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127-616: Until very recently, the whole of Eastern Arabia, from the Shatt al-Arab to the mountains of Oman , was a place where people moved around, settled and married unconcerned by national borders. The people of Eastern Arabia shared a culture based on the sea , as seafaring peoples . Nowadays, Eastern Arabia is a part of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf . The modern-day states of Bahrain , Iraq , Kuwait , Oman , Qatar , Saudi Arabia , and

254-540: A "faraway, half-mythical place" . Dilmun is also described in the epic story of Enki and Ninhursag as the site at which the Creation occurred. The promise of Enki to Ninhursag, the Earth Mother: For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives. Ninlil ,

381-464: A tributary which joins the waterway from the Iranian side, deposits large amounts of silt into the river; this necessitates continuous dredging to keep it navigable. The area used to hold the largest date palm forest in the world. In the mid-1970s, the region included 17–18 million date palms: an estimated one-fifth of the world's 90 million palm trees. However, by 2002, more than 14 million of

508-483: A utopian society. The Qarmatians' goal was to build a society based on reason and equality. The state was governed by a council of six with a chief who was primus inter pares . All property within the community was distributed evenly among all initiates. The Qarmatians were organized as an esoteric society but not as a secret one; their activities were public and openly propagated, but new members had to undergo an initiation ceremony involving seven stages. For much of

635-679: A Persian dominion under a Yemenite vassal and thus came within the sphere of influence of the Sassanid Empire. After the demise of the Lakhmids, another army was sent to Yemen, making it a province of the Sassanid Empire under a Persian satrap . Following the death of Khosrau II in 628, the Persian governor in Southern Arabia, Badhan , converted to Islam and Yemen followed the new religion. Lihyan , also called Dadān or Dedan,

762-546: A Seleucid base in the Persian Gulf. Alexander had planned to settle the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf with Greek colonists, and although it is not clear that this happened on the scale he envisaged, Tylos was very much part of the Hellenised world: the language of the upper classes was Greek (although Aramaic was in everyday use), while Zeus was worshipped in the form of the Arabian sun-god Shams . Tylos even became

889-566: A new city there and named it Batan Ardashir after his father. At this time, Eastern Arabia incorporated the southern Sassanid province covering the Persian Gulf's southern shore plus the archipelago of Bahrain. The southern province of the Sassanids was subdivided into three districts of Haggar ( Hofuf , Saudi Arabia), Batan Ardashir ( al-Qatif province , Saudi Arabia), and Mishmahig ( Muharraq , Bahrain; also referred to as Samahij ) (In Middle-Persian /Pahlavi means "ewe-fish". ) which included

1016-769: A part), and the Iranian religions . The ʿĀd nation were known to the Greeks and Egyptians . Claudius Ptolemy 's Geographos (2nd century CE) refers to the area as the "land of the Iobaritae" a region which legend later referred to as Ubar . The origin of the Midianites has not been established. Because of the Mycenaean motifs on what is referred to as Midianite pottery , some scholars including George Mendenhall, Peter Parr, and Beno Rothenberg have suggested that

1143-465: A period of acute Iraqi-Iranian tension that was to last until the Algiers Accords of 1975. All United Nations attempts to intervene and mediate the dispute were rebuffed. Baathist Iraq claimed the frontier agreed to in 1937 was still the legitimate frontier. In response, Iran in the early 1970s became the main patron of Iraqi Kurdish groups fighting for independence from Iraq. In 1974 with

1270-792: A provincial official located in Dilmun, Ilī-ippašra , to his friend Enlil-kidinni in Mesopotamia. The names referred to are Akkadian . These letters hint at an administrative relationship between Dilmun and Babylon . Following the collapse of the Kassite dynasty, Mesopotamian documents make no mention of Dilmun, with the exception of Assyrian inscriptions dated to 1250 BC which proclaimed the Assyrian king to be "King of Dilmun and Meluhha ". Assyrian inscriptions at this time also recorded tribute from Dilmun. There are other Assyrian inscriptions during

1397-423: A verdant land that was part of a wide trading network; he recorded: "That in the island of Tylos, situated in the Persian Gulf, are large plantations of cotton tree, from which are manufactured clothes called sindones , a very different degrees of value, some being costly, others less expensive. The use of these is not confined to India, but extends to Arabia." The Greek historian, Theophrastus , states that much of

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1524-538: Is believed to originate from "Arados", the ancient Greek name for the island of Muharraq . The Greek historians Herodotus and Strabo both believed the Phoenicians originated from Bahrain. This theory was accepted by the 19th-century German classicist Arnold Heeren who said that: "In the Greek geographers, for instance, we read of two islands, named Tyrus or Tylos , and Arad, Bahrain , which boasted that they were

1651-479: Is locally named Ḥajar Asfal . Qataban was one of the ancient Yemeni kingdoms which thrived in the Beihan valley. Like the other Southern Arabian kingdoms, it gained great wealth from the trade of frankincense and myrrh incense, which were burned at altars. The capital of Qataban was named Timna and was located on the trade route which passed through the other kingdoms of Hadramaut, Saba and Ma'in. The chief deity of

1778-573: Is mostly confined to India, but extends also to Arabia.” The Greek historian, Theophrastus , states that much of the archipelago was covered in these cotton trees and noted that textiles were a major industry. According to him, Tylos was also famous for exporting engraved walking canes popular in Babylon . It is not known whether Bahrain was part of the Seleucid Empire , although the archaeological site at Qalat Al Bahrain has been proposed as

1905-480: Is now Yemen's modern capital, Sana'a . According to South Arabian tradition, the eldest son of Noah , Shem , founded the city of Ma'rib. During Sabaean rule, Yemen was called " Arabia Felix " by the Romans, who were impressed by its wealth and prosperity. The Roman emperor Augustus sent a military expedition to conquer the "Arabia Felix", under the command of Aelius Gallus . After an unsuccessful siege of Ma'rib,

2032-605: Is shown by the fact that the weights and measures used at Dilmun were in fact identical to those used by the Indus, and were not used in Southern Mesopotamia. Mesopotamian trade documents, lists of goods, and official inscriptions mentioning Meluhha supplement Harappan seals and archaeological finds. Literary references to trade with Meluhha date from the Akkadian period (c. 2300 BC), but the trade probably started in

