TheSulaymanids (Arabic:السليمانيون,romanized: as-Sulaymāniyyūn) were asharif dynasty from the line of theMuhammad's grandsonHasan bin Ali which ruled around 1063–1174. Their centre of power lay in Jazan in currently Saudi Arabia, Southern Arabia back then since 1020 where they soon achieved a political and social status that enabled them to establish a strong Hereditary Monarchy before the arrival of the Ottoman Empire which destroyed them[1]
The chronology of the history of the dynasty is not very well established. Their name is derived from Sulayman bin Abdallah, the grandson of Musa al-Jawn binAbd Allah al-Mahd, a fifth-generation descendant of the imamHasan bin Ali. The clan lived inMecca at the time when theSulayhid dynasty extended its influence in Yemen and intoHijaz to the north. In 1061 the lastamir of Mecca of the old Musawi line died. Now the Sulaymanid clan attempted to dominate the city by violent means. The following years were unsettled and the traditional gate-keepers of theKaaba, the Shabi clan, appropriated all the gold and silver in the religious premises. The disturbances served as a pretext for KingAli as-Sulayhi to intervene. He performed thehajj in 1063 with a large retinue and restored order in Mecca. The sharifs asked Ali as-Sulayhi to instal one of their kin as amir and then leave the holy city.[2] The king appointed the sharif Abu Hashim Muhammad aslord in Mecca, starting the Hawashim line of sharifs in the city. However, the Sulaymanid headman Hamza bin Wahhas felt that his own line had been slighted.[3] A conflict resulted and Hamza bin Wahhas was driven out ofMecca in about 1063 or 1069.[4] He then moved to Yemen and established a base in the northern part of the coastal lowland where the family ruled asamirs. The era of the Sulaymanids thus overlapped with a number of Yemeni dynasties: theSulayhids,Hamdanid sultans,Rassids,Najahids,Zurayids andMahdids.[5]
The chronicles give relatively little information about the Sulaymanids and tend to mix them up with the Rassids ofSa'dah. It is established, however, that they held a certain authority in the northern Tihama and were involved in the affairs of the more powerful slave dynasty of the Najahids inZabid. The Sulaymanid sharifs observed a vassal relation to the rulers of Zabid and paid 60,000 dinars per year in tribute. Hamza's son Yahya bin Hamza assisted the Najahid ruler Jayyash when the latter defeated the Sulayhid general Saba in 1077. In the next generation Ghanim bin Yahya involved in the internal politics of theZaydiyyah polity of the northern highlands in 1117.[6] In about 1132 or 1134 he meddled in a civil war between the Najahidwazir Surur and Muflih. He moved towardsZabid with 1,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry and joined forces with Muflih but was defeated at al-Mahjam. Muflih died soon after the defeat, and thewazir of Ghanim managed to make peace with the court at Zabid.[7] Some decades later the dynasty was attacked by a new and belligerent dynasty, the Mahdids, who had recently appropriated Zabid on the fall of the Najahids. The amir Wahhas bin Ghanim fell in battle against the Mahdid lord Abd an-Nabi in 1164. The Sulaymanid defeat was complete and their lands were acquired by the victor. The activities of the Mahdids in Yemen was one of the reasons for theAyyubid rulerSaladin to dispatch an army against South Arabia under his brotherTuran Shah. Wahhas bin Ghanim's brother Qasim, eager to exact revenge for the recent defeat, gladly allied with the Ayyubids and joined his remaining forces with them. The Ayyubid invasion was successful and led to the conquest of the most of Yemen in 1173–1174. With these events, however, the autonomous position of the Sulaymanids came to an end. Qasim died soon after the elimination of the Mahdids.[8] Local Sulaymanid lords are mentioned in the chronicles later on as vassals under the Ayyubid dynasty. As late as 1556 the Sulaymanid sharifs held sway locally.[9]