TimeMaps

Arabia
500BC

The peninsula is home to Arab nomads, living a life which would be recognizable to modern Bedouin. The exception to this is in the south, with its settled kingdoms and cities. These well-organized states, the most notable of which is the kingdom of Saba, are home to a civilization which is dependent upon large-scale irrigation to sustain its agriculture. They also benefit from the production of frankincense and myrrh, highly prized throughout the ancient world for their fragrance and preservative qualities.

Arabia
200BC

The kingdoms of southern Arabia have continued to flourish. The well-organized irrigation systems, crucial to the agriculture of the region and the economic well-being of the population, are kept in good repair and continue to expand. The trade in frankincense and myrrh also continues to expand. Towns have also appeared further north, along the trade routes heading north to Mesopotamia and the Hellenistic kingdoms. The nomadic tribes of the desert profit from this trade through dues levied on the caravans.

Arabia
30BC

The kingdoms of southern Arabia continue to thrive as their cities take a central part in the expanding incense trade. Indeed, this period probably sees the height of southern Arabian prosperity in ancient times, with the irrigation systems at its most productive and the overland trade in myrrh and frankincense at its most flourishing. Greek and Roman traders are in direct contact with the producers of south Arabia, as they are with the trading cities further north, where the Nabatean kingdom rules. The material culture of the region is increasingly influence by classical Mediterranean models, and it is at this period that the beautiful city of Petra, in modern Jordan, is adorned with its marvellous rock-carved temples, which are some of the most outstanding examples of Hellenistic architecture.

In the Arabian interior the nomadic tribes continue to profit from the trading caravans passing through their lands.

Arabia
200AD

During the first century AD Greek sailors pioneered the Indian Ocean trade routes, using the Monsoon winds to take their sailing ships to and from the subcontinent. Abundant archaeological evidence in India points to the extent of this trade. Unfortunately for the towns and kingdoms of southern Arabia, the Greek merchant ships could by-pass the southern Arabian kingdoms in a way that camel caravans could not, and as this maritime trade gathers pace, the slower and more expensive overland routes have declined. With the decline of the overland trade has come a decline in the fortunes of the southern Arabian kingdoms as well as the desert nomads. These latter are now occupying large areas of previously fertile farmland as the centuries-old irrigation systems become degraded. In the north, the Nabatean kingdom has been annexed to the Roman empire.

Arabia
500AD

The control of the lucrative maritime trade is now in the hands of the kingdom of Axum, in modern Ethiopian, and the southern Arabian civilization has declined with the fall off in overland traffic up the peninsula. The once-extensive irrigation systems have become badly degraded, with sometimes calamitous effects: there is evidence for dam collapses and destructive floods affecting some of the most populous centres of population. Nomadic herders now graze their flocks where once was fertile agriculture.

The decline in the overland trade seems to have led to a rise in warfare between the nomadic tribes of the interior. Commerce has not completely disappeared from the peninsula, however. Some towns in western Arabia continue to be centres of trade. One such is the town of Mecca, which, with its enormous black stone, regarded with religious awe by the pagan tribes, is also a centre of pilgrimage. To the north, both large empires, Roman and Persian, pay Arab rulers – the Ghazanids for Rome and the Lakhmids for Persia - to act as buffer-states between the desert nomads and the settled areas of the empires.

Arabia
750AD

The Arab buffer states of the Ghazanids and the Lakhmids both fell foul of suspicions of treachery by their respective patrons, the Byzantine and Persian emperors. This had the effect of making the borders of the two empires open to attack by nomadic Arab tribes, and cross-border raids duly increased in number and effectiveness. In a sense, the great Arab invasions under the banner of their new religion, Islam, were a culmination of these raids. It was almost by accident that they turned into the great wars of conquest that they became.

In the wake of these wars, many Arabs migrated, either as individual families or as whole tribes, to the conquered lands, where they would contribute to the process of Arabization and Islamization across a huge area. Arabia itself, however, lost its central political importance when Damascus, in Syria, became the seat of the caliph. Mecca and Medina remained the most holy cities of the Islamic world, and major centres of pilgrimage. Successive caliphs lavished new mosques and monuments on them.

Arabia soon became a haven for branches of Islam considered heretical by orthodox Muslims - and especially by the Umayyad caliphs. The first of these were the Kharijites, who believed that the caliph should be elected. One of their leaders took control of Oman and ruled there with the title of Imam.

Arabia
979AD

From 870, Yemen became virtually independent under a line of hereditary governors. These gave way to a succession of independent dynasties ruling in that area, often more than one at the same time and representing different sects. These only loosely acknowledged the overlordship of the caliph, if at all.

Mecca and Medina have also come under the control of local dynasts, the Alid family - whose dominance will last for a thousand years. At times they will be forced to accept the overlordship of one distant power or another, but the local affairs of these cities will be in their hands.

Oman, meanwhile, has had to give up a measure of independence and come under the overlordship of the Buyids.

As for the Bedouin tribes in the interior, they have effectively resumed their age-old independence, fighting one another for control of water holes, oases and trade routes. Many have become adherence of a radical Islamic sect called the Qarmatians. These believe that all Muslims - whether nomads, merchants, farmers or officials - should live as equals, an ideology that fits well with the nomadic lifestyle. In 930 they attack Mecca itself.

Arabia
1215AD

The military power of the Qarmatian tribes was suppressed by local Sunni tribes in the late 11th century. The Bedouin peoples of the desert retain their de facto independence from all external authority, however.

The Ayyubids of Egypt invaded Yemen in 1173 and established their dominance there.

Meanwhile Oman has taken advantage of Seljuq weakness to assert its independence again. By this date, the country has become a major centre of the Indian Ocean trade. Omani sailors and merchants routinely voyage to India and East Africa, and even as far as South East Asia. In all these places they are active in spreading their Muslim faith, which thus spreads far beyond its Middle Eastern homeland.

Arabia
1453AD

An Ayyubid governor of Yemen established his independence in 1229, and founded the Rasulid dynasty. The Rasulids were active patrons of Islamic art and learning, and under them Yemen became a major centre of Muslim culture. Their stable rule encouraged trade to pass through Yemen, and it prospered as a result. However, by the mid-15th century the Rasulids have fallen into decline, and Yemen has come under the overlordship of the Mamluqs.

In the Hejaz, the region of Mecca and Medina, the ruling Alid family have also come under the control of the Mamluqs.

The decline of Yemen has led to to the resurgence of Oman as the Arabian centre of the Indian Ocean trade. 

Arabia
1648AD

Portuguese were active in the Persian Gulf at the start of the 16th century; they captured Hormuz  and Muscat in 1507, and Bahrain in 1521.

Meanwhile, in 1517, the Ottomans had come in from the west, bringing the Hejaz, with the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, and also Yemen under their control (though leaving local rulers, suhc as the Ali dynasty in the Hejaz, largely free to govern as their liked). This inaugurates a period of prosperity for the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, protected as they are by the Ottoman empire and with imperial patronage lavished on them.

After the Ottoman conquest of Iraq in the 1530s, the Ottomans were active also to the east of the Arabian peninsula. In the Persian Gulf they came into conflict with the Portuguese, whom they ousted from Bahrain in 1602. The Portuguese were also expelled from Muscat by a local religious movement, whose leader founded the Yarubid dynasty of Oman. These followed this takeover of Oman by harrying Portuguese shipping and bases along the east coast of Africa.

Arabia
1789AD

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Arabia
1837AD

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Arabia
1871AD

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