In pre-Islamic times, the area that encompasses the present-day Republic of Yemen was called Arabia Felix—happy or prosperous Arabia—and was ruled by a number of indigenous dynasties in several different kingdoms.
British authorities left southern Yemen in November 1967 in the wake of an intense terrorist campaign. The two countries were formally unified as the Republic of Yemen in 1990.
Yemen (/ˈjɛmən/ ( listen); Arabic: ٱلْيَمَن, romanized: al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in Western Asia.
The term is also traditionally used in Biblical Hebrew as the synonym of the direction South and was applied to being used as the Hebrew name of Yemen (whose Arabic name is "Yaman") due to its location in the Southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, thus making Yemenite Jews being called "Temanim" in Hebrew.
Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia (better known in its Latin translation, Arabia Felix) meaning Fortunate Arabia or Happy Arabia.
In pre-Islamic times, the area that encompasses the present-day Republic of Yemen was called Arabia Felix—happy or prosperous Arabia—and was ruled by a number of indigenous dynasties in several different kingdoms.
Then part of the Kingdom of Saba, the area of modern-day Yemen was called Arabia Felix (Latin for 'Happy Arabia' / 'Fortunate Arabia') by the Romans, reflecting its perceived prosperity.
Like a modern-day Garden of Eden, the island of Socotra is a secret world filled with trees of knowledge and life – unique species with mythical names such as Dragon's Blood or Desert Rose.
Political and religious developments
Judaism became the dominant religion in Yemen while Christianity took root in the Persian Gulf area.
תֵּימָן The English name of the southernmost state on the Arabian Peninsula follows the Arabic: Yemen. But the Hebrew name – תימן
The Sasanid empire annexed Aden around 570. Under their rule, most of Yemen enjoyed great autonomy except for Aden and Sana'a. This era marked the collapse of ancient South Arabian civilization, since the greater part of the country was under several independent clans until the arrival of Islam in 630.
Himyaritic is an unattested or sparsely attested Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Yemen, by the Himyarite tribal confederacy.
The Sassanian governor of Yemen, Bathan, was an early convert to Islam. It is also said that ʿAli, Muhammad's nephew, brought the message of Islam to Yemen.
The vast majority of Yemenis identify with a single ethnicity: Arab. The Arab ethnicity describes people native to the Arabian Peninsula who speak a specific branch of Semitic languages.
Yemen has one of the oldest civilizations on Earth, with ties to the Semitic lands to its north and to the cultures of the Horn of Africa, just across the Red Sea. According to legend, the Biblical Queen of Sheba, consort of King Solomon, was Yemeni.
Aden, now part of Yemen, was the only British colony in the Arab world, until British forces left in 1967. In April 1954, just less than a year after her royal coronation, Queen Elizabeth II stepped off the SS Gothic into the only Arab territory to ever become a colony of the British Empire, Aden.
According to two narrations in Sahih Bukhari, Prophet Muhammad asks Allah to bless the areas of Bilad al-Sham (Syria) and Yemen. When his companions said "Our Najd as well," he replied: There will appear earthquakes and afflictions, and from there will come out the side of the head (i.e. horns) of Satan.
Yemenis are overwhelmingly ethnic Arab and Afro-Arab. The black al-Muhamasheen ethnic minority does not belong to any of the three main Arab tribes in the country. It has been estimated to comprise 2-5 per cent of the population, though some community estimates put the proportion at closer to 10 per cent.
But Yemen — which means South Arabia in Arabic — was for centuries the center of civilization and wealth on the Arabian peninsula.
The location of Eden is described in the Book of Genesis as the source of four tributaries. Various suggestions have been made for its location: at the head of the Persian Gulf, in southern Mesopotamia where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers run into the sea; and in Armenia.
The conclusion comes after the study of maternal genetic lineage of anatomically modern humans, finding it was closest to those living in the area, which includes northern Botswana, Namibia to the west and Zimbabwe to the east.
If the Garden of Eden still exists, no one knows where. The Bible says a river ran from Eden and separated into four rivers: Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates.
The terms Qahtanite and Qahtani (Arabic: قَحْطَانِي; transliterated: Qaḥṭānī) refer to Arabs who originate from South Arabia. The term "Qahtan" is mentioned in multiple ancient Arabian inscriptions found in Yemen. Arab traditions believe that they are the original Arabs.
Ancient Yemen. The history of the Yemen stretches back over 3,000 years, and its unique culture is still in evidence today in the architecture of its towns and villages. From about 1000 BC this region of the Southern Arabian Peninsula was ruled by three successive civilisations -- Minean, Sabaean and Himyarite.
The Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen (Arabic: المملكة المتوكلية اليمنية al-Mamlakah al-Mutawakkilīyah al-Yamanīyah), also known as the Kingdom of Yemen or simply as Yemen, or, retrospectively, as North Yemen, was a state that existed between 1918 and 1962 in the northwestern part of what is now Yemen.