2159-889: Is taken to be a representation possibly of the Jewish king Malkīkarib Yuhaʾmin or more likely the Christian Esimiphaios (Samu Yafa'). The Aksumite intervention is connected with Dhu Nuwas , a Himyarite king who changed the state religion to Judaism and began to persecute the Christians in Yemen. Outraged, Kaleb , the Christian King of Aksum with the encouragement of the Byzantine Emperor Justin I invaded and annexed Yemen. The Aksumites controlled Himyar and attempted to invade Mecca in

2286-528: Is that the more formal name Bahri (lit. “belonging to the sea”) would have been misunderstood and so was opted against. The term "Gulf Arab" or " Khaleeji " refers, geographically, to inhabitants of eastern Arabia. However, today the term is often applied to the inhabitants of the GCC countries in the Arabian Peninsula . "Khaleeji" has evolved into a socio-political regional identity that distinguished

2413-614: The Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad's first revelation in 610 CE, is referred to in Islam in the context of jahiliyyah ( lit.   ' The period of ignorance ' ), highlighting the prevalence of paganism throughout the region at the time. Some of the settled communities developed into distinctive civilizations. Information about these communities is limited and has been pieced together from archaeological evidence, accounts written outside of Arabia, and Arab oral traditions that were later recorded by Muslim historians . Among

2540-660: The Arabs '; Persian : اروندرود , romanized :  Arvand Rud , lit.   'Swift River' ) is a river about 200 kilometres (120 mi) in length that is formed at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the town of al-Qurnah in the Basra Governorate of southern Iraq . The southern end of the river constitutes the Iran–Iraq border down to its mouth , where it discharges into

2667-667: The Early Dynastic Period (c. 2600 BC). Some Meluhhan vessels may have sailed directly to Mesopotamian ports, but by the Isin-Larsa Period (c. 1900 BC), Dilmun monopolized the trade. The Bahrain National Museum assesses that its "Golden Age" lasted from c. 2200 BC to 1600 BC. In the Epic of Gilgamesh , Gilgamesh had to pass through Mount Mashu to reach Dilmun. Mount Mashu is usually identified with

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2794-492: The Eridu Genesis calls it " Mount Dilmun " and a “faraway, half-mythical place”. Dilmun is also described in the epic story of Enki and Ninhursag as the site at which the Creation occurred. Enki says to Ninhursag: For Dilmun, the land of my lady's heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives. Ninlil ,

2921-520: The Garden of Eden story. Dilmun appears first in Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets dated to the end of fourth millennium BCE, found in the temple of goddess Inanna , in the city of Uruk . The adjective "Dilmun" is used to describe a type of axe and one specific official; in addition there are lists of rations of wool issued to people connected with Dilmun. Dilmun was an important trading center from

3048-645: The Gulf Arabic dialect, its influence reaches as far as Tunisia . Kuwaiti popular culture, in the form of poetry, film, theater, and soap operas, is exported to neighbouring states. The Arab world's three largest broadcast networks ( Al Jazeera Network , Al Arabiya , and MBC Group ) are all located in Eastern Arabia as well. Islam is dominant in Eastern Arabia. The main sects are Sunni Islam , Ibadi Islam (dominant in Oman); and Shia Islam . Before

3175-529: The Iran–Iraq War that lasted from 1980 to 1988, when the pre-1980 status quo was restored. The Iranian cities and major ports of Abadan and Khorramshahr and the Iraqi cities and major ports of Basra and Al-Faw are situated along this river. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq , the waterway was a key military target for the coalition forces . Since it is the only outlet to the Persian Gulf, its capture

3302-636: The Kassite dynasty in Mesopotamia. Dilmun, sometimes described as "the place where the sun rises" and "the Land of the Living", is the scene of some versions of the Eridu Genesis , and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, Utnapishtim ( Ziusudra ), was taken by the gods to live forever. Thorkild Jacobsen 's translation of the Eridu Genesis calls it "Mount Dilmun" which he locates as

3429-476: The Marib Dam , was built ca. 700 BCE and provided irrigation for about 25,000 acres (101 km ) of land and stood for over a millennium, finally collapsing in 570 CE after centuries of neglect. The first known inscriptions of Hadramaut are known from the 8th century BCE. It was first referenced by an outside civilization in an Old Sabaic inscription of Karab'il Watar from the early 7th century BCE, in which

3556-578: The Persian Gulf . The Shatt al-Arab varies in width from about 232 metres (761 ft) at Basra to 800 metres (2,600 ft) at its mouth. It is thought that the waterway formed relatively recently in geological time, with the Tigris and Euphrates originally emptying into the Persian Gulf via a channel further to the west. Kuwait 's Bubiyan Island is part of the Shatt al-Arab delta. The Karun ,

3683-616: The Phoenicians began the quarrel. These people, who had formerly dwelt in the far east and then to the shores of the Erythraean Sea , having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria ... With the waning of Seleucid Greek power, Tylos was incorporated into Characene ,

3810-695: The Qur'an , old Arabian poetry , Assyrian annals (Tamudi), in a Greek temple inscription from the northwest Hejaz of 169 CE, in a 5th-century Byzantine source and in Old North Arabian graffiti within Tayma . They are also mentioned in the victory annals of the Neo-Assyrian King, Sargon II (8th century BCE), who defeated these people in a campaign in northern Arabia. The Greeks also refer to these people as "Tamudaei", i.e. "Thamud", in

3937-648: The Sabaeans and the Minaeans , and Eastern Arabia was inhabited by Semitic-speaking peoples who presumably migrated from the southwest, such as the so-called Samad population . From 106 CE to 630 CE, Arabia's most northwestern areas were controlled by the Roman Empire , which governed it as Arabia Petraea . A few nodal points were controlled by the Iranian peoples , first under the Parthians and then under

Eastern Arabia - Misplaced Pages Continue

4064-568: The Sasanians . Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia was diverse; although polytheism was prevalent, monotheism was still a notable practice among some of the region's inhabitants, such as the Jewish tribes . In addition to Arabian paganism, other religious practices in the region included those of the ancient Semitic religions , the Abrahamic religions (of which the emerging Islam would become

