Abstract
One of the earliest recorded pre-Islamic Arab civilizations was the Sabaean culture, which flourished in what is now Yemen and southwestern Saudi Arabia during the 1st millennium BC. The wealth of the kingdom of Saba (or Sheba) was based on the incense and spice trade and on agriculture. Beginning in about 115 BC, the Himyarites gradually absorbed Saba and Hadhramaut (to the east) to claim control of all of the southwest Arabian peninsula by the 4th century AD. Himyarite dominance came to an end in the 6th century as Abyssinian (Ethiopian) forces invaded in AD 525. Abyssinian rule was overthrown in 575 by Persian military intervention, and Persian control then endured until the advent of Islam in 628.
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Further Reading
Central Statistical Organization. Statistical Year Book
Al-Rasheed, Madawi and Vitalis, Robert (eds.) Counter-Narratives: History, Contemporary Society, and Politics in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. 1987
Bruck, Gabriele vom, Islam, Memory and Morality in Yemen: Ruling Families in Transition. 1987
Clark, Victoria, Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes. 1987
Dresch, Paul, A History of Modern Yemen. 1987
Leach, Hugh, Seen in the Yemen: Travelling with Freya Stark and Others. 1987
Mackintosh-Smith, T., Yemen—Travels in Dictionary Land. 1987
Manea, Elham, Regional Politics in the Gulf: Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen. 1987
National Statistical Office: Central Statistical Organization, Ministry of Planning and Development.
Website: http://www.cso-yemen.org
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© 2012 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Turner, B. (2012). Yemen. In: Turner, B. (eds) The Statesman’s Yearbook. The Statesman’s Yearbook. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-59541-9_351
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-59541-9_351
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