Battle of Hadhramaut

Part of the Abyssinian–Persian wars

Date	570
Location	Hadhramaut, Yemen
Result	Sassanid victory

Belligerents

Sassanid Empire

Kingdom of Aksum

Commanders and leaders

Vahrez

Masruq †

Strength

800 cavalrymen

Unknown

The Battle of Hadhramaut took place between the armies of the Sassanid Empire under the command of Spahbed Vahrez and Aksumite forces under King Masruq in 570. The Aksumite army was defeated by the Sassanids and Masruq was killed.

The Ethiopian occupation of the Yemen continued until about 570, when a Yemeni national reaction was provoked against Masruq ibn Abraha. The leader of this patriotic movement was a scion of the Himyarite royal line, Sayf ibn Dhi-Yazan. He first tried vainly to get help from the Byzantines and Lakhmids, but then began direct negotiations with the Sassanid king Khosrau I. The king was reluctant to intervene in a region so distant from Persia, but in the end agreed to send a force of eight hundred cavalrymen of Dailamite origin, in one version men of good birth who had been consigned to prison but were now given a chance to redeem themselves by achieving victory. The force sailed around the coasts of the Arabian peninsula; and, although two of the eight ships were wrecked, the rest landed in Hadramaut. Under their leader Vahrez, they defeated and killed Masruq and marched into the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.

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