Sulaymanids

The Sulaymanids (Arabic: السليمانيون, romanized: as-Sulaymāniyyūn) were a sharif dynasty from the line of the Muhammad's grandson Hasan bin Ali which ruled around 1063–1174.

The following years were unsettled and the traditional gate-keepers of the Kaaba, the Shabi clan, appropriated all the gold and silver in the religious premises.

The era of the Sulaymanids thus overlapped with a number of Yemeni dynasties: the Sulayhids, Hamdanid sultans, Rassids, Najahids, Zurayids and Mahdids.

It is established, however, that they held a certain authority in the northern Tihama and were involved in the affairs of the more powerful slave dynasty of the Najahids in Zabid.

The activities of the Mahdids in Yemen was one of the reasons for the Ayyubid ruler Saladin to dispatch an army against South Arabia under his brother Turan Shah.

Wahhas bin Ghanim's brother Qasim, eager to exact revenge for the recent defeat, gladly allied with the Ayyubids and joined his remaining forces with them.