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Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Malik al-Nāṣir Aḥmad ibn Ismāʿīl (died 1424), numbered al-Nāṣir Aḥmad I, was the eighth Rasūlid sultan of Yemen from 1400 until his death.^[1]^[2]^[3] He succeeded his father, al-Ashraf Ismāʿīl I, and was succeeded by his son, al-Manṣūr ʿAbdallāh.^[4]

Al-Nāṣir Aḥmad was the last successful Rasūlid, attaining military victories in Yemen and receiving diplomatic gifts from China.^[4]^[5] The Chinese admiral Zheng He visited Aden during his fifth, sixth and seventh voyages. On the first of these, according to the anonymous Tārikh al-dawla al-Rasūliyya fī l-Yaman, an envoy from the fleet proceeded overland to meet al-Nāṣir in al-Janad [ar] in March 1419, bringing with him gifts of porcelain, musk, storax and silk woven with gold.^[6]

He received the ten sons of Sa'ad ad-Din II from the Somali Coast, fleeing for the approaching Ethiopian Empire at his court, 4 of them being future Adal Sultans Sabr ad-Din III,Mansur ad-Din of Adal, Jamal ad-Din II and Badlay ibn Sa'ad ad-Din.^[7]

After al-Nāṣir's death, the dynasty declined rapidly, losing all power in 1454.^[4]^[5]^[8]

Footnotes

^ Bosworth 1996, p. 108.
^ Moorthy Kloss 2024, p. 25.
^ Smith 1995 gives 1401.
^ ^a ^b ^c Smith 1995.
^ ^a ^b Bosworth 1996, p. 109.
^ Serjeant 2000, pp. 67–69.
^ Trimingham, p. 74.
^ Moorthy Kloss 2024, p. 29.

Works cited

Bosworth, C. E. (1996). The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual. Edinburgh University Press.
Moorthy Kloss, Magdalena (2024). Unfree Lives: Slaves at the Najahid and Rasulid Courts of Yemen. Brill.
Ray, Haraprasad (1987). "The Eighth Voyage of the Dragon that Never was: An Enquiry into the Causes of Cessation of Voyages during Early Ming Dynasty". China Report. 23 (2): 157–178. doi:10.1177/000944558702300202. S2CID 155029177.
Serjeant, R. B. (2000). "Yemeni Merchants and Trade in Yemen: Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries". In Denys Lombard; Jean Aubin (eds.). Asian Merchants and Businessmen in the Indian Ocean and China Sea. Oxford University Press. pp. 53–78.
Smith, G. R. (1995). "Rasūlids". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W. P. & Lecomte, G. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Volume VIII: Ned–Sam. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 455–457. ISBN 978-90-04-09834-3.