4191-590: The Tigris , the confluent of the Shatt al-Arab. Iranians also used this name specifically to designate the Shatt al-Arab during the later Pahlavi period , and continue to do so since the 1979 Iranian Revolution . [REDACTED] Media related to Shatt al-Arab at Wikimedia Commons 30°24′26″N 48°09′06″E  /  30.40722°N 48.15167°E  / 30.40722; 48.15167 Pre-Islamic Arabia Pre-Islamic Arabia ( Arabic : شبه الجزيرة العربية قبل الإسلام , romanized :  shibh al-jazirat al-'arabiyat qabl al-islām ), referring to

4318-555: The United Arab Emirates are the most commonly listed Gulf Arab states . Most of Saudi Arabia is not geographically a part of Eastern Arabia. In Arabic, Baḥrayn is the dual form of baḥr ( Arabic : بَحْر , lit.   'sea'), so al-Baḥrayn means "the Two Seas". However, which two seas were originally intended remains in dispute. The term appears five times in the Qur'an , but does not refer to

4445-502: The modern island —originally known to the Arabs as “Awal”—but rather to the oases of al-Qatif and Hadjar (modern Al-Aḥsā). It is unclear when the term began to refer exclusively to the archipelago in the Gulf of Bahrain , but it was probably after the 15th century. Today, Bahrain's "two seas" are instead generally taken to be the bay east and west of the coast, the seas north and south of

4572-674: The 10th century the Qarmatians were the most powerful force in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, controlling the coast of Oman, and collecting tribute from the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad and from the rival Ismaili Fatimid caliph in Cairo , whom they did not recognize. The land they ruled over was extremely wealthy, with a huge slave-based economy. According to academic Yitzhak Nakash: The Qarmatian state had vast fruit and grain estates both on

4699-591: The 3rd century CE, the South Arabian kingdoms were in continuous conflict with one another. Gadarat (GDRT) of Aksum began to interfere in South Arabian affairs, signing an alliance with Saba, and a Himyarite text notes that Hadramaut and Qataban were also allied against the kingdom. As a result of this, the Aksumite Empire was able to capture the Himyarite capital of Thifar in the first quarter of

4826-462: The 3rd century. However, the alliances did not last, and Sha`ir Awtar of Saba unexpectedly turned on Hadramaut, allying again with Aksum and taking its capital in 225. Himyar then allied with Saba and invaded the newly taken Aksumite territories, retaking Thifar, which had been under the control of Gadarat's son Beygat, and pushing Aksum back into the Tihama . The standing relief image of a crowned man,

4953-668: The 5th century, Beth Qatraye was a major centre for Nestorian Christianity , which had come to dominate the southern shores of the Persian Gulf. As a sect, the Nestorians were often persecuted as heretics by the Byzantine Empire , but eastern Arabia was outside the Empire's control offering some safety. Several notable Nestorian writers originated from Beth Qatraye, including Isaac of Nineveh , Dadisho Qatraya , Gabriel of Qatar and Ahob of Qatar. Christianity's significance

5080-592: The 6th to 3rd century BC Bahrain was part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire . The Greek admiral Nearchus is believed to have been the first of Alexander's commanders to visit the island, and he found a verdant land that was part of a wide trading network. He recorded: “In the island of Tylos, situated in the Persian Gulf, are large plantations of cotton trees, from which are manufactured clothes called sindones , of different degrees of value, some being costly, others less expensive. The use of these

5207-504: The 7th century CE , the population of Eastern Arabia consisted of partially Christianized Arabs , Arab Zoroastrians , Jews and Aramaic -speaking agriculturalists. Some sedentary dialects of Eastern Arabia exhibit Akkadian , Aramaic and Syriac features. The sedentary people of ancient Bahrain were Aramaic speakers and to some degree Persian speakers, while Syriac functioned as a liturgical language . The Kingdom of Dilmun first appears in Sumerian cuneiform clay tablets dated to

Eastern Arabia - Misplaced Pages Continue

5334-457: The 7th century CE, Eastern Arabia was controlled by two other Iranian dynasties of the Parthians and Sassanids . By about 250 BCE, the Seleucids lost their territories to Parthians , an Iranian tribe from Central Asia . The Parthian dynasty brought the Persian Gulf under their control and extended their influence as far as Oman. Because they needed to control the Persian Gulf trade route,

5461-716: The 8th and 7th century BCE, there was a close contact of cultures between the Kingdom of Dʿmt in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia and Saba. Though the civilization was indigenous and the royal inscriptions were written in a sort of proto- Ethiosemitic , there were also some Sabaean immigrants in the kingdom as evidenced by a few of the Dʿmt inscriptions. Agriculture in Yemen thrived during this time due to an advanced irrigation system which consisted of large water tunnels in mountains, and dams. The most impressive of these earthworks, known as

5588-532: The Arabs. During the 1988 battles, the Iranians seemed tired and worn out by the nearly eight years of the war, and "put up very little resistance" to the Iraqi offensives. After the Iran–Iraq War , both sides agreed to once again treat the Algiers Accord as binding. Conflicting territorial claims and disputes over navigation rights between Iran and Iraq were among the main factors for the beginning of

5715-433: The Bahrain archipelago that was earlier called Aval . The name, meaning 'ewe-fish' would appear to suggest that the name /Tulos/ is related to Hebrew /ṭāleh/ 'lamb' (Strong's 2924). The Christian name used for the region encompassing north-eastern Arabia was Beth Qatraye, or "the Isles". The name translates to 'region of the Qataris' in Syriac . It included Bahrain, Tarout Island , Al-Khatt, Al-Hasa , and Qatar. By

5842-402: The Bahrain archipelago. The Christian name used for the region encompassing north-eastern Arabia was Beth Qatraye, which translates to "region of the Qataris " in Syriac . It included Bahrain , Tarout , Al-Khatt , Al-Aḥsā , and Qatar. By the 5th century, Beth Qatraye was a major center for Nestorian Christianity , which had come to dominate the southern shores of the Persian Gulf. Within

5969-480: The Byzantine Empire, Nestorians were persecuted as heretics, but as eastern Arabia was far enough from the empire's borders that Nestorianism flourished. Several notable Nestorian writers originated from Beth Qatraye, including Isaac of Nineveh , Dadisho Qatraya , Gabriel of Qatar and Ahob of Qatar. Christianity declined with the arrival of Islam in Eastern Arabia in 628. By 676, the bishops of Beth Qatraye had stopped attending synods; although Christianity persisted in

