Fatimid Red Sea strategy paired the Aydhab port with ideological penetration of Yemen

Evidence

Their aim, clearly, was to control both the African and the Arabian shores and the southern exit; in this they were, for a while, largely successful. On the African side, they developed the great seaport of Aydhab, as a centre for the eastern trade and a rival to Basra and Ubulla. On the Arabian side, the Yemen was the country where the Fatimid cause had gained its first major success, and the area remained one of prime concern to them—the scene of considerable religious and political effort. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 406

Categorization

• XREF: The religious/ideological dimension of a port-and-route strategy is exactly the kind of mechanism showing ideology traveling with commerce — usable in the Islam-West legibility cluster.