 In the late 19th century, he was the host to the Austrian Arabist and archeologist, Eduard Glaser, who conducted research in Yemen, and at the turn of the 20th century, he carried on a written correspondence with the Chief Rabbi of Ottoman Palestine in Jaffa, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kohen Kook, in which he and his fellow jurists answered twenty-six questions posed to the Court at Sana'a.Rabbi Qafiḥ had served as one of the chief instructors in the city's largest seat of learning ("yeshiva"), held then in the synagogue known as "Bayt Saleḥ", until a famine in 1905, resulting from a war with the Ottoman Turks, forced the closure of the "yeshiva".In the spring of 1906, Rabbi Yihya Qafiḥ was confirmed by the ruling monarch as one of four representatives of the Jewish community in Sana'a, along with Harun al-Cohen, Yiḥya Yitzḥak Halevi and Yiḥya al-Abyadh.