Arabia

a-ra'bi-a, the most southwesterly peninsula of Asia. Speaking roughly, it is a rectangular plateau extending from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf. The most commonly accepted northern limit is a line curving to the north, but drawn from Suez to the head of the Persian Gulf. The greatest length of Arabia, thus limited, is 1,300 miles. The greatest width is 1,500 miles. The total area is about 1,200,000 square miles. The total population is estimated anywhere from 5,000,000 upward.

Arabia is not a country. Turkey owns a strip along the Red Sea, and another down the Persian Gulf. Aden, at the southwest corner, belongs to England. The Arabian kingdom of Oman on the southeast shore is independent. The rest of Arabia is occupied by independent tribes under their sheiks. Turkish Arabia, which includes the cities of Mecca and Medina, has an area of about 170,000 square miles, and a population of over 1,000,000. Oman has a territory of about 82,000 square miles and a population of perhaps 800,000. Any estimate of the population of the interior is guesswork.

The ancients divided that part of Arabia with which they were acquainted into three parts: The Red Sea coast was known as Arabia Felix, or Arabia the Blest; the northwestern portion of the country was known as Arabia Petraea, or Stony Arabia; eastward from these regions stretched an unknown extent designated by them as Arabia Deserta, or Desert Arabia.

The surface of Arabia may be divided into three regions. A comparatively narrow coast region of sands, valleys, cliffs, and ranges, partly barren and partly fertile, runs around the entire coast from Mt. Sinai to the head of the Persian Gulf. Seen from passing ships, this exterior region is in general forbidding. This is the Arabia Felix of sacred geography,--a region of the date, the cocoanut palm, and the famous coffee originally exported from the port of Mocha. It produces aromatic plants and substances such as aloes, benzoin, balsam, frankincense, gum arabic, and myrrh, giving rise to Milton's oft quoted words:

Beans, rice, lentils, tobacco, melons, saffron, olives, poppy or opium, sesame, and castor oil are produced along the various valleys and terraces of this part of the peninsula.

Within this broken border is found a second belt of similar extent. It varies in width, but, except where interrupted by the fertile district about Mecca, this region is a featureless desert of shifting sands and scanty vegetation, like that of the Sahara. This desert belt, never crossed, it is said, by the foot of Greek or Roman conqueror, shelters a third large, more elevated interior region containing large areas of fertile soil well adapted to pasturage.

This grassy region is the home of the Bedouin or unsettled Arab. Like their ancestors, the interior Arabs are nomadic in character. Their wealth consists in horses, cattle, and camels, and flocks of sheep and goats. They live in tents, and move with their flocks from place to place according to the season. The camel is described in a special article under that head. The ownership of the Arabian horse is confined entirely to the chiefs. It is considered beneath an Arab's dignity to sell his horse. Colts are brought up with the family. The genuine Arab horse is most frequently gray, then chestnut and white or sorrel, but never a dark bay. It is claimed that the Arabian horse can carry its owner at a gallop for twenty-four hours without requiring a drink.

From the seashore to the interior Arabia presents a great variety of surface. The tender-eyed gazelle, the fleetest and most graceful of the antelope kind, is still found in Arabia. The long-maned lion, the ape, tiger, panther, lynx, wolf, jackal, hyena, black-faced monkey, kangaroo rat, hare, mountain goat, and wild ass are found in one part or another of Arabia. Of birds, the ostrich, hunted for its feathers and eggs, eagles, vultures, bustards, sparrowhawks, partridges, rock pigeons, guinea fowls, ducks, cranes, larks, sparrows, finches, thrushes, and parrots are found in various provinces. Scorpions and centipedes are common in the rocks and arid regions; while bees store their honey in the rock crevices of the mountains. Flies, mosquitoes, ants, and spiders are considered unusually troublesome. Parts of Arabia are also devastated by flights of locusts related to the Rocky Mountain species that at times alights in the fields of the Mississippi Valley.

Arabia has played an important part in history. It has given the world the Arabian horse, the Arabian camel, the Moslem religion, and has sent forth the Saracenic armies that overran Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain.

The Arabic language is akin to the Persian and the Hebrew. At one time the Arabs were the chief scholars of the world, and possessed the largest libraries. The eminent physicians, astronomers, and mathematicians of the day were Arabians. In name as well as origin, algebra is Arabic. Bagdad on the Tigris and Cordova in Spain were famous sites of Arabic learning, and were thronged by the students of Asia and the western world before the great universities of Europe had been thought of, or were even possible.

Almanac, zenith, azimuth, and nadir; algebra, zero, and cipher; alcohol, coffee, and sherbet; elixir and syrup; sofa, cotton, and mohair; artichoke, arsenal, assassin, fakir, hegira, sumach, jar, tariff, amber, and Moslem, are all from the Arabic, indicating the extent to which we are indebted to the Arabic scholars of the Middle Ages. The influence of Arabic writers upon the literature of Europe has also been very great. Translations of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments are still the delight of young folks. For extravagant, fairyland effects, the Moslem architecture of the Alhambra is without a rival.

