Mahra Sultanate

The Mahra Sultanate was a state in the far east of what is now Yemen, covering the Mahra region on the Arabian mainland and the island of Socotra in the Guardafui Channel. Its origins are usually traced to 1432, and for most of its history it was ruled by the Banu Afrar family, with Qishn as its seat. In its later years it was called the Mahra State of Qishn and Socotra. It came under British protection in 1886 and was abolished in 1967.

Its people were the Mehri, who speak Mehri, one of the Modern South Arabian languages, related to the speech of Socotra and of neighbouring Dhofar. They also shared with those neighbours a tradition of growing frankincense. The coast enjoys a milder climate than the deserts inland, shaped by the summer monsoon known as the khareef. Mahra is also the home of the Mehri camel, a fast riding breed that spread across North Africa and was later used by the French desert camel corps known as the méharistes.

As Abbasid authority faded, the Mahra tribes drifted out of the control of Yemen's rulers, though the Ayyubids and then the Rasulids claimed loose overlordship. In 1432 the Ba Dujana family seized the port of Shihr from the Rasulids and beat off their attempt to retake it, creating the first premodern state in Mahri lands. In 1456 Sultan Muhammad bin Sa'd sailed against Aden with nine ships, but a storm scattered his fleet and he was captured by the Tahirids, who then occupied and plundered Shihr. The Ba Dujana recovered the city in 1478. Around 1480 Mahri settlers took Socotra, which became a base in the long wars with the Kathiri of Hadramaut over Shihr.

In 1495 fighting among the Mahra tribes turned into civil war. The Kathiri backed one faction, and after a heavy defeat at Tabala outside Shihr the Ba Dujana lost the city for good. Leadership went to two families of Qishn and Socotra, the Zwedi and the Afrari, who gave up Shihr but held a core Mahra territory that changed little afterwards.

The Portuguese captured the fort at Suq on Socotra in 1507 and held the island until 1511. In 1545 the Kathiri sultan, with Ottoman support, took Qishn; Portuguese ships, rivals of the Ottomans in these waters, bombarded the town and handed it back to the Mahri. The sultans list the Afrari line continuously from about 1750.

British contact began in 1834, when an Indian Navy officer agreed with the Mahri rulers that coal could be landed and stored on Socotra. In 1835 the sultan refused to sell the island, and once Britain had captured Aden the plan for a coaling station on Socotra was dropped. In 1876 the sultan accepted a payment of 3,000 dollars and a yearly subsidy in return for promising never to give up Socotra to any power but Britain, and in 1886 he signed a protectorate treaty that placed foreign relations under British control. The sultanate became part of the Aden Protectorate and later of the Protectorate of South Arabia. In the 1940s advisory treaties gave the British a say in internal affairs and succession, and stirred resentment and Arab nationalist feeling.

British forces faced an insurgency in the 1960s and had withdrawn by 1967. The National Liberation Front took power in Mahra, and the sultanate was abolished that year when the People's Republic of South Yemen was founded. Its last ruler was Sultan Isa bin Ali al-Afrar al-Mahri. South Yemen split the territory, creating Al Mahra Governorate and placing Socotra under Aden, and in 1990 the south joined North Yemen to form today's Yemen.

Our maps label this state simply Mahra and draw it in 1530, 1600, 1650 and 1700, along the coast of south-eastern Arabia; much of the outline lies in present-day Oman. The 1650 and 1700 maps also show Ya'rubid Oman further east, while the Arabian Sea routes it overlooked were contested by the Portuguese Empire and the Ottoman Empire.