Talk:Arabian Peninsula/Archive 1

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I took a look in the history, & discovered that about a month ago someone removed much of the geographical description of the peninsula -- without offering an explanation. I restored this material (with some copy edits), & removed the cleanup tag; this article is much more useful now. -- llywrch 23:08, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think that there should be more information about the peninsula and that it should not

Ancient History plagiarism

I just removed the entirety of the Ancient History section and added a request for expansion, because the entire section appears (to me) to have been plagiarised from this article. I'd try to work on it myself, but I don't have time. Nyttend 04:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Arabian subcontinent Geologically/Historically Part of Africa

Based on this statement in the text of this entry:

"Geologically, this region is perhaps more appropriately called the Arabian subcontinent because it lies on a tectonic plate of Dubai its own, the Arabian Plate, which has been moving incrementally away from northeast Africa (forming the Red Sea) and north into the Eurasian plate (forming the Zagros mountains). "

It would seem that becasue the Arabian subcontinetn is moving incrementally away from northeast Africa and before the Red Sea formed was part of one North East African land mass, that historically the Arabian subcontinent was part of the larger land mass of Africa.

However, there seems to be a historical bias to not acknowledge that the heritage of the people and the land mass is more correctly part of Africa rather than "Westeren Asia".

It just makes more sense to me...

Can anyone expalin why it makes more sense to call the Arabian subcontient "Western Asia" rather than "North East Africa"?

BECAUSE THE PEOPLE OF ARABIA ARE MOSTLY CAUCASIAN (EVEN THOUGH THEIR SKIN MAY BE DARK). AS IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD, CAUCASIANS MAY EXHIBIT DARK SKIN AT TIMES, BUT THAT DOESN'T CHANGE THEIR RACE. THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT THE PAOPLE OF ARABIA ARE MORE CLOSELY RELATED TO THE PEOPLE OF WESTERN ASIA BY AND LARGE.

Is "race" (Caucasian etc.) a scientific concept ? Maybe it was in the 19th century ... A more simple explanation: the consensus among geographers is that Asia's border is the isthmus of Suez, so therefore Arabia is part of western Asia. It's just as arbitrary as making a continent out of Europe, which is tectonically more a part of Asia than is Arabia or even India. 62.194.104.78 17:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Because the Arabian Subcontinent is in Asia, Caucasian is an american term and is not used any other part of the world. Arabs are semites, as jews, Persians are not and they are Aryan, as kurdish, Armenians, also, Turkish are mongols, as azeri. Europeans can be Slavs, Aryans, or Celtic.

when you are saying Arabia

you have to say the middel east and nourth africa!!! because all those country are an arabian countries, like when you say Europe or Africa, so all those countries are basiclly an arabian countries, even if there a small group in each country are not arabs but the most population of each country are arabs. and they are :- UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Mauritania, Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan and Kuwait. there are some other countries that considered in the arab league but ther are not arabs because most of the population there are not arabians

hope you will fix the mistake of The word ARABIA, because Arabia is different from the Arabian Peninsula plus Iraq is from the Arabian Peninsula. why there is a lack of info!!!

thanks. 

Jordan and Al Anbar (west of iraq) part of the Arabian Peninsula

this is Arabian Peninsula

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/4269/hhax5.jpg 

Population is 52,621,838
"Arabia" is English usually has a strictly geographical meaning equivalent to "Arabian Peninsula", which is why "Arabia" redirects to this article. You can see the other meanings of "Arabia" in English at Arabia (disambiguation). The term that is used for countries where Arabs form most of the population is Arab World. I will address your point about Jordan and Iraq in the next section.--Pharos 19:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

New map

How does this look?

I have drawn a new map of the two common definitions of the "Arabian Peninsula", inspired by the map at Central Asia. I wasn't too sure about where exactly to draw the lines in Iraq and Jordan, but I hazarded an estimate. Any input or corrections before I put this in the article? Thanks.--Pharos 19:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

good.--Photoka
The geographical definition on the map doesn't agree with the text in the article that states that the Arabian Peninsula's "northern limit is defined by the Zagros collision zone". If I understand correctly what is meant by "Zagros collision zone" then the peninsula by geographical definition should extend to the Zagros mountains north and east of the Tigris River and possibly even into the extreme southwestern part of Iran. I have no idea how to correctly delineate the peninsula geographically - I'm just pointing out the inconsistency between the text and the map. BobDively (talk) 04:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

What Arabia?

The definition of the boundaries of Arabia cannot be logical unless these boundaries are put in a context: Political, geographical, historical, or ethnical. Only geography is ambiguous because the tectonic mass means nothing to present boundaries. The mountains of Turkey and Iran in the east include both Syria and Iraq, therefore Lebanon and Palestine. The Egypto-palestinian borders are political so what are the geographical boundaries? The political boundaries are modern and they do not give a precise definition to Arabia unless we include Iraq and Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. The ethnical boundaries are hard to prove since the intermingling of races and ethnical groups with Arabs does not give a clear delimitation of boundaries. They all used to live together among Arabs without political claims since the dawn of times until the 20th century when the European influence started to divide in order to rule. The most prominent example is the Kurdish claims for independence that was instigated for oil purposes and other regional conflicts. The Historical context is the most important because it is still boiling since the Crusades. The entire history of the Middle East is based on the conflict between Europe and Islam. Europeans want to reinstate the rule of Rome on the Mediterranean with Roman culture and religion, thus pushing the Arabian definition towards oblivion. This is how Arabia is historically defined: from the Byzantine view as being the Arabia Felix "over there to the south"; from the Roman View as being the Arabia Petra and Arabia Felix; from the Ottoman View as being the Arabic-speaking countries including Iraq, Syria, North Africa including Morocco. Here we have to make a stop at the most important context, which is the language. The British and the French when they divided the countries of the Middle East in 1921 based their division maps on the language and religion factors but excluded the Kurdish regions. Ethnically speaking, the map did not consider the presence of non-Arab minorities as an important dividend in the making of boundaries. The Kurds were Moslems among Arabs inside Iraq and they could speak Arabic, therefore they should not have a separate country. Speaking of language, history has proven through archaeology that Arabic is not a modern recent language. Some modern political historians tend to make us think in certain ways that Arabic is a product of the Kuran, while archaeology has unfolded the roots and origins of the language of Kuran: the language of Sam. Even the Old Testament has proven to be the history book of the entire Arabia including Mesopotamia. The Sumerian and Acadian tablets as well as the Ugarit tablets by tens of thousands resolved mysteries in the Arabic language that linguists were trying to resolve for centuries. It was the evolution of the old language of Arabia, spoken throughout the Arabian Peninsula, including the old Mesopotamia, that has become the modern language of the Kuran. Even names like Abraham and Ismael were found in these tablets. Therefore, it is unconceivable to separate Mesopotamia from Arabia. It is the vastity of the Arabian World and the differences between tribes of the North and tribes of the south, the east and the west that created what we call differences in Arabia, in addition to the contacts with the surrounding nations. Caravans who criss-crossed Arabia from Yemen to Mesopotamia and to Western Syria, and from the Gulf to the Mediterranean for thousands of years have created what we have to call ARABIA. Tectonically Egypt is not part of Arabia but the miracle or Arabia still dominates the modern Arab world despite the skirmishes of Kurdistan and other false convictions in the Middle East. Respectfully, Noureddine 02:33, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

the Population

in 2007

the Population is 67,525,838


Bahrain 708,573

Qatar 907,229

Kuwait 2,505,559

Oman 3,204,897

United Arab Emirates 4,444,011

Jordan 5,924,000

Yemen 22,230,531

Saudi Arabia 27,601,038


708,573+907,229+2,505,559+3,204,897+4,444,011+5,924,000+22,230,531+27,601,038= 67,525,838


Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.100.100.00 (talk) 20:33, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

__________________________________________________________________________________


the Population in 2008


Bahrain 1,046,814

Qatar 1,450,000

Kuwait 3,399,637

Oman 3,311,640

United Arab Emirates 5,402,375

Jordan 6,198,677

Yemen 23,013,376

Saudi Arabia 28,161,417

1,046,814+1,450,000+3,399,637+3,311,640+5,402,375+6,198,677+23,013,376+28,161,417=71,983,936

Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html

--66.150.115.197 (talk) 01:05, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

__________________________________________________________________________________


the Population in 2009


Bahrain 1,146,814

Qatar 1,450,000

Kuwait 3,399,637

Oman 3,418,085

United Arab Emirates 5,402,375

Jordan 6,342,948

Yemen 23,822,783

Saudi Arabia 28,686,633

1,146,814+1,450,000+3,399,637+3,418,085+5,402,375+6,342,948+23,822,783+28,822,783=73,805,425

Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sa.html

Early comments

I've added a cleanup tag because this article is a fine one on Arabia, but it's meant to be on the Arabian Peninsula, which it hardly mentions! Grutness|hello? 11:40, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is the main Wikipedia article on Arabia. The terms are synonyms.

The document really needs clean up, it lists subjects which draft into other categories, like politics (again) and culture. My main impression was that this is a geological plate and now i see the debates and article heading towards terminology and politics (who every said Umayyad whatever). (like I found it first its mine, if it was chemistry someone would call an electron (an arab-tron) then another guy would say no its a (persi-tron) then a third goes for a (leva-tron)...etc etc. I would love to see a link for many articles called (term disputes) and stuffed to the bottom of the article, while a search for a certain topic will show the title with the term searched for the first place so everyone would be happy and concentrate on other more important stuff.

Arabistan in English Literature and Reference Works

Here is my rationale for incorporating the information on Arabistan (also Arabia):

This article links to disambiguation pages for Arabia and Arabistan. Standard English geography handbooks, like the Merriam-Webster Geographical Dictionary, instruct readers to 'see Arabian Peninsula' for explanations and descriptions of the synonymous terms 'Arabia' and 'Arabistan'.

The entry for Arabistan says 1. Peninsula. Asia. See ARABIAN PENINSULA. 2. Province. Iran. see KHUZESTAN.

The material about those terms and their usage belongs in this article. see for example, the entry on page 61 of the Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary for the Arabian Peninsula. It indicates Arabia or Arabistan are synonyms for the peninsula, and that in early times the peninsula was divided into Arabia Petraea, Arabia Felix, and Arabia Deserta. The very same entry also explains that the northwest part of Arabia Petraea included the Sinai Peninsula (which isn't considered part of the modern Arabian Peninsula).

The entries for Arabia, Arabia Petraea, Arabia Felix, and Arabia Deserta simply say 'SEE ARABIAN PENINSULA'.

The peninsula was frequently divided by western geographers into three regions including Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabistan - (including Arabia Petraea, the Hedjaz, and Yemen), skirting the E. coast of the Red Sea from Syria to the Gulf of Aden. see for example Manual of Modern Geography, by Alexander Mackay, 1881, page 359.

The term was also employed in a broader sense as a common synonym for Arabia, or the all of the homeland of the Arabs. It was popular with English speaking authors of the 18th and 19th century. One such example is 'Arabistan: or, The land of "The Arabian nights". Being travels through Egypt, Arabia, and Persia, to Bagdad', by Wm. Perry Fogg, published in 1875).

The Romans, Greeks, and Persians added the suffix '-ia', '-ya', or 'stan' to form nouns for the land of the Arabs. So far as the Arabs and Ottomans were concerned, all of the regions where the Arabs lived were the land of the Arabs - bilad al-Arab (Arabia or Arabistan).

