The Imams of Yemen and later also the Kings of Yemen were religiouslyconsecrated leaders belonging to the Zaidiyyah branch of Shia Islam. They established a blend of religious and political rule in parts of Yemen from 897. Their imamate endured under varying circumstances until the republican revolution in 1962, then the formal abolition of the monarchy in 1970. Zaidiyyah theology differed from Ismailis or Twelver Shi'ites by stressing the presence of an active and visible imam as leader. The imam was expected to be knowledgeable in religious sciences, and to prove himself a worthy headman of the community, even in battle if this was necessary. A claimant of the imamate would proclaim a "call" (da'wa), and there were not infrequently more than one claimant.[1] The historian Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) mentions the clan that usually provided the imams as the Banu Rassi or Rassids.[2] In the original Arab sources the term Rassids is otherwise hardly used; in Western literature it usually refers to the Imams of the medieval period, up to the 16th century. The Rassid branch that came to power with imam al-Mansur al-Qasim (r. 1597-1620) is known as Qasimids (Al al-Qasimi).
The imams based their legitimacy on descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad, mostly via the prominent Zaydiyya theologian al-Qasim al-Rassi (d. 860) - his cognomen refers to ar-Rass, a property in the vicinity of Mecca that he owned.[3] After him, the medieval imams are sometimes known as Rassids. The first of the ruling line, his grandson al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya, was born in Medina. His fame as an intellectual as well as a leader of note, led to his invitation to Yemen. He was summoned to govern the highland tribes in 893 and again in 896-97. Al-Hadi introduced a multitude of policies and practices that evolved into the particular Yemeni ZaidiShia brand. The efforts of al-Hadi eventually became the basic guidelines for the religious as well as political characteristics of Yemeni Zaydism. Al-Hadi, however, was not able to consolidate his rule in all of Yemen. He could not even create an enduring state in the highlands, due to the strong localism persisting in the region. There were revolts as well as segments of the population that did not accept his and his successors' pretensions to religio-political rule.[4]
Although he did not succeed in establishing any permanent administrative infrastructure, al-Hadi's descendants became the local aristocracy of the northern highlands, and it is from among them that most of the imams of Yemen were selected for the next one thousand years. Occasionally the imams were drawn from other lines descending from Muhammad.[5]
Yemen throughout most of that period was only rarely a unified political entity; in fact, what was included within its frontiers varied widely, and it has not been governed consistently or uniformly by any single set of rulers except for brief periods. It existed as a part of a number of different political systems/ruling dynasties between the ninth and sixteenth centuries, after which it became a part of the Ottoman Empire.
Rivalries with other dynasties
After Imam al-Hadi's death in 911, his sons took over the imamate in turn, although it was not hereditary but rather elective among the descendants of Muhammad. From the 11th to the early 17th centuries, however, the imams were usually not chosen from the sons of the former imam, but rather circulated among the various Rassid branches. Meanwhile, a multitude of smaller dynasties and families established themselves in the highlands, as well as in Tihama (the low coastal plain) where the imams rarely ruled. Among the better known of these are the Yu'firids (in San'a and Shibam, 847-997), the Sulayhids (in the southern highlands, 1047-1138), the Zuray'ids (in Aden, 1080-1174), and the Hatimids (in San'a, 1098-1174).[6] It was during this period, when the Fatimid state was influential, that a portion of the population was converted to Isma'iliShiʿism.
Beginning with the conquest of Yemen by the family of Salah al-Din ibn Ayyub (Saladin) in 1174, a series of dynasties exercised a modicum of control and administration in Yemen for roughly the next 400 years; these are, in chronological sequence, the Ayyubids, from 1173/74 to 1229; the Rasulids, from 1229 to 1454; the Tahirids, from 1454 to 1517; and the Mamluks, from 1517 to 1538, when the Ottoman Empire took the Yemeni Tihama.[7]
During most of this period, the dynasties and their rulers were primarily engaged in familial, regional, and occasionally sectarian disputes. Ironically, the SunniRasulids, who eventually concentrated their rule in southern Yemen for precisely that reason, were the dynasty under which the region experienced the greatest economic growth and political stability.[8]
For part of the medieval era the Zaydiyyah imams were eclipsed by the lowland dynasties, and for long periods there would be no imam at all (especially in 1066-1138 and 1171-1187). From the end of the thirteenth century the political fortunes of the Zaydiyya imams revived somewhat. They were able to hold their own against the Rasulids and Tahirids and sometimes expand their territory. Often, however, and especially after 1436, the imamate was split between several contenders.
Comparatively little is known about the medieval Zaydi imams and their efforts to establish themselves and develop some form of administration (including tax collection), or their success in promoting Zaydi goals during this period. From the available evidence, there was very little continuity and a great deal of competition among the Zaydi families and clans. For example, in a presumably representative two-hundred-year period from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, there appear to have been more than twenty different candidates for the imamate, representing more than ten distinct clans.
