ARABIA, an extensive region occupying the south-western extremity of Asia, between 12° 45' and 341° N. lat., and 32.1° and 60° E. long. from Greenwich ; having on the W. the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea (called from it the Arabian Gulf), which separate it from Africa ; on the S. the Indian Ocean ; and on the E. the Persian Gulf and the Euphrates. The boundary to the north has never been well defined, for in that direction it spreads out into interminable deserts, which meet those of Palestine and Syria on the west, and those of Irdk-Arabi (i. e., Babylonia) and Mesopotamia on the east ; and hence some geographers include that entire wilderness in Arabia. The form of the peninsula is that of a trapezoid, whose superficial area is estimated at four times the extent of France. It is one of the few countries of the south where the descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants have neither been extirpated nor expelled by northern invaders. They have not only retained possession of their ancestral homes, but have sent forth colonies to all the adjacent regions, and even to more distant lands, both in Africa and Asia. ' There is no people,' says Ritter (Erdkunde, th. p. 172), `who are less circumscribed to the territory usually assigned to them than the Arabs ; they range outstrips geographical boundaries in all directions.' With the history of no country save that of Palestine are there connected so many hallowed and impressive associations as with that of Arabia. Here lived and suffered the holy patriarch Job ; here Moses, when `a stranger and a shepherd,' saw the burning, unconsuming bush ; here Elijah found shelter from the rage of persecution ; here was the scene of all the marvellous displays of divine power and mercy that followed the deliver ance of Israel from the Egyptian yoke, and accom panied their journeyings to the Promised Land ; and here Jehovah manifested himself in visible glory to his people. From the influence of these associations, combined with its proximity to Pales tine, and the close affinity in blood, manners, and customs between the northern portion of its inhabi tants and the Jews, Arabia is a region of peculiar interest to the student of the Bible ; and it is chiefly in its relation to subjects of Bible study that we are now to consider it. It was well remarked by Burckhardt (who knew Arab life and character better than any other European traveller that has yet appeared) that `the sacred historian of the children of Israel will never be thoroughly under stood, so long as we are not minutely acquainted with everything relating to the Arab Bedouins and the countries in which they move and pasture.' In early times the Hebrews included a part of what we call Arabia among the countries they vaguely designated as bip Eea'em, ' the East,' the inhabitants being numbered among the Beni-Kedem, 'Sons of the East,' i. e., Orientals. But there is no evidence to shew (as is asserted by Winer, Rosenmfiller, and other Bible-geographers) that these phrases are ever applied to the whole of the country known to us as Arabia. They appear to have been commonly used in speaking of those parts which lay due east of Palestine, or on the north-east and south-east ; though occasionally they do seem to point to tracts which lay indeed to the south and south-west of that country, but to the east and south-east of Egypt. Hence Joseph
Mede (who is followed by Bellermann, Handbuch d. Bib. Literttt. th. iii. p. 220) is of opinion that the phraseology took its rise at the period when the Israelites were in Egypt, and was retained by them as a mode of speech after they were settled in Canaan. That conjecture would, doubtless, considerably extend the meaning of the term ; yet even then it could scarcely embrace the extreme south of Arabia, a queen in which (on the supposi tion of Yemen being identical with Sheba) is, in the New Testament, styled not 'a queen of the East,' but BaeiXwea Norm), ' a queen of the South.' Accordingly we find that whenever the expression kedem has obviously a reference to Arabia, it invariably points to its northern divisior. only. Thus in Gen. xxv. 6, Abraham is said to have sent away the sons of Hagar and Keturah to the Eretz-Zedem—Kedenzah,l. e., the East country, eastward ; and none of them, so far as we know, were located in peninsular Arabia ; for the story which represents Ishmael as settling at Mecca is an unsupported native tradition. The patriarch Job is described (Job i. 3) as `the greatest of all the men of the east,' and though opinions differ as to the precise locality of the land of Uz, all are agreed that it was in some part of Arabia, but certainly not in Arabia Felix. In the Book of Judges (vi. 3 ; vii. 12 ; viii. 10) among the allies of the Midianites and Amalekites (tribes of the north) are mentioned the 'Beni-Kedem,' which Josephus translates by 'Apapas, the Arabs. In Is. xi. 14, the parallelism requires that by sons of the east' we understand the Nonzades of Desert Arabia, as corresponding to the Philistines ' on the west ;' and with these are conjoined the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites, who were all northern Arabians. The command was given (Jer. xlix. 2S) to the Babylonians `to smite the Beni-Kedem,' who are there classed with the Kedarenes, descendants of Ishmael (comp. i Kings iy. 30). In more modern times a name of similar import was applied to the Arabs generally ; they were called Saracens (Sharakiyun, i. e., Orientals) from the word shark, `the east,' whence also is derived the term sirocco, the east wind. The name of Saracens came into use in the West in a vague and undefined sense after the Roman conquest of Palestine, but does not seem to have been adopted as a general desig nation till about the eighth century. It is to be remarked here that though in Scripture Zeclem most commonly denotes Arabia, it is also used of countries farther east, e. g., of the native country of Abraham (Is. xli. 2 ; comp. Gen. xxix. 1), of Balaam (Num. xxiii. 7), and even of Cyrus (Is. xlvi. ; and, therefore, though the Magi who came to Jerusalem (Matt. ii. i) were thrd tivaroXWv, `from the east,' it does not thence follow that they were natives of Arabia.