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European Exploration Of Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula, much of which now comprises the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has always held a mysterious attraction for European explorers. Until modern times it was uncharted, inaccessible, dangerous and forbidden. Some areas remain dangerous and forbidden to the present day. Mecca and Medina are holy cities in Islam and are forbidden to non-Muslims. The first exploration of Arabia took place in the 16th Century when the Portuguese circumnavigated Arabia. German explorers *Carsten Niebuhr was part of an expedition in 1762 which explored the south east of Arabia. British explorers * Captain George Forster Sadlier the first European to cross Arabia from east to west in 1819, publishing the book, '' Diary of a Journey Across Arabia from El Khatif in the Persian Gulf to Yanbu in the Red Sea, During the Year 1819'' in 1866. * Sir Richard Francis Burton disguised himself as an Afghan doctor and performed Haj, writing about his travels in ''Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah'' i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. At , the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the Arabian Peninsula includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen, as well as the southern portions of Iraq and Jordan. The largest of these is Saudi Arabia. In the classical era, the southern portions of modern-day Syria, Jordan, and the Sinai Peninsula were also considered parts of Arabia (see Arabia Petraea). The Arabian Peninsula formed as a result of the rifting of the Red Sea between 56 and 23 million years ago, and is bordered by the Red Sea to the west and southwest, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the northeast, the Levant and Mesopotamia to the north and the Arabian Sea and the Indian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lawrence Of Arabia
Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918) against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title used for the 1962 film based on his wartime activities. He was born out of wedlock in August 1888 to Sarah Junner (1861–1959), a governess, and Sir Thomas Chapman, 7th Baronet (1846–1919), an Anglo-Irish nobleman. Chapman left his wife and family in Ireland to cohabit with Junner. Chapman and Junner called themselves Mr and Mrs Lawrence, using the surname of Sarah's likely father; her mother had been employed as a servant for a Lawrence family when she became pregnant with Sarah. In 1896, the Lawrences moved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Saudi Arabia
The history of Saudi Arabia as a nation state began with the emergence of the Al Saud dynasty in central Arabia in 1727 and the subsequent establishment of the Emirate of Diriyah. Pre-Islamic Arabia, the territory that constitutes modern Saudi Arabia, was the site of several ancient cultures and civilizations; the prehistory of Saudi Arabia shows some of the earliest traces of human activity in the world. The world's second-largest religion, Islam, emerged in modern-day Saudi Arabia. In the early 7th century, the Islamic prophet Muhammad united the population of Arabia and created a single Islamic religious polity. Following his death in 632, his followers rapidly expanded the territory under Muslim rule beyond Arabia, conquering huge and unprecedented swathes of territory (from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to modern-day Pakistan in the east) in a matter of decades. Arab dynasties originating from modern-day Saudi Arabia founded the Rashidun (632–661), Umayyad (661– ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Wilfred Thesiger
Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger (3 June 1910 – 24 August 2003), also known as Mubarak bin Landan ( ar, مُبَارَك بِن لَنْدَن, ''the blessed one of London'') was a British military officer, explorer, and writer. Thesiger's travel books include ''Arabian Sands'' (1959), on his foot and camel crossing of the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula, and ''The Marsh Arabs'' (1964), on his time living with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq. Early life Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He was the son of Wilfred Gilbert Thesiger, who was British Consul-General in Ethiopia from 1909 to 1919, and his wife Kathleen Mary Vigors. Thesiger's grandfather was Frederic Augustus Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford. Another Frederic Thesiger, a future Viceroy of India and the first Viscount Chelmsford, was an uncle, and the actor Ernest Thesiger was a cousin. Wilfred Thesiger and his younger brother were the only European children for most of his early years in Addis Ababa. He lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George William Rendel
Sir George William Rendel (23 February 1889 – 6 May 1979) was a British diplomat.Eid Al Yahya, ''Travellers in Arabia'', (Stacey International, 2006). Early years Rendel, the son of the engineer George Wightwick Rendel was educated at Downside School and at Queen's College, Oxford, graduating in Modern History in 1911. Diplomatic career Rendel entered the Diplomatic Service and was the head of the Eastern Department of the Foreign Office from 1930 to 1938. In 1922 he produced a seven-page British Foreign Office document which detailed the persecution of Greeks and other minorities in the Ottoman Empire. The document drew on official reports and eyewitness testimonies by personnel who were present. Rendel stated that throughout the First World War, "it is generally agreed that about 1,500,000 Armenians perished in circumstances of extreme barbarity, and that over 500,000 Greeks were deported, of whom comparatively few survived". He then went on to describe further massacres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerald De Gaury
Gerald Simpson Hillairet Rutland Vere de Gaury MC (1 April 1897 – 12 January 1984) was a British military officer, Arabist, explorer, historian and diplomat. He served in the Hampshire Regiment in the First World War, where he fought at the Somme, and was wounded on several occasions, including in the Gallipoli Campaign. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1917: :''"For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He displayed the greatest gallantry and initiative in organising and leading bombing attacks. Although subjected to heavy machine gun and rifle fire he captured an important enemy post. His fine example and disregard of danger were of great value to his men."'' De Gaury served as the British political agent in Kuwait in the 1930s, and organized and took part in the official visit of Sir Andrew Ryan to Riyadh in November 1935, to present Ibn Sa'ud with the Order of the Bath. The previous year, while visiting Ibn Sa'ud in Riyadh, he had become one of the first half ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rub' Al Khali