See Mohammed; Mecca; Aden; Alhambra; Bagdad

Arabian Education. Following the conquests of the armies of the Mohammedans in the seventh and eighth centuries A. D., the conquerors turned their attention to learning. Before Mohammed the Arabian was ignorant, a lover of the horse, hospitable, and warlike. The great prophet himself could neither read nor write. He had no confidence in worldly knowledge and made the study of the liberal sciences punishable by death. However, in two centuries after his death, the Arabians were the teachers of the world.

The Arabians were brought into contact with what learning there was through their victories. Leaders of armies met philosophers and grammarians. The science of medicine was especially interesting to the Arabians. When they captured Alexandria one John Philoponus showed his friendship for the conquering general by translating into the Arabic language extracts from the books of Galen on the bites of poisonous serpents and the cure for them. He also composed a book on Aristotle in the language of the Arabs. The kalifs in the beginning were not so enlightened. While it may not be true that one of them directed the burning of the great library with the remark that if the books agreed with the Koran they were not needed and if they did not they should be burned, the currency of the story shows the Arabian's lack of appreciation for learning. But in less than fifty years after the death of Mohammed the kalifs were enthusiastic advocates of learning. A decree was made that beside every mosque there should be built a schoolhouse. In Spain, in Egypt, in Arabia, there grew up universities numbering their students by the thousand. The Nestorian Christians, driven out of Constantinople for heresy, settled in Persia and turned their attention to medicine. They founded the medical college of Gondisapore which sent out numbers of skilled physicians. Kalifs who fell ill sent for these doctors and thus came under the influence of Greek learning, for the Nestorians were eager cultivators of Greek science.

One of the kalifs, El Mamoun, threw the Nestorian, Honain Ben Ishac, into prison for refusing to teach the kalif a prescription by which the kalif might kill any enemy who became troublesome. After a year Honain was summoned before the kalif and was given his choice of death or compliance with the request of the kalif. The faithful physician declined to comply; whereat the kalif assured him that the demand was merely a test of his integrity. Said the kalif, "What hindered thee from granting our request, when thou sawest us appear so ready to perform what we had threatened?" "Two things," replied Honain, "my religion, which commands me to do good to my enemies, and my profession, instituted purely for the benefit of mankind." "Two noble laws!" exclaimed the kalif. Honain was loaded with gifts and made court physician.

As was the custom with great conquerors, Haroun El Raschid traveled with a hundred men of science in his train. His son, El Mamoun, was the greatest patron of learning among the kalifs. No religious or race prejudice prevented him from securing every scholar upon whom he might impose labors and rewards. Hungerford says of El Mamoun: "By such measures he strove to make Bagdad the residence of the choicest among the learned. His court took on the character of a great academy. The provinces of his empire were searched for precious manuscripts; his collectors were busy everywhere,--in Syria, in Armenia, in Egypt. Governors of provinces had instructions to further the work. Collections of books were taken as a tribute. Among the terms of peace with the Greek emperor, Michael the Stammerer, was the exaction of a series of the manuscripts of Greek authors. Vast numbers of books were brought from all quarters to Bagdad, constituting a library which represented the accumulated learning of the East. These contributions of the nations to Arabian enlightenment were borne on the backs of hundreds of camels, which entered the city laden with their treasures. Such a collection required numerous laborers to inspect, arrange and classify, transcribe and translate."

It is sad to relate that all the original manuscripts were burned. Just why this was done is not known. Probably the Arabs looked upon all other nations as beneath consideration, and there was some excuse for this in the prevailing ignorance of the times among western peoples.

There was little evidence of aristocracy in these old schools. Sons of mechanics as well as the noble born were welcome. Endowments of immense sums were contributed to the support of the universities. After studying books of foreign authorship the Arabs became authors. A dictionary in sixty volumes, histories, scientific works, encyclopedias, were among their writings. They introduced our decimal notation, and were learned in other branches of mathematics.

There is little account coming down to us of the schools of the common people, the primary schools of that day. Probably there was no such school as one of our grade schools in all the Mohammedan dominions. Even the universities were dismantled when the political supremacy of the Arab was ended. Hungerford says: "While the time of its endurance is not short,--for its sway lasted through centuries,--it goes, nevertheless, as it came; suddenly. One wakes from the recital of all Arabian history as from a dream. With the passing away of other glories the glory of letters fades so completely that it is hard to realize their former supremacy over vast territories and over millions of active minds. The bustle and busy searching. the collecting and transcribing and recording, the piling up of libraries and accumulation of treatises covering every department of learning, ceases. The intellectual career of Islam is finished. In the history of the world the movement of the Arabian mind is like that of the Bedouin horde, suddenly appearing upon the desert, sweeping with dash and vigor over the sands, and vanishing again, leaving the observer surprised, wondering, and questioning."--A. W. RANKIN, University of Minnesota.