Zabid (Arabic: زبيد‎) (also spelled Zebid) is a town with an urban population of around 52,590 persons on Yemen's western coastal plain. The town, named after Wadi Zabid, the wadi (or valley) 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.