This article already notes that Syria [another ambiguous term] is actually located on the Arabian Peninsula, or Arabian subcontinent, while pointing out the non-geographical fact that it is treated as a separate political unit. That certainly wasn't always the case, so I suggest that the ancient and medieval history sections make mention of the term Arabistan and Syria in their broader sense and explain that Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan were also part of Arabia and Arabistan. The catalog of lands occupied by the Hebrews during the period of the United Monarchy included territory east of the Jordan on the Arabian Peninsula. Portions of the modern state of Israel, such as Eilat, straddle the Dead Sea rift and were once part of Arabia Petraea.

The Ottomans used the term Arabistan in a broad sense for the area starting from where the Euphrates river makes its descent into Syria (i.e. the Taurus mountains of Cilicia), Syria, Palestine, and the remainder of the Arabian peninsula.

A typical Ottoman application of the term was the 'Arabistan Ordusu', or the provincial Ottoman Army for Arabia. It was based at Damascus, and was put in charge of Syria, Cilicia, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula. see History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Stanford J. Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw, Cambridge University Press, 1977,ISBN 0521291666, page 85. also see The Politics of Interventionism in Ottoman Lebanon, 1830-1861, by Caesar E. Farah, which explains that Mount Lebanon was in the jurisdiction of the Arabistan Army, and that its headquarters was briefly moved to Beirut. The Mining Engineer, published by the Institution of Mining Engineers (Great Britain), 1909, describes the 'Vilayet of Allepo, one of the exterior provinces of Arabistan'. see snippet of page 669

The Damascus Protocol provides another illustration of the relationship. Arabs living in one of the existing Arab districts of the Arabian peninsula, the Emirate of Hejaz, asked for a British guarantee of independence for all Arab lands south of a line roughly corresponding to the northern frontiers of present-day Syria and Iraq, including Cilicia - İskenderun and Mersin, parts of Iraq, Syria, and Palestine as indicated on the map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ArabstateDamascus1914.png

Arabistan was also used in the context of the 'Greater Syria' or the Pan-Arab movement. For example, Butrus Bustani wrote that 'Syria which is widely known as barr ash-Sham and Arabistan is our fatherland [watan] in all its diverse plains, rugged terrains, coasts and mountains. And the people of Syria, whichever their creed, community, racial origin or groups are the sons of the fatherland.' Antun Sa'adeh: The Man, His Thought: an Anthology, Adel Beshara, Garnet & Ithaca Press, 2007, ISBN 086372308X, page 137.

J.M.N Jefrries and other authors noted that in classic Arabic, the Cilician-Syrian frontage on the Gulf of İskenderun was called 'Ash Sham' or the 'Left', Bilad ash-Sham, or Barr ash-Sham (Land of the Left). The hinterland of the Arabian peninsula, where Abraham and Ishmael reportedly rebuilt the Ka’ba edifice, was called 'Yemen', or the 'Right'. see for example Palestine: The Reality, Joseph Mary Nagle Jeffries, Published by Longmans, Green and co., 1939, Page 4 One of Jeffries observations about that entire region was that 'the Turks call it "Arabistan"'.

In October, 1929, The journal of the Communist International discussed the uprising in Palestine and the events in Arabistan as a whole, while attributing the unrest and Arab disunity to the fragmentation of Arabistan into smaller countries. The journal noted that the western powers had broken Arabistan into a number of colonies. see The Communist International 1919-1943, by Jane Degras, page 79

In the late 1980's Kamal Salibi discussed the Land of the Arabs (bilad al-Arab) and its major divisions of the bilad al Sham (Syria), bilad al-Yaman (the Land of the southern Peninsula), and Bilad al-Iraq (the Land of the River Banks). He also commented on the development of a new name for the peninsula, jazirat al-Arab, after the term bilad al-Yaman became connected with the southwestern part of the peninsula. see A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered, By Kamal Suleiman Salibi, Published by University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0520071964, pages 60-61

The concept of the geographical unit that became known as Arabistan with these left and right regions predates the current era. For example, in the tradition of the Abrahamic religions Genesis 14:15 explained that Hobath was 'on the left hand of Damascus'. Genesis 15:2 indicates that Abraham and his kinsmen lived in the vicinity of Damascus. All of Jacob's sons were reportedly born somewhere in the 'Land of the Left', except one son who was born in the vicinity of Bethlehem (Genesis 35:18). Jacob named that son Benjamin (Ben Yemen), the 'son of the Right Hand'. The The Jewish Encyclopedia entry for Benjamin explains that: 'Other rabbis interpret the name Benjamin as "son of the South," since he was the only son born to Jacob in Palestine, the others having been born in Mesopotamia, north of Palestine' (Rashi ad loc.; "Sefer ha-Yashar," Wayishlaḥ, ed. Leghorn, p. 56b). The story of Abraham, his kinsmen, and the covenants are cited by the inhabitants as the basis for many of the ancient boundaries in the region.

Secondary Usage

The secondary application of the term to mean only the northeast region of the peninsula, or a particular emirate, began under later Ottoman, Persian, and British influence. The British had a policy of creating arbitrary divisions or exploiting natural ones that they called "Questions" or "Problems" in order to Divide and rule other peoples and lands. One example is 'The Middle Eastern Question: Or, Some Political Problems of Indian Defence', By Valentine Chirol, published in 1903. It says:

TURKISH ARABISTAN: IN spite of the frontiers which politically divide Persian from Turkish Arabistan — frontiers of which Turkey, at any rate, does her best to bring home the reality to all concerned by the most absurd and onerous quarantine regulations — the great alluvial plains which stretch from the Bakhtiari mountains across the Karun, the Tigris, and the Euphrates towards the Arabian peninsula form physically and ethnically so homogeneous a 'whole that the present artificial lines of severance cannot be expected to outlive the precarious tenure upon which their titular owners still hold them.

In his Persia and the Persian Question, published in 1892, on page 320, Lord Curzon explained that Arabistan, literally means the Land of the Wanderers, but applied the term in the very limited secondary sense to the Iran-Iraq region of the peninsula.

The eastern region of Khuzestan province (formerly Persian Arabistan) contains the Zagros mountain belt. It forms one of the natural borders of the Arabian peninsula. The disputed title to the area was an issue during the Iran-Iraq war. harlan (talk) 23:38, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism/Debate

There seems to be alot of debate about whether certain countries are or are not part of the Arabian Peninsula. There also has been some unrelated vandalism. Think the situation should calm down now that we have got a geographical dictionary in to confirm most peoples understanding of the region. GarethHolteDavies (talk) 09:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Israel and the Palestinian Territories in Arabian Peninsula??

There is a user who keeps claiming the Israel and the Palestinian Territories are in the Arabain Peninsula. This is of course not true under any understanding of the current term. Putting Syria and Iraq is problematic as well, but may "technically" justifiable. Any way, anyone wishing to make such a claim has to bring a current geographical reference that includes the countries. Mashkin (talk) 09:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

The term Arabia itself means a four-sided subcontinent. It is a synonym for the term Arabian Peninsula which means the same thing. See the Geography and Climate section of the UNESCO, Earth Sciences IGCP Project 349 report. Israel is included in the region of the subcontinent flanked by the Mediterranean Sea. The USGS Map of the Geological Provinces of the Arabian Peninsula includes Israel Lebanon, and the others. The National Academy of Science report describes "the vast Arabian continent" under the heading of the Arabian Peninsula. see Arid Land Ecosystems, Perry and Goodall, International Biological Programme, 1979, page 224 This map of Arabia and Chapter 2, Types of deserts and landform regions of Arabia from the same book specifically mentions, and includes, the geological provinces of Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine as part of modern-day Arabia.
According to long agreed upon facts Palestine, Lebanon and Syria belong to Bilad Al-Sham, a.k.a Sham, or Greater Syria. From historical geography Sham is defined as the lands in the fertile crescent (in contrast with the peninsula's desert and dryness.) In addition to that, the Islamic resources reference the lands beyond the northern boundaries of Tabuk in Saudi Arabia as 'Sham'.
There are also geographical, biological and geological differences between Sham land and Arabian Peninsula. There also exists a number of natural dividing geographic formations like the desert of An Nafud, the mountainous terrains in Jordan, the River of Jordan down to the dead sea and Gulf of Aqaba. This defines a natural border to the Arabian Peninsula which makes it a mistake to include the Palestinian territories in the Arabian Peninsula. I hope this clarifies it a bit. mizzo (talk) 13:11, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The entry on page 61 of the Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary for the Arabian Peninsula indicates Arabia or Arabistan are synonyms for the peninsula, and that in early times the peninsula was divided into Arabia Petraea, Arabia Felix, and Arabia Deserta. The very same entry also explains that the northwest part of Arabia Petraea included the Sinai Peninsula (which isn't considered part of the modern Arabian Peninsula). No reasonable person is going to argue with historical facts that an Admin can find in the dictionary.

Eilat Israel was located in Arabia Petraea and even Jabotinsky admitted that the ancient Kingdom of Israel included territory on the Peninsula. Stop vandalizing the article harlan (talk) 15:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Who cares what Jabotinsky "admitted" or not. It has nothing to do with the definition of the Arabian Peninsula. There is a certain common definition for the Arabian Peninsula which *all* sources support and this is the one that should be reflected in the entry: Encarta, Metropolitan Museum, Britannica and also Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary (accept that they also explain historical terms). The fact that at some point in time a term that had the root "arab" in it referred to other places is completely not to the point. Harlan's attempt to make the Arabian Peninsula include all the area of the levant is completely inappropriate and should stop! Also Harlan should watch his language and not accuse others of vandalism! Mashkin (talk) 15:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
A reader should be able to look-up a term and find an answer that corresponds to the dictionary meanings of the word - even the archaic meanings. The 19th century wasn't that long ago. You can find numerous references to the Sinai and Israel being on the Peninsula, or the synonym Arabistan. If you insist on rewriting history and geography despite WP:RS sources, then its time to report this problem. harlan (talk) 16:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, all sources follow the definition of the Arabian Peninsula as I have written it. As is explained in the article, at different times the term Arabia included different regions. Right now the article is a mess. The whole modern history of the region is missing. Mashkin (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
No Mashkin Websters says the Sinai used to be considered a part of the Peninsula, as do many medieval and ancient sources. If the article is a mess, remember that after your 21 revisions, most of us think that you own it. harlan (talk) 09:18, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Israel and the Palestinian Territories in Arabian Peninsula??, Section Break

You have said that "Harlan's attempt to make the Arabian Peninsula include all the area of the levant is completely inappropriate and should stop!"

The Britanica articles on the Zagros and Bitlis Mountans explain that "The Arabian Peninsula has collided with Iran and Turkey at the Zagros and Bitlis sutures". The Bitlis suture is the northwest boundary of the Arabian plate in the Hatay region (Cilicia) of souhtern Turkey. Here is a map of the of the region with the plate boundaries indicated and a discussion of the Hatay Graben formation.

I mentioned in the previous post (above) that the precise boundaries of the Sinai subplate remains doubtful even to modern scientists, and I provided a link. One problem has been the lack of data to support the various theoretical models, including the popular belief that the Dead Sea Rift Zone extends north beyond the Bekka Valley Lebanon into northern Syria:

"The origin of the Dead Sea rift has generally been linked with that of the Red Sea, the widening of the latter involving left-lateral strike-slip on the rift. Its extension through the Lebanese fold belt has been denied by some because of the absence of linear and displacement continuity. Others, however, have been unable to see any other choice in spite of these difficulties, but a satisfying structural model has not yet been offered." The Western Arabia rift system, A. M. Quennell, Geological Society, London, Special Publications; 1984.

