Zabid is a town with an urban population of around 52,590 people, located on Yemen's western coastal plain. It is one of the oldest towns in Yemen, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993. However, in 2000, the site was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The town was the capital of several ruling dynasties in Yemen over many centuries.
The Adal Sultanate also known as the Adal Empire, or Bar Saʿad dīn was a medieval Sunni Muslim Empire which was located in the Horn of Africa. It was founded by Sabr ad-Din III on the Harar plateau in Adal after the fall of the Sultanate of Ifat. The kingdom flourished c. 1415 to 1577. At its height, the polity under Sultan Badlay controlled the territory stretching from Cape Guardafui in Somalia to the port city of Suakin in Sudan. The Adal Empire maintained a robust commercial and political relationship with the Ottoman Empire. Sultanate of Adal was alternatively known as the federation of Zeila.
The Dahlak Archipelago is an Eritrean island group located in the Red Sea, measuring around 643 square km and lying roughly 58 kilometers east of Massawa, the capital city. Consisting of two larger and 124 smaller islands, the local pearl fisheries of the archipelago have been famous since Roman times, and still produce a substantial number of pearls.
Zara Yaqob was Emperor of Ethiopia, and a member of the Solomonic dynasty who ruled under the regnal name Kwestantinos I. He is known for the Ge'ez literature that flourished during his reign, the handling of both internal Christian affairs and external wars with Muslims, along with the founding of Debre Birhan as his capital. He reigned for 34 years and 2 months.
The Ziyadid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty that ruled western Yemen from 819 until 1018 from the capital city of Zabid. It was the first dynastic regime to wield power over the Yemeni lowland after the introduction of Islam in about 630.
The Afar, also known as the Danakil, Adali and Odali, are a Cushitic ethnic group inhabiting the Horn of Africa. They primarily live in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in northern Djibouti, as well as the entire southern coast of Eritrea. The Afar speak the Afar language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic family. Afars are the only inhabitants of the Horn of Africa whose traditional territories border both the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Sa'ad ad-Din II, reigned c. 1386 – c. 1403 or c. 1410, was a Sultan of the Ifat Sultanate. He was the brother of Haqq ad-Din II, and the father of Mansur ad-Din, Sabr ad-Din II and Badlay ibn Sa'ad ad-Din. The historian Richard Pankhurst describes him as "the last great ruler of Ifat."
The Walashma dynasty was a medieval Muslim dynasty of the Horn of Africa founded in Ifat. Founded in the 13th century, it governed the Ifat and Adal Sultanates in what are present-day Somaliland, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and eastern Ethiopia.
Islam came to Yemen around 630 during Muhammad's lifetime and the rule of the Persian governor Badhan. Thereafter, Yemen was ruled as part of Arab-Islamic caliphates, and became a province in the Islamic empire.
Habesh Eyalet was an Ottoman eyalet. It was also known as the Eyalet of Jeddah and Habesh, as Jeddah was its chief town, and Habesh and Hejaz. It extended on the areas of coastal Hejaz and Northeast Africa that border the Red Sea basin. On the Northeast Africa littoral, the eyalet comprised Suakin and their hinterlands.
The Ethiopian Empire, also formerly known by the exonym Abyssinia, or simply known as Ethiopia, was a sovereign state that historically encompasses the geographical area of present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea from the establishment of the Solomonic dynasty by Yekuno Amlak approximately in 1270 until the 1974 coup d'etat by the Derg, which dethroned Emperor Haile Selassie. By 1896, the empire incorporated other regions such as Hararghe, Gurage and Wolayita, and saw its largest expansion with the federation of Eritrea in 1952. Throughout much of its existence, it was surrounded by hostile forces in the African Horn; however, it managed to develop and preserve a kingdom based on its ancient form of Christianity.
Ali bin Muhammad bin Ali al-Sulayhi was the founder and sultan of the Sulayhid dynasty in Yemen. He established his kingdom in 1047 and by 1063, the Sulayhids controlled had unified the entire country of Yemen as well as the Muslim holy city of Mecca under his leadership. Al-Sulayhi was killed in 1066 during a tribal vendetta between the Sulayhids and the Najahids of Zabid. He was succeeded by his son, Ahmad al-Mukarram.
