ABSTRACT
Despite the fact that the term ‘natural state’ may give rise to profound misunderstanding because of its connection, first, with evolutionary ambiguity, and, second, with ideological ambiguity, it is very useful for fixing the starting-point of this study. By ‘natural state’ we do not mean a specific evolutionary stage close to nature, leading to environ mental determinism, as though the Arab Peninsula environment permitted only a specific kind of activity that is described as ‘natural’ (due to its congruence with the desert environment, for example). Nor do we mean by ‘natural state’ an ideological position based upon a comparison between a simple, primitive ‘natural state’ and another state more complicated socially, economically and culturally (as does Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example).1
