But the troubles in the Yemen were by no means at an end. Every preceding dynasty had left dissension and rival blood in the country, and for a long period, during the reign of the early Caliphs, the country was constantly disturbed with war and bloodshed. Pretender to the throne followed pretender, and it was not for a period of some years that any tranquillity was restored to the Yemen. In A.D. 655 Ali succeeded to the Caliphate on the death of Othman, and having to quell many disturbances and dissensions at home, he did not for some time turn his attention to the Yemen, where, after a lapse in the war between Muavia, governor of Syria, and the Caliph, a large band of the troops of the former, under the leadership of Bashir ibn Ardeb, carried out the most horrible atrocities on the partisans of the cause of Ali. But revenge was near, and a short time later—39 A.H.—troops to the number of four thousand were despatched by Ali from Kufa, who equalled perhaps the cruelties of Muavia’s adherents; but they succeeded in stamping out the cause of Othman, the lately assassinated Caliph, and Ali’s son was proclaimed governor of the Yemen. Islam had by this period made such a firm footing in the country, that, in spite of the dissensions between Christians, idolaters, and Jews, we find the troubles confined almost entirely to the many sects of Islam itself. Some of the most important of these will be found mentioned elsewhere, so that no reference is necessary to them here, except as showing how firm a hold the acceptance of the new religion had gained amongst the inhabitants of the Yemen. The country after the death of Ali became subject to the Omeyyad dynasty of Caliphs, until in A.D. 749 the Abbasides exterminated them, with unparalleled bloodshed and cruelty, the conquest of the Yemen being carried out by Mahammed Abousi Mahammed. The typical cruelty of this man is well exemplified by a paragraph in Sir R. L. Playfair’s ‘History of the Yemen.’ Finding the inhabitants suffering from what is now known as “Yemen boils,” an exceedingly common complaint in that country, he ordered all those who showed any signs of the sickness to be buried alive as unclean. Happily his own death prevented this cruel order from being carried out. Sharing the ups and downs of the Abbaside dynasty, to whom the Yemen acknowledged a varying system of vassalage, in 811 A.D. the inhabitants declared for El-Mamun, son of Harun el-Rashid, the great Caliph of the East, who was sharing with his brother Amin the government. Under this Caliph the governor of the Yemen was Mahammed, son of Ziad. He conquered the Teháma, or western plains, and became sovereign of the whole country.