It
was established that emigration in remote and near ages of history was
from the directions of Bahrain and the holy places, the most recent instance
took place after Islam with simultaneous movement of Arabs to Iraq and
Syria in the reign of the Caliph Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq.
There is
nothing to prevent modern history from being used as evidence for ancient
history, particularly when it is completely devoid of stories, whether
known or inferred, about the emigration of riverine people and the inhabitants
of river-valleys to the peninsula of Arabia in remote or recent times.
The Sumerians who inhabited the area between the two ancient rivers, were
there 10,000 years ago, and in has been established that the Semites were
the people who left their homeland and moved to the area between the Two
Rivers where had risen capitals bearing Semitic names such as Babel (Bab-Allah
or Bab Ayel).
There is another viewpoint which claims that the Semites rose in another
place than the Arabian Peninsula:
This view is strongly voiced by the renowned Professor (Guidi the Great),
an Italian scientist well-known in Cairo. This scientist bases his argument
on the similarity between the Semitic languages and the numerous names
of plants and waters in their earliest Dialects. He believes that the common
use of this vocabulary in the Semitic languages indicates an origin in
fertile hands, abounding in plantation and rivers, and not in the Arabian
desert and its like.
This
view is flimsy because it is not founded on strong grounds; nor does the
condition of the Arabian Peninsula prevailing long before modern discoveries
support it. Further evidence comes from the condition of the Peninsula
as indicated by the discoveries of stratigraphy, climatology and anthropology.
Vast
meadows and fertile lands were by no means unknown in the Southern and
North-Eastern parts of the Peninsula at Bahrain and Yamama Valley. These
places were frequented by emigrants in ancient times; sometimes those emigrants
came from Yemen to Bahrain, and beyond Bahrain to the area between the
Two Rivers the Syrian desertland; sometimes they proceeded from the first
parts of Bahrain to its Northern outskirts.
The site
of Yamama remained after Islam, renowned for its vast pasture-land, gurgling
springs heavy rainfall and dense meadows which were the remnants or a more fertile
and inhabitable land in former times. The German traveler Schoenvert
noticed that wheat, barley, buffaloes, goats, mutton and cattle had been
found in Yemen and ancient Arabia before they were domesticated in Egypt
and Iraq.
According to
the latest scientific discoveries, the Arabian Peninsula was exposed in
the very ancient times to drought and earth-quakes. Aridity superseded
fertility over the ages until the land had mostly turned to desert by historic
times. The state of the Arabian Peninsula is sufficient to explain the
resemblance between the Semitic languages in the words «fertility,
fruits, water», but the other view, that Professor Guidi, does not
explain the hypothesis that the Arabs had emigrated, say from between the
Two Rivers or from Syria to the arid desertland. This hypothesis rests
on no evidence either in the early accounts, or in plausible circumstances
and familiar precedents, of which examples are given in modern history.
we
can therefore state that descendants of the Arabs originating in their first
Peninsula have lived in the middle of the habitable world for 5,000 years
at least, and that whatever benefits Europeans have obtained from these
regions throughout the ages was an Arab heritage or a heritage which spread
in the world after the Arabs had admixed with the people of other countries.
This
heritage is not small because it includes the original concepts for Europeans
- of Reason, Spirit, and the causes of civilization which are : (1) Religious
beliefs (2) Art of living and conduct (3) Arts of writing and education
(4) Art of peace and war and the exchange of goods.
