ARABIAN PENINSULA:
THE CRADLE OF HUMANITY
Arabian Peninsula:
Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa, Europe and Asia. The seas off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula are, on the west the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, on the northwest Mediterranean sea, on the southeast the Arabian Sea (part of the Indian Ocean), and on the northeast, the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Arabian Gulf. It lies between 32o E to 60oE and 13o N to 40o N. The Arabian Island extends Northward up to foothills of Taurus Mountains and Zagros Mountains. Since the early Islamic years, the peninsula has been called Jazira-tul-Arab ( Arabian Island), as it is surrounded by the sea in three sides and has a short range of land connection to the Asia Minor and Persian land, only in the north. Geologically, the whole land mass existing on the Arabian Plate composes Arabian Peninsula.
Makkah: The Mother of Towns
The History of Makkah is as old as the human’s history. The Arabian Peninsula has not only been a center of civilizations but the Cradle of Humanity. It is the place where first human couple Adam and Hawa (Peace be upon them) settled in the valley of Makkah, surrounded by As-Sirat mountains of Hijaz, at a distance of 50 miles from the Red Sea. It was the site where first human structure was erected in the shape of an asylum named Baitullah.
Verily, the first House (of worship) appointed for mankind was that at Bakkah (Makkah), full of blessing, and a guidance for Al-Alamin (the mankind and jinns).
Abu Dharr ( May Allah be pleased with him) reported:
I said: Messenger of Allah (May Allah shower His blessings and peace on him), which mosque was set up first on the earth? He said: Al-Masjid al-Haram (the sacred). I (again) said: Then which next? He said: It was the Masjid Aqsa. I (again) said: How long the space of time (between their setting up)? He (the Holy Prophet) said: It was forty years. And whenever the time comes for prayer, pray there, for that is a mosque; and in the hadith transmitted by Abu Kamil (the words are):" Whenever time comes for prayer, pray, for that is a mosque (for you)."
[Sahih Muslim:H.520]
Abdullah bin Amr bin Al-Aas (May Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (May Allah shower His blessings and peace on him) told that Allah Almighty sent Jibreel A.S to Adam (Peace be upon him) and commanded him to construct a House of Worship for Him. So they constructed Baitullah (Al-Ka’abah).
[Musannaf Abdur Rzzaq, Tafsir Ibni Kathir)
So we can conclude from these reports that Adam and Hawa constructed the Baitullah first time. Definitely, this House of Worship was constructed for worshipping Allah Almighty. It was not constructed just for erecting a monument. Thence Adam and Hawa should have settled in Arabian Peninsula, to serve this asylum and circumambulate around it.
The Holy Qur’an declares Makkah as Ummul Qura, that literally means ‘the Mother of Towns’. This term indicates that Makkah was the first human settlement on the earth.
Allah Almighty said:
And thus We have inspired unto you (O Muhammad ) a Qur'an (in Arabic) that you may warn the Mother of the Towns (Makkah) and all around it.
The earliest human activities in central Arabian Peninsula (mostly Saudi Arabia) have been recorded in archeological sites in Saudi Arabia.
A Sci-News magazine, published an awesome news about 120000 years old footprints in Nafud desert (Saudi Arabia) on Sep 21, 2020.
An international team of archaeologists and paleoanthropologists has found ancient human and animal footprints on the surface of an ancient lakebed in the Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia. The footprints, dated to roughly 120,000 years ago, are contemporaneous with an early Homo sapiens out-of-Africa migration and represent the earliest evidence of our species in the Arabian Peninsula.
The researchers recorded a total of 376 fossilized footprints at the Alathar freshwater paleolake site in the western Nefud Desert.
“We immediately realized the potential of these findings,” said first author Dr. Mathew Stewart, a scientist in the Max Planck Institutes for Chemical Ecology, the Science of Human History, and Biogeochemistry.
A well-known reporter of scientific findings, Sci-News reports:
An international team of archaeologists and paleoanthropologists has found fossil faunal remains and associated stone tools at the middle Pleistocene (300,000-500,000 years ago) locality of Ti’s al Ghadah in the Nefud Desert of Saudi Arabia. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, shows that hominins were present in the Arabian Peninsula at least 100,000 years earlier than previously known.