6096-400: The GCC inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula from the wider Arab world building on the perceived cultural homogeneity within the Gulf states and their shared history. The inhabitants of Eastern Arabia's Gulf coast share similar cultures and music styles, such as fijiri , sawt and liwa . The most noticeable cultural trait of Eastern Arabia's Gulf Arabs is their orientation and focus towards

6223-449: The Greek geographers, for instance, we read of two islands, named Tyrus or Tylos , and Arad, Bahrain , which boasted that they were the mother country of the Phoenicians, and exhibited relics of Phoenician temples." The people of Tyre in particular have long maintained Persian Gulf origins, and the similarity in the words "Tylos" and "Tyre" has been commented upon. However, there is little evidence of occupation at all in Bahrain during

6350-417: The Hajar , are close to the sea ... Tuwwam has been dominated by a branch of the Quraysh ... From the time when Islam emerged in the 7th century until the early 16th century, the term Bahrain referred to the wider historical region of eastern Arabia stretching from Bubiyan Island to the Strait of Hormuz along the coast of the Persian Gulf . Eastern Arabians were amongst the first to embrace Islam during

6477-428: The Iraqis decided against war, and chose to make concessions to Tehran to end the Kurdish rebellion. In March 1975, Vice President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and the Shah signed the Algiers Accord in which Iraq recognized a series of straight lines closely approximating the thalweg (deepest channel) of the waterway, as the official border, in exchange for which Iran ended its support of the Iraqi Kurds. The Algiers Accord

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6604-419: The Iraqis expelled the Iranians from Salamchech and took Majnun Island . During the fighting in the spring of 1988, the Iranians showed all the signs of collapsing morale. Brogan reported: Reports from the front, both at Faw [Fao] and outside Basra, indicated that the Iranian resistance was surprisingly weak. The army that had shown such courage and élan early in the war now broke in a rout, and fled before

6731-438: The King of Hadramaut, Yada`'il, is mentioned as being one of his allies. When the Minaeans took control of the caravan routes in the 4th century BCE, however, Hadramaut became one of its confederates, probably because of commercial interests. It later became independent and was invaded by the growing Yemeni kingdom of Himyar toward the end of the 1st century BCE, but it was able to repel the attack. Hadramaut annexed Qataban in

6858-409: The Kingdom of Maīin, as far away as al-'Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia and even on the island of Delos and Egypt. It was the first of the Yemeni kingdoms to end, and the Minaean language died around 100 CE . During Sabaean rule, trade and agriculture flourished, generating much wealth and prosperity. The Sabaean kingdom was located in Yemen, and its capital, Ma'rib , is located near what

6985-555: The Lihyanites fell into the hands of the Nabataeans around 65 BCE upon their seizure of Hegra then marching to Tayma , and finally to their capital Dedan in 9 BCE. Werner Cascel consider the Nabataean annexation of Lihyan was around 24 BCE under the reign of the Nabataeans king Aretas IV . The Thamud ( Arabic : ثمود ) was an ancient civilization in Hejaz , which was a flourished kingdom from 3000 BCE to 200 BCE. Recent archaeological work has revealed numerous Thamudic rock writings and pictures. They are mentioned in sources such as

7112-404: The Midianites were originally Sea Peoples who migrated from the Aegean region and imposed themselves on a pre-existing Semitic stratum. The question of the origin of the Midianites still remains open. The sedentary people of pre-Islamic Eastern Arabia were mainly Aramaic , Arabic and to some degree Persian speakers while Syriac functioned as a liturgical language . In pre-Islamic times,

7239-499: The Ottomans and Safavid Empires the way they had been in 1555. However, the treaty never demarcated a precise and fixed boundary regarding the frontier in the south. Later, Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747) succeeded in restoring Iranian control over Shatt al-Arab for a time. With the Treaty of Kerden (1746), however, the Zuhab boundaries were restored, ceding the river to the Turks once again. The First Treaty of Erzurum (1823) concluded between Ottoman Turkey and Qajar Iran , resulted in

7366-493: The Parthians established garrisons in the southern coast of Persian Gulf. In the 3rd century CE, the Sassanids succeeded the Parthians and held the area until the rise of Islam four centuries later. Ardashir , the first ruler of the Iranian Sassanians dynasty marched down the Persian Gulf to Oman and Bahrain and defeated Sanatruq (or Satiran ), probably the Parthian governor of Eastern Arabia. He appointed his son Shapur I as governor of Eastern Arabia. Shapur constructed

7493-476: The Persian Gulf under their control and extended their influence as far as Oman. Because they needed to control the Persian Gulf trade route, the Parthians established garrisons on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. In the 3rd century AD, the Sasanians succeeded the Parthians and held the area until the rise of Islam four centuries later. Ardashir , the first ruler of the Sasanian dynasty, conquered Bahrain and northern Oman, and appointed his son, Shapur I , as

7620-434: The Persian Gulf was larger and the Shatt al-Arab had not then formed. Dispute over the river occurred during the Ottoman-Safavid era, prior to the establishment of an independent Iraq in the 20th century. In the early 16th century, the Iranian Safavids gained most of what is present-day Iraq, including Shatt al-Arab. They later lost these territories to the expanding Ottomans following the Peace of Amasya (1555). In

7747-456: The Persian Gulf, and shell and bone inlays were among the goods sent to Mesopotamia in exchange for silver , tin , woolen textiles, olive oil and grains. Copper ingots from Oman and bitumen , which occurred naturally in Mesopotamia, may have been exchanged for cotton textiles and domestic fowl, major products of the Indus region that are not native to Mesopotamia. Instances of all of these trade goods have been found. The importance of this trade

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7874-405: The Persian Gulf. Alexander had planned to settle the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf with Greek empires, and although it is not clear that this happened on the scale he envisaged, Tylos was very much part of the Hellenised world: the language of the upper classes was Greek (although Aramaic was in everyday use), while Zeus was worshipped in the form of the Arabian sun-god Shams. Tylos even became

8001-579: The Qatabanians was Amm , or "Uncle" and the people called themselves the "children of Amm". The Himyarites rebelled against Qataban and eventually united Southwestern Arabia (Hejaz and Yemen), controlling the Red Sea as well as the coasts of the Gulf of Aden . From their capital city, Ẓafār , the Himyarite kings launched successful military campaigns, and had stretched its domain at times as far east as eastern Yemen and as far north as Najran Together with their Kindite allies, it extended maximally as far north as Riyadh and as far east as Yabrin . During

