Editing Gerrha (section)

== Location and etymology ==
To the Ancient Greeks, eastern Arabia (the present-day [[Al-Ahsa Governorate|al-Hasa province]]) was known as Gerrha after its capital city. Gerrha was a Greek alteration of the Arabic Hajar (present-day [[Hofuf]]), the name of the largest city of ancient Bahrayn (Bahrayn was also known as Hagar or Gerrha in [[Hellenistic]] times).<ref>{{cite book |last=Knauf |first=Ernst Axel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GcgCErhKGrAC&pg=PA227 |title=The Qur'an in context: Historical and literary investigations into the Qur'anic milieu |publisher=Brill |year=2010 |isbn=9789047430322 |editor-last=Neuwirth |editor-first=Angelika |location=Leiden |page=227 |chapter=Arabo-Aramaic and ʿArabiyya: From Ancient Arabic to Early Standard Arabic, 200 CE–600 CE |editor-last2=Sinai |editor-first2=Nicolai |editor-last3=Marx |editor-first3=Michael}} [[iarchive:TheQuranInContext|Alt URL]]</ref>

Other English spellings are ''Hajar Hufuf, Hajar Hasa' Hajarah''. Hagar (Gerrha) is not to be confused with the west Arabian Al-Hijr (al-Hijrah, ancient Hegra), the present-day [[Mada'in Saleh]] or al-Ula near the Red Sea. [[Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani|Al-Hamdani]] says the etymology of ''Hajar'' means ‘large village’ in the [[Himyaritic language]] (derived from Hakar).<ref>{{cite book |last=Hamdani |first=al-Hasan |title=Geography of the Arabian Peninsula |url=http://islamport.com/w/tkh/Web/368/86.htm |page=236 |access-date=2013-06-11 |archive-date=2020-09-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924182022/http://islamport.com/w/tkh/Web/368/86.htm/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Smart |title=New Arabian Studies Vol 4 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=PylffGQUqzEC&pg=PA213 |publisher=Exeter |year=1997 |isbn=0859895521|quote=Hagar is name of Bahrain division and its capital |page=213}}</ref>

The researcher Abdulkhaliq Al Janbi argued in his book that Gerrha was most likely the ancient city of Hajar, located in modern-day [[Al-Ahsa Governorate|Al-Ahsa]], [[Saudi Arabia]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Abdulkhaliq Al-Janbi |title=Gerrha, The Ancient City of International Trade جره مدينة التجارة العالمية القديمة}}</ref> Al-Janbi's theory is the most widely accepted one by modern scholars, although there are some difficulties with this argument, given that Al-Ahsa is 60&nbsp;km inland and thus less likely to be the starting point for a trader's route, making a location within the archipelago of islands comprising the modern [[Bahrain|Kingdom of Bahrain]], particularly the main island of Bahrain itself, another possibility.<ref name="EB1911" />

Another location suggested as Gerrha is [[Thaj]].