Rasulid

The Rasulids were a Sunni dynasty that ruled Yemen from 1229 to 1454 from Zabid and Taʿizz. The family probably came from the Oghuz Turkic Mendjik tribe, though its genealogists claimed descent from the Ghassanid Arabs; its name derives from an Abbasid-era ancestor nicknamed Rasul, meaning messenger. Founder Umar ibn Ali was an Ayyubid officer left in charge of Yemen in 1229; in 1235 he received Abbasid recognition and reigned as Sultan al-Mansur Umar.

His successors grew wealthy on Aden trade, customs and palm cultivation, and for a time controlled Mecca. Sultan al-Mujahid Ali (1322-1363) reformed the land tax; later sultans included al-Afdal Abbas, who compiled a scientific and agricultural encyclopedia, and al-Ashraf Ismaʿil, who wrote a history of Yemen.

A Ming fleet visited in 1418–1419. Tribal unrest and succession strife weakened the regime, and in 1454 the Tahirids seized Aden and ended Rasulid rule.