Read this Essay on Arabian Peninsula

Located in the extreme southwestern cor­ner of Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, commonly known as “Arabia,” occupies a little over half of Southwest Asia and con­tains nearly a fifth of its population. It stretches from Jordan and Iraq in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south and southeast, and from the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf (also called the Arabian Gulf) in the north to the Red Sea to the west and southwest. Four-fifths of the pen­insula is occupied by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Several smaller states-Kuwait, Bah­rain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates-are strung along the Persian Gulf, and Yemen borders the Arabian Sea.

Despite political turbulence in the past, and a variety of national experiences in the present, the states of the Arabian Peninsula share an underlying unity of en­vironment, society, culture, and faith. The physical cohesiveness is reflected in a shared environment of desert, and the fact that most of the peninsula is unsuited for sedentary agriculture is of great impor­tance.

Habitable land is scarce, and efficient use of water is critical to the wel­fare of each state. The geophysical homogeneity has also helped to create a predominant cultural environment among the people: a degree of similarity in lan­guage, religion, and political experience. Most of the states share common political systems. Nearly all are or have been mon­archies based in a large measure on the principles of religious legitimacy, which are being tempered slowly under the im­pact of western social and political influences.

Most of the inhabitants are ethnic Ar­abs, and a large number can trace their ancestry back through many generations living in the same area. Almost all speak Arabic, although a large number of non- Arabic immigrants, mostly from southern and southeastern Asia, have in recent years settled in the Gulf States.

They comprise a substantial proportion of the population, ranging from 10 percent in Saudi Arabia to 45 percent in Kuwait. Most of these immi­grants are short-time workers, and have adopted Arabic speech. They carry on their activities through the universally ac­ceptable English among the elite and the commercial communities, while such im­migrant tongues as Hindi, Urdu, and Farsi may also be heard.

Arabia has been the cradle of the Arab and Islamic cultures whose major contri­bution to history has been as the homeland of Islam. Since the 7th century, almost all the Arabs have adopted the Is­lamic faith. The non-Muslim incursions into the Peninsula’s population have been a phenomenon of the 1970s and 1980s, and directed mostly at Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates by the south Asian workers.

Thirteen percent of Oman’s population in the mid-1980s was listed as professing the Hindu faith. (Other states reported fewer non-Muslims.) From the advent of Islam the religion of Islam and die Arabic language were spread from the Arabian Peninsula throughout much of Southwest Asia and North Africa, and de­veloped close links with them through commercial, religious, social, military, and political, interactions.

Islam became a pow­erful, cohesive force; the differences in sects were of local significance. The Ibadhi sect of Islam is important in Oman and Shia is the dominant faith in Bahrain, while small Christian and Hindu groups in some countries reflect other immigrant concentrations. The historic commitment of the peninsula to the Prophet Muham­mad, the founder of the faith, transcended the local differences, and has done more to unite than divide the peninsula.

Politically, the peninsula has rarely been united under one government. In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire con­quered most of the coasts; the central interior and the southeastern ports re­mained independent under the Saudis. Later, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the British controlled most of the coastal portions but the interior sections remained beyond their reach, and much of Arabia remained a backwater as the waves of mod­ern civilizations passed by.

The discovery of petroleum in the early 20th century has, however, led to increased contacts with the West, and catapulted Arabia with dra­matic suddenness into the international arena, which has presented the region with both opportunities and problems. Despite the uneven distribution of resources among its states, a somewhat similar eco­nomic transformation has now been taking place in all parts of the peninsula as contacts with the West continue to grow.

Urbanization, greater access to healthcare and education, secularization, and the pro­grammed settling of many nomads have been changing the character of daily life throughout the region. The Arabian Pen­insula continues to share an underlying unity of physical environment and society.

Climate is a great limiting factor. A large part of the peninsula is a tropical de­sert, with very meager moisture and high temperatures that result in extreme aridity. Summer temperatures often exceed 120°F (48°C) in the shade, while high humidity along the coasts adds to human discom­fort. In winter, temperatures moderate a little and occasional frosts may occur in the higher altitudes.

