Bayt al-Faqīh
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بيت الفقيه / Bait al-Faqīh Bayt al-Faqīh |
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| Coordinates | 14 ° 31 ' N , 43 ° 19' E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Yemen | ||
| Sanaa | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | YE-SN | ||
| height | 150 m | ||
| Residents | 39,445 (2004 census) | ||
 Market bustle in Bayt al-Faqīh
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Bayt al-Faqīh (also: Beit el Fakih or Bayt-al-Faqiyah ; Arabic بيت الفقيه, DMG Bait al-Faqīh ) is a city in the west of Yemen , 50 km southeast of the port and regional capital al-Hudaida and 130 km southwest of the state capital Sanaa . It lies on the edge of the Tihama Mountains .
In addition to an Ottoman fort ( al-Qasr-Imam- Citadel ), which is now largely in ruins , the city has residential buildings with the stucco façades typical of the country. The city once had the largest trading point for coffee , and the fort was needed to secure it. The place is along the pilgrimage and trade route from al-Hudaida to Taizz , across the hot Tihama. With maximum daily temperatures of up to 53 ° C , it is one of the hottest in the world. Even before Zabid , Bayt al-Faqīh is the largest city of the Tihama. The weekly market is still one of the largest in Yemen, along with the at-Talh market .
history
Bayt al-Faqīh was founded in the early 13th century by the scholar ( faqīh ) Ahmed ibn Musa al-Udschail . Since this scholar was venerated locally like a saint, the city was named House of Scholars in his memory . He himself is buried in the city. The city has had a good infrastructure since the 16th century. Several trade and pilgrimage routes ensured the development. In addition, Bayt al-Faqīh is centrally located in the Tihama, which is why the city quickly developed into an important hub for domestic trade. The most important market good was coffee . The German explorer and cartographer Carsten Niebuhr is said to have noticed in 1763, on the occasion of a nearly two-month visit to the city, that merchants from Europe, Persia and India were stocking up on the coffee market.
Today the city stands for a colorful and nationally large Friday weekly market. Goats, vegetables, wickerwork, perfume oils, household goods and animal feed are traded. The hand-woven shoulder and wrap towels ( futah ), as well as rope goods (especially brim hats ) are famous and of particular high quality .
Tribal beings
The tribal system in Yemen is still very pronounced today. The vast majority of Yemenis are tribal. People feel closely committed to these. The tribal men ( Qa'bili; pl. Qaba'il ) control political power to this day and represent a model for the younger generations. In the 1920s, the powerful tribe of az-Zaraniq ruled the region around the city under Sheikh al-Qabīla , Ahmad al-Fatimi .
See also
literature
- Hans Becker, Volker Höhfeld , Horst Kopp : Coffee from Arabia. the change in the meaning of a global economic good and its settlement-geographical consequence at the dry border of ecumenism , Wiesbaden (= geographic knowledge 46), 1979
Individual evidence
- ↑ Census December 16, 2004
- ^ EM Jacobs, Merchant in Asia, VOC merchants in the Yemeni coffee trade
- ^ Coffee: a dark history
- ↑ Beit el Fakih . In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon . 6th edition. Volume 2, Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1905, p. 576 .
- ↑ Josef Wiesehöfer, Stephan Conermann, Carsten Niebuhr (1733 - 1815) and his time, p. 163
- ^ Daniel McLaughlin, Yemen: the Bradt travel guide
- ↑ Gerhard Heck, Manfred Wöbcke, Arabische Peninsula, retrieval repeat June 20, 2011
- ↑ John Peterson, Yemen, the search for a modern state
Web links
- "Hodeidah" with information on Bayt Al-Faqih at Yemen Old Splendor Tours