Another website Science Direct observes:
In recent years, the Arabian Peninsula has emerged as a key region for elucidating hominin and faunal evolution and dispersals between Africa and Eurasia. Central to this research is the middle Pleistocene site of Ti's al Ghadah (TAG) which has yielded a diverse and abundant fossil faunal assemblage and the earliest chronometrically dated evidence for hominins in this part of the world.
The well-known scientific research magazine Nature observes:
Despite its largely hyper-arid and inhospitable climate today, the Arabian Peninsula is emerging as an important area for investigating Pleistocene hominin dispersals. Recently, a member of our own species was found in northern Arabia dating to ca. 90 ka, while stone tools and fossil finds have hinted at an earlier, middle Pleistocene, hominin presence.
These lengthy paragraphs from scientific sources prove that human beings have been living in Arabian Peninsula for 120000 years. The so called out of Africa Human existence is confirmed for Arabian Peninsula.
Makkah has been a center of trade from the time of antiquity. It was located on the World Trade Route, that connected Middle East, India, Far East and Europe. Even before the advent of Islam, there was a time when the Arabs, particularly, Quraish of Makkah, had taken control over the land trade of spices from South Arabia to the Mediterranean Sea. Wikipedia observes:
In the first millennium BC the Arabs, Phoenicians, and Indians were engaged in sea and land trade in luxury goods such as spices, gold, precious stones, leather of rare animals, ebony and pearls. The sea trade was in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The sea route in the Red Sea was from Bab-el-Mandeb to Berenike and from there by land to the Nile and then by boats to Alexandria. The land trade was in deserts of Western Arabia using camels. In the second half of the first millennium BC the Arab tribes of South and West Arabia took control over the land trade of spices from South Arabia to the Mediterranean Sea.
The cargos under these conditions were shipped to Aden (South Arabia) and carried to the Roman Empire through Levant on camels. Wikipedia observes:
The Periplus Maris Erythraei mentions a time when sea trade between Egypt and the subcontinent did not involve direct sailings. The cargo under these situations was shipped to Aden:
Aden – Arabia Eudaimon was called the fortunate, being once a city, when, because ships neither came from India to Egypt nor did those from Egypt dare to go further but only came as far as this place, it received the cargoes from both, just as Alexandriareceives goods brought from outside and from Egypt.
— Gary Keith Young, Rome's Eastern Trade: International Commerce and Imperial Policy
Pliny the Elder complained the drainage of Roman wealth to Arabian Peninsula in these words (translated from Latin):
India, China and the Arabian peninsula take one hundred million sesterces from our empire per annum at a conservative estimate: that is what our luxuries and women cost us. For what fraction of these imports is intended for sacrifices to the gods or the spirits of the dead?
— Pliny, Historia Naturae 12.41.84
These references from European historians are sufficient to prove that Makkah enjoyed the maritime trade between India and Roman Empire, by playing a key role in the world trade.
It shows that Makkah has been an important trade station from the time immemorial. This fact leads us to conclude that Makkah has been one of the oldest towns of the world. Hence it supports the Qur’anic narrative ‘Verily, the first House (of worship) appointed for mankind was that at Bakkah (Makkah)’.
Famous historian Philip Khuri Hitti observes in The Arabia: A Short History:
The people of Arabia particularly Bedouins, have remained virtually the same throughout all recorded ages. And it was in Arabia that the ancestors of the Semitic peoples—the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, Amorites, Aramaeans, the Phoenicians, Hebrews, Arabians and the Assyrian --- had their origin. Here they lived sometimes as one people.
The Editors of ‘Encyclopedia of the Peoples of the Africa and the Middle East’ observes:
The most generally, but by no means exclusively, accepted hypothesis is that the original homeland of Semites was the Arabian Peninsula. The Semitic traditions, the historical sources, and ethnological data all point to Arabia as being the place from whwere the various Semitic peoples radiated. Arabia also constituted what is known as “Sheltered Area” with limited communication with the outside world and fewer external influences on its language and people than other areas of Semitic region. Hence the Nomadic Beduins’ way of life and the Arabic language remained relatively untouched and preserved in the Arabian Peninsula for long periods of time. It is also considered to be a law of history that people who practice agriculture do not revert to nomadic ways of life.
This is what the majority of historians believe.
Agricultural Revolution
The earliest farming activities have been reported from Arabian Peninsula. These reports prove that Arabian Peninsula was the Cradle of Civilization.