Eventually the Europeans entered the Middle East, specifically the Portuguese and then others, in the effort to control the Red Sea trade. For the Zaydiyya imams, however, the Ottomans constituted the greater external threat. Ottoman expeditions managed to defeat the highland tribesmen in the mid decades of the sixteenth century. From the early 17th century al-Mansur al-Qasim, belonging to one the Rassid branches (later known as the Qasimids), raised the standard of rebellion. His son al-Mu'ayyad Muhammad managed to gather the entire Yemen under his authority, expel the Turks, and establish an independent political entity. For a time, the imams ruled a comprehensive territory, including South Yemen and areas even further to the east. Their economic base was strengthened by the coffee trade of the coastal entrepot Mocha. Unlike in the previous practice, the Qasimids ruled as a hereditary dynasty.
The power of the imamate declined in the 18th and 19th century. The territory controlled by the imams shrank after the late 17th century, and the lucrative coffee trade declined with new producers in other parts of the world. Al-Mutawakkil Isma'il expanded the Qasimid state to it' greatest extent. The Qasimid state has been characterized as a "quasi-state" with an inherent tension between tribes and government, and between tribal culture and learned Islamic morality. The imams themselves adopted the style of Middle East monarchies, becoming increasingly distant figures. As a result, they eventually lost their charismatic and spiritual position among the tribes of Yemen.[9] The imamate was further eclipsed by the second coming of the Turks to lowland Yemen in 1848, and to the highlands in 1872. However, the Ottoman troops were never able to entirely quell resistance against Turkish rule. The occupants were eventually driven out by 1918, by a Qasimid side-branch which inaugurated the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen.
Modern history
For the next 44 years North Yemen was ruled by two powerful imams. al-Mutawakkil Yahya Muhammad Hamid ad-Din and his son Ahmad bin Yahya created a kingdom there much as the kings of England and France had done centuries earlier. The two imams strengthened the state and secured its borders. They used the imamate to insulate Yemen and revitalize its Islamic culture and society at a time when traditional societies around the world were declining under imperial rule. While Yemen under the two imams seemed almost frozen in time, a small but increasing number of Yemenis became aware of the contrast between an autocratic society they saw as stagnant and the political and economic modernization occurring in other parts of the world. This produced an important chain of events: the birth of the nationalist Free Yemeni Movement in the mid-1940s, an aborted 1948 revolution in which Imam Yahya was killed, a failed 1955 coup against Imam Ahmad, and finally, the 1962 takeover in which imam Muhammad al-Badr was deposed by a group of Egyptian supported and financed Sunni officers and the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) was proclaimed under the leadership of Abdullah al-Sallal.[10]
The first five years of President Al-Sallal's rule, from 1962 to 1967, comprised the first chapter in the history of North Yemen. Marked by the revolution that began it, this period witnessed a lengthy civil war between Yemeni republican forces, based in the cities and supported by Egypt, and the royalist supporters of the deposed imam, backed by Saudi Arabia and Jordan. In 1965 Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser met with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to consider a possible settlement to the civil war. The meeting resulted in an agreement whereby both countries pledged to end their involvement and allow the people of North Yemen to choose their own government. Subsequent peace conferences were ineffectual, however, and fighting flared up again in 1966.[11]
By 1967 the war had reached a stalemate, and the republicans had split into opposing factions concerning relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In late 1967 Al-Sallal’s government was overthrown and he was replaced as president by Abdul Rahman al-Iryani. Fighting continued until 1970, when Saudi Arabia halted its aid to royalists and established diplomatic ties with North Yemen. Al-Iryani effected the long-sought truce between republican and royalist forces, and presided over the adoption of a democratic constitution in 1970. The last ruling Rassid descendant Muhammad al-Badr, greatly disappointed by the Saudi recognition of the republic, emigrated to London where he died in 1996.[12]
In June 1974 military officers led by Colonel Ibrahim al-Hamdi staged a bloodless coup, claiming that the government of Al-Iryani had become ineffective. The constitution was suspended, and executive power was vested in a command council, dominated by the military. Al-Hamdi chaired the council and attempted to strengthen and restructure politics in North Yemen. Al-Hamdi was assassinated in 1977, and his successor, former Chief of Staff Ahmed Hussein al-Ghashmi, was killed in June 1978.[13] The lengthy tenure of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled North Yemen from 1978 until it merged with South Yemen in 1990, proved more stable. Saleh strengthened the political system, while an influx of foreign aid and the discovery of oil in North Yemen held out the prospect of economic expansion and development.[14]
The history of Yemen describes the cultures, events, and peoples of what is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East. Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia meaning "fortunate Arabia" or "Happy Arabia". Yemenis had developed the South Arabian alphabet by the 12th to 8th centuries BCE, which explains why most historians date all of the ancient Yemeni kingdoms to that era.
Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in Western Asia, on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and shares maritime borders with Eritrea, Djibouti, Somaliland and Somalia. It is the second-largest Arab sovereign state in the peninsula, occupying 555,000 square kilometres. The coastline stretches for about 2,000 kilometres. Yemen's constitutionally stated capital, and largest city, is the city of Sanaa. As of 2021, the population of the country is estimated at 30,491,000.
