Episode 001 - Pre-Islamic Arabia I [Episode Guide]

INTRO

Before Julius Caesar was assassinated in the senate, he had plans to go and conquer the Parthians. What would the world look like today if Julius Caesar had managed to add Persia to the Roman Empire the same way he conquered Gaul?

The beginning of the end for Napoleon Bonaparte was the ill fated invasion of Russia and the infamous march on Moscow in 1812. If Napoleon had won, he would have united the majority of Europe. What would the world look like today if we had a united Europe that early in the 19th century, the possibilities are endless! Firstly, would we have witnessed the World Wars? Would America be the runaway, dominant, rival less, superpower that it is today? Would de-colonisation have occurred? The World Wars were a huge factor in disassembling the world's empires. A little food for thought...

GEOGRAPHY

Click on any image to enlarge it, a collection of all images posted on the site can be found on the gallery page.

Satellite Image of the Arabian Peninsula 

Map of the Arabian and surrounding tectonic plates

Map showing  the cultivated land in Arabia.
(History of The Arabs - Philip K. Hitti)

SOUTHERN ARABIA

The quote used in the podcast was from a book published in 1900 called: Arabia, The Cradle of Islam. It was written by an America missionary called Samuel M. Zwemer, regardless of the obvious bias his accounts of his and others travels through Arabia are a fascinating read that I was surprised by. So for that I would recommend for any of you that are interested in giving it a read, it is available for free on Archive.org (link below).

Arabia, the Cradle of Islam - by Samuel M. Zwemer

FLASH FLOODS

For those of you who have never witnessed a flash flood it quite easy to dismiss the raw power that they possess, and it is really quite incredible the way a small trickle of water can quite quickly turn into a raging torrent. Here are a few exhibits of their strength:

TERRACE FARMS

This site http://nabataea.net/marib.html has some pretty good photos of the ruins of the old Ma'rib Dam.

ARABIAN & THE SURROUNDING REGIONS

Here are some useful maps of Arabia and the surrounding regions.

Arabian Peninsula, its geographical features and major settlements (The Early Islamic Conquests - Fred M. Donner)

Arabian Peninsula (The War of the Three Gods Romans, Persians, and the Rise of Islam - Peter Crawford)

Great map that allows you to see the elevation of the land and the contrast between the East and the West of the Arabian Peninsula (Fortune Magazine 1951 - Richard E. Harrison)

The Near East, indicating the 200mm rainfall line anything below this line is considered desert (Greg Fisher - Between Empires)

Geography of Mediterranean and Near Eastern world showing elevation (The New Cambridge History of Islam Vol.1)

This map was produced using accounts of mainly Greek writers, so the areas highlighted are where the Arabians were said to have inhabited (Arabs and Empire before Islam)

FOOTNOTES

This is the book I mentioned in the footnotes/appendix segment in relation to the hip-hop bit in the introduction of the episode:

The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip-hop and the Gods of New York by Michael Muhammad Knight

DOWNLOAD LINK

Direct download link to the episode

http://rss.acast.com/thehistoryofislam/episode-001-pre-islamic-arabia-i/media.mp3

Sumber http://historyofislampodcast.blogspot.com/

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