8128-459: The Roman general retreated to Egypt, while his fleet destroyed the port of Aden in order to guarantee the Roman merchant route to India . The success of the kingdom was based on the cultivation and trade of spices and aromatics including frankincense and myrrh . These were exported to the Mediterranean , India, and Abyssinia , where they were greatly prized by many cultures, using camels on routes through Arabia, and to India by sea. During

8255-418: The Shatt al-Arab captured British Royal Navy sailors who they claim trespassed into their territory: The river is also known in Iraq as the Dijla al-Awara (دجلة العوراء) and in Iran as the Arvand Rud (Persian: اروندرود, lit. 'Swift River'). The Persian epic poem Shahnameh (written between c.  977–1010 CE ) and many other works of Middle Persian literature use the name Arvand ( اروند ) for

8382-404: The Shatt al-Arab treaty, Iraq joined the Saadabad pact and Iranian-Iraqi relations were friendly for decades afterward. The Saadabad pact ultimately brought together Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan in an alliance intended to protect their neutrality. In 1955, both Iran and Iraq were founding members of the Baghdad Pact alliance. The Shatt al-Arab and the forest were depicted in the middle of

8509-436: The Sumerian goddess of air and south wind had her home in Dilmun. It is also featured in the Epic of Gilgamesh . However, in the early epic " Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta " , the main events, which center on Enmerkar 's construction of the ziggurats in Uruk and Eridu , are described as taking place in a world "before Dilmun had yet been settled". Gerrha ( Arabic : جرهاء ), was an ancient city of Eastern Arabia, on

8636-423: The Sumerian goddess of air and southerly winds, had her home in Dilmun. However, in the early epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta , the main events, which center on Enmerkar 's construction of the ziggurats in Uruk and Eridu , are described as taking place in a world "before Dilmun had yet been settled". Gerrha was an ancient city of Eastern Arabia, on the west side of the Persian Gulf . More accurately,

8763-481: The United Arab Emirates comprised the ecclesiastical province known as Beth Mazunaye. The name was derived from 'Mazun', the Persian name for Oman and the United Arab Emirates. During Minaean rule, the capital was at Karna (now known as Sa'dah ). Their other important city was Yathill (now known as Baraqish ). The Minaean Kingdom was centered in northwestern Yemen, with most of its cities lying along Wādī Madhab . Minaean inscriptions have been found far afield of

8890-411: The ancient Greek name for Muharraq island. Herodotus 's account (written c. 440 BCE) refers to the Io and Europa myths. ( History, I:1). According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. These people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea ( the eastern part of the Arabia peninsula ), having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in

9017-421: The ancient city of Gerrha has been determined to have existed near or under the present fort of Uqair , 80 kilometres (50 mi) northeast of Al-Aḥsā in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia . This site was first proposed by R E Cheesman in 1924. Gerrha and Uqair are archaeological sites on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, only 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the ancient burial grounds of Dilmun on

9144-544: The application of salt water. Pliny the Elder ( Natural History , 6.32) says it was 8 kilometres (5 mi) in circumference with towers built of square blocks of salt. Gerrha was destroyed by the Qarmatians at the end of the 9th century, and all 300,000 inhabitants were killed. It was 3 kilometres (2 mi) from the Persian Gulf near current day Hofuf . The researcher Abdulkhaliq Al Janbi argued in his book that Gerrha

9271-585: The area belonged to the Dilmun civilization, which was conquered by the Assyrian Empire in 709 BCE. Gerrha was the center of an Arab kingdom from approximately 650 BCE to circa 300 CE. The kingdom was attacked by Antiochus III the Great in 205-204 BCE, though it seems to have survived. It is currently unknown exactly when Gerrha fell, but the area was under Sassanid Persian control after 300 CE. Gerrha

9398-611: The area. Al Khamis Mosque , built during the reign of the Umayyad caliph Umar II , was one of the earliest mosques built in eastern Arabia. The expansion of Islam did not affect eastern Arabia's reliance on trade, and its prosperity continued to be dependent on markets in India and Mesopotamia. After Baghdad emerged as the seat of the caliph in 750 following the Abbasid Revolution , eastern Arabia greatly benefited from

9525-459: The city's increased demand for foreign goods, especially from China and South Asia. Eastern Arabia, and Bahrain more specifically, became a principal centre of knowledge for hundreds of years stretching from the early days of Islam in the 6th century to the 18th century. Philosophers of eastern Arabia were highly esteemed, such as the 13th-century mystic, Sheikh Maitham Al Bahrani (d. 1299). The mosque of Sheikh Maitham and his tomb can be visited in

9652-561: The coat of arms of the Kingdom of Iraq , from 1932 to 1959. Under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the late 1960s, Iran developed a strong military and took a more assertive stance in the Near East. In April 1969, Iran abrogated the 1937 treaty over the Shatt al-Arab and Iranian ships stopped paying tolls to Iraq when they used the Shatt al-Arab. The Shah argued that the 1937 treaty was unfair to Iran because almost all river borders around

9779-636: The collapse of Neo-Babylon in 538 BC. It is not certain what happened to the civilization itself; discoveries of ruins under the Persian Gulf may be of Dilmun. There is both literary and archaeological evidence of extensive trade between Ancient Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley civilization (which most scholars identify with Meluhha ). Impressions of clay seals from the Indus Valley city of Harappa were evidently used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions with cord or sack marks on

9906-425: The collapse of the Kassite dynasty, Mesopotamian documents make no mention of Dilmun with the exception of Assyrian inscriptions dated to 1250 BCE which proclaimed the Assyrian king to be king of Dilmun and Meluhha . Assyrian inscriptions recorded tribute from Dilmun. There are other Assyrian inscriptions during the first millennium BCE indicating Assyrian sovereignty over Dilmun. Dilmun was also later on controlled by

10033-504: The dividing line was a line drawn between the deepest points along the stream bed. In 1937, Iran and Iraq signed a treaty that settled the dispute over control of the Shatt al-Arab. The 1937 treaty recognized the Iranian-Iraqi border as along the low-water mark on the eastern side of the Shatt al-Arab except at Abadan and Khorramshahr where the frontier ran along the thalweg (the deep water line) which gave Iraq control of almost

