Tahirid Sultanate

The Tahirid Sultanate was a Muslim state in Yemen ruled by the Banu Tahir from 1454 to 1517. The family had served as trustees of the Rasulid sultans, and after the Rasulid collapse the brothers Amir and Ali bin Tahir seized Aden in 1454 and took the titles of sultan and king. The sultans spent their summers at Juban and al-Miqranah in the southern highlands and wintered in Zabid on the Tihama plain, which regained its standing as a centre of learning. They ruled the lowlands and southern highlands, took Shihr in Hadramawt in 1457, and repeatedly campaigned against the Zaydi imams of the northern highlands, occupying Sanaa briefly in 1461 and again in 1504. The Portuguese arrival in the Indian Ocean and the Mamluk response changed the balance. After the Mamluk fleet was defeated at Diu in 1509, a second Mamluk expedition under Husain al-Kurdi turned against the Tahirids, captured Sultan az-Zafir Amir II near Sanaa in 1517 and beheaded him. The realm passed to the Mamluks, apart from Aden, which held out under a Tahirid governor.