4 chapter one
for the origin of the Semites. The existence of “wàdies”, which are
dried-up river beds, has provided assumptions for a theory that sug-
gests that pre-historic Arabia was fertile and was able to accommo-
date settled inhabitants before it suffered from progressive desiccation,
before the beginning of history (ibid.). Dried-up river beds, “wàdies”,
played an important role in the development of trade in Central
Arabia. They served as trade routes between the South and the
North, and proved to be the most convenient routes in a most hos-
tile land.
As the nature of land of pre-historic Central Arabia is unresolved,
so is the origin of the early inhabitants of the land. Whether they
were purely Semitic or a mixture of Semitic and non-Semitic is a
question that has attracted the attention of anthropologists. The con-
nection between the Hemitic and the Semitic languages lends sup-
port to the hypotheses that the inhabitants might have come from
Africa. On the other hand, the cognatic similarity between the
Hamito-Semitic, Indo-European and Ural-Altaic languages seem to
suggest that the early inhabitants came from the north (ibid.). Biblical
sources state that some of the inhabitants were descendants of Shem
and others from Ham, the sons of Noah (see above) who dwelled
in the North and North West of Arabia. Some of these tribes could
have moved down to the South along the Red Sea. This provides
theological support to the assumption that the Arabian inhabitants
came from the North. Furthermore, taking into account the version
of the Islamic traditions concerning the story of Prophet Ibràhìm
who brought his second wife and his son from her, Ismàìl, to the
valley of Makkah, it could be suggested further that some Arab tribes
were Ismàìlìtes. Other tribes, those Bedouins who came to the water
spring provided by God to Ismàìl and his mother in the Islamic tra-
ditions, must have come from somewhere. However, anthropologists
and theologians do not always fully agree.
Social Organization and Settlement PatternsThe nature of society of the inhabitants of Arabia could be divided
into two, though unequal, types, nomadic and sedentary. Apart from
Southern Arabia, where some civilizations were developed as we will
see shortly, sedentary settlements were concentrated mainly in the
sporadic oases of Arabia and in the main caravan towns on the