The old walled town of the wadi, built close on a mound with its tall mud-brick houses, the capital of Hadramawt after Shabwa in late antiquity.
Not to be confused with Shibam Kawkaban in the Yemeni highlands. After the Ayyubid governor al-Zanjili left (about 1182-1183) it was held by the Al Dughar (the Al Nu'man in another account), kinsmen and rivals of the Al Rashid; Abd Allah ibn Rashid took it in 594 AH (1198).
Who holds it
- Name
- Abd Allah ibn Rashid of Tarim (his deputy not named)
- Title
- Lord
- Since
- 594 AH (1197-1198)
- Confidence
- medium
Lord in 1200
Abd Allah ibn Rashid, who took it in 594 AH (1198); his governor there is not named.
How things stand that morning
Held by Abd Allah ibn Rashid since 594 AH.
Council
Not recorded; the townsmen of Shibam act together in the chronicles (they will sell their town to the lord of Zafar in 673 AH).
Communities
Arab townsmen, Shafi'i; Ibadi families may survive (not pinned).
Fairs and markets
No fair dates recorded.
Militia
Townsmen; not recorded.
Walls and castle
A walled town; the present tower houses and wall are mostly later rebuildings.
Trade and crafts
Dates, grain and the wadi's markets; the meeting place of the roads from the west (Shabwa, Daw'an) and the coast.
Where the sources disagree
- Al-Idrisi (1154) describes Shibam as a fortified town on a steep mountain with springs, orchards and carnelian and agate: that mixes in Shibam Kawkaban of the Yemeni highlands.
Evidence: Dated capture from the Hadrami chronicles; the former lords' names are uncertain.
Primary sources for Hadramawt
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 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
Sources and studies
- 'Rasidiler' (the Al Rashid of Hadramawt), TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi (after al-Shatiri, Adwar al-tarikh al-Hadrami; Salih al-Hamid, Tarikh Hadramawt; Ibn Awad, Jawahir tarikh al-Ahqaf; Yahya ibn al-Husayn, Ghayat al-amani; G. R. Smith, 'Hadramawt', EI2 Suppl.)
- 'Hadramut', TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi
- Salim ibn Muhammad ibn Hamid al-Kindi, Tarikh Hadramawt, vol. 1 (archive.org OCR text; searched for the Al Rashid, the Al Iqbal, the Al Dughar and the Ghuzz; the OCR digits are garbled, so dates are taken from TDV)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.