The rift separates the Galilee mountains from the Golan Heights. A Cornell University Dead Sea Fault Zone (DSFZ) study was subsequently established "to address several important issues including: Whether or not the northern DSFZ deformation fully accounts for Arabia-Africa plate motions and, hence, represents the present-day plate boundary". see Cornell Syria Project, Dead Sea Fault Zone Summary page

No matter which plate model is correct, something called "the Arabian Peninsula" has collided with Cilicia. If the DSFZ isn't the actual boundary, then the whole Levant may very well be located on the Arabian plate. In any case, the whole Golan Heights region is located on the Arabian plate-side of the supposed rift - on the Arabian peninsula. Multiple WP:RS sources can be provided which claim that King Solomon, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, and the Israeli Knesset consider this particular piece of geography to be part of Eretz Israel.

I did not equate Palestine with the Palestinian Territories. The Palestine Exploration Fund included land on the Arabian peninsula in "Eastern Palestine".

Websters Geographical Dictionary, Page 1147, documents the use of the term Syria as a synonym for the Hebrew Aram, and Arabic Ash Sham for a country of Asia on the East end of the Mediterrainian Sea including modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan. harlan (talk) 03:06, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

All modern sources including Webster say the the modern term Arabian Peninsula does not include Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and even Jordan. You are bringing completely inappropriate arguments such as plate tactonics. Please stop trying to devalue Wikipedia. Mashkin (talk) 12:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

One More Time

It isn't too difficult to explain that the term Arabian peninsula has two different meanings. There are encyclopedias in the public domain, which are available online, that will do the job quite nicely.
Arabia redirects to this article. The synonym Arabistan links through a disambiguation page. Here are some extracts from the New International Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, Dodd, Mead, Co., 1914 page 795:ARABIA. The great southwestern peninsula of Asia, called by the inhabitants Jazirat al 'Arab, 'the peninsula of Arabia'; by the Turks and Persians, Arabistan. Its northern boundary depends upon whether Arabia Petrtea and the Syrian Desert are included or not,... ...When the name is taken in its widest sense, Arabia may be said to be situated in lat. 12° 40' to about 35° N., and long. 32° 30' to 60° E.
The encyclopedia explains that Hejaz, or the 'barrier,' is assumed to refer to its location between al Sham (Syria) in the north and al Yaman (Yemen) in the south. It names the medieval provinces and explains they haven't changed. It supplies the Arabic names for the divisions of the "Hammad": Badiyat al Sham, Badiyat al Jazira, and Badiyat al 'Irak, deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia, respectively.

Please correct: Hejaz is not a modern Arabic term to be interpreted as barrier. It is the name of an Amorrite King by the name Hagaz as found in the tablets of Tell Amarna.--Noureddine (talk) 12:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The encyclopedia did not suggest that the word had its origins in "modern" Arabic. Perhaps you could cite a published source which suggests that the etymology has some connection to a King named "Hagaz"? There don't appear to be any references to him in the Amarna letter list. In the meantime, the Wikipedia article Hejaz says al-Hejaz (also Hijaz, Hedjaz; Arabic: الحجاز al-Ḥiǧāz, literally "the barrier") is a region in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia. harlan (talk) 13:28, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Please correct Again: You are confusing the terms Al Hajiz (Barrier) and Al Hijab (curtain-vail) in Arabic. Al Hijaz in Arabic does not have a meaning just like endless numbers of personal and towns and regions names in South-western Arabia: No linguistic meaning, because the Old Arabic has disappeared from the landscape through evolution. The only saved remnants of the old Arabic is what we call today: Hebrew. Noureddine (talk) 19:57, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

The article doesn't mention it. So, there is nothing to correct. FYI, I was quoting a reliable published source and I notice that you are not. harlan (talk) 22:02, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
Like the Brittanica articles, the US Geological Survey uses the Zagros-Bitlis belt in their modern maps of the Arabian Peninsula. Here is link to an example. They include the Sinai, Israel, and Lebanon in the Geological provinces of the Arabian peninsula too. Wikimedia has similar maps: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Arabic_peninsula_-_en.svg
The term Arabian subcontinent has redirected to this article since 2005. In geographic terms Eurasia is a large peninsula that is joined to Africa at the Isthmus of Suez. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two-point-equidistant-asia.jpg The Arabian subcontinent, including the Sinai subplate, is a peninsula of Southwest Asia. The subcontinent has it's own tectonic plate.
Many encyclopedia and magazine articles from the WWI period include the Sinai in the Arabian peninsula. Here is a news article from 1919 about the proposed post-war Arab state that was described as including "the whole of the southwestern peninsula of Asia, as far north as Damascus". It goes on to describe the provinces of Arabia as: (1) Al Tih, which corresponds to the peninsula of Sinai; (2) the Hedjaz; (3) Asir; (4) Yemen; (5) Hadramaut; (6) Mahra and Shilu; (7) Oman; (8) Hasa; (9) Bahrian; (10) Dahna; (11) Nejd; (12) Nufud; and (13) the Hammad, which includes the deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia." see Review of Reviews and World's Work: An International Magazine, Albert Shaw ed., The Review of Reviews Corporation, 1919, page 408
David Frankfurter explains the two traditional divisions of Arabia, al Sham-al Yaman or Arabia Dersata-Arabia Felix that were used in Strabo, Pliny, Dioscurdes, Appian, Cassius Dio, Ammianus, and etc. (1) Arabia Felix sometimes used for the whole peninsula, and at other times only for the southern region. Because this was limited to the south, the whole peninsula was simply called Arabia. (2)Arabia Deserta the entire desert region extending north from Arabia Felix to Palmyra and the Euphrates including all the area between Pelusium on the Nile and Babylon. This area was also called Arabia and not sharply distinguished from the peninsula. See Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, David Frankfurter, BRILL, 1998, ISBN 9004111271, page 163
You brought up the subject of Britannica, and it does not support your viewpoit. Neither does Encarta. It states that the Arabian peninsula includes: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, and the island state of Bahrain. But if you look at the related articles in the sidebar, you'll find the "Syrian Desert, desert in the northern Arabian Peninsula, including northern Saudi Arabia, north-eastern Jordan, south-eastern Syria, and western Iraq".
The notion of an undefined northern border drawn for the sake of convenience dates to the late 19th and early 20th century, when no one but a few missionaries and explorers had ever been anywhere near the central regions of the peninsula. They just picked the 33rd or 35th parallel north.
"Arabia has well-defined boundaries everywhere except on the north. ... ...The undefined northern desert, in some places a sea of sand, completes the isolation which has led the Arabs themselves to call the peninsula their " Island " (Jezirat-el-Arab). In fact the northern boundary will probably never be defined accurately. The so-called "Syrian desert," reaching to about the thirty-fifth parallel might better be regarded as the Arabian desert, for in physical and ethnical features it bears much greater resemblance to the southern peninsula than to the surrounding regions of Syria and Mesopotamia. Bagdad is properly an Arabian city and to the Arabs of the north is as much a part of the peninsula as is Aden to those of the southwest. The true, though shifting, northern boundary of Arabia would be the limit of Nomad encampments, but for convenience and practical purposes a boundary line may be drawn from the Mediterranean along the thirty-third parallel to Busrah." see Arabia: the cradle of Islam, Samuel Marinu Zwemer, Revell, 1900, page 18 harlan (talk) 13:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

One Last Time

Britanica, Encarta and every other modern source is very clear that it does not include Sinai. You are trying to confuse the issue by bringing in the geology. The Arabian Peninsula is a very clear notion today and this article should reflect it. Mashkin (talk) 18:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Your statement that "The Arabian Peninsula is a very clear notion today and this article should reflect it." is just another of your Ipse-dixitisms. Your attempts to turn this into another Arab states of the Persian Gulf article are noted, but this article also happens to be redirected from Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian sub-continent. Those have always been synonymous with the Arabian Peninsula and the article needs to say so. I don't happen to think that bringing in geology is confusing the issues. The oil and gas reserves of the Arabian Peninsula are mentioned in the introduction of the article. Let me bring in the dictionary too. A peninsula is just a piece of land jutting into, and almost surrounded by, the sea; or a body of land enclosed on three sides by water, jutting out from a larger body of land.
The geologists in the IGCP say that Arabia itself is a NNW-SSE four-sided sub-continent that is flanked by seas on three of its sides: the Red and Mediterranean Seas to the west, and the Arabian sea to the southeast. They agree with Britannica and USGS that on the north and northeast it adjoins the southern edge of Turkey and NW Iran. see Quaternary Deserts and Climatic Change, A. S. Alsharhan, IGCP Project 349, page 279 That's the same definition used for Arabia and Arabistan by the Emir of Hedjaz, Butrus Bustani, J.M.N Jefrries, Kamal Salibi, and the 1911 New International Encyclopedia.
The US Geological Survey/ARAMCO/IGCP database is the modern authoritative source of information on the subject of oil and the geology of the Arabian Peninsula. The oil discoveries in the Levantine Basin are located in geological province number 2032 of the Arabian Peninsula, so sue me for bringing in geology.
You keep bringing up the issue of "modern sources", but none of the ones you've cited supported the removal of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq from this article in the first place. The Metropolitan Art Museum article said the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate at Damascus was in "Arabia", not the "Levant".
The History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula and History of the Jews in Arabia articles don't cite any authorities at all (modern or ancient) to explain why there is no mention of Syria in their lists, but they include Jordan and Iraq. Why aren't you hounding them to make their list of counties agree with this one? harlan (talk) 23:17, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The History of The Term Subsection

The modern definition of the term is not relevant in this section of the article. The opinions of the ancient Romans are interesting, but the Arab and Ottoman governments and the inhabitants themselves have used their own names and boundaries for several millennia.

Actually this is not clear "several millennia".

Those should be included also

The provinces of Arabia were: Al Tih, the Sinai peninsula, Hedjaz, Asir, Yemen, Hadramaut, Mahra and Shilu, Oman, Hasa, Bahrian, Dahna, Nejd, Nufud, the Hammad, which included the deserts of Syria, Mesopotamia and Babylonia. see New International Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, Dodd, Mead, Co., 1914 page 795 and Review of Reviews and World's Work: An International Magazine, Albert Shaw ed., The Review of Reviews Corporation, 1919, page 408 harlan (talk) 23:14, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

What are trying to say here? To confuse the reader again? Mashkin (talk) 17:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I am including published WP:RS information from an English language encyclopedia and magazine. Let the readers speak for themselves. What are you trying to do? Make their search results come up empty again? harlan (talk) 08:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism Syria, Jordan, Iraq Listing

The northern extension of the peninsula of Arabia includes the Syrian Desert and the Zagros-Bitlis mountains of NW Iran and Turkey. The very ground itself is a single ancient rock called the Arabian Shield.

Encyclopedias both new and old alike explain that the countries of the Syrian Desert are located on the Arabian Peninsula. see the New World International Encyclopedia article on Arabia itself the Encarta article on the Arabian Desert. The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the Arabian Peninsula adjoins Iran and Turkey where it forms the Zagros and Bitlis mountains. see formation ( in mountain: The Zagros and Bitlis mountains )

According to those sources the following countries are part of the Arabian peninsula: Syria Jordan Iraq

Other "historical" Wikipedia articles divide the same area into somewhat doubtful "geographic terms" and "geopolitical terms" and mention only Jordan and Iraq. No explanation is provided to explain the omission of Syria. It is a geographical and geopolitical fact that Damascus, an oasis in the Syrian Desert, was the capital of Arabia under the Umayyad Caliphate. see History of the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula, History of the Jews in Arabia, and Umayyad Caliphate.

