Al-Mahdi Salah ad-Din (died 1445) was a claimant for the Zaidi state in Yemen, whose tenure as imam is counted from 1436 to 1445. Salah ad-Din bin Ali was a descendant of the imam

al-Mansur Yahya Al-Mansur Yahya (died 976) was an imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen, whose tenure as imam is counted from 934 to 976. Yahya bin Ahmad was the fifth son of the imam an-Nasir Ahmad, and the grandson of the founder-imam al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya. Eve ...

(d. 976) in the thirteenth generation. His father was the Zaidi scholar Ali bin Muhammad bin Abu'l-Qasim, who died in 1433. When the old imam

al-Mansur Ali Al-Mansur Ali ( ar, المنصور على, ''epithet'': ''al-Malik al-Manṣūr Nūr ad-dīn ʾAlī ibn Aybak'', Arabic: ) (b. c. 1242, Cairo) was the second of the Mamluk Sultans of Egypt in the Turkic, or Bahri, line. Some historians, however, ...

succumbed to the

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pe ...

in 1436, three

Sayyid ''Sayyid'' (, ; ar, سيد ; ; meaning 'sir', 'Lord', 'Master'; Arabic plural: ; feminine: ; ) is a surname of people descending from the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali, sons of Muhamma ...

s made claims to the imamate. One of them was Salah ad-Din bin Ali, who took the honorific name al-Mahdi Salah ad-Din. His rivals were

al-Mansur an-Nasir Al-Mansur an-Nasir (died 1462) was an imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen who held power in parts of the northern Yemeni highland in 1436–1462. The old imam al-Mansur Ali bin Salah ad-Din died from the plague in 1436. His position was then claimed ...

and al-Mutawakkil al-Mutahhar who belonged to other Rassid branches. Al-Mansur an-Nasir, who had family ties with the deceased imam, became dominant among the

Zaydiyyah Zaydism (''h'') is a unique branch of Shia Islam that emerged in the eighth century following Zayd ibn Ali‘s unsuccessful rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate. In contrast to other Shia Muslims of Twelver Shi'ism and Isma'ilism, Zaydis, a ...

community in highland Yemen. He eventually captured al-Mahdi Salah ad-Din, who died in prison in

Kawkaban Shibam Kawkaban ( ar, شبام كَوْكَبَان, Shibām Kawkabān) is a double town in Shibam Kawkaban District, Al Mahwit Governorate, Yemen, located 38 km west-northwest of Sanaa, the national capital. It consists of two distinct adjoin ...

in 1445. He was buried in the Masjid Musa, one of the smaller mosques of

San'a Sanaa ( ar, صَنْعَاء, ' , Yemeni Arabic: ; Old South Arabian: 𐩮𐩬𐩲𐩥 ''Ṣnʿw''), also spelled Sana'a or Sana, is the capital and largest city in Yemen and the centre of Sanaa Governorate. The city is not part of the Govern ...

.Cf. R.B. Serjeant & R. Lewcock, ''San'a'; An Arabian Islamic City''. London 1983, p. 383.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahdi Salah Ad-Din Zaydi imams of Yemen 1445 deaths Year of birth unknown 15th century in Yemen 15th-century Arab people

See also

References