Interesting article

An article worth reading (Ismailis: From Yemen to India and back by Mira Baz).

Summary:

The Sulayhid kingdom was strategically important in the Indian Ocean trade route and, through it, the spread of Ismailism in Yemen and Asia. 

According to the London-based Institute for Ismaili Studies (IIS), the Sulayhids are credited with playing an important role in the spread of Ismailism in South Asia, establishing a new Ismaili community in Gujarat, India, in 1067. They also oversaw the selection of da’is who were dispatched from Yemen to run the new community’s affairs.

Its bleakest times under Zaydi Shia imams in the 16th century AD and later, who considered the sect to be heretical. The Tayyibi Ismailis, who consisted of the Hamdani Yam branch in Wadi Dahr and the Yaaburi in Haraz, turned to the more tolerant Ottomans for protection at the time, but this would soon backfire. The Ottomans’ failure to maintain control of upper Yemen resulted in the persecution of the Ismaili community by the vengeful imam, according to Professor Traboulsi.

“Most of the Zaydi imams oppressed and starved the Ismailis,” says a knowledgeable member of the community who wished to remain anonymous.

The majority of Sulaymanis have made Saudi Arabia’s Najran their center since 1640. They are also known as Makarima after the tribe of al-Makrami which originated in the village of Tayba in Yemen. According to a 2004 Saudi census, they number around 408,000 in Najran, and their da’i is al-Fakhri Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Makrami.