Arabia Petraea

Arabia Petraea (lit. 'Rocky Arabia') was a Roman province from the 2nd century to the 7th century. In the late fourth century, the territory was renamed to Palaestinia Tertia Salutaris. It was established after the Roman Empire conquered the Nabataean Kingdom in 106 and existed until the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s. Spanning much of the Sinai Peninsula and part of the Levant, it was bordered by Syria to the north, by Judaea (later Syria Palaestina) to the west, and by Egypt to the southwest. To the east and southeast of Arabia Petraea was non-Roman territory that the Romans knew as Arabia Deserta. These two regions, together with a third region in South Arabia that was called Arabia Felix, accounted for the Arabian Peninsula in Roman geography.

Annexed by Trajan (r. 98–117), Arabia Petraea was a key province along the Limes Arabicus, which delineated the Roman Empire's borders throughout the Arabian Desert. It was also the only province in the Near East that the Romans did not gain and subsequently lose during Trajan's reign, unlike Armenia, Assyria, and Mesopotamia. The province's capital city was initially Petra, as it had been under the Nabataeans, but Bosra later served in this capacity. Most of the province's land was a vast desert that was sparsely populated by nomadic Arab tribes, though there were several urban settlements closer to the Jordan River.

Though subject to eventual attack and deprivation by the Parthians and Palmyrenes, Arabia Petraea witnessed nothing like the constant military incursions of Roman territory in Germania and North Africa, nor the entrenched cultural presence that defined the provinces of the Hellenized East. However, this period of consistent and relatively stable Roman rule came to an end in the 7th century, when the province was briefly lost to the Sasanian Empire during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 before being indefinitely lost to the Rashidun Caliphate during the Arab–Byzantine Wars.