Mawza'

Mawza lies in the hot lowlands of western Yemen, inland from the Red Sea port of Mocha. Its name is remembered in the history of Yemen's Jewish communities for an exile ordered by the Zaydi imam al-Mahdi Ahmad in 1679. Families were driven from towns and villages across much of the kingdom to the harsh coastal region around Mawza.

Many died during the journey or in the heat and poor conditions of exile. The loss of Jewish craftsmen and other workers also affected the communities they had left behind. Survivors were eventually permitted to return, though their homes and possessions had often been lost. The calamity became known as the Mawza exile and remained a powerful memory in Yemeni Jewish poetry and tradition, preserving the story of a forced journey from the highlands to the Tihama lowlands.