10160-616: The early 17th century, the Safavids under king ( shah ) Abbas I (r. 1588–1629) once again regained Shatt al-Arab. Control of the river was at last permanently ceded to the Ottomans with the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639. Control of the waterway was also temporarily lost by the Safavids to the Ottomans in this treaty. In general, the Treaty of Zuhab roughly re-established the common borders of

10287-407: The end of fourth millennium BC, found in the temple of goddess Inanna , in the city of Uruk . The demonym "Dilmun" is used to describe a type of axe and the ethnicity of an official in these tablets. Dilmun was also mentioned in two letters, recovered from Nippur , which were dated to the reign of Burna-Buriash II (c. 1370 BC), a king of the Kassite dynasty of Babylon . These letters were from

10414-503: The entire waterway; provided that all ships using the Shatt al-Arab fly the Iraqi flag and have an Iraqi pilot, and required Iran to pay tolls to Iraq whenever its ships used the Shatt al-Arab. Shah Reza Shah of Iran together with his close friend President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk of Turkey had been promoting the Saadabad pact intended to protect the neutrality of Muslim nations if the world should be plunged into war again. In return for

10541-575: The first millennium BC indicating Assyrian sovereignty over Dilmun; one of the sites discovered in Bahrain indicates that Sennacherib , king of Assyria (707–681 BC), attacked the northeastern Persian Gulf and captured Bahrain. The most recent reference to Dilmun came during the Neo-Babylonian dynasty. Neo-Babylonian administrative records, dated 567 BC, stated that Dilmun was controlled by the king of Babylon. The name "Dilmun" fell from use after

10668-507: The governor of eastern Arabia, the province of Mazun . Shapur constructed a new city there and named it "Batan Ardashir" after his father. Mazun stretched from Oman in the south to the Shatt al-Arab in the north, and included the archipelago of Bahrain; thus it is roughly coterminous with the modern definition of Eastern Arabia. It was subdivided into the three districts of Haggar ( Hofuf , Saudi Arabia), Batan Ardashir ( Al-Qatif , Saudi Arabia), and Mishmahig ( Muharraq , Bahrain), which included

10795-566: The head of the bay behind the islands of Bahrain. Bahrain was referred to by the Greeks as Tylos , the center of pearl trading, when Nearchus came to discover it serving under Alexander the Great . From the 6th to 3rd century BCE Bahrain was included in Persian Empire by Achaemenians , an Iranian dynasty . The Greek admiral Nearchus is believed to have been the first of Alexander's commanders to visit this islands, and he found

10922-578: The island of Bahrain. Prior to Gerrha, the area belonged to the Dilmuni civilization. Gerrha itself was the center of an Arab kingdom from approximately 650 BC to circa 300 AD. The kingdom was attacked by Antiochus III the Great in 205-204 BC, though it seems to have survived. It is unknown exactly when Gerrha fell, but the area was under Sassanid Persian control after 300 AD. Gerrha was described by Strabo as inhabited by Chaldean exiles from Babylon , who built their houses of salt and repaired them by

11049-474: The island, or the salt and fresh water present above and below the ground. In addition to wells, there are places in the sea north of Bahrain where fresh water bubbles up in the middle of the salt water, noted by visitors since antiquity. An alternate theory offered by al-Hasa was that the two seas were the Great Green Ocean and a peaceful lake on the mainland; still another provided by al-Jawahari

11176-554: The islands and in Hasa and Qatif. Nasiri Khusru, who visited Hasa in 1051, recounted that these estates were cultivated by some thirty thousand Ethiopian slaves. He mentions that the people of Hasa were exempt from taxes. Those impoverished or in debt could obtain a loan until they put their affairs in order. No interest was taken on loans, and token lead money was used for all local transactions. Shatt al-Arab The Shatt al-Arab ( Arabic : شط العرب , lit.   'River of

11303-460: The islands were covered in these cotton trees and that Tylos was famous for exporting walking canes engraved with emblems that were customarily carried in Babylon. Ares was also worshipped by the ancient Baharna and the Greek empires. It is not known whether Bahrain was part of the Seleucid Empire , although the archaeological site at Qalat Al Bahrain has been proposed as a Seleucid base in

11430-710: The land with maritime trade between diverse regions as the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia in the early period and China and the Mediterranean in the later period (from the 3rd to the 16th century CE). Dilmun was mentioned in two letters dated to the reign of Burna-Buriash II (c. 1370 BCE) recovered from Nippur , during the Kassite dynasty of Babylon . These letters were from a provincial official, Ilī-ippašra , in Dilmun to his friend Enlil-kidinni in Mesopotamia. The names referred to are Akkadian . These letters and other documents, hint at an administrative relationship between Dilmun and Babylon at that time. Following

11557-542: The late fourth millennium to 1800 BCE. Dilmun was very prosperous during the first 300 years of the second millennium. Dilmun's commercial power began to decline between 2000 BCE and 1800 BCE because piracy flourished in the Persian Gulf. In 600 BCE, the Babylonians and later the Persians added Dilmun to their empires. The Dilmun civilization was the centre of commercial activities linking traditional agriculture of

11684-400: The modern Kingdom of Bahrain , particularly the main island of Bahrain itself, another possibility. Various other identifications of the site have been attempted, with Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville choosing Qatif and Carsten Niebuhr preferring Kuwait. The island of Bahrain was referred to by the ancient Greeks as "Tylos" ( Ancient Greek : Τύλος ) and was known for its pearls. From

11811-456: The most prominent communities were the Thamud , who arose around 3000 BCE and lasted to around 300 CE; and the earliest Semitic-speaking civilization in the eastern part was Dilmun , which arose around the end of the 4th millennium BCE and lasted to around 600 CE. Additionally, from around the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE, Southern Arabia was the home to a number of kingdoms, such as

11938-489: The mother country of the Phoenicians, and exhibited relics of Phoenician temples." The people of Tyre in particular have long maintained Persian Gulf origins, and the similarity in the words "Tylos" and "Tyre" has been commented upon. Herodotus 's account (written c. 430 BC) refers to Phoenicians inhabiting the shores of the Persian Gulf: According to the Persians , who are best informed in history,

