Civilizations of Pre-Islam Arabian Peninsula

[LeftEyeNine]

I'm quite interested in what was happening over there before the thriving of Islam. Since it's quite a sensitive, hence prone to manipulation, topic thanks to 9/11 and the progress since then, the writer's reliability would be an item of preference.

Are there any books like that you could recommend? Thanks in advance.

[al Roumi]

I read Karen Armstong's biography of Muhammad, which offered tantalising glimpses at what existed before and in his lifetime, but no more.

[Moros]

A very interesting subject indeed. Pre-Islamic Arabia however covers more than one civilization, though of course influence and migrations have happened or at least theories exists about these.

What kind of book are you interested in though? Easy reading, something more Academic or something in between?

For South West Arabia/ Yemen hence Saba and Himyar this is an easy to find book:
Arabia Felix From the Time of the Queen of Sheba: Eighth Century B.C. to First Century A.D. 1999 University of Notre Dame Press Jean-Francois Breton

It has some decent amount of information in it, isn't too overly Academic nor is it a children's book.

For South East Arabia you will have to rely mainly on archaeologically tinted books. A certain Potts tends to write a whole lot about it from the earliest times till the hellenistic period. Both books and articles.

This one in particular I found interesting and I believe is fully avaible on google books:
http://books.google.be/books?id=8Q6Q...eology&f=false

Nabataea.net is also a interesting website if you'd like to know more on the Nabataeans and ancient Arabia in general. Though note it is not always the most scientiffically correct or unbiased.

Of course there's plenty more.