In any event these three countries have been repeatedly removed from the lists in this article. There has either been no edit summary, or edit summaries that say things such as: "not consistent with the modern definition of the Arabian Peninsula as demonstrated in the talk page"... ..."Removing fallacious information"... ...Removing misinformation", and etc. harlan (talk) 05:11, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

A peninsula is a piece of land that projects into a body of water. The region north of Saudi Arabia - by virtue of the Sinai connection to Africa, is not truly part of the Arabian peninsula. While it may be part of the Arabian subcontinent - the two arn't semantically synonymous. I think this is the root of the confusion. Perhaps if there were wider socio-cultural differences between the regions, the distinction would have been more readily established. (talk) 17:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

The Arabian Peninsula is also a subcontinent

The Arabian Peninsula is not a state with borders. It is a geological formation with natural boundaries.

  • The US Geological Survey map of the geological provinces of the Arabian Peninsula is a modern, up-to-date source that shows the continental boundaries of the Arabian Plate. A geological platform is a bedrock plate overlaid with sedimentary strata.
  • The Arabian shield comprises those parts of the Arabian plate that are composed of Precambrian age rock. The Arabian shield is part of the larger Arabian-Nubian Shield which includes the Asian nations of Israel, Jordan. Egypt (Sinai), Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
This is not an article on geology, but about the geographical term "Arabian Peninsula". You cannot have a meaningful article that in the middle switches from the Arabian Peninsula to the Arabian Continent. Mashkin (talk) 16:59, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
(1)This is an article that mentions the geology of the Arabian Peninsula. Wikipedia was redirecting users here for information on the "Arabian subcontinent" before you ever started editing the article. The terms "Arabian Peninsula" and "Arabia" are both used as synonyms by the geologists mentioned above to describe the physical geography of this peninsular region. It just so happens to be a subcontinent. Moreover, the article is only discussing the physical geography of the outside boundaries of the plate. The edges of the plate appear under various names in texts, such as a shield, a platform, or a craton, so those terms are linked to their respective Wikipedia articles. There was an existing thread on this talk page about the subcontinent, and you simply chose to ignore it. Brittanica, and many others switch from a discussion of the geography of Asia to a discussion of its geology.
(2)I cited studies above done by geologists on staff with the Israeli Geological Survey. Gvirtzman, and et al say the Arabian plate or craton occupies the greater part of the Sinai-Israel offshore area, and in another related study say that it follows and comprises much of the Levantine coast line. You can't in good faith delete that information and simply claim the Arabian plate stops abruptly at the Dead Sea rift. Your edit summary said "Better description of the borders of the plate - needs more work".
(3)The article mentions oil and gas reserves, and the Arabian plate/subcontinent. Those are geologic features. The introduction should match the article's contents - and it used to mention both topics. The Oil and Gas Provinces of the "Arabian Peninsula", together with the outer boundaries are shown on the US Geological Survey map. The file info for the map you are employing to give a "Close-up of the Arabian plate" says it is a map of Pakistan's Earthquake zones. That explains why much of the Arabian plate is cropped-out of the image.
(4)Arabia is by definition a peninsula, and several sources place the northern arc above the 35 parallel north. That means it is a peninsula that is flanked by the Mediterranean Sea. See for example The Arabia article in the New International Encyclopedia. Quaternary Deserts and Climatic Change, A. S. Alsharhan, IGCP Project 349, page 279
(5)Once again you have deleted the three additional Syrian Desert countries from the list that "are considered" part of the peninsula without any explanation. That certainly has nothing to do with geology, and at this point can only be considered a bad faith edit. harlan (talk) 01:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Every modern encyclopedia has the same definition of the Arabian Peninsula

Which does not include the Levant. It is possible to add that occasionally the usage varies and includes other areas. That's all. Mashkin (talk) 16:34, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I see that you have deleted the Syrian Desert states (yet again). All three are listed as regions of the Levant in the link you originally provided back when you said "Harlan's attempt to make the Arabian Peninsula include all the area of the levant is completely inappropriate and should stop!"
You have only mentioned two encyclopedias: Encarta and Brittanica. One has an article about the collision of the Arabian Peninsula at the Zagros and Bitlis suture in Turkey and Iran. The other has an article saying that the Syrian Desert countries of Jordan, Syria, and Iraq are on the Arabian Peninsula. That is not an Argument from silence. Neither are all of the other references that you keep deleting, including the USGS province Map of the Arabian Peninsula.
I am not aware of any Wikipedia policy that excludes the mere mention of published historical information, or requires that only encyclopedias be used as references or sources of material. The "every modern encyclopedia" myth is no longer a convincing Argument from ignorance.
Looking around the List of peninsulas article, I discovered that most have a Geology Section, and that some like Cape York Peninsula have both the Geography and Geology Sections combined. Those all seem to be meaningful articles. harlan (talk) 08:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Arabia With The Levant

The term Arabia and Arabistan refer to this peninsular landmass: Arabia The geological provinces are perfectly well known and can be found on the standard USGS reference maps of the Arabian Peninsula.

The author says that the geomorphological provinces have been shown for most of Arabia on maps, but notes that generally Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine have been excluded. "They are included here with reference amongst others to the works of Ponikarov et al., (1967) for Syria, Al-Naqib (1967) for Iraq, Bender (1968, 1974) for Jordan and Palestine, Fuchs et al., (1968) for Kuwait and Embabi et al., (1993) for the UAE. Landform regions of Arabia can be divided into coastal plains, salt flats, or sabkhah areas, deltas, desert islands, sand deserts, plateaux, mountains, and scarp mountain regions (cuestas) and are evident on the relief map of Arabia from a Digital Elevation Model"

This is not an argument from silence. Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine are part of the modern day subcontinent of Arabia. This article is supposed to address that topic. Let's move on. harlan (talk) 10:27, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Borders of the Arabian Plate

Look at every map of the Arabian Plate and see the Dead Sea Transform as the border Map at Saudi Geological survey.

You are trying to insert original and bad scholarship. Please stop. Mashkin (talk) 10:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Please note that the map you mention shows the Arabian Shield, a portion of the Arabian Plate, on the Sinai peninsula side of the Dead Sea Rift. I quoted the Saudi Geological Survey statement about the Arabian Peninsula being part of a larger unit, the Arabian Plate.
For obviously reasons, I only quoted peer-reviewed international Journal articles written by Israeli geologists when discussing their part of the region. When do you suppose the SGS actually conducted their last physical survey of Israel?
Please feel free to point out any original or bad scholarship, but I haven't done any. The Israeli Geological Survey reported in a peer-reviewed international Journal that they discovered the inclined northwestern edge of the continental margin of the Arabian Platform in the Shefela area of Israel. That's a foothills area in the Central coastal plain. If you think the IGS is wrong here's the cite with their address: Sedimentology, Volume 35 Issue 2, Pages 257 - 274, Published Online: 14 Jun 2006, Mass transport in Eocene pelagic chalk on the northwestern edge of the Arabian platform, Shefela area, Israel B. BUCHBINDER*C. BENJAMINI†Y. MIMRAN*G. GVIRTZMAN* *Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhei Israel Street, Jerusalem 95501, Israel †Department of Geology and Mineralogy, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, P.O.B. 653, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel
THE PLESHET BASIN: A NEWLY-DISCOVERED LINK IN THE PERIPHERAL CHAIN OF BASINS OF THE ARABIAN CRATON, Z. Cohen, A. Flexer and V. Kapts, Journal of Petroleum Geology, Volume 11 (1988) The team of Israeli geologists announced they had discovered "a large basin 300 km long, 100 km wide, and up to 13.5 km deep, that occupies the greater part of the Sinai-Israel offshore area."
The paper "A Mesozoic fossil edge of the Arabian plate along the Levant coastline" & etc. was delivered at a symposium of the International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea by Bien and Gvirtzman of the IGS. The Commission published the proceedings in book form, Structural History of the Mediterranean Basins. harlan (talk) 12:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Geography

This article should include the area of the Arabian Peninsula (square miles/kilometers).

Should the map not include Bahrain? EJR~enwiki (talk) 21:51, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

EJR~enwiki why shouldn't it?--SharabSalam (talk) 22:53, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Geology

The version I am referring to is this [1]. It is extremely problematic containing all sort of geological terms in a completely mangled manner and many irrelevant references, with the sole purpose of making Israel part of the Arabian Plate. Mashkin (talk) 18:03, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

If you are going to request comments on the material, then why have you deleted it yet again? harlan (talk) 14:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I pointed out the nonsense you have inserted explicitly. Mashkin (talk) 14:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

You did no such thing you simply made an assertion that I've inserted "wrong material" and disinformation and started deleting modern history, geology, and etc. about Arabia. In one example, you deleted the list of countries that are included in the Geological Provinces of the Arabian Peninsula and reused the citation and link to the USGS map in your watered-down elliptical statement that some usage includes the entire subcontinent of Arabia. Here is what you deleted:
"The mountains of southern Turkey and Iran, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and the Sinai peninsula are all geological provinces of the Arabian Peninsula."*
*<ref>see the US Geologic Survey Maps Showing Geology, Oil And Gas Fields And Geologic Provinces Of The Arabian Peninsula</ref> (the subcontinent).<ref> see Arid Land Ecosystems, Perry and Goodall, International Biological Programme, CUP Archive, 1979, ISBN 052121842X1979, page 224</ref>
You told us you were "Remvoign a lot of geological nonesnese", but the map still shows those same countries that you call "wrong material". The Pakistan Earthquake zones map that you keep inserting has the western Arabian plate cropped-off:
Click to Enlarge
You are essentially asking that we trust you, and not believe the "lyin eyes" of the team of Israeli geologists who worked on the exposed face of the continental edge of the Arabian Plate on Israel's coastal plain and wrote a peer-reviewed Journal article about it. You cited a map developed by geologists at the Saudi Geological Survey, but their webpages and references don't say they surveyed an inch of the coastal plains of Israel. Moreover, the Saudi map shows the Arabian Shield portion of the Arabian plate on the Sinai peninsula-side of the Dead Sea Rift. You said "Look at every map of the Arabian Plate and see the Dead Sea Transform as the border". If you want a closer view, just look at Geological Province 2101 on the USGS map of the Arabian Peninsula. You deleted references to several WP:RS sources, like the Pleshet Basin study, the IGS Levatine Coastline survey, and the Cornell University Dead Sea Fault Zone project that support the lines on the Wikimedia Arabian Plate map. You didn't supply a single citation that supports your {{dubiuos}} claims. History, the Edgell Arabian Desert Book, and the USGS map include Israel in Arabia and the Arabian peninsula no matter how many plates it's sitting on.
I'm not sure I understand exactly what the debate is about. There seems to be an agreement here that the Arabian Peninsula is part of the Arabian Plate. However, since the latter has its own article, shouldn't this information be added there? -- Nudve (talk) 16:15, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that the stuff on the Arabian Plate belongs mostly there. I think that the current discussion in the Landscape section is satisfactory. Mashkin (talk) 16:40, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
The article mentions that one definition of Arabia, Arabistan, or the Arabian Peninsula is the entire subcontinent, not just part of it. There are several citations given. Here is a political discussion: "There is only one small section of the whole of the Arab subcontinent which has begun to approach its technical and populational possibilities and that is the Jewish community. "Palestine, By American Zionist Emergency Council, Published by The Council, 1947

It shows incredibly bad faith to delete portions of modern political history dealing with the northern half of the Arabian peninsula in the 20th century as "not relevant", so that a few minutes later you can attempt to pass-off the recycled WP:Synth claim that "Sometime, when discussed as a geographical, rather than a political term, parts of the Syrian Desert countries (Iraq, Jordan and Syria) are also considered to be part of the peninsula[4] and some usage includes the entire is.[5]"

"Some usage" that applied to the entire subcontinent of Arabia included the Arab nationalist movement, and the Pan-Syrian movement. This is the MAIN Wikipedia article for Arabia. The first reference, [4], is Encarta. It provides absolutely no basis for any such claims of political neutrality. For heavens sake Damascus was the provincial capital of Arabistan under the Ottomans, and had been the historical seat of the Umayyad Caliphate. Where would this deleted material go in the Arabian Plate article?
Arabistan was also used in the context of the Greater Syria and Arab nationalism movements. For example, Butrus al-Bustani wrote that 'Syria which is widely known as barr ash-Sham and Arabistan is our fatherland [watan] in all its diverse plains, rugged terrains, coasts and mountains. And the people of Syria, whichever their creed, community, racial origin or groups are the sons of the fatherland.'Antun Sa'adeh: The Man, His Thought: an Anthology, Adel Beshara, Garnet & Ithaca Press, 2007, ISBN 086372308X, page 137.

