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EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN ARABIA.
SECTION I.
The peninsula of Arabia was divided by the old geographers into three parts: the desert plains of the north-east; which bordered on the Euphrates and the Syrian frontier; the province of Petræa, at the northern extremity of the Red Sea; and the richer and more extensive tracts of Arabia Felix. This latter division is chiefly included by native writers under the general and comprehensive term of Al Yaman, which in signification coincides with its Roman epithet.[1] On the north the territories of Yaman extended into the mountain ranges of the interior, and were bounded perhaps by the extensive deserts that spread out towards the Persian Gulf; on the west and south it was separated from Africa by the
- ↑ ايمن from يمن felicity. We find the real Arabic name mentioned by several ancient authors. Εισι δε και ενδοτεροι αυτων, μη οντες της φυλης αυτων, αλλα του Ιεκταν, οἱ λεγομενοι Αμανιται, τουτ' εστιν Ὁμηριται. Theophanes, Chronograph. in Bibl. Pat. Gr. tom. ii. p. 283, οἱ λεγομενοι Ὁμηριται, τουτ' εστιν Αμανιται. Euthymius, in Mahomethias, p. 308. See Constant. Porphyrogenn. p. 68. and the Saracenica, p. 57.—Filia regis austri est regina Sabæ: nempe hoc regnum vocatur lingua Ismaelitica Aljeman. Aben Ezra, in Dan. xi. 6.
