Travel Guide Zabid

Located 37 km from Beit Al Faqih and 175 km from Ta, the town of City was built and fortified at the beginning of the th century by Mohamed ibn Ziyad from a village called Housseib. Mohamed ibn Ziyad was appointed governor of the region by the caliph abbasid Al-Mamoun to suppress the uprising of the Akk and Ashaïra tribes. He pacifia the Tihama and made City a Sunni university and the capital of the Ziyadite dynasty (821-1012). For a century, the city was then challenged by small, ephemeral dynasties. It became capital under the Ayyubides (1174-1229) and then under the Rassoulides (1229-1454). City flourished mainly during the ayyubide period: 120 000 palm palms (recorded in 1464) were planted there and many palaces built. It was also the largest Sunni religious and academic centre-shafi before Al-Azhar. In some 53 universities were studied all schools of Sunni thought, as well as law, history, mathematics (algebra comes from the name Al-Jabr), astronomy, etc. Many precious manuscripts are still kept in the private libraries of the city. City declined gradually from the first Turkish occupation in the th century.