Yemen (region) in the context of "Sabaeans"

The Queen of Sheba, named Bilqis in Arabic and Makeda in Geʽez, is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she brings a caravan of valuable gifts for Solomon, the fourth King of Israel and Judah. This account has undergone extensive elaborations in Judaism, Ethiopian Christianity, and Islam. It has consequently become the subject of one of the most widespread and fertile cycles of legends in West Asia and Northeast Africa, as well as in other regions where the Abrahamic religions have had a significant impact.

Modern historians and archaeologists identify Sheba as one of the South Arabian kingdoms, which existed in modern-day Yemen. However, because no trace of her has ever been found, the Queen of Sheba's existence is disputed among historians.

The Quraysh (Arabic: قُرَيْشٍ) are an Arab tribe who controlled Mecca before the rise of Islam. Their members were divided into ten main clans, most notably including the Banu Hashim, into which Islam's founder prophet Muhammad was born. By the seventh century, they had become wealthy merchants, dominating trade between the Indian Ocean, East Africa, and the Mediterranean. The tribe ran caravans to Gaza and Damascus in summer and to Yemen in winter, while also mining and pursuing other enterprises on these routes.

When Muhammad began preaching Islam in Mecca, the Quraysh initially showed little concern. However, their opposition to his activities quickly grew as he increasingly challenged Arab polytheism, which was prevalent throughout pre-Islamic Arabia. As relations deteriorated, Muhammad and his followers migrated to Medina (the journey known as the Hijrah) after negotiating with the Banu Aws and the Banu Khazraj to mediate their conflict. However, the two sides proved unable to reach a peaceful resolution, and the Quraysh continued to obstruct Muhammad's community's attempts to perform the Islamic pilgrimage at Mecca, prompting him to confront them through armed conflict, primarily by conducting raids on their caravans. These raids eventually escalated into several major battles, including those at Badr, Uhud, and "the Trench" (Medina's outskirts). Following these engagements and changes in Medina's political landscape, including the expulsion of three Jewish tribes, Muhammad reportedly shifted the focus of his military campaigns from Quraysh caravans to the northern Arab tribes, such as the Banu Lahyan and the Banu Mustaliq.

Sheba, or Saba, was an ancient South Arabian kingdom that existed in Yemen before 275 CE. It likely began to exist between c. 1000 BCE and c. 800 BCE. Its inhabitants were the Sabaeans, who, as a people, were indissociable from the kingdom itself for much of the 1st millennium BCE. Modern historians agree that the heartland of the Sabaean civilization was located in the region around Marib and Sirwah. In some periods, they expanded to much of modern Yemen and even parts of the Horn of Africa, particularly Eritrea and Ethiopia. The kingdom's native language was Sabaic, which was a variety of Old South Arabian.

Among South Arabians and Abyssinians, Sheba's name carried prestige, as it was widely considered to be the birthplace of South Arabian civilization as a whole. The first Sabaean kingdom lasted from the 8th century BCE to the 1st century BCE: this kingdom can be divided into the "mukarrib" period, where it reigned supreme over all of South Arabia; and the "kingly" period, a long period of decline to the neighbouring kingdoms of Ma'in, Hadhramaut, and Qataban, ultimately ending when a newer neighbour, Himyar, annexed them. Sheba was originally confined to the region of Marib (its capital city) and its surroundings. At its height, it encompassed much of the southwestern parts of the Arabian Peninsula before eventually declining to the regions of Marib. However, it re-emerged from the 1st to 3rd centuries CE. During this time, a secondary capital was founded at Sanaa, which is also the capital city of modern Yemen. Around 275 CE, the Sabaean civilization came to a permanent end in the aftermath of another Himyarite annexation.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, the dominant religious practice was that of Arab polytheism, which was based on the veneration of various deities and spirits, such as the god Hubal and the goddesses al-Lāt, al-‘Uzzā, and Manāt. Worship was centred on local shrines and temples, most notably including the Kaaba in Mecca. Deities were venerated and invoked through pilgrimages, divination, and ritual sacrifice, among other traditions. Different theories have been proposed regarding the role of "Allah" (a word in Arabic that is now chiefly associated with God in Islam) in the Meccan religion. Many of the physical descriptions of the pre-Islamic gods and goddesses are traced to idols, especially near the Kaaba, which is said to have contained up to 360 of them.

