Hadhrami

The Hadhrami are the settled and Bedouin Arabs of Hadhramaut, the wadis and Arabian Sea coast of southern Arabia, where oasis towns such as Shibam and Tarim cluster behind Mukalla.

Their ancestors built the Kingdom of Hadhramaut around the early first millennium BC, with its capital at Shabwa, rich on the incense trade; they then spoke Hadramautic, an Old South Arabian tongue replaced by Hadhrami Arabic. Islam reached them around 630, and in 951 Ahmad ibn Isa al-Muhajir settled in Tarim and established the dominant Shafi'i rite.

In 1488 the Kathiri tribe conquered the valley from the Yemeni highlands, while their Yafa'i mercenaries founded a rival state from which the Qu'aiti sultans later emerged. The Portuguese were soon expelled from their coastal outposts and Ottoman influence followed. Hadhrami traders spread across the Indian Ocean to the Swahili coast, India and Southeast Asia, sending wealth home.