Zabīd

Zabid stands on a rise above the fertile floodplain of Yemen's Tihama, inland from the Red Sea. Its walls and gates enclose a town of narrow lanes, courtyard houses, mosques and many schools for religious teaching. Water channels served the town and the cultivated land around it. The market stretches between the old Ashair Mosque and the Great Mosque, while carved brick and stucco decorate some of its buildings.

Founded as a ruling centre by Ibn Ziyad in the ninth century, Zabid flourished under the Rasulids from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. Their rulers used it as a winter residence and endowed mosques and madrasas, drawing students to a city celebrated for Islamic learning. Ibn Battuta described it as one of Yemen's largest towns and praised the agriculture of its surroundings. Weavers, leatherworkers and metalworkers also contributed to the city's prosperity, while nearby ports connected it with Red Sea trade.

Under the Tahirids, Zabid lost some of its political and economic standing but remained a centre of scholarship. The Ottoman conquest brought another change of rulers in the sixteenth century, and Sanaa gained greater political prominence. The old mosques, schools and fortified streets continued to show the wealth and learning that had made Zabid important far beyond the Tihama plain.