The Rub' al KhaliOther standardized transliterations include: / . The ' is the assimilated Arabic definite article, ', which can also be transliterated as '. (; ar, ٱلرُّبْع ٱلْخَالِي (), the "Empty Quarter") is the sand desert (erg) encompassing most of the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula. The desert covers some (the area of long. 44°30′−56°30′E, and lat. 16°30′−23°00′N) including parts of Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. It is part of the larger Arabian Desert. Description Terrain The desert is long, and wide. Its surface elevation varies from in the southwest to around sea level in the northeast. The terrain is covered with sand dunes with heights up to , interspersed with gravel and gypsum plains. The sand is of a reddish-orange color due to the presence of feldspar. There are also brackish salt flats in some areas, such as the Umm al Samim area on the desert's eastern edge. Ali Al-Naimi reports th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertram Thomas
Bertram Sidney Thomas (13 June 1892 – 27 December 1950) was an English diplomat and explorer who is the first documented Westerner to cross the Rub' al Khali (Empty Quarter). He was also a scientist who practiced craniofacial anthropometry. Biography Bertram Thomas was born in Pill near Bristol and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. After working for the Civil Service in the General Post Office, he served in Belgium during World War I. He was commissioned in the Somerset Light Infantry in January 1916 and served in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) between 1916 and 1918. He worked as an Assistant Political Officer in this country from 1918 to 1922, and Assistant British Representative in Transjordan (now Jordan), from 1922 to 1924. He was appointed as Finance Minister and Wazir to Taimur bin Feisal, the Sultan of Muscat and Oman (now Oman), a post he held from 1925 to 1932. In this capacity, he undertook a number of expeditions into the desert, and became the first European ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences, the Society has 16,000 members, with its work reaching the public through publications, research groups and lectures. The Society was founded in 1830 under the name ''Geographical Society of London'' as an institution to promote the 'advancement of geographical science'. It later absorbed the older African Association, which had been founded by Sir Joseph Banks in 1788, as well as the Raleigh Club and the Palestine Association. In 1995 it merged with the Institute of British Geographers, a body for academic geographers, to officially become the Royal Geographical Society ''with IBG''. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A L Holt
Major A. L. Holt, MBE, MC (1896–1971) was a British military officer and explorer. In the 1920s while a member of the Royal Engineers, Holt led a number of motorized expeditions through the deserts of Arabia, the first time such long journeys had been undertaken with such a large number of vehicles. In 1921 Holt was involved in creating a track across the Syrian Desert from Baghdad to the eastern edge of the Basalt Desert in Jordan, which was to act as a guide track for the pilots of the Cairo – Baghdad air route. In 1923 Holt took Rose Wilder Lane, journalist B.D. MacDonald and Holt's wife by car across the same desert. Holt traveled on occasion with St. John Philby and Gerard Leachman Lieutenant-Colonel Gerard Evelyn Leachman, CIE, DSO (27 July 1880, Petersfield, Hampshire – 12 August 1920, Iraq) was an English soldier and intelligence officer who travelled extensively in Arabia. Career Leachman was commissioned a second .... In 1923 he proposed a route f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uqair
Uqair (), alternatively spelled as al-'Uqair, Uqayr, and Ogair, is an ancient seaport city in the Al-Ahsa Governorate of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It is the first seaport in the Persian Gulf and has been linked by some to the ancient city of Gerrha mentioned in Greek and Roman sources. The site was also the location of the conference at which the Uqair Protocol of 1922 was issued, which helped to establish the borders of modern Saudi Arabia. The fort sits about northeast of the fertile oasis of Al-Hasa. At the ancient locale are the remains of a large fort that now marks the site of the same name. The current structure that exists is of unknown origin. It is not absolutely clear who built the fort that measures roughly on each side which consists of a stone rampart topped with mud brick. (The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, Vol. II, D.T. Potts, P. 56). Location Uqair is located south of Dhahran, a Saudi Aramco compound. It lies about northeast of Hofuf on the Al-Ahsa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gulf Of Salwah
The Gulf of Salwah (Dawhat Salwah) is the southern portion of the Gulf of Bahrain. The Gulf of Salwah is a narrow bay separating the peninsula of Qatar from Saudi Arabia. It is bordered to the west by a well-vegetated shoreland containing palm trees and reed beds. To the east are low cliffs and hills, with sand dunes and salt flats at the southern end. Geography The Gulf of Salwah is an elongated bay extending southwards from the Gulf of Bahrain. It is about long and about wide at its widest point. To the west lies Saudi Arabia and to the east Qatar. The surface of the land surrounding the Gulf of Salwah is largely flat, covered with sand or pebbles. On the east side, there are sand dunes and salt flats at the southern end and low cliffs and hills further north on the west coast of Qatar, and this is the area where the main oilfields are located. On the west side of the Gulf the coast is sandy with high groundwater levels supporting extensive reed beds. There are shallow hypersal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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