The early history of the Yemen is rich and full of influences of migrations peoples from Akkad, Sumer and other ancient Mesopotamian Kingdoms. Historians have recorded these migrations as far back as the 8th century B.C..

However, the medieval period is just as rich, complex and perhaps more significant with respect to the socio-political state of the Yemen today. For example, the Mamluks captured and added Yemen to their controlled territories after the Turkmen ruler's, known as the Rasulid Sultanate, which governed from the mid 1200s to 1500s collapsed.

However, when the Mamluk Governor Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri handed over authority to the Ottoman Sultan, Selim I in 1517 the Ottomans quickly moved into to the Yemen and controlled the region for a short time until a Zaidi resistance organized. Thereafter, the Ottomans withdrew from the mountainous interior of Yemen and remained in control of the coastal perimeter in 1630.

Finally, in the 1830s the Zaidi influence of the in