Other religions—namely Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism—were also represented in the region. The influence of the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Aksum enabled the nurturing of Christian communities in northwestern, northeastern, and southern Arabia. In the other areas of the Arabian Peninsula, Christianity did not have as much of a presence, though it did secure some converts, and with the exception of Nestorianism in the northeast and around the Persian Gulf, the dominant form of the religion was Miaphysitism. Since the beginning of the Roman era, Jewish migration into Arabia had become increasingly frequent, resulting in the establishment of a prominent Jewish diaspora community, which was supplemented by local converts. Over time, Judaism grew throughout southern Arabia and the northwestern Hejaz.

The Emirate of Asir, also known as the Idrisid Emirate, was a short-lived state that existed from 1907 until its annexation by Saudi Arabia in 1934. Located in the Yemeni Red Sea coast of South Arabia, it was founded by Muhammad ibn Ali al-Idrisi, the great-grandson of ibn Idris, the founder of the Idrisiyya, a Sufi tariqa of Sunni Islam, in rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. The authority of the Emirate was restricted to an 80 mi (129 km) long strip of the Tihamah region and extending about 40 mi (64 km) inland to the scarp of highland Asir al-Sarah. Its capital was Sabya.

It gained the support of Great Britain during the First World War, and flourished until the death of Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1920. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, the emirate expanded its domains, reaching as far as Hodeidah. The Emirate was gradually absorbed into the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd as a protectorate, and was formally annexed by its successor, Saudi Arabia, under the Treaty of Taif in 1934.

The Ayyubid dynasty (Arabic: الأيوبيون, romanized: al-Ayyūbīyūn), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was a Sunni Muslim Kurdish dynasty that founded the medieval Sultanate of Egypt, which was established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate. Saladin had originally served the Zengid ruler Nur al-Din, leading the latter's army against the Crusaders in Fatimid Egypt, where he was made vizier. Following the death of his Zengid suzerain Nur al-Din in 1174, Saladin was proclaimed as the first Sultan of Egypt by the Abbasid Caliphate, and rapidly expanded the new sultanate beyond Egypt to encompass most of Syria, in addition to Hejaz, Yemen, northern Nubia, Tripolitania and Upper Mesopotamia. Saladin's military campaigns set the general borders and sphere of influence of the sultanate of Egypt for the almost 350 years of its existence. Most of the Crusader states fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, but the Crusaders reconquered the Syrian coastlands in the 1190s.

After Saladin's death in 1193, his sons contested control of the sultanate, but Saladin's brother al-Adil ultimately became sultan in 1200. All of the later Ayyubid sultans of Egypt were his descendants. In the 1230s, the emirs of Syria attempted to assert their independence from Egypt and the Ayyubid realm remained divided until Sultan as-Salih Ayyub restored its unity by subduing most of Syria, except Aleppo, by 1247. By then, local Muslim dynasties had driven out the Ayyubids from Yemen, the Hejaz, and parts of Mesopotamia. After his death in 1249, as-Salih Ayyub was succeeded in Egypt by his son al-Mu'azzam Turanshah. However, the latter was soon overthrown by his Mamluk generals who had repelled a Crusader invasion of the Nile Delta. This effectively ended Ayyubid power in Egypt. Attempts by the emirs of Syria, led by an-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo, to wrest back Egypt failed. In 1260, the Mongols sacked Aleppo and conquered the Ayyubids' remaining territories soon after. The Mamluks, who expelled the Mongols, maintained the Ayyubid principality of Hama until deposing its last ruler in 1341.