Rasulid Sultanate

The Rasulid Sultanate was a Sunni Yemeni state ruled by the Banu Rasul, a family of disputed origin that most modern scholars place among the Oghuz Turks. It emerged in 1229, when the last Ayyubid governor left Yemen and entrusted the province to Umar ibn Ali, a commander in his mercenary army. Umar at first acknowledged the Ayyubids, then had himself recognised as sultan by the Abbasid caliph in 1235. His son al-Muzaffar Yusuf I, who reigned from 1249 to 1295, brought the state to its height: he held the Tihama coast and the southern highlands, occupied Sanaa for a time, and repeatedly defeated the Zaydi imams. Taiz became the dynastic seat, while Zabid served as the coastal capital. The Rasulids drew wealth from the Red Sea transit trade through Aden and from ambitious programmes of irrigation and date cultivation. After Baghdad fell to the Mongols in 1258, al-Muzaffar assumed the title of caliph. The dynasty's patronage made Yemen one of the most brilliant centres of Islamic learning and architecture in the medieval period. In 1454 the last sultan, al-Mas'ud Abu al-Qasim, abdicated in favour of the Tahirid amir az-Zafir, and the family withdrew to Mecca.