'Adan

The port's fame reached as far as China: in 1421 envoys from Zheng He's fleet arrived on three treasure ships with an edict and robes from the Yongle Emperor for the king of Aden. It prospered still under the Tahirids who followed the Rasulids, and the Italian traveller Ludovico di Varthema counted it among the most powerful cities he had seen. That wealth drew the Portuguese. In 1513 Afonso de Albuquerque besieged Aden from the sea for four days and was beaten off by the Tahirid king, Amir ibn Abd al-Wahhab, without the help of the Mamluk fleet sent from Egypt.

The victory did not save the dynasty. Spurned by the king, the Mamluk commander joined the Zaidi imam against him, and the Tahirid towns fell one by one until only Aden remained. The Ottomans seized the port in 1538 to keep it from the Portuguese, but the trade of the coast moved to Mocha, and after the Ottomans the town passed to the sultans of Lahej under the Zaidi imams. By 1800 the Rasulid city of some 80,000 people had shrunk to a village of about 600, its huts of reed matting standing among the ruins.