Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula, simplified Arabia (Arabic: الجزيرة العربية‎ al-jazīra al-ʿarabiyya, « Arabian island ») is a peninsula of Western Asia situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. From a geological perspective, it is considered a subcontinent of Asia.

It is the largest peninsula in the world, at 3,237,500 km² (1,250,000 sq mi). The Arabian Peninsula consists of the countries Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as parts of southern Iraq and Jordan. The 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, the Persian Gulf to the northeast, the Levant to the north and the Indian Ocean to the southeast. The Arabian Peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Middle East and Arab world due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas.

Before the modern era, it was divided into four distinct regions: Hejaz, Najd, Southern Arabia and Eastern Arabia. Hejaz and Najd make up most of Saudi Arabia. Southern Arabia consists of Yemen and some parts of Saudi Arabia and Oman (Dhofar). Eastern Arabia consists of the entire coastal strip of the Arab side of the Persian Gulf (the Khaleej).

Arabs

Arabs (/ˈærəbz/; Arabic: عرب‎, ‘arab) are a major panethnic group whose native language is Arabic, comprising the majority of the Arab world. They primarily inhabit Western Asia, North Africa, and parts of the Horn of Africa. Before the spread of Islam, Arab referred to any of the largely nomadic Semitic tribes inhabiting the northern and central Arabian Peninsula. In modern usage Arab refers to a heterogeneous collection of Arabic-speaking peoples in the Middle East and North Africa. The ties that bind Arabs are linguistic, cultural, and political, and to a lesser extent genetic, with Arabized Arabs displaying genetic admixture from the Arabian peninsula as well as indigenous elements. As such, Arab identity is based on one or more of genealogical, linguistic or cultural grounds, although with competing identities often taking a more prominent role, based on considerations including regional, national, clan, kin, sect, and tribe affiliations and relationships. Not all people who could be considered Arab identify as such. If the Arab panethnicity is regarded as a single population, then it constitutes the world's second largest group of people after the Han Chinese.

Civilization

A civilization (US) or civilisation (UK) is any complex society characterized by urban development, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems), and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment by a cultural elite. Civilizations are intimately associated with and often further defined by other socio-politico-economic characteristics, including centralization, the domestication of both humans and other organisms, specialization of labor, culturally ingrained ideologies of progress and supremacism, monumental architecture, taxation, societal dependence upon farming as an agricultural practice, and expansionism.

Historically, a civilization was a so-called "advanced" culture in contrast to more supposedly primitive cultures. In this broad sense, a civilization contrasts with non-centralized tribal societies, including the cultures of nomadic pastoralists or hunter-gatherers. As an uncountable noun, civilization also refers to the process of a society developing into a centralized, urbanized, stratified structure.

History of Iran

The history of Iran, commonly also known as Persia in the Western world, is intertwined with the history of a larger region, also to an extent known as Greater Iran, comprising the area from Anatolia, the Bosphorus, and Egypt in the west to the borders of Ancient India and Syr Darya in the east, and from the Caucasus and the Eurasian Steppe in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman in the south.

Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to 4000 BC. The southwestern and western part of the Iranian plateau participated in the traditional Ancient Near East with Elam, from the Early Bronze Age, and later with various other peoples, such as the Kassites, Manneans, and Gutians. Hegel names the Persians as the first Historical People. The Medes unified Iran as a nation and empire in 625 BC. The Achaemenid Empire (550–330 BC), founded by Cyrus the Great, was the first of the Persian empires to rule from the Balkans to North Africa and also Central Asia, spanning three continents, from their seat of power in Persis (Persepolis). It was the largest empire yet seen and the first world empire. They were succeeded by the Seleucid Empire, the Parthians and the Sasanians who governed Iran for almost 1,000 years, and would put Iran once again as the leading powers in the world, only this time amongst their arch rival, the Roman Empire and the successive Byzantine Empire.