Background
He was a 13th-generation descendant of the Twelver imam Ali ar-Ridha (d 818).
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Al-Mu"ayyad Yahya
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Career
The old Yemeni imam al-Mahdi Muhammad bin al-Mutahhar had conquered large highland territories from the Rasulid Dynasty, including the commercially and politically important city San"a. After his demise in 1328, no less than four claimants for the imamate surfaced. Apart from Yahya, these included an-Nasir Ali bin Salah, Ahmad bin Ali al-Fathi, and the deceased imam"s son al-Wathiq al-Mutahhar.
Yahya emerged as the supreme figure and quickly secured San"a.
With the city as his base, he waged war in the following years against Ismailite groups of the Hamdan tribe in the Wadi Dahr. The imam was a prominent scholar who authored First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Intisar, the most comprehensive Zaydiyyah law book, and Ad-Da"wa al-amma, a work encouraging struggle for the true faith.
lieutenant was popularly said that the number of pages he wrote were equal to the days he lived. First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Mu"ayyad Yahya died in 1346 (or, in another account, 1349), and was buried in Dhamar.
Their family would control San"a until 1381.