In classic Arabic, the Cilician-Syrian frontage on the Gulf of İskenderun was called 'Ash Sham', the 'Left'. Syria was called Bilad al-Sham, (also Bilad ash-Sham and Barr ash-Sham) the 'Land of the Left', meaning North. The hinterland of the Arabian peninsula, where Abraham and Ishmael reportedly rebuilt the Ka’ba edifice, was called 'Yaman', the 'Right'. Bilad al-Yaman simply meant the 'Land of the South'. The area adjacent to the Persian frontier was known as Bilad al-Iraq, meaning the 'Land of the River Banks'. The 'Left' and 'Right' were the northern and southern halves of Ottoman 'Arabistan'.Palestine: The Reality, Joseph Mary Nagle Jeffries, Published by Longmans, Green and co. 1939, and Hyperion Press reprint, 1975, ISBN 0883553279, page 4

harlan (talk) 00:47, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Not a Question of Geology or Facts

You are creating a fictional geology, just as you are creating fictional history. I think that you are also confusing shield with plate. The Saudi map is very clear in the boundaries of the Arabian Plate.Also the map you brought here, though quite coarse, also shows that the boundary of the plate is the Dead Sea Transform and not the mediterranean. Mashkin (talk) 01:25, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
The terms "shield" and "craton" explain the age and type of rock the plate is composed of in that particular spot. The article said that "The edges of the plate appear under various names in texts, such as a shield, a platform, or a craton", and provided links to related Wikipedia articles for all the terms used. I haven't said anything about the geology of the region that can't be found in the articles that I cited, or on the Cornell DSFS webpage. The Sinai-Levantine subplate is still an unsolved puzzle. Here is a link to another article which says that. The fact that you are desperately trying to keep so many maps, encyclopedias, and journal articles out of this article is difficult to square with the idea that I'm the one who is inventing a fictional history, geography, or geology.
Geoarcheologists, theologians, and historians alike have been keenly interested in the migration of the various groups of wanderers within the natural boundaries of the Arabian subcontinent. The region literally took on the name of those people. I wouldn't dream of removing material from a Land of Israel article on the basis of disagreements within the source documents themselves, or disagreement with the commonly recognized modern boundaries. That is exactly what you are trying to do in this case.
Shortly after the Suez canal was opened, the British occupied Egypt and began "protecting" the pilgrimage routes through the Sinai to Aqaba as a pretext for annexation. Here is the map of Arabia, showing the Levant was just another integral part of the region back then: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/asia_1892_amer_ency_brit.jpg
George Antonius and J.M.N. Jeffries were very specific about the political and geographic setting in their published works, it's nothing that I've made up. In Arabia: the cradle of Islam, Samuel Zwemer explained that "The true, though shifting, northern boundary of Arabia would be the limit of Nomad encampments" and suggested the 35th parallel north. The New International Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, Dodd, Mead, Co., 1914 page 795 said "When the name is taken in its widest sense, Arabia may be said to be situated in lat. 12° 40' to about 35° N., and long. 32° 30' to 60° E. That includes everything south of a line from Banyas Syria to Kirkuk Iraq, and north of Yemen and Oman. There have always been books, maps, gazettes, atlases, and encyclopedias that include the Levant and Mediterranean coast as integral parts of the peninsular region called Arabia. The only difference between the various authorities like Zwemer, the Encyclopedias, Stewart Edgell, the IGCP Project, and the US Geological Survey, is how much of the Mediterranean coast gets included.
You keep deleting the paragraph that mentions the that fact: "The Earth and Environmental Science communities consider Arabia to be a larger NNW-SSE four-sided peninsula, or subcontinent in Southwest Asia. It is flanked by seas on three of its sides: the Red and Mediterranean Seas to the west, and the Arabian sea to the southeast. On the north and northeast it abuts the southern edge of Turkey and northwest Iran where it forms the Zagros and Bitlis mountains. That's all well-cited material from multiple sources and the policy is that something that notaable goes in the article.
Butrus Bustani, Kamal Salibi, Stanford Shaw, Caesar Farah, and even the American Zionist Emergency Council likewise wrote about the political, historical, and geographical setting of the Arab subcontinent. When a reader looks at the Arabia disambiguation page trying to find the geographical region all of those people were writing about, the only offering available is this article. It needs to mention the whole Arabian Peninsula, a.k.a. Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent. harlan (talk) 13:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm still trying to understand why the stuff about the Arabian Plate shouldn't be inserted there. The article has a section on the history of the term and the region's modern history, so the references from 1892,1914 and 1947 probably belong in one of those two, if at all. Contemporary encyclopedias and dictionaries consider its constituent countries to be Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Do you have a contemporary source that explicitly includes Israel, Lebanon, and the others? -- Nudve (talk) 15:02, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
Show one reputable citation that does not view the border of the Arabian Plate as the Dead Sea Transform. Both the map you provided and the map in the Saudi GS site and every other maps put the border there (look also at the article at the map in the article you cited on page 782). You are bringing all sorts of sources that talk about different things. For instance, the USGS map does not talk about the Arabian Plate. Mashkin (talk) 15:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Maskin the Dead Sea Rift is not an issue. It's just a crack in the Earth's crust. It is not a continental collision or accretion. Show me one reputable source that says the Sinai-Levantine subplate or microplate is not part of the subcontinent of Arabia.

The term Arabia itself means a four-sided subcontinent. It is a synonym for the term Arabian Peninsula which means the same thing. See the Geography and Climate section of the UNESCO, Earth Sciences IGCP Project 349 report. Israel is certainly included in the region of the subcontinent flanked by the Mediterrainian Sea. The USGS Map of the Geological Provinces of the Arabian Peninsula includes Israel Lebanon, and the others. The National Academy of Science report describes "the vast Arabian continent" under the heading of the Arabian Peninsula. see Arid Land Ecosystems, Perry and Goodall, International Biological Programme, 1979, page 224 Dyk that this map of Arabia and Chapter 2, Types of deserts and landform regions of Arabia from the same book specifically mentions, and includes, the geological provinces of Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine as part of modern-day Arabia? You should, I've mentioned it several times now and these are all reputable sources.

By way of analogy, Wikipedia has an article on the Indian Plate. Notwithstanding that fact, the geography section of the India article devotes three times as much space to tectonic plate and geological information as the material I've included here. Indian subcontinent#Geography covers the plate and its geology, and so does Geography of India#Geology, and Geological history of India. harlan (talk) 17:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Added to Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration

I've added Arabian Peninsula to the Project Article Issues Pages. harlan (talk) 15:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The Arab States and the Kuwait Crisis

The British proposed a Treaty with the Ottoman Empire in 1913 to establish Kuwait as an autonomous kaza. It had been part of the vilayet of Bosra. The treaty was never ratified due to the outbreak of WWI. In the 1990s Iraq claimed that Kuwaiti territory was still part of Iraq, and that in any case the borders had never been properly delimited by the British in 1951. see Richard Schofield, Kuwait and Iraq: Historical Claims and Territorial. Disputes, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs 1994 and The Kuwait Crisis, by Lauterpacht, Greenwood, and Weller, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Following the invasion of Kuwait, there was a war in the Arabian Gulf region see (Persian Gulf naming dispute). Israel warned Iraq that it would take military action if any Iraqi troops entered Jordan. see Jewish Virtual Library Gulf War Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia joined an Allied coalition in the war against Iraq. Syria and Egypt have demonstrated on several occasions a commitment to the security of the other Arab states of the peninsula. How does all of this square with the notion expressed in the article that "Sometime, when discussed as a geographical, rather than a political term, parts of the Syrian Desert countries (Iraq, Jordan and Syria) are also considered to be part of the peninsula?" harlan (talk) 19:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT

This comment has been removed again: The Hejaz, or the 'barrier', is assumed to refer to its location between Al Sham (Syria) in the north and Al Yaman (Yemen) in the south.

This citation is being ignored: The New International Encyclopedia entry for Arabia says "Hejaz, or the 'barrier,' a name originally referring to its position between Tihama, the coastland, and Nejd, the highland, but later assumed to refer to its location between al Sham (Syria) and al Yaman (Yemen)"

[Diff 1] Edit Summary:History of the term: reorder and remove wrong claim

[Diff 2] Edit Summary:The Hejaz is called a barrier for an east set axis not north south

harlan (talk) 16:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The Hejaz is called so given that it is a barrier from the coastal plain to the inner part of the peninsula. If there is some later interpretation of the term, then it should be very clear what it is and who "coined it". But this is really outside the scope of this article. Mashkin (talk) 18:04, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikilawyering over scope of article, and importance of "History of the Term" from a published WP:RS source which says peninsula of Arabia includes Syria. [Diff 3] Edit Summary:History of the term - Meaningless/wrong claim. Assumed by whom? Is it a later interpretation? Anything for All Arab Unity?

We've already had the discussion ad nauseum that the Syrian Desert states are considered the northern half of the peninsula by many Arabs, and that they are still involved politically and militarily in each others affairs. harlan (talk) 18:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

If you are going to refer to a ``pseudo etymology" then you better say who used it and when. Any case this is way too detailed for the article. You have tried relentlessly to make this article on the entire Arab world instead on the Arabian Peninsula. On a related manner, here is a piece of advice; read carefully Wikipedia:Wikilawyering. Mashkin (talk) 21:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

From the Arabistan section above: In the late 1980's Kamal Salibi discussed the Land of the Arabs (bilad al-Arab) and its major divisions of the bilad al Sham (Syria), bilad al-Yaman (the Land of the southern Peninsula), and Bilad al-Iraq (the Land of the River Banks). He also commented on the development of a new name for the peninsula, jazirat al-Arab, after the term bilad al-Yaman became connected with the southwestern part of the peninsula. see A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered, By Kamal Suleiman Salibi, Published by University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0520071964, pages 60-61

From the One More Time Section above: David Frankfurter explains the two traditional divisions of Arabia, al Sham-al Yaman or Arabia Dersata-Arabia Felix that were used in Strabo, Pliny, Dioscurdes, Appian, Cassius Dio, Ammianus, and etc. (1) Arabia Felix sometimes used for the whole peninsula, and at other times only for the southern region. Because this was limited to the south, the whole peninsula was simply called Arabia. (2)Arabia Deserta the entire desert region extending north from Arabia Felix to Palmyra and the Euphrates including all the area between Pelusium on the Nile and Babylon. This area was also called Arabia and not sharply distinguished from the peninsula. See Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt, David Frankfurter, BRILL, 1998, ISBN 9004111271, page 163 harlan (talk) 03:19, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Military, Political, and Economic Integration

This editorial comment keeps getting inserted into the article:

"Sometime, when discussed as a geographical, rather than a political term, parts of the Syrian Desert countries (Iraq, Jordan and Syria) are also considered to be part of the peninsula [4] and some usage includes the entire subcontinent of Arabia is.[5]"

That is a WP:Synth personal opinion. Neither the Encarta Syrian Desert article, nor the USGS oil and gas province map support the idea that Iraq, Jordan and Syria aren't politically integrated, i.e. "when used as geographical, rather than political term" with the other countries in the southern peninsula. The Encarta article specifically mentions interstate pipelines and highways. See for example the political dispute over Saudi Arabia's seizure of Iraq's pipeline to the Red Sea coast terminal at Al-Mu'ajiz.

