Yām

The Yam, or Banu Yam, were a Qahtanite Arab tribe of Banu Hamdan, based around the oasis of Najran on the Yemeni frontier. The eastern Al Murrah and Ajman were Yam offshoots.

Najran’s Yam followed the Sulaymani branch of Ismaili Shiism, which emerged in 1592. From 1677 they backed the Makrami da’is who ruled the oasis; under Isma’il ibn Hibat Allah, from 1747 to 1770, their forces defeated Wahhabis in Najd and invaded Hadhramawt. In 1775 Yam raiders reached Dhruma near Riyadh, alarming the first Saudi state.