The Neolithic Revolution, also called the Agricultural Revolution, marked the transition in human history from small, nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers to larger, agricultural settlements and early civilization. The Neolithic Revolution started around 10,000 B.C. in the Fertile Crescent, a boomerang-shaped region of the Middle East where humans first took up farming.
It is notable that the Fertile Crescent is located in the northern part of Arabian Peninsula.
Domestication of Livestock
Again, Arabian Peninsula is the site where humans domesticated the wild animals to avoid all time hunting adventures.
The first livestock were domesticated from animals that Neolithic humans hunted for meat. Domestic pigs were bred from wild boars, for instance, while goats came from the Persian ibex. Domesticated animals made the hard, physical labor of farming possible while their milk and meat added variety to the human diet.
The first farm animals also included sheep and cattle. These originated in Mesopotamia between 10,000 and 13,000 years ago. Water buffalo and yak were domesticated shortly after in China, India and Tibet.
Migrations from Arabian Peninsula to Neighbouring Lands
Darwinists claim that the prime ancestors of Homo sapiens (pre-human species) lived in Africa around 200000 years ago. They hypothesized two terms Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam. Though the core concept of this hypothesis is based on scientific facts, but the inferences made from this hypothesis is wrong. They claim that Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam were living in Africa around 200000 years ago. While latest research on Tis al-Ghada (TAG) proves the theory proposed by Islamic literature. Adam and Hawa (Eve) lived in Arabian Peninsula. This was the place where first human settlement was established. From this subcontinent they migrated to Africa, Europe and Central Asia.
How the scientists think? Look at this scenario:
The first Homo sapiens fossil discovery in Saudi Arabia, and the oldest directly dated fossil for modern humans outside Africa and the Levant, has been found in the Nefud Desert. It shows that our species had spread beyond Africa much earlier than previously thought.
The multinational Palaeodeserts Project has spent years combing the deserts of Arabia for evidence of early human occupation and ancient environment. Its efforts paid off when a team, excavated the site of Al Wusta and unearthed a Homo sapiens finger bone at least 85,000 years old. The find is reported in a study published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
The team was led by Michael Petraglia at the Max Plank Institute for Science of Human History, Jenna, who describes the discovery as “a dream come true” and says it was “like finding the needle in the haystack.”
Actually, relying on ‘Out of Africa Migration Hypothesis’ they think humans migrated from Africa to Arabian Peninsula, whereas the reality is reciprocal of this hypothesis.
A deep genetic study of Arabian genomes and comparing it with other genomes inferred the following realities:
After entering the Arabian Peninsula, human ancestors entered South Asia and spread to Australia (Rasmussen et al. 2011), Europe, and eventually, the Americas. The individuals in these migrations were the most direct ancestors of ancient non-African peoples, and they established the contemporary non-African populations recognized today (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 2003).
According to Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews I.6):
Japhet, the son of Noah, had seven sons: they inhabited so, that, beginning at the mountains Taurus and Amanus, they proceeded along Asia, as far as the river Tanais (Don), and along Europe to Cadiz; and settling themselves on the lands which they light upon, which none had inhabited before, they called the nations by their own names.
We can conclude from this quote that the descendants of Yafith (Japeth) migrated to the Anatolian region from Arabian Peninsula and inhabited around the Taurus mountain (present Turkey). Later on, they moved to neighbouring islands located in Ionian sea including Greece and Cyprus.
Wikipedia observes:
Greek colonies and communities have been historically established on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, but the Greek people have always been centered on the Aegean and Ionian seas, where the Greek language has been spoken since the Bronze Age.
It has been recorded that Greeks have used Abjad (Arabic alphabets) that were used to write Northwest Semitic languages, more specifically early Phoenician, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Hebrew and Old Aramaic.
This was a characteristic of the Bronze age. Using Abjad for writing in Greece shows a close relationship between the Arabs and Greece people in the ancient time. The well-known Greek language was derived from the same Abjad.
In Hebrew literature, Younan (Yawan) has been frequently used for Greece. Even the same practice has been recorded in in Ancient Persian and Indian languages like Sanskrit.All these facts prove the truthfulness of the Qur’anic narratives and the Prophetic Traditions.
In short, Arabian Peninsula is not only the Cradle of humanity but cradle of civilization as well. From this subcontinent, people migrated to other regions and inhabited all the continents.
Philip Khuri Hitti, The Arabia: A Short History, p.7