Syria was part of the Gulf War multinational coalition and signed the regional defense agreement with the GCC afterward. see The Middle East And The United States: A Historical and Political Reassessment, By David W Lesch, Published by Westview Press, 2003, ISBN 0813339405, page 419

The GCC website explains that "After the aggression against the State of Kuwait, the membership of Iraq in the GCC institutions was discontinued." see GCC statement on Media Cooperation "The GCC States supported the Document of The International Compact with Iraq that was adopted at Sharm El-Sheikh on 4-5 May 2007." It calls for restoration of regional economic integration with the neighboring states and accession of Iraq to the GCC. see Political Affairs

The UN Economic and Social Council for Southwest Asia Region see map here includes the Sinai (Egypt), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, and Yemen.

All of those States and the Palestinian territories are part of a Customs Union that became a Free Trade Zone back in January of 2005. see Greater free Arab trade zone in effect as of today.

In addition, the GCC approved Yemen's accession to the GCC Standardization Authority, Gulf Organization for Industrial Consultancy, GCC Auditing and Accounting Authority, Gulf Radio and TV Authority, The GCC Council of Health Ministers, The GCC Education and Training Bureau, The GCC Council of Labor & and Social Affairs Ministers, and The Gulf Cup Football Tournament. The Council issued directives that all the necessary legal measures be taken so that Yemen would have the same rights and obligations of GCC member states in those institutions. see The Closing Statement of the Twenty Second Session GCC The Final Communiqué of The 29th Session

The GCC has also sponsored youth work camps to provide employment and public works programs in Syria (1993), Egypt (1995), Lebanon (1999) and Jordan (2001). Projects have included afforestaion, leveling of agricultural lands, building study chambers, installation of water pipelines, construction of training centers and reconstitution of schools, scientific centers, and youth facilities. see Joint Youth Action harlan (talk) 10:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

This article is on the Arabian Peninsula, which includes the seven countries mentioned (see encarta and britannica's entries on the Arabian Peninsula). All the above discussion on the GCC is entirely irrelevant. Mashkin (talk) 16:27, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
Maybe you should tell the WikiProject Iraq folk to take down their banner from this page and ask the Encarta folk to remove the sidebar link from their Arabian Peninsula article that says the Syrian Desert states Jordan Syria, and Iraq are also located on the peninsula. harlan (talk) 03:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Political definition map versus text

Unless my colour vision is even worse than I think, the map has Jordan coloured in the shade that indicates it is part of political definition of Arabia. However it is omitted from the list of countries that form part of the peninsular under the poitical definition in the text. I think the text is correct, but could someone please confirm and see what they can do about the picture?--Peter cohen (talk) 00:03, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The Aqaba Governate and Aqaba Special Economic Zone are both located on the Arabian Peninsula. Jordan and the GCC already have a free trade union agreement with regard to customs and are working on other agreements to permit free movement of individuals, agricultural products, insurance offerings, and banking institutions. see Jordan, GCC make big advancement in FTA negotiations harlan (talk) 05:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Hejaz

Regarding this edit: The Lonely planet seems to agree that the name comes "from the great escarpment that runs along the Hejaz, separating it from the great plateaux of the interior". Encyclopedia Britannica defines it as "region of western Saudi Arabia, along the mountainous Red Sea coast of the Arabian Peninsula from Jordan on the north to Asir region on the south". No mention of Syria. I don't know exactly what the 1914 encyclopedia says, but I think a 2009 encyclopedia might be preferable. Finally, accusing other editors of vandalism is considered incivil. -- Nudve (talk) 07:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Nudve, I've provided scores of twentieth century Arab and western authors and institutions in the article and on this talk page who have written about the north-south division of the peninsula and its modern economic, military, and political integration. If you feel that it would be preferable to totally exclude what they have to say because it doesn't fit-in with certain preconceptions, then you should read-up on WP:BIAS, WP:NPOV and Wikipedia:Recentism.
Mashkin started editing this article by making a series of massive deletions with no edit summaries at all. Then he made a statement above and claimed that I was inserting "untrue" material: "There is a user who keeps claiming the Israel and the Palestinian Territories are in the Arabain Peninsula. This is of course not true under any understanding of the current term." He asked for modern reference books, and responded with WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT when quite a few were cited including the ones that he had been relying upon.
He continues to delete pertinent, reliably sourced statements written in a neutral style with edit summaries that say "Removing fallacious information"... ...Removing misinformation" ... "beginnign removal of disinforamtion inserted by Harlan wilkerson (bad faith)).", and etc.
There is guidance from ArbCom that removal of statements that are pertinent, sourced reliably, and written in a neutral style constitutes disruption. [2], and it's time to put a stop to this. harlan (talk) 09:57, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Firstly, regarding the dispute: While I agree that Mashkin may have been guilty of some incivility and edit-warring, this still is a content dispute, which should be resolved through discussion. WP:BRD suggests that when an edit is reverted, it is best to discuss it and reach consensus before reintroducing it. I'm not really sure how WP:NPOV and WP:RECENT apply here, and WP:BIAS is a WikiProject.
Secondly, about the Hejaz: I'm not saying we should "totally exclude" sources, although some hierarchy may be in order. Perhaps we can find a way to include them all. However, I am saying that Mashkin's argument is not unsubstantiated, and may therfore not be disruptive vandalism. Again, this should be discussed. -- Nudve (talk) 10:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
The Hejaz entry explains the source of the word, and it a west-east barrier, not north-south. You are bringing an out of date source for no particular reason. Stop inserting fallacious information and accusing people who try to make to prevent it of vandalism. Mashkin (talk) 14:57, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Nudve, WP:NPOV says that "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles, and of all article editors. The first rule in Wikipedia:Dispute resolution is WP:FOC. It says "When you find a passage in an article that you find is biased or inaccurate, improve it if you can. If that is not easily possible, and you disagree with a point of view expressed in an article, don't just delete it.
Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle#What BRD is, and is not says "BRD is not a justification for imposing one's own view, or tendentious editing without consensus." In this case the fact that the Arabian Peninsula was, and still is, synonymous with the terms Arabia, Arabistan, and Arabian subcontinent had already been established and discussed on the talk page. This article has been redirecting from some of those terms for years. Mashkin didn't revert anything, he came along and started deleting pertinent, reliably sourced statements that were written in a neutral style about Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent. He apparently thinks that those terms imply the same thing as being part of the Arab World. In the natural sciences, like geology, that simply isn't the case.
Recentism is the practice of some Wikipedians to edit articles without regard to long-term historical perspective. WP:BIAS is a project than attempts to address systemic bias. For example, Arabian Peninsula is part of the WikiProject Iraq. Mashkin repeatedly deleted Iraq from the list of states. He did that even after I pointed out that Encarta says that Syria, Jordan, and Iraq are part of the Peninsula. His justification was that there is a certain common definition for the Arabian Peninsula which *all* sources supposedly support (except the editors at WikiProject Iraq). Later he added a section on the talk page entitled "Every modern encyclopedia has the same definition of the Arabian Peninsula". In any event, Encarta and Britannica both contain articles that contradict Mashkin's so-called "argument". The section above entitled Military, Political, and Economic Integration is open for comment. Mashkin has repeatedly reverted a factual statement and replaced it with an editorial that says Syria, Jordan, and Iraq are geographically, but not "politically" part of the peninsula.
In the case of the Hedjaz, the section above entitled WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT addressed this very issue and answered it. The New International Encyclopedia entry for Arabia says "Hejaz, or the 'barrier,' a name originally referring to its position between Tihama, the coastland, and Nejd, the highland, but later assumed to refer to its location between al Sham (Syria) and al Yaman (Yemen)" Mashkin said "You have tried relentlessly to make this article on the entire Arab world instead on the Arabian Peninsula." The Arab World includes the Maghreb, and I've never mentioned them in regard to Syria, Yemen or the peninsula. Mashkin deleted the material (yet again) claiming in his edit summary that it was "Wrong!" and here on the talk page that it is fallacious. His "argument" is meritless and unsubstantiated.
Several English language encyclopedias, dozens of authors, and numerous governmental agencies (like the USGS and National Research Council) together with many international organizations include Syria, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan, and Iraq, in either the political and/or geographic definition of the terms Arabia, Arabian Peninsula, and Arabian subcontinent and use the terms interchangably. harlan (talk) 16:03, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
I'll try and be short: I know what the policies, but I still don't understand how they are relevant here. How does the article suffer from recentism? I'll let Mashkin answer about his behavior.
About the content issue. First of all, I've just added a ref and copyedited the Syrian Desert thing. The definition of the Hejaz is problematic, and it should be remembered that in 1914, the term "Syria" was not the same as it is today (see here, for example). Saying that the Hejaz reaches Syria is misleading. Here is a source about this. BTW, do you have a source that actually says Israel and the Palestinian territories are a part of the peninsula? because this map is not really clear about this. -- Nudve (talk) 17:05, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. In this instance, the USGS is using the term Arabian Peninsula to describe the whole subcontinent of Southwest Asia. The map includes continental shelfs and margins because the UN Law of the Sea Commission and governments use those to determine which countries have the rights to authorize deep-sea mining, off-shore oil production, and for settling directional drilling disputes. Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey have the rights to the natural resources on their continental shelves.
In the article I had said: "The mountains of southern Turkey and Iran, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and the Sinai peninsula are all geological provinces of the Arabian Peninsula." and referenced the USGS map site and "Arid Land Ecosystems", Perry and Goodall, International Biological Programme, CUP Archive, 1979, ISBN 052121842X1979, page 224 "There are reports of significant oil and gas discoveries in those regions." and referenced an example Noble Energy Announces Significant Natural Gas Discovery at Tamar Well Offshore Israel, Reuters, Jan 17, 2009
The maps in Arabian Deserts only differ from the USGS map because they are limited to the mainland of the Arabian subcontinent. The author of that book explains that the geomorphological provinces have been shown for most of Arabia on maps by Raisz (1956), Barth (1976, 1980), Edgell (1989c), Brown et al., (1989) and Guba and Glennie (1998). He notes that in the past Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine had generally been excluded. Like the USGS, Edgell and other scientists include them. He referenced the works of Ponikarov et al., (1967) for Syria, Al-Naqib (1967) for Iraq, Bender (1968, 1974) for Jordan and Palestine, Fuchs et al., (1968) for Kuwait and Embabi et al., (1993) for the UAE. When Britannica says that the Arabian Peninsula has collided with Iran and Turkey at the Zagros and Bitlis sutures to form the Zagros and Bitlis mountains they, like the USGS, are speaking about the Arabian Peninsula in the sense of a subcontinent. The U.S. National Research Council has a Committee on Continental margins. They report that 12 million years ago the Arabian subcontinent collided with Anatolia to form the Zagros mountains.
The UN Economic and Social Council for Southwest Asia Region is an example of the subcontinent in the political sense. see the map here and compare with the map here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_Arabic_peninsula_-_en.svg It includes the Sinai (Egypt), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, and Yemen. The exclusion of Israel has been justifiably condemned. see for example: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/UN/Jennings.html
On a practical level the entire region, including Israel and the Palestinian Authority, belong to the European Free Trade Association, see GCC, EFTA in agreement over free trade, The Paltrade page on Palestinian trade agreements, and Israel/EFTA agreement signed. harlan (talk) 04:31, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Again, maps are problematic. Of course every map of the Middle East is going to show Israel, but it might be WP:SYNTH to deduce that Israel is actually a part of the peninsula. The Reuters and JVL articles articles don't mention the word "peninsula", and the Springer article doesn't mention the word "Israel". The European Free Trade Association is interesting, but it's just an institution. Israel also participates in the Eurovision Song Contest, but that doesn't make it a part of Europe. Again, do you have a source that explicitly says Israel is a constituent country of the Arabain peninsula? -- Nudve (talk) 06:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
You are missing a link or something from the previous discussions so I'll backup a bit, because no deductions are involved. The Worldwide Open File Report explains that USGS divided the world into eight regions. There are 937 geological provinces worldwide, and each is prefixed with the number of its region. Each province number and name are globally unique. see http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/ofr-97-463/97463.html#methods
The Open File Report for the Arabian Peninsula explains that the map only shows the Arabian Peninsula portion of region 2, the Middle East and Africa. The Introduction at the website, in the .pdf, and on the CDROM explains that Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Israel, and Lebanon were deliberately included in the map, and that their data was derived with permission from a UNESCO Geologic Map of Europe, Eastern (Mediterranean) sheet. The geologic province boundaries for the Arabian Peninsula were then delineated onshore using the data from the U.S. Geological Survey--Arabian American Oil Company, and UNESCO geologic maps. The unique provinces for Israel are included in those listings of USGS Province Codes in the Arabian Peninsula, sorted by Province Code and USGS Province Codes in the Arabian Peninsula, sorted by Province Name.
A peninsula is any landform that is surrounded by water on three sides. The International Geoscience Program, like the USGS, describes Arabia itself as a NNW-SSE four-sided subcontinent that is flanked by seas on three of its sides: the Red and Mediterranean Seas to the west, and the Arabian sea to the southeast. On the north and northeast it abuts the southern edge of Turkey and northwest Iran. see Quaternary Deserts and Climatic Change, A. S. Alsharhan, IGCP Project 349, page 279harlan (talk) 12:20, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Again, these sources don't actually say that Israel is a part of the peninsula. Alsharhan does say that the Mediterranean is part of the western border, but does not say exactly where, and discusses "Arabia" (perhaps the subcontinent?). Other sources put the western border at the Red Sea only (such as this one). -- Nudve (talk) 13:31, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The American Zionist Emergency Council wrote that the Jewish communities in Palestine were part of the Arab subcontinent in 1947. Arabian Peninsula is a SYNONYM for Arabia and its derivatives like Arabistan. Do we really need another Arabia article to say that Arabian Peninsula has two different meanings? There are already Gulf Region articles that cover Saudi Arabia, Arab states of the Arabian Gulf, Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, and so forth. This article redirects for the search terms Arabian, Arabian subcontinent, and Arabia. The statements of sources like Alsharhan, Bender, Edgell about Arabia are relevant, but don't seem to be welcome in the Geography section of any existing Wikipedia article about Arabia. When you look at the Arabia (disambiguation) page, there is no article (except this one) that covers the modern-day Arabia which is a NNW-SSE four-sided subcontinent that is flanked by the Mediterranean, Red, and Arab Seas, adjoined to Turkey and Iran. The same thing can be said for the Arabia described in the writings of George Antonius, J.M.N Jefries, Kamal Salibi, Butrus Bustani, and the 1914 New International Encyclopedia - a peninsula in southwest Asia situated in latitude 12° 40' to about 35° N., and longitude 32° 30' to 60° E.
Early 20th century authors, like David Hogarth and Samuel Zwemer thought that the northern extent of the peninsula would never be accurately established or explored. Nonetheless, modern geology has established that the boundaries are latitude South 11.3 to 39.3 North, and longitude 32.3 West to 60.5 East (per the USGS). All of these coordinates and descriptions include Israel/Palestine and everything else on the Mediterrainian coast up to (at least) Banias, Syria at 35.183, 35.950 and part or all of the Turkish Hatay Coast between the Yayladagi Province at 35.903 36.061 and latitude 39 North.
Hatay Coast
The USGS specifically states that their map shows the provinces of the Arabian Peninsula portion of region 2 and provides a simple elevated graphic of the region that includes Israel. Israel lies within the Bounding Coordinates of the CDROM metadata file: West 32.3, East: 60.5, North: 39.3, and South: 11.3. The "State of Israel" is included in the metadata country list of keywords too. The report specifically mentions that the geological data for Israel was obtained from UNESCO to accomplish the task. Proprietary data on its political boundaries was obtained from Environmental Systems Research Institute. Those are shown together with the names and numbers of its geological provinces on the map and in the list of references. The report goes on to list the provinces together with the other provinces shown in two documents that specifically state they are provinces "in the Arabian Peninsula". The neighboring provinces and political boundaries are simply left blank in this and other USGS maps. See for example the map showing the oil and gas fields and geologic provinces of Africa. see http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/ofr-97-470/OF97-470A/PROV_PG.pdf harlan (talk) 02:32, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
Generally, they are synonymous, although sometime there seem to be differences between "peninsula" and "subcontinent". Early 20th Century sources and references belong in the "History of the term" section. Again, we need a reliable source that explicitly says Israel/Palestian territories are part of the peninsula. -- Nudve (talk) 06:43, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
This article is no longer useful as the main repository of information on the topics of Arabia, Arabistan, or the Arabian subcontinent. I think it would probably be best to create a real article on Arabia, change the redirects, and include the information on Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent there. I'll bring it up on the discussion pages of the Wikiprojects. In any event real life calls and I'm going to be busy for a while. Thanks for the discussion. harlan (talk) 14:02, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Maskin :The Dead Sea Rift is not an issue. It's just a crack in the Earth's crust

