Zechariah Dhahiri
Zechariah (Yaḥya) al-Ḍāhirī (, , b. "circa" 1531 – d. 1608), often spelled Zechariah al-Dhahiri () (16th century Yemen), was the son of Saʻīd (Saʻadia) al-Ḍāhirī, from Kawkaban, in the District of al-Mahwit, Yemen, a place north-west of Sana’a. He is recognized as one of the most gifted Yemenite Jewish poets and rabbinic scholars who left Yemen in search of a better livelihood, travelling to Calicut and Cochin in India, Hormuz in Persia, Basra and Irbīl in Babylonia, Bursa and Istanbul in Anatolia, Rome in Italy, Aleppo and Damascus in Syria, Safed and Tiberias, as well as Jerusalem and Hebron in the Land of Israel (then part of Ottoman Syria), Sidon in Ottoman Lebanon and Egypt, and finally unto Abyssinia where he returned to Yemen by crossing the Erythraean Sea and alighting at a port city near Mocha, Yemen. He wrote extensively about his travels and experiences in these places, which he penned in a Hebrew rhymed prose narrative, and eventually publishing them in a book which he called Sefer Ha-Mūsar ("The Book of Moral Instruction"), in circa 1580.
Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr
In response to the wellspring of opposition forming throughout Arabia, Yazid dispatched a Syrian Arab expeditionary force led by Muslim ibn Uqba to suppress Ibn al-Zubayr and the Ansar. The Umayyad force defeated the latter at the Battle of al-Harrah in the summer of 683. The army continued toward Mecca, but Muslim died en route and command passed to his deputy Husayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni. The latter besieged the city on 24 September after Ibn al-Zubayr's refusal to surrender. The Ka'aba was severely damaged during Husayn's bombardment. News of Yazid's death in November prompted Husayn to negotiate with Ibn al-Zubayr. The former proposed to recognize him as caliph on the condition that he would rule from Syria, the center of the Umayyad military and administration. Ibn al-Zubayr rejected this and the army returned to Syria, leaving Ibn al-Zubayr in control of Mecca.