Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

INHABITANTS OF ARABIA
The people of Arabia have always been divided into two classes viz. ”The dwellers-of cities,” and ”the dwellers of the desert”,

- the Bedouins. The dwellers of the cities settled ir one place and they know how to till the lands and grow corn. They have their business transactions within their country as well as other countries. They are more refined and civilized that the Bedouins who do not like the idea of settled life. The Bedouins live in tents and with their families and flocks roam over the deserts and table-lands in search of pasturage. They have different tastes of life. To them, sheep and camel raising, horse breeding hunting and raiding are the only occupations worthy of a man.

Hasan Askari says, ”As most of the Arab peninsula was a. desert, the way of life, most natural in such circumstances, nomadic and pastoral. The noma ’,ic mode meant ’nobility, sometimes slow and sometimes fast, eithe- in search of greenery or a place of refuge. Both in peace and war, ttie Arab was on the move. Perhaps during the second millennium before the Christian era, the camel, an animal ideally suitable for the desert, was domesticated. The camel was not only a means of transport but also a source of livelihood. The Arab was almost a parasite on the camel. As the rains came, the Arabs
’ Syed Ameer Ali, A Short History of Saracens, Lahore, 1995, P.3.

34 Political and Cultural Histon/ of Is>am

went on to the areas made green by the waters, and during draught they clung to the permanent water holes where vegetation survived. Cereals were of course grown at a few places, but the chief cultivation was of the date palm whose fruit and every single part were utilized. It provided for the destitute Eiedouin his staple food along \sith the camel’s ii.;’k.”6