of the year—three (1), and the greater part of the army rallied to Ibn Najāḥ. He seized power, al-Sulayhī’s head was hoisted on a lance, and Ibn Najāḥ took control of several cities. Matters continued in this way until al-Ḥurrah arranged for his assassination eight years later, and he was killed (2).

Tāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-Naḥwī told me in his History: “When the Chief of the Missionaries lay dying, he handed over to al-Sulayhī all the wealth he had gathered. Al-Sulayhī then busied himself with various stratagems; he ascended a mountain with a company of men, turned it into a fortress, and fought, his power steadily increasing. Ibn Abī Ḥāshid, the governor of Ṣanʿāʾ, pursued him, but was killed, and a thousand others fell with him. Al-Sulayhī thereupon took Ṣanʿāʾ and brought Yemen—plain and mountain alike—under his sway, his rule stretching across the whole land from Mecca to Ḥaḍramawt, until Saʿīd slew him and avenged his father, Najāḥ. His son al-Mukarram held half of Yemen for a time, and Ibn Najāḥ fought him repeatedly until he died in the year four and eighty (3). After him, his cousin Sabaʾ ibn Aḥmad ruled until the year five and ninety, and sovereignty remained for a time with the family of Najāḥ (4).”