The name of Ishmael is met with in Babylonian contracts of the age of
Abraham. It is a name which belongs to Canaan rather than to Babylonia
or Arabia. The Ishmaelite tribes, in fact, spoke dialects in which
Canaanitish and Arabic elements were mingled together. They are the
dialects we term Aramaic, and represent a mixture of Arabic with
Canaanitish or Hebrew. As we go northwards into Syria the Canaanitish
element predominates; southward the Arabic element is the more
pronounced.

The Ishmaelites were merchants and traders. They lived on the
caravan-road which brought the spices of southern Arabia to Canaan and
Egypt, and the trade was largely in their hands. In the history of
Joseph we hear of them carrying the balm of Gilead and the myrrh of the
south on their camels to Egypt, and in the second century before the
Christian era the merchant princes of Petra made their capital one of
the wealthiest of Oriental cities. It was not until 105 A.D. that the
Nabathean state was conquered by Rome, and the Ishmaelites of northern
Arabia transformed into Roman subjects. They have left their tombs and
inscriptions among the rocks of Petra, while the cliffs of the Sinaitic
Peninsula are covered with the scrawls of Nabathean travellers.

Southward of the Ishmaelites came the Midianites. Midianites and
Ishmaelites were alike of the same blood. Both traced their descent from
Abraham; it was only on the side of the mother that their origin was
different. While the Ishmaelites claimed connection with Egypt, the
Midianites were more purely Arabic in race. The name of Keturah their
ancestress means "incense," and points to the incense-bearing lands of
the south. Midian was properly the district which stretched along the
western coast of the Gulf of Aqaba towards Mecca, if not towards Yemen.
But Midianite tribes had also pushed northwards and mingled with the