“The Most Fertile Parts of the Wilderness”

Brant Gardner

One of the difficulties in comprehending the journey of Lehi’s family is that we cannot simply assume that the climatological conditions of the modern Arabian peninsula replicate precisely those of Lehi’s time. There is, in fact, some indication that the current minimal rainfall dates only from 300 A.D. The size of the ancient population that was supported in some regions of the peninsula speaks to a much more fertile and hospitable time.

Even though Lehi and his family were traveling along the well-traveled Frankincense Trail, we should not picture major roads. These were foot and animal paths that had general directions, but no specific demarcations. Indeed, it is not precisely correct to speak of a single frankincense trail. At times it was yards wide as it passed through mountains, but while on the plains, it was miles wide. Nevertheless, Lehi would have been able to tell the general direction of travel. What was essential was that he find food and water. It appears that this was one of the important guiding functions of the Liahona. Here we see it leading them to the “more fertile parts.”

The Gaza branch of the Frankincense Trail passes in a south-southeast direction away from the plausible location of Shazer at wadi Agharr. As it passes through the mountains, it follows through the parts of this region that are certainly the “most fertile.” Even today the path of the Frankincense Trail passes through the most abundant farmland along the east side of the Hijaz mountains.

In pre-Islamic times there was a series of villages found along a 215 mile-long section of the Frankincense Trail which incorporated the twelve frankincense halt settlements between Dedan and Medina. They were known anciently as the Qura ‘Arabiyyah, or the “Arab Villages.” These villages with their cultivated lands were linked together by the Frankincense Trail. Surrounded by thousands of square miles of barren terrain, the cultivated lands stood out from the surrounding desert like pearls adorning a chain along the south-southeast course of the trail. These villages are located in valleys surrounded by mountains, thus Nephi’s reference to fertile parts in the “borders” or “mountains” is in harmony with the geography of this section of the trail.

Potter and Wellington note that the Prophet Mohammed “referred to the [‘Arab Villages’] as the Muhajirun, which means ‘the fertile pieces of land.… ’ The title Muhajirun (fertile pieces) seems only to have applied to the villages that were located on the Frankincense Trail from Egypt, the route Lehi would have taken from the valley of Lemuel to Medina.”

Second Witness: Analytical & Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 1

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