Khawlan (Sa'da)

Who holds it

Name

Not named in the sources reached

Title

Shaykhs of Khawlan

Since

Not pinned

Confidence

low

Overlord

The imam al-Mansur Abd Allah, whose headquarters is at Sa'da.

What it holds

• The Sa'da basin (Sahar)
• Razih and the western mountains
• The roads to Najran and the Sarat

How things stand that morning

The imam's own tribal base.

Customs

Customary law; protected markets; Zaydi in faith.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: General; their role in founding Sa'da is in English Wikipedia (as tribal leaders of Sa'da and Howran).

On the map: Rough.

Primary sources for Zaydi imamate

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• History of Yemen, Umara al-Yamani (Umara ibn Ali al-Hakami) (1168 to 1174, at Cairo). The history of Yemen's dynasties to the eve of the Ayyubid conquest: the Ziyadids and Najahids of Zabid, the Sulayhids and their queen Arwa, the Zuray'ids of Aden, the Hamdanid sultans of San'a and the Mahdids of Zabid, with Umara's own career as a Yemeni envoy to Fatimid Cairo. Read online
• History of the Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands. Read online