Timothy Insoll is a British archaeologist and Africanist and Islamic Studies scholar. Since 2016 he has been Al-Qasimi Professor of African and Islamic Archaeology at the University of Exeter. He is also founder and director of the Centre for Islamic Archaeology. Previously he was at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Manchester (1999–2016).
Najahid dynasty was a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Abyssinian Mamluks that ruled parts of Yemen from 1022-1158 from its capital at Zabīd. Najah would obtain the recognition of the Abbasid Caliph al-Qadir and would be given the honorific title 'al- Mu'ayyad Nasr al-din'. They faced hostilities from the Shia Ismailis Sulayhids who were loyal to the Fatimids. Their last sovereign was killed by Ali ibn Mahdi the Kharijite in 1158.
Harla Kingdom was a 6th century Harla state centered around what is present day eastern Ethiopia. The kingdom had trading relations with the Ayyubid and Tang dynasties. It also established its own currency and calendar. The kingdom is mentioned by Ethiopian as well as Arab medieval writers including al-Mufaddal ibn Abi al-Fada'il and Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi. Timothy Insoll identifies the Harlaa ruins to be Hubat the capital of the Harla state, a subordinate of Ifat Sultanate in the thirteenth century and later under the Adal Sultanate in the fifteenth century. Early Muslim states in the Horn of Africa such as the Makhzumi dynasty had their bases within Harla territories. According to historian Mohammed Hassen a power struggle had developed in the early 16th century between Harla state leaders and the Walashma dynasty. Researcher Dominico Patassini states the Harla kingdom was succeeded by Harar city-state in the sixteenth century.
GaradAbun Ibn Adash or Abogn ibn Adish was a Harari Emir of the Adal Sultanate. He was the de facto ruler of Adal reducing the Adal sultan to nominal leader. In this period Sultan Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad would move Adal's capital to Harar city after killing emir Abogn in order to regain influence in Adal.
Hubat, also known as Hobat, or Kubat was a historical Muslim state located in present-day eastern Ethiopia. Historically part of the Adal region alongside Gidaya and Hargaya states on the Harar plateau. Hubat is today within a district known as Adare Qadima which includes Garamuelta and its surroundings in Oromia region. The area is 30 km north west of Harar city at Hubeta, according to historian George Huntingford. Trimingham locates it as the region between Harar and Jaldessa. Archaeologist Timothy Insoll considers Harla town to be Hubat the capital of the now defunct Harla Kingdom.
The history of Ethiopia in the Middle Ages roughly spans the period from the decline of the Kingdom of Aksum in the 7th century to the Gondarine period beginning in the 17th century. Aksum had been a powerful empire during late antiquity, appearing in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and mentioned by Iranian prophet Mani as one of the "four great kingdoms on earth", along with the Sasanian Empire of Persia, the Roman Empire, and China's Three Kingdoms. The kingdom was an integral part of the trade route between Rome and the Indian subcontinent, had substantial cultural ties to the Greco-Roman world, and was a very early adopter of Christianity under Ezana of Aksum in the mid-4th century. The use of "Ethiopia" to refer to the region dates back to the 4th century. At its height, the kingdom spanned what is now Eritrea, northern Ethiopia, eastern Sudan, Yemen and the southern part of what is now Saudi Arabia. However, by the 7th century, the kingdom had begun a slow decline, for which several possible political, economic, and ecological reasons have been proposed. This decline, which has been termed the "Post-Aksumite Period", saw extreme loss of territory and lasted until the ascension of the Zagwe dynasty.
Adal, known as Awdal or Aw Abdal was a historical Muslim region in the Horn of Africa. Located east of Ifat and the Awash river as far as the coast, and including Harar as well as Zeila. The Zeila state often denoted Adal and other Muslim dominions in medieval texts.
Salih was the leader of Adal in the fourteenth century. He was commonly known as Qadi or Imam of the Harar territory.
