and al-Sulayhi swooped down upon his camp at al-Mahjam, killed him, his brother, and a number of others, seized his treasures—which were immense—rounded up several members of the Sulayhi family and speared them to death, took possession of Zabid, and hung the severed head aloft. About this the poet al-ʿUthmani said:
His canopy disowned its master and would not alight
save on the most exalted king, its Saʿid;
How hideous his face looked against its cloth,
yet how comely his head upon its shaft!
Black serpents clashed with the lions of the highlands—
alas for those lions, felled by their blacks. (1)

A year later Mukarram b. al-Sulayhi (2) mustered an army and marched out of Sanaʿa; the forces met, the black troops were broken, al-Ahwal fled, and his men boarded the ships. Mukarram retook Zabid and rescued his mother, but he was then stricken with paralysis, so he delegated the reins of power to his noble wife al-Hurra Sayyida. He indulged in diversion while half-paralyzed until he died in 484, having willed the kingdom to his cousin, Sultan Sabaʾ b. Ahmad. War between him and the Najahid house swung back and forth. The caliph of Egypt wrote to al-Hurra: “I have married you to the Commander of Commanders Sabaʾ for one hundred thousand dinars.” When Sabaʾ died (3), she herself assumed the throne, while al-Mufaddal managed the affairs of state, and al-Hurra’s rule lasted fifty years.

Yes—Saʿid al-Ahwal again seized Sanaʿa, but he died in 486, after which his brother Jayyash succeeded him. Jayyash had travelled incognito with his vizier Qasim al-Mulk to India.

Jayyash relates: “We entered India in 481, stayed six months, and then returned.”