Maskin the Dead Sea Rift is not an issue. It's just a crack in the Earth's crust.

If the East African Rift divide the African Plate in to the Nubian Platein the west and the Somali Plateto the east, Would you then call Somalia NOT to be part of Africa simply because it is in separate plate?

Arabian Peninsula geologically is a composite of Arabian plate and Sinai Levantine plate, just same as African continent is composite of Nubian Plate, Somali Plate.

Plus while Arabian Peninsula that include Iraq and all Levant geologically formed from one single craton, African Plate on the other hand comprises several continental blocks or cratons. These cratons are, from south to north, the Kalahari, Congo, Sahara and West African craton. Each of these cratons can further be subdivided into even smaller blocks or terranes, sutured along pre-Gondwanan orogenic belts.

Iraq and all Levant including Palestine are geographical province of Arabian Peninsula.

Removal of ancient history section

I've removed virtually all of the Ancient History section because it's a derivative work of a copyright violation. More than three years ago, I removed this section, but it was continually restored by an IP until people apparently became tired of fighting the copyvio. Much of the copyvio section, including the intro words of "Until comparatively recent times knowledge", is still present in the latest version of the article before my edit, so for safety's sake I've just deleted almost all of it. Please recreate the section in your own words, since I have no desire to see this article without an ancient history section. Nyttend (talk) 06:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Israel and Palestine in Arabian Peninsula?

Hi. I see that this issue has generated a lot of interest and inflamed tempers. Whichever the boundaries of the peninsula - political or otherwise - what you see on the maps ON THIS PAGE differs from what you read in the article. So if the accepted version keeps changing, the maps should reflect that. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 09:17, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

There seems to have been a, now obsolete, definition that did include Palestine, as evidenced here: Gandhi initially supported Arab demands with respect to Palestine. He justified this support by invoking Islam, stating that "non-Muslims cannot acquire sovereign jurisdiction" in Jazirat al-Arab (the Arabian Peninsula). It should be noted in the article, even if it's not the currently accepted definition nor makes sense geographically. --2.200.163.25 (talk) 11:04, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion for improvement (graphics/maps)

As a reader (rather than an editor) I came to this page for reference on the geography/politics of the region. However the top-most graphic was a movie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Western_Europe_to_the_Arabian_Peninsula.ogv) which both wouldn't play on my PC (for whatever reason); but also, in my opinion, didn't really epitomise or best illustrate/annotate the content.

I'd like to suggest that: (1) the graphic of the physical region (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Arabian_Peninsula_dust_SeaWiFS-2.jpg) be given prominence. (2) More particularly, could a tech-savvy editor provide a political boundaries map where the individual country names "popped-up" when moused-over? I know the names are described in the body text, but this would be so much more effective and easy to follow.

I don't have the confidence or skills to do these changes myself. The movie could be retained (assuming its failure to play is my local PC &/or bandwidth/connectivity problem) but with less emphasis.

Mmowat (talk) 12:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Transliteration of Arabic names

Why is the Arabic letter jim transliterated in two ways at the beginning of the article, as j and g with a diacritic? I think the transliterations are equivalent in this case, but they should be the same, and j is simpler and more common. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.28.166.53 (talk) 21:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Layout

Lots of nice illustrations, but someone needs to reposition some of them flush-left to eliminate the big white-space gaps in the text. Sca (talk) 21:01, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

We need some help on the article Arabians

We are creating a new article about Arabian peninsula native people. Any one who can help with it, please feel free to contribute and make the article a better one. - Dzlinker (talk) 23:42, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The Arabian Peninsula from a Chinese perspective

Arabia was historically known as Tianfang (heavenly square or heavenly place, (the kaaba)) in pre modern china.

http://books.google.com/books?id=KoiD_yafPT8C&pg=PA306&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=eOcUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA89&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=AvDOudr5M6MC&pg=PA103&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=VKkmt-bxU5cC&pg=PA109&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=XULERYYEJo0C&pg=PP8&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyfIUKzyB6bx0gHllIDICQ&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAjgK

http://books.google.com/books?id=vIUmU2ytmIIC&pg=PA256&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=Y8Nzux7z6KAC&pg=PA265&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=srZ5L70phwQC&pg=PA360&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=qcSsoJ0IXawC&pg=PA176&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=YJibpHfnw94C&pg=PA159&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

Arabian nights http://books.google.com/books?id=BrOVNwAACAAJ&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_CXIUNCFJeuB0AHf_oGwDQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAw http://books.google.com/books?id=kW47vQ0EW5QC&pg=PA68&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyfIUKzyB6bx0gHllIDICQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCDgK http://books.google.com/books?id=XOGdnCPJSOMC&pg=PA321&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyfIUKzyB6bx0gHllIDICQ&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=6AQ2ircHBnIC&pg=PA23&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyfIUKzyB6bx0gHllIDICQ&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=_y8YW-XQVH4C&pg=PA52&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyfIUKzyB6bx0gHllIDICQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=EB5EAAAAIAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vyjIUOGCHObW0QH8sYGgAQ&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBTgU http://books.google.com/books?id=0dEvAQAAIAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vyjIUOGCHObW0QH8sYGgAQ&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCTgU http://books.google.com/books?id=FbcnAQAACAAJ&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nSnIUPn_Heb10gGYx4D4DA&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBjge http://books.google.com/books?id=IqN6AAAAIAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OyzIUIqvJ4660QG7toGgBA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwADg8 End of arabian nights

http://books.google.com/books?id=MJzB6wrz6Q4C&pg=PA341&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyfIUKzyB6bx0gHllIDICQ&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

