Aden>>Lahij

Lahij or Lahej (Laḥij) is a city and an area located between Ta'izz and Aden in Yemen. From the 18th to the 20th century, its rulers were of the Al Abdali family, that claims relation to Ahl-Al-Bayt (the family of Muhammad). Lahij was the capital city of Sultanate of Lahej, a protectorate of the British Empire until 1967, when the sultan was expelled and the city became a part of People's Republic of South Yemen. A few years later, the Al-Sallami family would rule the Sultanate of Lahij.

History

Lahej was sultanate of the Abdali dynasty under the suzerainty of the Zaidi imams of Yemen but, after losing the port of Aden to the British Empire in 1839, British influence was increasingly felt. The sultanate was one of the original "Nine Cantons" that signed protection agreements with Great Britain in the late 19th century and later became part of the Aden Protectorate. Lahej typically enjoyed good relations with the British despite the accidental killing of Sultan Fadhl ibn Ali al Abdali by British troops in 1918 who mistook him for an enemy Ottoman Turk soldier. However, in 1958, Britain was worried that the sultan at the time, Ali bin Abd al Karim al Abdali, an Arab nationalist, would refuse to join the British-sponsored Federation of Arab Emirates of the South and had him deposed. Lahej ended up joining the Federation and later the Federation of South Arabia in 1963. However, Lahej was abolished in 1967 upon the founding of the People's Republic of South Yemen and is now part of the Republic of Yemen.