Hadramawt: the Al Rashid of Tarim and the tribes, 1 January 1200

Hadramawt is not one state.

The long valley (the wadi) with its date gardens and mud-brick towns is shared out between local houses, while the stony plateaux on either side (the jol) and the side valleys belong to tribes who obey no one for long. On 1 January 1200 the strongest lord is Abd Allah ibn Rashid of Tarim, a learned Shafi'i ruler who in 594 AH (1198) took Shibam and Bur and dreams of uniting the country. The port of al-Shihr on the coast is held by a rival house, the Al Iqbal (also called the Al Faris).

Shibam's former lords, the Al Dughar, kinsmen of the Al Rashid, have been pushed out of it. The great tribes (the Nahd, the Banu Harith, the Kinda clans and others) turn against whichever lord presses them for dues. The Ayyubid kings of Yemen, far off at Zabid and Ta'izz, have twice marched in and claim the land, but hold nothing in it that winter.

Who rules

Name: Abd Allah ibn Rashid ibn Shaj'ana al-Qahtani (the Al Rashid)
Title: Lord of Tarim, the strongest of the rulers of Hadramawt
Since: 593 AH (1196-1197)
Born: 553 AH (1158-1159)
Family: Al Rashid, also called the Banu Qahtan, who claimed Himyarite descent
Confidence: high

TDV 'Rasidiler' and al-Zirikli for the Al Rashid; TDV 'Hadramut' and Ibn Hamid's Tarikh Hadramawt for the other houses.

Overlord

No real overlord. The Ayyubids of Yemen claim Hadramawt: Uthman al-Zanjili, Turanshah's governor of Aden, overran it in 575-576 AH (1179-1180), and Tughtekin took Tarim without a fight in 590 AH (1194; Ibn Hamid's summary dates his annexation of Hadramawt to 587 AH, 1191). Shaj'ana ibn Rashid then accepted Ayyubid authority. Whether his brother Abd Allah still acknowledged al-Mu'izz Isma'il, Tughtekin's son and successor in Yemen, in the Friday sermon (khutba) or by tribute on 1 January 1200 is not pinned; no Ayyubid governor or garrison is attested in Hadramawt that winter.

What the realm holds

Tarim, Shibam and Bur, with the villages of the middle wadi (the Al Rashid)
al-Shihr and its coast (the Al Iqbal)
The tribal country of the jol, the side wadis and the edge of the sands (the tribes, on their own)

How it was acquired

The Al Rashid have ruled Tarim with breaks since the eleventh century (their line goes back to Qahtan ibn Awm, died after 440 AH, 1048). Rashid ibn Shaj'ana was captured by al-Zanjili in 575 AH and taken to Aden with his sons Shaj'ana and Abd Allah; released, Shaj'ana took Tarim back in 577 AH (1181) and ruled until a slave murdered him in 593 AH (1197). Abd Allah succeeded and took Shibam and Bur in 594 AH (1198).

Allies and rivals

The Al Rashid against the Al Iqbal of al-Shihr and against the Al Dughar who lost Shibam; the tribes (Nahd, Banu Harith, Banu Mu'awiya of Kinda, Banu Haram, the Al Yusuf) against Abd Allah's demands by turns. The Manjawi lords of Zafar in Dhofar once had a claim over Tarim (Fahd ibn Ahmad of the Al Rashid submitted to Ibn Manjuh of Zafar in 480 AH, 1087), but no Manjawi hold on Hadramawt is attested in 1200. The Ayyubids of Yemen are the outside threat.

The realm that morning

Abd Allah ibn Rashid holds Tarim, Shibam and Bur; the Al Iqbal hold al-Shihr; the rest is tribal. West of the wadi, Shabwa, Bayhan and the country towards Abyan belong to tribes (see the provinces); across the western border lie Ma'rib, Abyan and Aden (Ayyubid Yemen and its tribes, on the yem records). East lies the Mahra country.

Wealth

The wadi's irrigated date palms and grain (spate floods diverted by earth dams, and wells), the markets of Tarim and Shibam, the caravan road between the wadi and the coast, and at al-Shihr the sea trade: frankincense from Dhofar and the Mahra country, horses and dried fish for India, ambergris, and Indian goods coming in.

Military

No standing army. Each lord has his household, his slaves (a slave murdered Shaj'ana in 593 AH) and the townsmen of his towns, and hires or persuades tribal fighters. Tarim has a castle; it was walled only in 601 AH (1205). No figures in the sources.

Threats

The tribes, above all the Nahd, who took much of Hadramawt in 599 AH (1203)
An Ayyubid expedition from Aden, as in 575-576 AH and 587-590 AH
War between the Al Rashid and the Al Iqbal over al-Shihr and the coast road
Famine: the chronicles stress hunger and poverty in this period

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

599 AH (1202-1203)Abd Allah besieges al-Shihr; the Nahd rise behind him and take much of Hadramawt.Depends on: The quarrel with the Al Iqbal and tribal discontent going unchecked. Stopped by: A settlement with the Al Iqbal or the Nahd.
600 AH (1203-1204)In Dhofar the Manjawi lord al-Akhal dies (some put it in 596 AH) and his vizier al-Habudi takes power; the Habudis later reach into Hadramawt (Shibam in 623 AH, a great campaign in 673 AH).Depends on: The Dhofar succession (see the Dhofar records). Stopped by: A Manjawi heir holding Mirbat.
601 AH (1204-1205)Abd Allah walls Tarim and renews its castle.Depends on: Tarim still in his hands. Stopped by: Loss of Tarim.
603 AH (1206-1207) and 606 AH (1209)Abd Allah hands effective rule to his son Fahd; in 606 AH Fahd brings the Banu Harith, the Nahd and the Banu Haram back to obedience and the people swear allegiance in the mosque of Tarim.Depends on: Fahd's survival and tribal peace. Stopped by: A family quarrel or tribal war.
616 AH (1219) and 621 AH (1224)Umar ibn Mahdi, an Ibadi commander in Ayyubid service, takes al-Shihr, Shibam and Tarim and ends the Al Rashid; he is killed in 621 AH and Tarim passes to the Al Yamani.Depends on: A renewed Ayyubid push from Yemen. Stopped by: Ayyubid weakness or a united Hadramawt.

Where the sources disagree

TDV's 'Hadramut' article and its 'Rasidiler' article disagree on the date of Shaj'ana's return (576 or 577 AH) and on the houses of Shibam (the Banu Daghghar, the Al Nu'man); Ibn Hamid's text names the Al Dughar, among them al-Nu'man ibn Ahmad al-Dughar, and a footnote there (after Salih al-Hamid) calls them kinsmen of Fahd ibn Abd Allah. We take the Al Dughar and the Al Nu'man to be one house; not pinned.
Tughtekin's annexation: 587 AH in Ibn Hamid's summary, 590 AH (taking Tarim peacefully) in TDV.
Hijri years converted with the usual tables: 593 AH is about November 1196 to November 1197, 594 AH about November 1197 to November 1198, 596 AH about 22 October 1199 to 10 October 1200 (1 January 1200 is about 12 Rabi I 596).

Evidence: The Hadrami chronicles (Shanbal and later compilers) give a dated outline of the Al Rashid; the other houses and the tribes are known only by name and a few dates. No outside source describes Hadramawt in 1199-1200.

On the map: The realm is drawn through its lords' records (Abd Allah ibn Rashid's towns, the Al Iqbal's coast) and the anchors; the tribal country around them is drawn as provinces.

Primary sources for this realm

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

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.