The principal source of the wealth of ancient Arabia was its commerce. So early as the days of Jacob (Gen. xxxvii. 28) we read of a mixed caravan of Arab merchants (Ishmaelites and Midianites) who were engaged in the conveyance of various foreign articles to Egypt, and made no scruple to add Joseph, 'a slave,' to their other purchases. The Arabs were, doubtless, the first navigators of their own seas, and the great carriers of the produce of India, Abyssinia, and other remote countries to Western Asia and Egypt. Various Indian productions thus obtained were common among the Hebrews at an early period of their history (Exod. xxx. 23, 25). The traffic of the Red Sea was to Solomon a source of great profit ; and the extensive commerce of Saba (Sheba, now Yemen) is mentioned by profane writers as well as alluded to in Scripture (i Kings x. 10-15). In the description of the foreign trade of Tyre (Ezek. xxvii. 19-24) various Arab tribes are introduced (comp. Is. lx. 6 ; Jer. vi. 20 ; Chron. ix. 14). The Nabathmo-Idummans be came a great trading people, their capital being Petra. The transit-trade from India continued to enrich Arabia until the discovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope; but the inven tion of steam-navigation has now restored the ancient route for travellers by the Red Sea.
The settlers in Arabia are by native writers divided into two classes : the old tribes (who belonged to the fabulous period of history, and are long since extinct) ; and the present inhabitants. The latter are classed either among the 'pure or genuine,' or the Mostarabi, the mixed or naturalized Arabs. A 'pure' Arab boasts of being descended from Kachtan (the Joktan of Scripture, Gen. x. 29), and calls himself al Arab al Araba, 'an Arab of the Arabs,' a phrase of similar emphasis with St. Paul's 'Hebrew of the Hebrews' (Phil. iii. 5). The mixed Arabs are supposed to be descended from Ishmael by a daughter of Modad, king of Hedjaz, the district where the IshnJaelites chiefly settled. The Kachtanites, on the other hand, occupied the southern part of the peninsula, for Kachtan's great-grandson Saba give name to a kingdom, one of whose queens (called by the Arabians Balkis) visited Solomon (I Kings x. 1). A son of Saba was Himyar, who gave name to the famous dynasty of the Himyarites (improperly written Homerites), that seem to have reigned for many centuries over Saba and part of Hhadramaut. In the latter province Lieut. Wellsted recently dis
covered ruins called Nakab-el-Hajar ( 'the excava tion in the rock'), consisting of a massive wall, thirty to forty feet high, flanked with square towers. Within the entrance on the face of the building he found an inscription in characters eight inches long, which Gesenius supposes to be the ancient Himy adtic writing. Arabia, in ancient times, generally preserved its independence, unaffected by those great events which changed the destiny of the surrounding nations ; and in the sixth century of our xra, the decline of the Roman empire and the corruptions and distractions of the Eastern church favoured the impulse given by a wild and warlike fanaticism. Mahomet arose, and succeeded in gathering around his standard the nomadic tribes of central Arabia ; and in less than fifty years that standard waved triumphant 'from the straits of Gibraltar to the hitherto unconquered regions beyond the Oxus.' The khalifs transferred the seat of government successively to Damascus, Knfa, and Bagdad; but amid the distractions of their foreign wars, the chiefs of the interior of Arabia gradually shook off their feeble allegiance, and resumed their ancient habits of independ ence, which, notwithstanding the revolutions that have since occurred, they for the most part retain. At present, indeed, the authority of Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, is acknowledged over a great portion of northern Arabia, while in the south the Imam of Maskat exercises dominion over a much greater extent of country than did any of his predecessors.—N. M.
[Rosenmiiller, Biblical Geography of Asia Minor, Phonicia and Arabia, translated by Morren, Bib. Cab. vol. 34, Edin. 1841 ; Pococke, Hist. Compend. Dynast. Arab. Ox. 1663 ; Eichhom, Monumenta Antiquiss. Hist. Goth. 1775 ; Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem. lat. vert. Reiske, 1778 ; Caussen, Essai Her l'histoire des Arabes avant Islamisme, Paris 1847-48 ; Muir, Lift of Mohammed, vol. i. introduction chaps. 2 and 3, Lond. 1858 ; Mill D., Diss. De Mohammedismo ante Mohammed in Dis. sertt. Select., Lugd. Bat. 1743 ; Hottinger, Histor. Orientalis, cap. vii., Tigur. I660; Tychsen, De Paeseos Arabum origin et indole in the Commentt. Soc. Reg. Giitt. recentt. T. iii. p. 25o ; Jones, POeseos Asiat. Commentt. ; Niebuhr's, De scription de l'Arabie, 3 vols. 4to, I776-80 ; Robin son's Biblical Researches ; Stanley's Sinai ana Palestine, 3d ed. 1856].