8 - Zaydism at the Crossroads

Summary

The contemporary Zaydī Shī‘ī community continues to struggle with the challenges posed by Sunnī traditionism. These challenges have persisted through the end of the Qāsimī Imāmate in 1853, the rise of a new Zaydī Imāmate (the Ḥamīd al-Dīns) in 1918, and the establishment of a Yemeni Republic in 1962. This chapter is organized chronologically and begins with an examination of the continuities between the later Qāsimī and Ḥamīd al-Dīn Imāmates. It then turns to the Republican period, during which the state has patronized a version of Zaydism that closely resembled Sunnī traditionism while persecuting Hādawī Zaydī communities. The chapter ends with a survey of the multiple strategies Hādawī Zaydī scholars have used to create a space for themselves in the social and political landscape of twenty-first-century Yemen.

The Ḥamīd al-Dīn Imāmate (1918–62)

After the collapse of the Qāsimī Imāmate in 1853, Yemen endured twenty years of chaos (1853–72) followed by thirty-five years of Ottoman rule (1872–1918). In 1890, Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn (r. 1890–1904), a descendant of the first Qāsimī Zaydī Imām, organized a rebellion in northern Yemen with the support of a tribal coalition that included a number of the most important Sayyid clans. He was succeeded by his son al-Mutawakkil Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad (r. 1904–48, subsequently referred to as Imām Yaḥyā), who seized control of the entire country in 1918 after the Ottoman defeat in World War I. This marked the start of the last Zaydī Imāmate in Yemen.