History of Yemen - Medieval History

Medieval History

Islam came to Yemen around 630, during the Islamic prophet Muhammad's lifetime. At that time the Persian governor Badhan was ruling. Thereafter Yemen was ruled as part of Arab-Islamic caliphates, and Yemen became a province in the Islamic empire.

Yemeni textiles, long recognized for their fine quality, maintained their reputation and were exported for use by the Abbasid elite, including the caliphs themselves. The products of Sana'a and Aden are especially important in the East-West textile trade.

The former North Yemen came under control of Imams of various dynasties usually of the Zaidi sect, who established a theocratic political structure that survived until modern times. In 897, a Zaidi ruler, Yahya al-Hadi ila'l Haqq, founded a line of Imams, whose Shiite dynasty survived until the second half of the 20th century.

Nevertheless, Yemen's medieval history is a tangled chronicle of contesting local Imams. The Fatimids of Egypt helped the Isma'ilis maintain dominance in the 11th century through the Sulayhid dynasty founded and brought to peak by Ali al-Sulayhi between 1047-1063. Turan-Shah annexed Yemen to the Ayyubid Empire of Saladin in 1173. The Rasulid dynasty ruled Yemen, with Zabid as its capital, from about 1230 to the 15th century. In 1516, the Mamluks of Egypt annexed Yemen; but in the following year, the Mamluk governor surrendered to the Ottomans, and Turkish armies subsequently overran the country. They were challenged by the Zaidi Imam, Qasim the Great (r.1597–1620), and were expelled from the interior around 1630. From then until the 19th century, the Ottomans retained control only of isolated coastal areas, while the highlands generally were ruled by the Zaidi Imams.