Abu 'Arish sits in the southwest corner of Saudi Arabia, at the intersection of longitude 42.30 east and latitude 16.30 north, east of the coastal city of Jizan. Its strategic location on the historic route from Yemen to Mecca gave it a role that outsized its population for many centuries. In the early seventh century AH, around the thirteenth century CE, it served as the capital of Al-Mekhlaf Al-Sulaymani, the Sulaymani region, a territory that covered much of what is now southwestern Saudi Arabia and northern Yemen. The historian Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Aqili traced its founding families to the Al-Hakami and Al-Jibril, and wrote that the region held a much older history than its sparse documentary record suggests. Its fields were worked, its wells were dug, and its markets were active long before the chroniclers arrived.

Historically, Abu 'Arish produced and exported salt, harvested from the coastal flats where Red Sea waters evaporate in the hot sun and leave behind white crystalline beds. Salt was one of the essential commodities of the medieval caravan trade. It preserved meat, flavored food, and provided the only practical means of keeping fish edible on long journeys inland. A town that controlled good salt pans and could ship the product across regional trade networks held real economic weight. Today the economy runs on agriculture and regional commerce rather than salt. The weekly market day falls on Wednesday, and traders still travel from surrounding governorates to exchange goods. Each traditional profession once had its own market section, each overseen by a sheikh responsible for the affairs of his craft. Commercial complexes and integrated markets now supplement and, in some neighborhoods, have replaced that older arrangement.

For much of the nineteenth century, Abu 'Arish was the seat of an independent emirate that ruled over a stretch of southwestern Arabia under the Al Khayrat dynasty. The Principality of Abu 'Arish had complicated relations with both the Ottoman Empire, which claimed nominal sovereignty, and with neighboring Yemen, which sometimes competed for influence. The emirs of Abu 'Arish played a role in the politics of the region that drew in Egyptian forces under Muhammad Ali Pasha, Ottoman administrators, and local religious movements. When Saudi power expanded into the Hejaz and Asir in the early twentieth century, the emirate was eventually absorbed into the new Saudi state. Abu 'Arish became the administrative center of the Abu Arish Governorate, one of several governorates that make up the modern Jizan Province.

The climate here matches the wider southwestern region of Saudi Arabia: mild winters around 18 degrees Celsius and hot, humid summers reaching 35 degrees. During the summer months, monsoon winds and sandstorms are common, particularly in the afternoon and evening. Locals have their own name for these: ghubra, the dust. On some days the wind intensity drops visibility for hours, and the sand piles into drifts along roads and walls. The heat is the kind that dictates the rhythm of daily life. Mornings begin early, before the sun sharpens. The work of the markets happens in cooler hours. Mosques, including Al-Qebab, Al-Hokair, Al-Qaraawi, Al-Taqwa, Mirabi, and Rifaiya, fill five times a day with worshippers who have arranged their schedules around the cycle of prayer and the cycle of temperature. The heat retreats briefly at sunset, and the evening markets open, and the town takes a long breath.

Modern Abu 'Arish remains the transportation hub the medieval pilgrim road made it. Regional roads connect it to Ahad al Masarihah to the south, Damad to the north, Al Aridhah to the east, and the Jizan Emirate to the west. The neighborhoods, King Fahd, Al-Khalidiya, Al-Andalus, Al-Naseem, Al-Rawda, Al-Salam, Al-Quds, Al-Nahda, Al-Safa, Al-Ward, Al-Zuhur, Al-Nuzha, Qanborah, Al-Rabea, and Al-Bahakla, reflect the city's growth from a single village around the pergola into a small urban center. The population mostly works in agriculture and commerce. The arish that gave the city its name is long gone. The pilgrim's lesson endures in the habit of teaching that has structured Arab towns for thirteen centuries: gather the children, open the books, explain the world. Abu 'Arish, meaning the man with the shelter, has sheltered many generations since.