12065-597: The open encouragement and support of Iran, the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga rebelled against Iraq, and instead of waging a guerrilla war, the peshmerga fought a conventional war against Iraq, leading to very intense fighting. In the winter of 1974–75, Iran and Iraq almost went to war over Iran's support of the Kurds in Iraq (see 1974–75 Shatt al-Arab conflict ). However, given Iran's greater military strength and population,

12192-540: The outskirts of Manama , near the district of Mahooz . At the end of the 3rd Hijri century, Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi led the Qarmatian Revolution , a rebellion by a messianic Ismaili sect originating in Kufa in present-day Iraq. Al-Jannabi took over the city of Hajr , Bahrain's capital at that time, and Al-Aḥsā, which he made the capital of his republic. Once in control of the state, he sought to create

12319-592: The palms had been wiped out by the combined factors of war, salt and pests; this count includes around 9 million palms in Iraq and 5 million in Iran. Many of the remaining 3–4 million trees are in poor health. The Shatt al-Arab is formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at Al-Qurnah , and flows into the Persian Gulf south of the city of Al-Faw . It receives the Karun at Khorramshahr . 3,000 years ago,

12446-743: The part of Great Britain and Russia". A protocol between the Ottomans and the Persians was signed in Istanbul in 1913, which declared that the Ottoman-Persian frontier run along the thalweg , but World War I canceled all plans. During the Mandate of Iraq (1920–1932), the British advisors in Iraq were able to keep the waterway binational under the thalweg principle that worked in Europe:

12573-423: The parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria... The Greek historian Strabo believed the Phoenicians originated from Eastern Arabia. Herodotus also believed that the homeland of the Phoenicians was Eastern Arabia. This theory was accepted by the 19th-century German classicist Arnold Heeren who said that: "In

12700-562: The population of Eastern Arabia consisted of Christianized Arabs (including Abd al-Qays ), Aramean Christians, Persian-speaking Zoroastrians and Jewish agriculturalists. According to Robert Bertram Serjeant , the Baharna may be the Arabized "descendants of converts from the original population of Christians (Aramaeans), Jews and ancient Persians (Majus) inhabiting the island and cultivated coastal provinces of Eastern Arabia at

12827-462: The rebels as they could lay their hands on". In 1980, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq abrogated the 1975 treaty and Iraq invaded Iran. The main thrust of the military movement on the ground was across the waterway which was the stage for most of the military battles between the two armies. The waterway was Iraq's only outlet to the Persian Gulf, and thus, its shipping lanes were greatly affected by continuous Iranian attacks. When Al-Faw peninsula

12954-479: The region until the late 9th century. The dioceses of Beth Qatraye did not form an ecclesiastical province , except for a short period during the mid-to-late 7th century. They were instead subject to the Metropolitanate of Fars . Hafit { Tuwwam } abounds in palm trees; it lies in the direction of Hajar { Al-Aḥsā }, and the mosque is in the markets ... Dibba and Julfar , both in the direction of

13081-592: The reverse side testify. A number of these Indus Valley seals have turned up at Ur and other Mesopotamian sites. The “Arabian Gulf” types of circular, stamped (rather than rolled) seals known from Dilmun appear at Lothal in Gujarat , India, as well as in Mesopotamia. These seals support the other evidence of Dilmun being an influential trading center. What the commerce consisted of is less known; timber and precious woods, ivory , lapis lazuli , gold , luxury goods such as carnelian and glazed stone beads, pearls from

13208-435: The same. The Second Treaty of Erzurum was signed by Ottoman Turkey and Qajar Iran in 1847 after protracted negotiations, which included British and Russian delegates. Even afterwards, backtracking and disagreements continued, until British Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston , was moved to comment in 1851 that "the boundary line between Turkey and Persia can never be finally settled except by an arbitrary decision on

13335-417: The sea. Maritime -focused life in the small Gulf Arab states has resulted in a sea-oriented society where livelihoods have traditionally been earned in marine industries . The Arabs of Eastern Arabia speak a dialect known as Gulf Arabic . Approximately 2 million Saudis (out of a population of 34 million) speak Gulf Arabic. Khaleeji entertainment is popular throughout the Arab world . Although performed in

13462-533: The second half of the 2nd century CE, reaching its greatest size. The kingdom of Hadramaut was eventually conquered by the Himyarite king Shammar Yahri'sh around 300 CE, unifying all of the South Arabian kingdoms. The ancient Kingdom of Awsān in South Arabia (modern Yemen), with a capital at Ḥagar Yaḥirr in the wadi Markhah, to the south of the Wādī Bayḥān, is now marked by a tell or artificial mound, which

13589-581: The site of Greek athletic contests. The name Tylos is thought to be a Hellenisation of the Semitic, Tilmun (from Dilmun ). The term Tylos was commonly used for the islands until Ptolemy's Geographia when the inhabitants are referred to as 'Thilouanoi'. Some place names in Bahrain go back to the Tylos era, for instance, the residential suburb of Arad in Muharraq , is believed to originate from "Arados",

13716-466: The site of Greek athletic contests. The name Tylos is thought to be a Hellenisation of the Semitic "Tilmun" (from Dilmun). The term "Tylos" was commonly used for the archipelago; Ptolemy 's Geographia when the inhabitants are referred to as "Thilouanoi" ("inhabitants of Tylos"). Some place names in Bahrain go back to the Tylos era; for instance, the residential suburb of Arad, located in Muharraq ,

13843-403: The starting point for a trader's route, making the location within the archipelago of islands comprising the modern Kingdom of Bahrain , particularly the main island of Bahrain itself, another possibility. Various other identifications of the site have been attempted, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville choosing Qatif , Carsten Niebuhr preferring Kuwait and C Forster suggesting the ruins at

13970-523: The state founded by Hyspaosines in 127 BC in modern-day Kuwait . A building inscription found in Bahrain indicates that Hyspoasines occupied the islands. From the 3rd century BC to arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD, Eastern Arabia was controlled by two other Iranian dynasties: the Parthians and the Sasanians . By about 250 BC, the Seleucids lost their territories to the Parthians, an Iranian tribe from Central Asia . The Parthian Empire brought