Summer is also the main season for dust and wind storms. In general, therefore, winters tend to be somewhat pleasanter, and except for the southern coastal areas winters may occa­sionally record temperatures below freezing during the nights. The diurnal range of temperatures tends to be large.

Precipitation is scanty everywhere, averag­ing two to five inches (51-127 cms) annually, except for the mountainous re­gions, notably the highlands of Yemen in the southwest, where probably precipita­tion between 20 and 40 inches may occur during summer, and the mountains of Asir north of Yemen.

When the rain does ar­rive it may be in the form of a very heavy downpour but may only last for a short time, and the wadis fill quickly. The run­off often IS impounded and utilized for irrigation. There are no permanent streams on the peninsula. Arabia is charac­teristically Mediterranean in its precipitation distribution, in that the rain­fall comes in winter, except for Yemen which experiences a summer maximum that is monsoonal in character.

Settlement is thus concentrated along the coasts, where con­tact with the outside world and economic development is the maximum, and in a few scattered oases inland where impor­tant historic cities exist. The city of Taif (population: 400,000) at about 8,000 feet (2,432 meters) in the mountains near the west coast, has become Saudi Arabia’s fourth largest city with close to half a million inhabitants.

It is the country’s summer capital, and its cool temperatures, green and forested hills, and proximity to the holy places, has made it a rapidly grow­ing tourist attraction. Jiddah, the port city on the Red Sea, performs several of the ad­ministrative functions of Saudi administration, and has overtaken Riyadh, the administrative capital, in population and now contains more than 1.5 million inhabitants.

It is not only a major commer­cial center, but houses foreign embassies and legations as well. The capital of the na­tion, Riyadh, located in the interior on a large oasis, is growing rapidly (population 1.8 million), is closer to the Persian Gulf coast, and is connected to it by a railroad. The holy city of Makkah (population: 650,000) is the birthplace of Prophet Mu­hammad and IS located inland, not too far from the coast.

The cities of the Gulf States (Kuwait City, Manamah, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Mascat) owe their origins and growth to their port functions, proximity to the oil-refining centers, and administra­tive roles for the sheikhdoms.

Urbanization is on the increase in the peninsula as the traditional economic ac­tivities such as nomadic herding and some forms of conventional agriculture continue to decline. The rural population has been drifting to the cities which have come in creasingly to represent opportunity and prosperity. Eighty percent of Saudi Arabia’s population is classified as urban, am half the total population of the county now lives in seven large cities.

Riyadh, the capital, and Jiddah, the diplomatic commercial center, together contain more than one-sixth of the Saudi population, little less than half of the United Arabl Emirates’ population lives in the city of Abu Dhabi and another quarter in Dubai, while in other Gulf nations, more than half the population is concentrated in the capital.

The Arabian Peninsula has a popula­tion of nearly 40 million, close to a half of which is in Saudi Arabia and the rest di­vided among the other nations of the region. Given the contributions that it has made to the world through Islam of Ara­bic language, culture, art, and ideas, and the enormous geopolitical and economic significance of its vast oil reserves, the population remains surprisingly small.

Al­though people are predominantly Arab, along the Gulf the unprecedented eco­nomic growth based on oil has created far more jobs than the small indigenous popu­lations can fill, despite the city-ward movement of rural populations and the large numbers of foreign minorities who are present. South Asians make up 34 per­cent of Qatar’s population, and Iranians another 16 percent.

The native Qataris ac­count for less than 30 percent of Qatar’s total population. Only one-fifth of the United Arab Republic’s current popula­tion is classed in the “citizen” category. Among the other groups represented in the Gulf States are Iranians, Pakistanis, Thais, Filipinos, Sri Lankans, Baluchis, and Zanzi-baris from Africa’s east coast.

One result of the influx of non-native peoples to the Arabian peninsula has been die introduction of a cultural diversity that creates stresses in the Arabian and largely traditional societies. The religious differ­ences also create cause for concern. Saudi Arabia, as a “keeper” of the two most sa­cred places of Islam, Makkah and Medina, has come under pressure from the Shia ex­tremists. Occasional disturbances during the annual pilgrimage (hajj) to Makkah un­derlie such tensions in the region.