Taiz

Taiz grew up around the fortress of al-Qahira, which commands the pass between the highlands and the Tihama plain and was commissioned in the first half of the 12th century by a sultan of the Sulayhid dynasty. Its position on the route from the coast to the mountains made it a natural seat of power, and its altitude gave it a climate far kinder than the plain below.

The city's great age came with the Rasulid dynasty, which ruled much of Yemen from the 13th to the 15th century and made Taiz its capital alongside Zabid. The Rasulid sultans were builders and patrons of learning: al-Muzaffar Yusuf and his successors endowed mosques, madrasas, libraries and hospitals, and the Ashrafiya and Mudhaffar mosques, with their domes, minarets and painted interiors, survive from that period. Scholarship in law, medicine, agriculture and astronomy flourished under their court.

Ottoman forces took the region in the 16th century, and Taiz later passed to the Zaydi imams of the highlands. In 1948 Imam Ahmad moved his court here, and for fourteen years the city served as the effective capital of the kingdom, gaining roads, schools and the beginnings of industry before the revolution of 1962 shifted power back to Sana'a. Under the republic it became Yemen's main manufacturing and commercial centre and a byword for education.

Mass protests in Taiz were central to the uprising of 2011. Houthi forces entered the city in March 2015, and it has since been the scene of a long siege, with front lines running through and around it: water and power supplies have been cut for long periods, residential districts shelled, and much of the historic fabric, including parts of the castle and the old city, damaged.

Taiz has long been called the cultural capital of Yemen. It produced a disproportionate share of the country's writers, poets, singers, journalists and teachers, and its schools and, later, its university drew students from across the south and west. That reputation rests partly on trade and travel: the city has looked to Aden, the Red Sea and East Africa as much as to the highlands, and Taizi families have emigrated widely, sending back money and ideas.

Socially the city is Shafi'i Sunni, and its manners are those of the settled, mercantile south-west rather than the tribal north: descent matters less than schooling and business, and the jambiya dagger is worn less often than in Sana'a. Women have historically had a more visible public role here, running the mountain markets of Jabal Sabir and working as teachers and nurses, and Taizi women were prominent in the protests of 2011.

Daily sociability turns on the afternoon qat session, held in a top-floor room or on the terraces, where politics, poetry and business are discussed for hours. Music and song are strong local traditions, and weddings fill several days with processions, drumming and dance. Both Eids are the year's great gatherings. Years of siege have also produced their own culture of endurance, with volunteer groups, theatre, art and music used to keep ordinary life going in a divided city.

Before the war Taiz was among the largest cities in Yemen, with several hundred thousand residents and a metropolitan population larger still. Its economy rested on manufacturing — food processing, plastics, textiles and one of the country's best-known industrial groups — along with trade, transport between the coast and the highlands, and a concentration of schools, colleges and the university.

War has shaped daily life here more than almost anywhere in the country. Residents have lived for years with front lines through their city, blocked roads, long detours to reach relatives on the other side, shelling and sniper fire, and acute shortages of water, which is bought by the jerrycan or tanker in a city that was always short of it. Power comes from private generators and increasingly from solar panels on the rooftops.

Many factories closed or were damaged, and paid work now comes largely from small trade, transport, aid organisations, remaining workshops and money sent home by relatives abroad. Public salaries have often gone unpaid. Families grow vegetables and qat on the terraces of Jabal Sabir above the city, and its villages still supply the markets below. The day begins early, business pauses in the early afternoon for qat, and evenings are spent at home; schools and clinics work in reduced and improvised form.

Taiz eats the highland food of south-western Yemen, built on bread from the tannur oven and a stew eaten at midday. Saltah is the standard lunch: a broth of meat and vegetables, thickened and crowned with hulba, whipped fenugreek froth, and served still bubbling in a black soapstone pot, scooped up with torn flatbread. Fahsa, its version with shredded lamb, is richer. Lahoh, a spongy fermented pancake, is eaten with stews and with honey.

The city's best-known product is its smoked cheese, made in the surrounding countryside and sold across Yemen, eaten with bread and honey or stirred into hot dishes. The terraces of Jabal Sabir supply vegetables, fruit, coffee and qat to the markets, and dried and salted fish comes up from the Red Sea ports on the plain below.

Sweets are rich with honey and ghee: bint al-sahn, the layered pastry soaked in honey and dusted with black seed, appears at celebrations and for guests. Drinks follow the coffee country around the city — qishr, the amber infusion of coffee husks with ginger and sometimes cinnamon, and sweet milky tea drunk at all hours — while the beans themselves have long been an export, sold as Yemeni Mocha after the harbour to the south-west. Alcohol is absent.