ʽAttan ( ), also transliterated as ʽIttan and known historically as ʽAḍudān, is a village in

Bani Matar District Bani Matar District () is a district of the Sanaa Governorate, Yemen. , the district had a population of 100,012 inhabitants. Environment In this district is located Jabal An-Nabi Shu'ayb or Jabal Hadhur of the Harazi subrange of the Sarat ra ...

Sanaa Governorate Sanaa ( '), also spelled San'a or Sana, is a governorate of Yemen. Its capital is Sanaa, which is also the national capital. However, the city of Sanaa is not part of the governorate but instead forms the separate governorate of Amanat Al-Asema ...

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

. It is a short distance southwest of

Sanaa Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...

, with the two being separated by a long, low hill.

Name and history

According to Robert T.O. Wilson, the older form of the name ''ʽAttan'' was ''ʽAḍudān'', as it appears in most historical sources. Both forms are found in the works of the 10th-century writer al-Hamdani, although never in the same one. Wilson also pointed to the name of the ''Fajj ʽAttan'', a prominent landform in the hill between ʽAttan and Sanaa, as most likely being the same as the ''Fajj ʽAḍudān'' mentioned by

al-Razi Razi () or al-Razi () is a name that was historically used to indicate a person coming from Ray, Iran. People It most commonly refers to: * Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865–925), influential physician, alchemist and philosopher, also known b ...

. In addition to al-Hamdani and al-Razi, ʽAttan was mentioned by the geographers

al-Bakri Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī (), or simply al-Bakrī (c. 1040–1094) was an Arab Andalusian historian and a geographer of the Muslim West. Life Al-Bakri was born in Huelva, the ...

and

Yaqut al-Hamawi Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) () was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th–13th centuries). He is known for his , an influential work on geography con ...

, as well as in the historical accounts by Yahya ibn al-Husayn, Muhammad ibn Hatim al-Yami al-Hamdani, and Ali ibn Muhammad al-Abbasi. It was the site of a fortress.

References

{{Reflist Villages in Sanaa Governorate Bani Matar District