Arabia

S. w. country of Asia; a peninsula, rudely quadrilateral in form; area ab. 1,200,000 sq. m. Its surface is a moderately elevated table-land, gradually rising eastward, with low mountains along its w. border and higher ones on the e. It is in great part a desert, with small fertile sections among the bordering mountains, and in the interior a large region capable of cultivation. It consists of three main divisions: A. Petræa, in the n. w., including the Sinaitic pen in- Arabesque Panel, sula; A. Desert a, the Syrian desert and part of the interior; A. Felix, the rest of the at Cordova.) peninsula, especially the fertile belt on the w. coast. The in habitants are of Semitic stock, allied to the Hebrews; those of A. Desert a were nomads. The kingdom of Saba seems to have lasted from 1000 to 400 B.C., and, alongside of an Aby in i an kingdom, to A. D. 300 or later. Christianity spread widely at (From the Mosque an early day, existing side by side with Sabæism, and became a state religion 525. Mohammed effected a total revolution 622. Pop. ab. 5,000,000, Arabian Architecture. The Mahometan building not only of Arabia itself, but of Egypt, which is much more exten sive and important. The earliest buildings of the Saracens are included in this region. Their architecture is ultimately derived from Persia, but it was powerfully influenced in its development by the Byzantine of Constant in ope and of the Levant. The oldest mosques which remain are those of Amrou in Cairo, built 642, and that at Damascus 705. The mosque of Touloun in Cairo, of the ninth century, is especially noteworthy as showing the earliest occurrence of the pointed arch. The principal buildings in this style were mosques often covered with domes, and commonly accompanied by semidetached minarets, often very elaborate and beautiful in design and in execution. Externally the mosques are more pretentious than the work of the Moors in Spain, and are exceeded only by the monuments Mosque of Ibm Touloun. of the Mahometans in North India. But what is commonly known as Moorish decoration, as applied to interiors, was Mosque of Ibm Touloun, Interior. carried to a much higher point, both of richne and of artistic merit, in the Spanish than in the Arabic development of Mahometan architecture.