This outline survey of Yemeni literature broadly contemporary with the ʿAbbasid caliphate of Baghdad by the nature of the present situation inevitably has many imperfections. Yemeni civilization is very little known beyond its own borders, and editions of Yemeni texts prepared abroad often misunderstand the background or are inaccurate in other ways; nor are Yemeni editors themselves always beyond reproach. Moreover the bulk of Yemeni literature is still in manuscript, including many major works, so that much of it remains unknown outside the Yemen. A great proportion of the works known by report from such sources as the medieval biographical dictionaries and listed by al-Ḥabshī in his Maṣādir al-fikr … fi ʾl-Yaman are not known to be extant, though they may yet be discovered in the Yemen, where some texts previously thought to be lost are coming to light, as indeed are documents and writings not noted in the literary sources; but it was only in 1978 that the new catalogue of Ṣanʿāʾ Jāmiʿ Mosque Library appeared, and the four-volume catalogue of documents stored in the waqf depository was published as this chapter was being written. Yet if what has been discovered since 1962 is compared with what was known to Brockelmann almost half a century ago, it is clear that the horizon of our knowledge of Yemeni literature is vastly extended.