The Mawza Exile (Hebrew: גלות מוזע, pronounced [ğalūt mawzaʻ]; 1679–1680) is considered the single most traumatic event experienced collectively by the Jews of Yemen,[1][2] in which Jews living in nearly all cities and towns throughout Yemen were banished by decree of the king, Imām al-Mahdi Ahmad, and sent to a dry and barren region of the country named Mawzaʻ to withstand their fate or to die. Only a few communities, viz., those Jewish inhabitants who lived in the far eastern quarters of Yemen (Nihm, al-Jawf, and Khawlan of the east[3]) were spared this fate by virtue of their Arab patrons who refused to obey the king's orders.[4] Many would die along the route and while confined to the hot and arid conditions of this forbidding terrain. After one year in exile, the exiles were called back to perform their usual tasks and labors for the indigenous Arab populations, who had been deprived of goods and services on account of their exile.[5]