Yemeni

Yemenis are the Arab people of south-western Arabia, around Sanaa, Taiz and the ports Mocha and Aden. They speak Yemeni Arabic; Mehri and Soqotri survive in the far east and on Socotra, society built around tribes, northern highlands following Zaydi Islam, lowlands the Sunni Shafi'i school. Land of Sabaean and Himyarite kingdoms, Yemen accepted Islam in the seventh century, the Zaidi imamate founded at Saada in 897.

Rasulid sultans ruled from Zabid and Taiz in 1229–1454, growing rich on Red Sea trade. In 1337 Sultan al-Mujahid Ali held the lowlands, the Zaydis keeping the northern mountains after retaking Sanaa in 1324. Tahirids followed in 1454 until the Mamluk conquest of 1517 and then the Ottomans; Ottoman armies took Aden in 1538 and made Zabid seat of Yemen Eyalet.

Qasimid imams expelled the Ottomans by 1636, Mocha becoming coffee emporium of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with English, Dutch, French factories. In the later eighteenth century the imamate fragmented into principalities such as Lahej, Mocha's coffee trade drifting to newer ports.