The Life & Character of the Seal of Prophets (sa) - Volume I — Page 55
II Arabia & its Inhabitants Location and External Boundaries If one casts a glance upon the map of the continent of Asia, one will notice a peninsula located in the South-West of the continent, which in its breadth and span, is the largest peninsula in the world. This is the land of Arabia, where Islām was born and spent its primary years. There is disagreement in the etymological background of the word ‘Arabia’. To some it was named ‘Arabia’ because the Arabic language, due to eloquence and purity of expression, possesses a distinguished position among all other languages to such extent as some research scholars have declared the Arabic language to be Ummul-Alsinah , or ‘The Mother of Tongues’. 1 Moreover, since the root word of ‘Arabia’ carries the meanings of eloquence and purity in speech, the nation who spoke this language and the land where it was spoken, became renowned as ‘Arabia’. According to another school of thought, this name is attributed to its vastly uninhabited wilderness, because, another meaning of the word ‘Arabia’ is barren land. In reference to its location, one half of Arabia is situated in the Torrid Zone while the other half falls within the Temperate Zone, in other words, the Tropic of Cancer passes through its middle. The northern and southern boundaries of Arabia are located at Latitude 33 O North and 13 O North correspondingly and its eastern and western boundaries are located at Longitude 60 O West and 33 O West correspondingly. In its four boundaries, Arabia borders the Persian Gulf in the east and the Gulf of ‘Ummān; to the west is the Red Sea, the Indian Sea to the North and Syria and Iraq to the south. 1 Minanur-Raḥmān, By Ḥaḍrat Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad as (The Promised Messiah & Mahdi), Rūḥānī Khazā’in, Volume 9, pp. 166, 183-184, 207