For thousands of years, people of the Arabian Peninsula have been at the geographic, commercial and cultural crossroads of the world. As early as 3,000 B.C., the people of the western region of the peninsula were part of a far-reaching commercial network extending to south Asia, the Mediterranean and Egypt. The discovery some 1,900 years ago of the clockwork pattern of trade winds known as the monsoon, from the Arabic mawsin meaning reason, increased the importance of the peninsula. Trade flourished, with merchants of the peninsula acting as ....