"دليل الجزيرة العربية المجلد II" [‎١‎٣‎٣‎٢] (٦٨٨/٣٨٧)

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from the Dead Sea. Their arid country was the best safeguard of their cherished liberty;
for the bottle-shaped cisterns for rain water which they excavated in the rocky soil were
carefully concealed from invaders. Petra, orSila',was the ancient capital of Edom; the
Nabataeans must have occupied the old Edomite country and succeeded to its commerce,
after the Edomites took advantage of the Babylonian captivity to press forward into
Southern Judaea. This migration also made them masters of the shores of the Gulf of
'Aqabah.
The Nabataeans had already some tincture of foreign culture when they first appear
in history. That culture was naturally Aramaic ; they wrote a letter to Antigonus in
Syriac letters and Aramaic continued to be the language of their coins and inscriptions
when the tribe grew into a kingdom and profited by the decay of the Seleucids to ex
tend its borders northward over the more fertile country east of the Jordan. They
occupied Hauran and became lords of Damascus.
The Nabataeans might have long been a bulwark between the European invaders
and the desert hordes but for the cupidity of Trajan who, in 105 A. D., reduced Petra
and broke up their community. The Arab invaders who pressed forward into their
places found the remnants of the Nabataeans transformed into FaUdhln and speaking
Aramaic like their neighbours. Hence Nabataeans become the Arabic name for Arama
eans, whether in Syria or 'Iraq, a fact which has been incorrectly held to prove that the
Nabataeans were originally Aramaean immigrants from Babylonia. It is now known,
however, that they were true Arabs (as the proper names on their inscriptions show)
who had come under Aramaic influence.— {Enc. Brit.)
NABHANiYAH—
A Bedouin camping ground, with water, in the Biyadh district (Part I), (q. v.), of Hasa,
eastern Arabia.
NABHANiYAH—
A village in Qaslm {q. v.), central Arabia.
NAB1 ('A bdun)—
A creek, with some huts on it, in Fao {q. ?'.), at the month of the Shatt-al-'Arab.
NABI SALIH—
See Salih (Nabi).
NABI SHAIB—
Or Jabal Hadhur ; a mountain in Yemen, situated some 17 or 18 miles west by south
from Sana'a on the north side of the Hodaidah-Sana'a road. It has flat-topped scarps
and is said by the local people to be the highest mountain in Yemen. On Hunter's
map of Arabia Nabi Shaib is marked as Jabal Hadkur, 10,300 feet, but some authorities
would put it at nearly 11,000 feet.
NABIT (AL)— ^
One of the clans of the Al 'Ah Bin Morrah section of the Al Morrah {q. v.), the great
Bedouin tribe of eastern Arabia.
NABIT (B ib A l)—
Some wells in the Jafurah desert (q. v.) of eastern Arabia.
NABQ ABU QASR—
A watering place and camping ground in WadiSirhan (q. v.) in north-western Arabia.
NABQlYAH—
A hamlet in Qaslm (q. v.), central Arabia.
NABYAH—
A Bedouin camping ground, with water, in Biyadh (q. v., part JV), in Hasa, eastern
Arabia.