Tarikh Shibh al-Jazira al-Arabiya fi Usuriha al-Qadima
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- Editions
- Maktabat al-Anjlū al-Miṣrīyah
Tarikh Shibh al-Jazira al-Arabiya fi Usuriha al-Qadima (History of the Arabian Peninsula in Its Ancient Eras) is a historical study by the Egyptian historian and archaeologist Abd al-Aziz Salih on the antiquity, civilizational development, archaeological evidence, and ancient polities of the Arabian Peninsula prior to Islam.
Scope and Methodology
The work covers the ancient history of the Arabian Peninsula across epochs that predated the conventional pre-Islamic era (al-Jahiliyya) by many centuries. Salih relies on a multidisciplinary framework combining physical archaeological finds—such as prehistoric stone tools, rock drawings, structural remains of temples, dams, fortifications, dwellings, and burial sites—with ancient textual sources, including cuneiform documents, Ancient Egyptian records, South Arabian inscriptions, the Quran, and the Old Testament.
The author examines ancient epigraphy and classifies the scripts of pre-Islamic Arabia into two major families:
- The Musnad script family: used primarily by the urbanized civilizations of South Arabia—such as Saba, Qataban, Ma'in, Hadramawt, and Awsan—and adapted into regional scripts in the north and west, including Lihyanite, Thamudic, and Safaitic.
- The Aramaic-derived script family: employed by northern and western polities such as Edom, the Nabataeans, and Palmyra, from whose Nabataean variant the Arabic script was later derived by scribes in Mecca and Yathrib.
Structure and Contents
The book is organized into thematic and regional chapters tracing Arabia's development from prehistory through antiquity:
- Sources and Prehistoric Preludes: Opens with an assessment of archaeological research and the material sources of ancient Arab history, followed by the Stone Ages and the climatic cycles of rainfall and drought that shaped early human habitation.
- South Arabian Civilizations: Explores early urban and commercial activity in southern Arabia, citing early external contacts such as Ancient Egyptian records from the reign of Thutmose III (c. 1458 BCE) referencing seafaring Qatabanian incense traders, as well as the origins, biblical and Quranic narratives, and cuneiform attestations of the kingdom of Saba.
- Peripheral and Northern Regions in Cuneiform Records: Examines ancient settlement patterns in central and northern Arabia along trade routes and desert fringes as recorded in Mesopotamian texts.
- Peoples Associated with Prophetic Missions: Discusses ancient communities mentioned in religious texts, notably Midian and its geographic and chronological associations with the prophets Moses and Shu'ayb.
- Settled and Border Kingdoms: Details settled Arabian states such as Dedan and Lihyan in the oasis of al-Ula near Wadi al-Qura, along with frontier polities such as the kingdom of al-Hira (associated with Tanukh and the Lakhmids), Kinda, and the Ghassanids, analyzing their economic foundations and interactions with the Sasanian and Byzantine empires.
Publication
The work was published in Cairo by Maktabat al-Anglo al-Misriyya.
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