Sayyids as rulers of Yemen

This three-volume work, of which only the first volume is present here, contains a collection of biographies of Yemeni imams. It begins with the life of the founder of the Zaydi imamate in Yemen, Imam al-Hādī ilā-l-ḥaqq Yaḥyā (d. 911) followed by six centuries of biographies of people who ruled Yemen. The narra-tive stops a few years before the Ottoman conquest of Yemen in the sixteenth century. This copy was probably made in the seventeenth century after the Ottomans were ousted from Yemen and the Imams were ruling once again. Works like this are important witnesses to Yemen’s political resilience.

Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Yūnus az-Zuḥaif, Ma'āṯir al-Abrār fī Tafṣīl Muǵmilāt Ǵawāhir al-Akhbār, 916 H. [1510], f.16b-17a (Or. 6327)