Page 43 page 249

http://books.google.com/books?id=5LfXAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyfIUKzyB6bx0gHllIDICQ&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBjgK

http://books.google.com/books?id=MjIQAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA42&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyfIUKzyB6bx0gHllIDICQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAzgK

Page 47 page 58 page 59

http://books.google.com/books?id=sIZtAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XyfIUKzyB6bx0gHllIDICQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwADgK

http://books.google.com/books?id=cJ2uY_oOYBgC&pg=PA98&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vyjIUOGCHObW0QH8sYGgAQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwADgU#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=OuSsxBuALQYC&pg=PA204&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vyjIUOGCHObW0QH8sYGgAQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwATgU#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=Xuq7QCmY6jQC&pg=PA40&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vyjIUOGCHObW0QH8sYGgAQ&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAjgU#v=onepage&q=tianfang%20arabia&f=false

Page 8

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Page 38 page 42

http://books.google.com/books?id=EDhuAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vyjIUOGCHObW0QH8sYGgAQ&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBzgU

Page 756

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Page 449

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Page 95 page 107

http://books.google.com/books?ei=nSnIUPn_Heb10gGYx4D4DA&id=jjc_AQAAIAAJ&dq=tianfang+arabia&q=tian+fang+arabia#search_anchor

http://books.google.com/books?id=jjc_AQAAIAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nSnIUPn_Heb10gGYx4D4DA&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAzge

Page 39

http://books.google.com/books?id=fmptAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QSrIUMmKE4SU0QGt5IDgCg&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAjgo

http://books.google.com/books?ei=QSrIUMmKE4SU0QGt5IDgCg&id=fmptAAAAMAAJ&dq=tianfang+arabia&q=tian+fang+arabia#search_anchor

Page 71

http://books.google.com/books?id=S40OAQAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QSrIUMmKE4SU0QGt5IDgCg&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBDgo

Page 170 page 171

http://books.google.com/books?id=QgUoAQAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QSrIUMmKE4SU0QGt5IDgCg&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBTgo

Page 239

http://books.google.com/books?id=ISAZAQAAIAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QSrIUMmKE4SU0QGt5IDgCg&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBzgo

Page 4632

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Page 190

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZNlwAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HSvIUJcgz7XQAa_DgJgM&ved=0CC8Q6AEwADgy

Page 17

http://books.google.com/books?id=KLssAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HSvIUJcgz7XQAa_DgJgM&ved=0CDIQ6AEwATgy

Page 114

http://books.google.com/books?id=S60lAQAAIAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HSvIUJcgz7XQAa_DgJgM&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAjgy

Page 108 page 114

http://books.google.com/books?ei=HSvIUJcgz7XQAa_DgJgM&id=S60lAQAAIAAJ&dq=tianfang+arabia&q=tianfang+#search_anchor

Page 62

http://books.google.com/books?id=MtTXAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HSvIUJcgz7XQAa_DgJgM&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBDgy

Page 20

http://books.google.com/books?id=HZAbAQAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HSvIUJcgz7XQAa_DgJgM&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBTgy

Page 38 page 42

http://books.google.com/books?id=EDhuAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HSvIUJcgz7XQAa_DgJgM&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBzgy

Page 110

http://books.google.com/books?id=8ZBEAQAAIAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HSvIUJcgz7XQAa_DgJgM&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCDgy

Page 15

http://books.google.com/books?id=lqtxAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HSvIUJcgz7XQAa_DgJgM&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCTgy

Page 541

http://books.google.com/books?id=LIHWAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OyzIUIqvJ4660QG7toGgBA&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBDg8

Page 13

http://books.google.com/books?id=JXkxAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OyzIUIqvJ4660QG7toGgBA&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAjg8

Page 136

http://books.google.com/books?id=tuoeAAAAMAAJ&q=tianfang+arabia+ancestor+tribute&dq=tianfang+arabia+ancestor+tribute&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DC3IUKiwD4LC0QHv74C4CA&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA

Page 58

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http://books.google.com/books?id=A4zgAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA64&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=vyjIUOGCHObW0QH8sYGgAQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCDgU

http://books.google.com/books?id=f4hcGwAACAAJ&dq=tianfang+arabia&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nSnIUPn_Heb10gGYx4D4DA&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCDge

http://www.academia.edu/1055602/Ming_Taizu_and_the_Muslims_of_China

http://books.google.com/books?id=Y8Nzux7z6KAC&pg=PA60&dq=arabia+tribute+taizu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yC3IUMnANey40QHZyID4Bg&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=arabia%20tribute%20taizu&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=Zoouvv_4QfUC&pg=PA23&dq=arabia+tribute+taizu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yC3IUMnANey40QHZyID4Bg&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=arabia%20tribute%20taizu&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=DbfAmvYC3NgC&pg=PA185&dq=arabia+tribute+taizu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yC3IUMnANey40QHZyID4Bg&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=arabia%20tribute%20taizu&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=isIxgPn_zfMC&pg=PA245&dq=arabia+tribute+taizu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yC3IUMnANey40QHZyID4Bg&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=arabia%20tribute%20taizu&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=YukVl8fUr48C&pg=PA226&dq=arabia+tribute+taizu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yC3IUMnANey40QHZyID4Bg&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=arabia%20tribute%20taizu&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=XtmzFZS_SX0C&pg=PA226&dq=arabia+tribute+taizu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yC3IUMnANey40QHZyID4Bg&ved=0CEcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=arabia%20tribute%20taizu&f=false

Page 14

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Rajmaan (talk) 07:13, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Map with fremd label.

Please respond to me. I'd like to know what this on the map says: http://www.philaprintshop.com/images/mollarabia.jpg over where the United Arab Emirates are. I think it says "Muʃtedon" but please, help. Please. Shikku27316 (talk) 02:34, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

It's C.Musledon, I believe. "C." is short for "Cape", as in Cape of Good Hope. The "ʃ" is an old way of writing "s". Compare to this map, also by H. Moll.[3] Bromley86 (talk) 09:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Confirmed. It's got a pretty low presence online, but see here[4]. Bromley86 (talk) 09:30, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. It's been bothering me, so I thought I'd ask here. I knew that was a way to write "s", as I write it like that sometimes. Thanks, and thank you for responding. Shikku27316 (talk) 17:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh, and, does anyone know if Musledon refers to much of the UAE or just Musandam, the exclave of Oman? Shikku27316 (talk) 18:41, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
I'm waiting... Shikku27316 (talk) 20:08, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
IANAGeographer. However, it seems that capes (rather than peninsulas) usually refer to small areas of land - see the opening sentence on Cape of Good Hope to see what I mean. So, given that the map refers to C Musledon, it seems likely that it was referring to a small part of the modern Musandam peninsula. Looking at a modern map of the area, pinning that point down is tough as the coastline is a mess! I'd guess the N or E corner of the NE island which Google maps tells me is Jazirat Musandam, but who knows.
This may be obvious, but in the absence of any other information it would seem fair to assume that Musledon and Musandam are the same word drifted over time, so H Moll would likely have recognised the modern Musandam peninsula as the Musledon peninsula. Further, given the lack of detail on his maps of the area, I'd wager that he'd have recognised the whole of the peninsula north of the modern Abu Dhabi-Suhar road as Musledon. Purely speculative there based on the named or prominent features on his maps either side of C Musledon. Bromley86 (talk) 23:28, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for responding. I very much value this information. Shikku27316 (talk) 00:33, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Arabia

Arabia redirects here, shouldn't it redirect to the disambiguation page? After all, that page shows that it could just as easily mean the Arab world as whole or as a name of a hypothetical pan-Arab state. Charles Essie (talk) 21:43, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

No, because it obviously means the geographical entity.
Sincerely, --86.81.201.94 (talk) 20:27, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

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I think there's a problem with the haplogroup table in the Population - Y-Chromosome section

I could be wrong but if you visit the haplogroup table here Arabian_Peninsula#Y-chromosome you'll see that the first number is 618. It looks to me like all the figures in the table should be less than 100. Has a decimal point been left out? --bodnotbod (talk) 11:14, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

I think we should remove it. Thoughts?.--Sarah Canbel (talk) 23:55, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
I have removed the whole section. It is not understandable to the general reader and it is not something that is normally included in geographic articles.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Europe

This is from List of peninsulas: "...it is one of the largest peninsulas in the world and the only one to have the status as a full continent, largely as a matter of convention rather than science." Konli17 (talk) 15:27, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Bahrain

The users Sariyr and Yrsari claiming Bahrain is not part of the peninsula, despite several sources, encyclopedias and dictionaries includes[1][2][3][4] Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia as part of the Arabian Peninsula, I urge the users to discuss their point of view using WP:BRD before reverting. Regards, UA3 (talk) 06:15, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Does the North Jutlandic Island (Vendsyssel-Thy) or Funen belong to the Peninsula of Jutland/Cimbrian Peninsula? Do the Channel Islands belong to the Cotentin Peninsula/Cherbourg Peninsula? Does the island of Ireland belong to the (Afro-)Eurasian continent? If not, how is the island country of Bahrain a part on the Arabian Peninsula?
Sincerely, --Sariyr (talk) 21:24, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Arabia | Definition, History, Countries, Map, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  2. ^ "Arabian Peninsula - New World Encyclopedia". www.newworldencyclopedia.org.
  3. ^ "GEOLOGY OF THE ARABIAN PENINSULA Bahrain" (PDF). Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  4. ^ Bonnefoy, Laurent; Louër, Laurence (12 January 2015). "Introduction: The Arab Spring in the Arabian Peninsula and its aftermath". Arabian Humanities. Revue internationale d’archéologie et de sciences sociales sur la péninsule Arabique/International Journal of Archaeology and Social Sciences in the Arabian Peninsula. doi:10.4000/cy.2896. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
The sources I mentioned above clearly consider Bahrain part of the peninsula, your claim is considered original research which is not allowed in Wikipedia. Regards, UA3 (talk) 05:55, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
This is tricky. Terms are misleading. We have a source that says Arabia = Arabian Peninsula. Bahrain is also located in the Arabian plate and therefore is part of Arabian Peninsula, regardless of what the word peninsula means. Also sources do say that Bahrain is part of the Arabian Peninsula. Agree with what UA3 said, we don't do original research. If you want to challenge this you should provide sources that says Bahrain is not part of the Arabian Peninsula and avoid WP:SYNTH and any type of original research.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 08:17, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Too many map images.

Too many redundant geographic maps. Furthermore, the geographical-political boundaries could be updated with a higher quality version preferably. I might be able to do this task later on. — ♾️ Contemporary Nomad (💬 Talk) 22:04, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Old name 𓉔 𓎼 𓃭 hgr

What is the significance of the old name 𓉔 𓎼 𓃭 hgr on the Darius I statue ? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caption_of_Darius_I_statue.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.224.207.243 (talk) 12:45, 16 October 2021 (UTC)</s

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