Although A. owes its name to the word arab (Bedouins), the majority of its population was always sedentary. However, favourable climatic conditions for agriculture only existed in the south-western A. highland and large oases such as Yat̄rib/Medina (Ḥiǧāz) and al-Yamāma in the East. Classical geography distinguished between A. deserta, which extended from southern Syria to the northern Ḥiǧāz, and A. felix, the southern part of the A. peninsula. The tripartite classification of Ptolemy, which added A. petraea, did not establish itself [1].
Since the earliest t…