Ibb

Ibb, city, southwestern Yemen, lying in the Yemen Highlands on a spur of the rugged Mount Shamaḥi, at 6,725 feet (2,050 metres) above sea level. The city’s origins, according to Arab myth, date to biblical times. The area became important in the Middle Ages, when the Ṣulayḥid princess Sayyidah Arwa ruled over much of Yemen from her capital at nearby Jiblah (11th century CE). Long an administrative capital, Ibb in the 20th century was the seat of a semiautonomous emirate, abolished by an administrative reform of the monarchy in the 1940s.

The city is one of the most picturesque in Yemen; it is surrounded by a thick wall, inset with tall houses. Among the numerous mosques located in Ibb, the twin-minareted Al-Muẓaffariyyah Mosque is particularly fine. Well-built multistory houses, typical of Yemeni urban architecture, are numerous. An aqueduct from the nearby mountains, supplemented by a small-scale modern distribution system, supplies running water to many of the houses—an unusual feature for the country.