Zabid & Beit al-Faqih

Zabid is in the Tihama region in Yemen's western coastal plain. The town, named after Wadi Zabid the wadi to its south, is one of the oldest towns in Yemen, it was the capital of Yemen from the 13th to the 15th century and a center of the Arab and Muslim world due in large part to its famed University of Zabid and being a center of Islamic education. It was the capital of the Ziyadid dynasty from 819–1018 and the Najahid dynasty from 1022–1158. Today, however, it is at the intellectual and economic margins of modern Yemen. Zabid has been declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO. Its Great Mosque occupies a prominent place in the town. The vestiges of its university can also be visited. It has an estimated population of 8000 inhabitants. In 2000, Zabid was listed on the List of World Heritage in Danger; the listing was made on the behest of the Yemeni government due to a state of poor upkeep and conservation.
Beit al-Faqih is a dusty town with little to see, except on Fridays when it boasts one of the largest markets in all of Yemen. Every Friday morning for the past few hundreds of years, with traders coming in from all over the area numbering over 1,000. All goods can be found, from agricultura produce, animals, Tihama handicrafts and clothes.