14097-471: The time of the Prophet Muhammad , who ruled eastern Arabia through one of his representatives, Al-Ala'a Al-Hadhrami . Eastern Arabia embraced Islam in 628 (the seventh year of Hijrah ; i.e. 7 AH ). During the time of Umar I, a companion of Muhammad, Abu Hurairah was the governor of eastern Arabia. Umar I also appointed Uthman ibn Abi al-As , another companion of Muhammad, as governor of

14224-570: The time of the Arab conquest". Other archaeological assemblages cannot be brought clearly into larger context, such as the Samad Late Iron Age . Zoroastrianism was also present in Eastern Arabia. The Zoroastrians of Eastern Arabia were known as " Majoos " in pre-Islamic times. The sedentary dialects of Eastern Arabia, including Bahrani Arabic , were influenced by Akkadian , Aramaic and Syriac languages. The Dilmun civilization

14351-410: The time when such migration had supposedly taken place. With the waning of Seleucid Greek power, Tylos was incorporated into Characene or Mesenian, the state founded in what today is Kuwait by Hyspaosines in 127 BCE. A building inscriptions found in Bahrain indicate that Hyspoasines occupied the islands, (and it also mention his wife, Thalassia). From the 3rd century BCE to arrival of Islam in

14478-536: The waterway and the area of the Persian Gulf surrounding the river mouth. They were tasked until 2007 to make sure that ships in the area were not being used to transport munitions into Iraq. British forces also trained Iraqi naval units to take over the responsibility of guarding their waterways after the Coalition Forces left Iraq in December 2011. On two separate occasions, Iranian forces operating on

14605-494: The west side of the Persian Gulf . More accurately, the ancient city of Gerrha has been determined to have existed near or under the present fort of Uqair . This fort is 50 miles northeast of al-Hasa in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia . This site was first proposed by Robert Ernest Cheesman in 1924. Gerrha and Uqair are archaeological sites on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula . Prior to Gerrha,

14732-499: The whole of the parallel Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges, with the narrow gap between these mountains constituting the tunnel. Dilmun, sometimes described as “the place where the sun rises” and “the Land of the Living”, is the scene of some versions of the Eridu Genesis , and the place where the deified Sumerian hero of the flood, Utnapishtim ( Ziusudra ), was taken by the gods to live forever. Thorkild Jacobsen 's translation of

14859-400: The world ran along the thalweg , and because most of the ships that used the Shatt al-Arab were Iranian. Iraq threatened war over the Iranian move, but on 24 April 1969, an Iranian tanker escorted by Iranian warships ( Joint Operation Arvand ) sailed down the Shatt al-Arab, and Iraq—being the militarily weaker state—did nothing. The Iranian abrogation of the 1937 treaty marked the beginning of

14986-679: The year 570 CE. Eastern Yemen remained allied to the Sassanids via tribal alliances with the Lakhmids , which later brought the Sassanid army into Yemen, ending the Aksumite period. The Persian king Khosrau I sent troops under the command of Vahriz ( Persian : اسپهبد وهرز ), who helped the semi-legendary Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan to drive the Aksumites out of Yemen. Southern Arabia became

15113-412: Was 2 miles from the Persian Gulf near current day Hofuf . The researcher Abdulkhaliq Al Janbi argued in his book that Gerrha was most likely the ancient city of Hajar, located in modern-day Al Ahsa , Saudi Arabia . Al Janbi's theory is the most widely accepted one by modern scholars, although there are some difficulties with this argument given that Al Ahsa is 60 km inland and thus less likely to be

15240-422: Was a powerful and highly organized ancient Arab kingdom that played a vital cultural and economic role in the north-western region of the Arabian Peninsula and used Dadanitic language. The Lihyanite kingdom went through three different stages, the early phase of Lihyan Kingdom was around the 7th century BC, started as a Sheikdom of Dedan then developed into the Kingdom of Lihyan tribe. Some authors assert that

15367-471: Was an important trading center which at the height of its power controlled the Persian Gulf trading routes. The Sumerians regarded Dilmun as holy land . Dilmun is regarded as one of the oldest ancient civilizations in the Middle East . The Sumerians described Dilmun as a paradise garden in the Epic of Gilgamesh . The Sumerian tale of the garden paradise of Dilmun may have been an inspiration for

15494-479: Was captured by the Iranians in 1986, Iraq's shipping activities virtually came to a halt and had to be diverted to other Arab ports such as Kuwait and even Aqaba , Jordan . On 17 April 1988, Operation Ramadan Mubarak Materialized which saw Al-Faw peninsula recaptured after three days of fighting. After retaking Al-Faw, the Iraqis began a sustained drive to clear the Iranians out of all of southern Iraq. In May 1988,

15621-401: Was described by Strabo as inhabited by Chaldean exiles from Babylon , who built their houses of salt and repaired them by the application of salt water. Pliny the Elder (lust. Nat. vi. 32) says it was 5 miles in circumference with towers built of square blocks of salt. Gerrha was destroyed by the Qarmatians in the end of the 9th century where all inhabitants were massacred (300,000). It

15748-488: Was diminished by the arrival of Islam in Eastern Arabia by 628. In 676, the bishops of Beth Qatraye stopped attending synods; although the practice of Christianity persisted in the region until the late 9th century. The dioceses of Beth Qatraye did not form an ecclesiastical province , except for a short period during the mid-to-late seventh century. They were instead subject to the Metropolitan of Fars . Oman and

15875-549: Was important in delivering humanitarian aid to the rest of the country, and stopping the flow of operations trying to break the naval blockade against Iraq. The British Royal Marines staged an amphibious assault to capture the key oil installations and shipping docks located at Umm Qasr on the al-Faw peninsula at the onset of the conflict. Following the end of the war, the UK was given responsibility, subsequently mandated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1723 , to patrol

16002-399: Was most likely the ancient city of Hajar, located in modern-day Al-Ahsa , Saudi Arabia. Al Janbi's theory is the most widely accepted one by modern scholars, although there are some difficulties with this argument given that Al Ahsa is 60 km (37 miles) inland and thus less likely to be the starting point for a trader's route, making the location within the archipelago of islands comprising

16129-454: Was seen as a national humiliation in Iraq, causing much bitterness over what was seen as Iranian bullying. However, the Algiers Accord saw Iran cease supporting the peshmerga as the Iranians closed the frontier, causing the Kurdish rebellion to promptly collapse. The British journalist Patrick Brogan wrote that "the Iraqis celebrated their victory in the usual manner, by executing as many of

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