('Aqabah, al-), Jordan Dominated by mountains, the name is an abbreviated form of 'Aqabat Ayla 'Pass of Ayla' from the Arabic
q'ab 'lowest part'. The city is mentioned in the Bible as 'Ezion-geber which is beside Eloth' (1 Kings 9: 26), although this is now more properly Eilat, which is just across the western border in Israel. It was called Berenice by the Ptolemies and became Aelana, the garrison for a Roman legion
c.100. The city was captured by the Prophet Muhammad
† in 630, the Arabs renaming it Ayla, and by the Crusaders in the 12th century. In 1183 it was regained by the Muslims, who renamed it Aqaba in the 13th century. The city became part of Egypt during the 19th century, but was acquired by the Ottoman Turks when the boundary between the Ottoman Empire and Egypt was demarcated in 1906. It was captured in 1917 by Arab forces under T. E. Lawrence, a British guerrilla leader. In 1925 it was placed by the British under the control of the Protectorate of Transjordan. The frontier, arbitrarily drawn by the UK and which put Aqaba in Transjordan, was disputed by Saudi Arabia. A treaty resolved the dispute in 1965: in return for about 4 000 square miles (10 360 sq. km) of Jordanian territory, Saudi Arabia recognized Aqaba as Jordanian and itself gave up some 10 miles (16 km) of coastline to the south of the previous boundary.
