South Arabian alphabet in the context of Ḫāʾ

The Hashid (Arabic: حاشد; Musnad: 𐩢𐩦𐩵𐩣) is a tribal confederation in Yemen. It is the second or third largest – after Bakil and, depending on sources, Madh'hij – yet generally recognized as the strongest and most influential. According to medieval Yemeni genealogies, Hashid and Bakil were the sons of Jashim bin Jubran bin Nawf Bin Tuba'a bin Zayd bin Amr bin Hamdan. Member tribes of the Hashid Confederation are found primarily in the mountains in the North and Northwest of the country.

In recent times, Hashid confederation had for decades been led by the powerful Abushawareb clan. The clan's influence was built on an alliance with the former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who relied on a coalition with the most prominent leader of the Hashid tribal confederation, Sheikh Abdullah ibn Husayn al-Ahmar, to take power in 1978. Until his death on 29 December 2007, Sheikh Abdullah served as the Speaker of Parliament and was considered Yemen's second most powerful person after President Saleh (who, along with many others in the government, also is a member of a Hashid tribe).

Yemen is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East. Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia, meaning "Fertile Arabia" or "Happy Arabia". The South Arabian alphabet was developed at latest between the 12th century BC and the 6th century AD, when Yemen was successively dominated by six civilizations that controlled the lucrative spice trade: Ma'in, Qataban, Hadhramaut, Awsan, Saba, and Himyar. With the 630 AD arrival of Islam, Yemen became part of the wider Muslim world, where it has remained.

The Bakil (Arabic: بكيل, Musnad: 𐩨𐩫𐩺𐩡) federation is the largest tribal federation in Yemen. The tribe consists of more than 10 million men and women. As a subtribe of the Banu Hamdan, they are the sister tribe of the Hashid (4 million people) whose leader was Abdullah Bin Hussein Alahmar. The member tribes of the Bakil Confederation are found primarily in the far north of the country. Its current leaders are the Alshaif family, led by Naji bin Abdulaziz Alshaif.