Muḥammad b. Sabaʾ (Sultan)
Description / Bio
"The Dāʿī, 'Missionary,' the official title given by the Fatimid caliphs of Egypt to the ruler of Yemen recognized by them [...] Muḥammad b. Sabaʾ (ruled 1139-53 or 1155), the most successful Sultan of the Zurayʿid dynasty. In 1150, he killed his last major rival, ʿAlī b. Abu ʾl-Ghārāt (cf. II, 51, line 13 [PGPID 5407]), and in the same year [...]he acquired by purchase twenty-eight castles as well as some towns, including Dhū Jibla, then the capital of Yemen." (India Book, p. 703) Muḥammad b. Sabaʾ's father, Sabaʾ b. Abū Suʿūd, had been the Dāʿī as well.
Select bibliography
- S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India traders of the middle ages : documents from the Cairo Geniza : India book (Brill, 2008), vol. 1.