section_path: History by region/West Asia/Arabia
section_name: Arabia
paragraph_text: Arabia
  
  The history of Pre-Islamic Arabia before the rise of Islam in the AD 630s is not known in great detail. Archaeological exploration in the Arabian peninsula has been sparse; indigenous written sources are limited to the many inscriptions and coins from southern Arabia. Existing material consists primarily of written sources from other traditions (such as Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, etc.) and oral traditions later recorded by Islamic scholars. A number of small kingdoms existed in Arabia from around AD 100 to perhaps about AD 400.