, Persia, under the Sasanian kings, assumed control of a substantial part of Arabia, particularly of the region occupied by present-day Yemen.

The rise of Islam was the most significant event in the history of Arabia. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, was born in Mecca about 570 and died in Medina in 632. Mecca became the spiritual centre of the new religion. From 632 to 661 Medina was the political centre of a united Muslim state under the caliphs (vice regents) who followed Muhammad. Arabian armies conquered Syria, Egypt, and Sasanian Persia. After Egypt fell in 642, the tide of Muslim conquest swept west over the whole of northern Africa and then over the Spanish Peninsula. During this period the followers of Muhammad completed the compilation of his divine revelations into the Koran, the first known work in Arabic prose. In 658 the first Umayyad caliph, Muawiyah, removed the caliphate to Damascus and Arabia declined in importance. The rise of the Abbasids after 750 and the shift in the centre of Islam to Baghdad resulted in a further decline.

From the 8th to the early 10th century Arabia was reduced to a province under the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad. By the mid-10th century the rule of Baghdad had been successfully contested by the Qarmatians, a new Muslim sect, which controlled all of the Arabian peninsula. Towards the end of the 10th century, the Qarmatians lost their power to various Bedouin tribes. The Arabian peninsula, completely disunited, was divided into numerous petty governments. From 1075 to 1094, however, Arabia acknowledged the spiritual leadership of the Abbasid caliph at Baghdad. In 1258 the Mongols conquered Baghdad, and from that time on Baghdad had no influence over Arabia. In 1269 Mecca and Al Ḩijāz (the Hejaz) came under the control of emirs (Muslim princes) from Egypt. When the Turks conquered Egypt in 1517, they took control of Al Ḩijāz and thereafter exerted considerable power over the rest of the peninsula.

The history of the Arabian peninsula from about 1750 to the present is to a great extent the history of the Wahhabis. Under the founder of this religious sect, the stern reformer Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, not only was a great religious revival initiated in the peninsula, but Arabian national spirit was aroused against Turkish domination. The Wahhabis took Mecca from the Turks in 1802 and Medina in 1804. In this period the Wahhabi empire extended to the boundaries of modern Yemen and Oman. Under the leadership of the viceroy of Egypt, however, the Turks regained the two cities in 1812.

The conflict between the Turks and the Wahhabis endured until the end of World War I; in the last quarter of the 19th century there was also considerable warfare between various Wahhabi factions. By 1906 the Wahhabis had come under the leadership of the resourceful and intelligent Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, sultan of Najd, and under his direction the Wahhabi state expanded greatly. During World War I, Ibn Saud cooperated with Great Britain in fighting Turkey. Final Turkish defeat resulted in its expulsion from Al Ḩijāz, Asir, and Yemen. Six years of civil war followed between adherents of Ibn Saud and followers of various other Arabian princes and chieftains. In 1924 and 1925, Ibn Saud conquered Al Ḩijāz, becoming its king in 1926. In 1927 he proclaimed himself king of Al Ḩijāz, and of Najd and its dependencies; in 1932 he gave his two dominions the name of Saudi Arabia. His annexation of the principality of Asir to Al Ḩijāz in 1933 caused a war (March to May 1934) with Yemen. The treaty signed by the two countries on May 20, 1934 provided that Asir and the inland region of Najrān were to remain within Saudi Arabia.

The various small states along the Persian Gulf, meanwhile, came under the influence of Great Britain after the 1850s, becoming protectorates after the 1890s (see Persian Gulf States).

For the subsequent history of Arabia and of its various political divisions and for other information on these states, see Bahrain; Kuwait; Oman; Qatar; Saudi Arabia; United Arab Emirates; Yemen, Republic of.