ABSTRACT
History has visited the Arabian Peninsula three times. The first was the advent of the message of Islam, the second was the appearance of a new, Salafiyah religious movement that became known, mistakenly, as ‘Wahhabism’, and the third was the discovery of oil. If the Arabian Peninsula has lived in the shadows of history since the exodus of the orthodox caliphate, this is only natural in the view of urban Arabs. The people of the peninsula believe that the Arab tribes in the peninsula were originally as hostile as the urban dwellers to the Islamic message and its army. The image of the ‘unattractive bedouin’ in the mind of the settled population, and the image of the ‘ugly Arab’ in the eyes of the people of the peninsula were not created by Saddam Hussein. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for example, the Americans always felt compelled to respect the customs and traditions of the country.
