Umara al-Yamani
writer
Najm al-Dīn Umāra al-Ḥakamī al-Yamanī (Arabic: نجم الدين عمارة الحكمي اليمني) was a Sunni historian, jurist and poet of Yemen of great repute who was closely associated with the late Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. He was executed by order of Saladin at Cairo on April 6, 1174 for his part in a conspiracy to restore Fatimid rule. His Tarikh al-Yaman is the earliest, and in respects the most important, history of Yemen from the Islamic era.
Biography
Origin and early life
Umara was born in 1121 in the town of Mertan (مرطان), in Tihama province, in the valley of Was'a south of Mecca. This town has not been identified. Umara's own Tarikh gives the town of al-Zara'ib (الزرائب) in Ibb province in northern Yemen, as his place of birth. The tribal district of the Banu Hakam is indicated by his appellation, al-Hakami. He was descended from the Qahtan tribe through al-Hakam ibn Sa'd al-Ashira of the Banu Madh'hij. In 1136/7, he went to Zabid, where he studied Islamic jurisprudence of the Shafi'i school for four years.
Umara then worked as a teacher and jurist, as well as engaging in trade between Zabid and Aden.
“Umara al-Yamani” enters the record as writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Umara, al-Yamani and writer can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Umara al-Yamani” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Umara, al-Yamani and writer provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12228305. VIAF identifies the subject as 92760846. The Library of Congress control number is n50081849. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1174, 1121 and 1136.
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This entry incorporates text from “Umara al-Yamani” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.