Juban

Juban, in Yemen's southern highlands, was one of the home centres of the Banu Tahir, whose family also held al-Miqranah. The Tahirids rose through service to the Rasulid sultans, turning the disorders of that dynasty's final decades to their advantage. In 1454 the brothers Amir and Ali took Aden and established a sultanate that controlled much of southern Yemen. Its rulers spent summers at Juban and al-Miqranah, returning to lowland Zabid in winter.

Royal residence brought architectural patronage to the highland town. Mosques and religious foundations formed part of a wider Tahirid programme that also provided cisterns, channels and bridges. Outside Juban stood the family's stone-built tomb, its four domes covering wooden sarcophagi; Ali al-Malik al-Mujahid was buried there after his death in the town in 1478. The dynasty's power collapsed before a Mamluk advance in 1517, although Tahirid resistance survived elsewhere until the Ottoman seizure of Aden in 1538. Juban's mosques and royal burials preserved the memory of a town closely involved in the government and religious life of late medieval Yemen.