Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen (Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية), composed of former North and South Yemen, is a country on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia and is a part of the Middle East, bordering the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden on the south and the Red Sea on the west. It borders Oman to the northeast and Saudi Arabia elsewhere. Its territory includes the remote island of Socotra, about 350 kilometres (217 mi) to the south off the coast of East Africa.

History

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Yemen was one of the oldest centres of civilization in the Near East. Between the 9th century BC and the 6th century AD, it was part of the Minaean, Sabaean, Himyarite, Qatabanian, Hadhramawtian, and Awsanian kingdoms, which controlled the lucrative spice trade. It was known to the Romans as "Arabia Felix" ("Happy Arabia") because of the riches its trade generated; Augustus Caesar attempted to annex it, but the expedition failed; Persian kings were more successful and Yemen became a Sassanid Persian province in 597/8 under a Persian satrap. In the 6th and early 7th centuries, Yemen was successively incorporated into the Ethiopian and Persian Sassanid empires. In the 7th century, Islamic caliphs began to exert control over the area. After this caliphate broke up, the former north Yemen came under control of Imams of various dynasties usually of the Zaidi sect, who established a theocratic political structure that survived until modern times. (Imam is a religious term. The Shiites apply it to the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law Ali, his sons Hassan and Hussein, and subsequent lineal descendants, whom they consider to have been divinely ordained unclassified successors of the prophet.)

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زمان كنا قادرين على التعايش مع الاديان الاخرى , بينما نعجز الان عن التعايش مع المذاهب والاحزاب الاخرى. #Yemen http://t.co/TMf1cwzm
yemen (Yemeni) Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:42:42 -0000
زمان كنا قادرين على التعايش مع الاديان الاخرى , بينما نعجز الان عن التعايش مع المذاهب والاحزاب الاخرى. #Yemen http://t.co/TMf1cwzm
"@SummerNasser: #BFEY = Boycott Fake Elections in #Yemen."
Afrahnasser (Afrah Nasser) Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:42:17 -0000
"@SummerNas Subscribe to Yemen RSS feed