Yemen's Queen Arwa ruled for half a century and left her jewels by will to a boy imam who had vanished in Cairo

Arwa, also called al-Sayyida al-Hurra, was born in 1048 or 1052 and raised at the Sulayhid court by her future mother-in-law, Asma. She married Ahmad al-Mukarram in 1066. He had facial paralysis from war injuries and withdrew from public life. When Asma died in 1074, Arwa took control of the state. She moved the capital from Sanaa to Dhu Jibla, built a palace and turned the old palace into a mosque. After her husband died in 1084, the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir named her hujja of Yemen, the first woman to hold a high Ismaili rank. In October 1130 the caliph al-Amir was assassinated in Cairo. His infant son, al-Tayyib, disappeared. Historian Farhad Daftary writes that the boy seems to have been murdered on the order of his cousin al-Hafiz. His followers believe he survived in hiding and that the imamate passes secretly through his descendants. Arwa broke with Cairo and backed al-Tayyib. Her will left her collection of jewellery to Imam al-Tayyib; the text survives in a 15th-century history. She died in 1138, and the dynasty ended with her. Her tomb chamber stayed intact until local militants damaged it in September 1993. The Tayyibi community she founded survives as the Bohras of India.