Sulayhid dynasty in the context of Hafizi

Islam came to Yemen around 630 during Muhammad's lifetime and the rule of the Persian governor Badhan. Thereafter, Yemen was ruled as part of Arab-Islamic caliphates, and became a province in the Islamic empire.

Regimes affiliated to the Egyptian Fatimid caliphs occupied much of northern and southern Yemen throughout the 11th century, including the Sulayhids and Zurayids, but the country was rarely unified for any long period of time. Local control in the Middle Ages was exerted by a succession of families which included the Ziyadids (818–1018), the Najahids (1022–1158), the Egyptian Ayyubids (1174–1229) and the Turkoman Rasulids (1229–1454). The most long-lived, and for the future most important polity, was founded in 897 by Yayha bin Husayn bin Qasim ar-Rassi. They were the Zaydis of Sa'dah in the highlands of North Yemen, headed by imams of various Sayyid lineages. As ruling Imams of Yemen, they established a Shia theocratic political structure that survived with some intervals until 1962.

Arwa al-Sulayhi (Arabic: أَرْوَى بِنْت أَحْمَد ابْن مُحَمَّد ابْن جَعْفَر ابْن مُوْسَى ٱلصُّلَيْحِي, romanized: Arwā bint Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Mūsā aṣ-Ṣulayḥī), (c. 1048 – c. 1138) was a long-reigning ruler of Yemen, firstly as the co-ruler of her first two husbands and then as sole ruler, from 1067 until her death in 1138. She was the last of the rulers of the Sulayhid Dynasty and was also the first woman to be accorded the prestigious title of Hujjah in the Isma'ili branch of Shia Islam, signifying her as the closest living image of God's will in her lifetime, in the Ismaili doctrine. She is popularly referred to as As-Sayyidah Al-Ḥurrah (Arabic: ٱلسَّيِّدَة ٱلْحُرَّة, lit. 'The Noble Lady'), Al-Malikah Al-Ḥurrah (Arabic: ٱلْمَلِكَة ٱلْحُرَّة or Al-l-Malikah (Arabic: ٱلْحُرَّةُ ٱلْمَلِكَة, lit. 'The Noble Queen'), and Malikat Sabaʾ Aṣ-Ṣaghīrah (Arabic: مَلِكَة سَبَأ ٱلصَّغِيْرَة, lit. 'Little Queen of Sheba').

As female sovereign, Arwa has an almost unique position in history: though there were more female monarchs in the international Muslim world, Arwa and Asma bint Shihab were the only female monarchs in the Muslim Arab world to have had the khutbah, the ultimate recognition of Muslim monarchial status, proclaimed in their name in the mosques. She founded several mosques, the most prominent of which is Queen Arwa Mosque.

The Najahid dynasty (Arabic: بنو نجاح; Banū Najāḥ) was a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Abyssinian Mamluks that ruled parts of Yemen from 1022-1158 from its capital at Zabīd. Najah would obtain the recognition of the Abbasid Caliph al-Qadir and would be given the honorific title 'al- Mu'ayyad Nasr al-din'. They faced hostilities from the Shia Ismailis Sulayhids who were loyal to the Fatimids. Their last sovereign was killed by Ali ibn Mahdi the Kharijite in 1158.