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The Najahids (بنو نجاح, Banū Najāḥ) were a slave dynasty from the Jazali group of Ethiopia. The rulers were Mamluks, who governed in the Tihama lowland of western Yemen between 1021 and 1158. The Najahid dynasty's capital was Zabid.

Dynastic establishment

The dynasty was originally founded in 1021−22 by Najah, a Mamluk wazir under the Ziyadid dynasty. The Ziyadids fell in 1018 and a power struggle broke out between Najah and his foster brother Nafis who had murdered the last Ziyadid ruler by immuring him in a wall. Najah was able to triumph after years of fighting and could enter the capital Zabid. The corpse of Nafis was built into the same wall where his victim had once been immured. The new ruler assumed royal titles, struck coins in his own name, and had his name mentioned after that of the caliph in the khutba. A diploma of official recognition was supposedly issued by the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. The Najahids bought Jazali slaves from Ethiopia in order to reinforce the army. In that way the period saw an increasing ethnic mix. Najah soon dominated the Tihama, the lowland by the Red Sea, from the Zabid area up to Harad in the north. He was also sometimes able to expand his political control to San'a in the highlands. Here, however, he encountered the rising Sulayhid dynasty under Ali as-Sulayhi. Hard-contested battles were then fought, which only ended when Najah was poisoned in 1060 in al-Kadrā and the Sulayhids occupied Zabid.

Struggles with Sulayhids and Zaydis

Nevertheless, one of the sons of Najah, Sa'id, hid in Zabid and prepared for revenge. Together with his brother Jayyash he attacked and killed Ali as-Sulayhi in either 1067 or 1081 when the latter was on his way to Mecca. The inhabitants of Zabid once again recognized the Najahid Dynasty as their rulers. The following decades were marked by a life-and-death struggle with the Sulayhids. Sa'id was driven out of Zabid in 1083 and sought refuge on the Red Sea island Dahlak, but could come back again in 1086. Finally the Sulayhid queen Arwa al-Sulayhi arranged for the murder of Sa'id in 1088. His brother Jayyash fled to India but was able to return disguised as an Indian. He easily gained power in the Tihama in 1089. After his demise in 1105 or 1107, political conditions were unsettled. His second successor al-Mansur was installed as the vassal of the Sulayhids in 1111 but was poisoned by his own wazir Mann Allah in 1123. Mann Allah reduced the new Najahid incumbent to a figurehead and managed to defeat a Fatimid invasion from Egypt. Mann Allah himself was murdered in 1130 at the instigation of the widow queen 'Alam (d. 1150). The following decades saw a play of power between a succession of Mamluk strongmen and queen 'Arwa. The last Najahid ruler al-Fatiq III was attacked by a new and vigorous regime, the Mahdids, in 1157. The Zaidiyyah imam al-Mutawakkil Ahmad intervened on the behalf of the crestfallen regime and entered Zabid. However, al-Fatiq was soon killed, either by the imam or by his own slave soldiers. With this event, the Najahid dynasty's rule ended.

List of rulers

• al-Mu'ayyad Najah 1021−1060
• Sa'id al-Ahwal 1067/1081−1088 (son)
• Abu't-Tami Jayyash 1089−1105/1107 (brother)
• al-Fatiq I 1105/1107−1109 (son)
• al-Mansur 1111−1123 (son)
• al-Fatiq II 1123−1137 (son)
• al-Fatiq III 1137−1158 (first cousin)

External links

• Encyclopaedia Britannica

References

1. ^ Tamrat, Taddesse (1972). Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527. Clarendon Press. p. 86.
2. G. Rex Smith "Politische Geschichte des islamischen Jemen bis zur ersten türkischen Invasion", p. 138.
3. ^ Encyclopaedia of Islam, Brill Online 2013, http://www.encquran.brill.nl/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/nadjahids-SIM_5717?s.num=2
4. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Brill Online 2013, http://www.encquran.brill.nl/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/nadjahids-SIM_5717
5. Robert W. Stookey, Yemen; The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Boulder 1978, p. 98; H.C. Kay, Yaman: Its early medieval history, London 1892, pp. 128-9, 317.

Literature

• G. Rex Smith "Politische Geschichte des islamischen Jemen bis zur ersten türkischen Invasion", in Werner Daum Jemen, Umschau-Verlag, Frankfurt/Main, ISBN 3-7016-2251-5, pp. 136-154.

• History of Yemen
• Arab dynasties
• Muslim dynasties