Zaydism,, is one of the Shia sects closest in terms of theology to the Ibadi and Mutazila schools. Zaidiyyah emerged in the eighth century from Shi'a Islam. Zaydis are named after Zayd ibn ʻAlī, the grandson of Husayn ibn ʻAlī and the son of the fourth Imam Ali ibn 'Husain. Followers of the Zaydi Islamic jurisprudence are called Zaydi Shia and make up about 25% of Muslims in Yemen, with the greatest majority of Shia Muslims in that country being of the Zaydi school of thought.
Islam came to Yemen around 630 during Muhammad's lifetime and the rule of the Persian governor Badhan. Thereafter, Yemen was ruled as part of Arab-Islamic caliphates, and became a province in the Islamic empire.
The Tahirids were an Arab Muslim dynasty that ruled Yemen from 1454 to 1517. They succeeded the Rasulid Dynasty and were themselves replaced by the Mamluks of Egypt after only 63 years in power.
The Imams of Yemen and later also the Kings of Yemen were religiously consecrated leaders belonging to the Zaidiyyah branch of Shia Islam. They established a blend of religious and political rule in parts of Yemen from 897. Their imamate endured under varying circumstances until the republican revolution in 1962. Zaidiyyah theology differed from Isma'ilism or Twelver Shi’ism by stressing the presence of an active and visible imam as leader. The imam was expected to be knowledgeable in religious scholarship, and to prove himself a worthy headman of the community, even in battle if this was necessary. A claimant of the imamate would proclaim a "call" (dawah), and there were not infrequently more than one claimant.
Al-Mansur al-Qasim, with the cognomen al-Kabir, was an Imam of Yemen, who commenced the struggle to liberate Yemen from the Ottoman occupiers. He was the founder of a Zaidi kingdom that endured, under many vicissitudes, until 1970.
Al-Hadi Sharaf ad-Din was a claimant for the Zaidi imamate of Yemen in the years 1878–1890, acting in opposition to the Ottoman occupiers of the country. His period saw a tribal embryo of a state taking form in the highlands of Yemen, which would be strengthened by his successors as imams, and eventually usher into the expulsion of the Ottoman Turks in the early 20th century.
Abu'l-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥasanī, better known by his honorific title of al-Ḥādī ila'l-Ḥaqq, was a religious and political leader in the Arabian Peninsula. He was the first Zaydi imam who ruled portions of Yemen from 897 to 911. He is also the ancestor of the Rassid Dynasty which ruled Yemen intermittently until the North Yemen Civil War in 1962.
Al-Mansur Muhammad bin Abdallah was an imam of the Zaydiyya sect in Yemen who claimed the imam title in the period 1853–1890, and ruled briefly in the capital San'a in 1853.
Al-Mahdi Ali bin Mohammed was an imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen who ruled in 1349–1372.
An-Nasir Ahmad was the third imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen. Through his active leadership he confirmed and expanded the polity founded by his two predecessors.
Al-Mansur Ali bin Salah ad-Din (1373–1436) was an imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen who ruled in 1391–1436, partly in rivalry with other claimants to the imamate.
Imam Al-Mutawakkil Ali al-Mutahhar was a ruler of Yemen from Sana’a who reigned from 1436 to 1474. He belonged to the Qasimid family who were descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, He ruled in the way of the Quran and the Sunnah and he left a number of writings on Hadith including praise poetry for the Islamic prophet Mohammad.
Al-Mahdi Muhammad bin al-Mutahhar was an imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen who ruled from 1301 to 1328.
Al-Mu'ayyad Yahya was an imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen whose tenure of the imamate lasted from 1328 to 1346.
Al-Hadi Yahya was an imam of part of the Zaidi state in Yemen. He ruled from 1217 to 1239, partly in rivalry with a contender.
An-Nasir Muhammad bin Abdallah was an imam of part of the Zaidi state in Yemen, who ruled in 1217–1226 in rivalry with a contender.
Al-Hadi Ali was a claimant to the Zaidi state in Yemen, who posed as imam from 1393 to 1432 in rivalry with another prince.
The Yemeni Zaidi State, also known as the Zaidi Imamate and the Qasimid State, was a Zaidi-ruled independent state in the Greater Yemen region, which was founded by al-Mansur al-Qasim in 1597 and absorbed much of the Ottoman Yemen Eyalet by 1628 and completely expelled the Ottomans from Yemen by 1638. The Zaidi state continued to exist into 18th and 19th century, but gradually fractured into separate small states. The most notable of those states was the Sultanate of Lahej; most of those states were submitted by the Ottomans and incorporated into the restored Ottoman province of Yemen Eyalet in 1849.
↑ An account of the political history up to the late 1970s can be found in Robert W. Stookey, Yemen: The Politics of the Yemen Arab Republic. Boulder 1978.
↑ Paul Dresch, A history of modern Yemen, Cambridge 2000, pp. 151-214.
Further reading
A.M.H.J. Stokvis, Manuel d'histoire, de généalogie et de chronologie de tous les états du globe, Vol I-III. Leiden 1888-93.
Peter Truhart, Regents of Nations. München 2003
E. de Zambaur, Manuel de généalogie et de chronologie de l'histoire de l'islam. Hannover 1927.
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Yemen 
