Bayt Hanbas ( ar, بيت حنبص ) is a village in
Bani Matar District
Bani Matar District ( ar, مُدِيْرِيَّة بَنِي مَطَر, Mudīriyyat Banī Maṭar) is a district of the Sanaa Governorate, Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country ...
of
Sanaa Governorate
Sanaa ( ar, صَنْعَاء '), 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 ...
,
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast an ...
.
It is located above the
Qa al-Nahim plain, in the mountains southwest of
Sanaa
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 Go ...
.
History
According to the 10th-century writer
al-Hamdani, Bayt Hanbas is named after one Ḥanbaṣ b. Yuʽfir Dhī Yahar, of the tribe of
Himyar
The Himyarite Kingdom ( ar, مملكة حِمْيَر, Mamlakat Ḥimyar, he, ממלכת חִמְיָר), or Himyar ( ar, حِمْيَر, ''Ḥimyar'', / 𐩹𐩧𐩺𐩵𐩬) (fl. 110 BCE–520s CE), historically referred to as the Homerit ...
.
Al-Hamdani described Bayt Hanbas as once having been the site of at least one great palace, which had been destroyed by the
Qarmatians
The Qarmatians ( ar, قرامطة, Qarāmiṭa; ) were a militant Isma'ili Shia movement centred in al-Hasa in Eastern Arabia, where they established a religious-utopian socialist state in 899 CE. Its members were part of a movement that ad ...
in 908 CE (295 AH).
No traces of the palace exist today.
Later, during the 13th and 14th centuries, Bayt Hanbas served as a minor stronghold of the
Banu Shihab tribe.
References
{{Reflist
Villages in Sanaa Governorate