Dynamics of Islamic Governance and Statehood in Zaydi Yemen: Legal Theory and Political Practice
Panel IX-04, sponsored byAmerican Institute for Yemeni Studies (AIYS), 2024 Annual Meeting
On Friday, November 15 at 11:30 am
Panel Description
This panel examines the intersection between political theory and practice in Zaydi, Yemen, from medieval to modern times. The speakers will analyze different, at times conflicting, Zaydi views on core concepts of the political order, including the principles and methods of legitimizing an imam (i.e., election versus ‘uprising’) and challenging his legitimacy, approaches to dynastic succession and policies regarding Others, such as Sunnis, Sufis, Ismailis, and “protected people” (dhimmis), living within the imamate, or interacting with it, such as imperial powers.
The panel focuses on the understudied but transformative period of Yemeni Zaydi history spanning from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century. In this period, under the pressure of regional geopolitics and internal change, Zaydi imams and their supporters repeatedly, but often informally, reformed the imamate, updating the legal and political theories that underpinned it. These transformations continued to influence the development of the Zaydi political system up to the twentieth century.
The five contributions analyze/study/rely on handwritten and printed primary sources from archives and libraries in Yemen, Europe, and the US. They include previously understudied Zaydi jurisprudential texts preserved in legal compendia and fatwas, biographies of Zaydi imams (sing. sīra), biographical lexica (tarājim), and documents. Through multi-disciplinary approaches from legal, political, and social history to this spectrum of sources, the panelists will offer insights into how Zaydi legal and political thinking influenced political practice and vice versa. In conclusion, through a conversation between the participants, the panel will seek to contribute to the discussion of the phenomenon of the Sunnification of Zaydism.
The legal compendium, Kitāb al-Azhār, is perceived as the canonical text of the Yemeni Zaydi school of law (the Zaydi madhhab of fiqh). In this book, the author followed a conservative approach, transmitting only traditional legal views ascribed to influential early Zaydi figures. Since its composition, around 800/1397, the legal views presented in Kitāb al-Azhār have remained stable, with a possibility for change within specific customary frameworks in legal scholarship. During the reign of the Zaydi Imām Sharaf al-Dīn (r. 912/1506–965/1558), another legal compendium titled Athmār al-Azhār emerged, authored by Imām Sharaf al-Dīn himself, supplanting Kitāb al-Azhār as the canonical text of the madhhab. However, following Imām Sharaf al-Dīn's demise, Athmār al-Azhār experienced a decline, leading to the resurgence of Kitāb al-Azhār. Through an analysis of both the context and content of Athmār al-Azhār, this paper focuses on the factors precipitating this hiatus and explores why Imām Sharaf al-Dīn was unable to sustain the prominence of his book within the Zaydi madhhab.
In 933/1527, during the plague, imam al-Mutawakkil Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 965/1557), the first Zaydi imam to rule over both Upper and Lower Yemen, composed a will (waṣīya). This document, recently discovered in an understudied biography of the Zaydi imam, opened up the possibility of dynastic transfer in the Zaydi imamate. Previously, the formation of dynasties in Zaydi Yemen has been associated with the Qasimid period of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and linked to the century of Ottoman rule in the region. This new evidence indicates that the development of the theory and practice of dynasticism predates the Ottoman conquest of Yemen and has local roots. This paper analyzes the will and situates it in the broader context of sixteenth-century political transformation in Yemen. By placing it within the history of Zaydi political thought and practice, it uncovers how the tension between the meritocratic principle underlying Zaydi political theory that prevented the formation of dynasties and the practical need to stabilize the transfer of power between rulers was resolved in the Sharaf al-Dīn period.
The Zaydi theory of the imamate states that the method (tarīq) is daʿwa, that is, the qualified man should claim the imamate. If he is qualified according to the criteria, and if he is the best candidate, his imamate becomes binding on all Muslims. But who should evaluate his claim and validate it? This point is less clear, perhaps because Zaydi imams for a long time operated with a small number of followers already backing the imam before the daʿwa, making alliances with local tribes, and in any case operating as a minority, albeit with its own realm, the hijra. This paper focuses not on classical imamate theory as formulated in uṣūl and ʿaqīda chapters, but rather on how the theory is presented in fiqh texts (substantive law) from around ca. 1400-1550 CE, a time when Zaydis had much practical experience with the imamate. I draw attention to a possible sunnization of the appointment theory itself as the law was changed giving the elites around the imam explicit rights in appointing the imam, even preferring military capabilities over scholarly qualifications. This opens the door for a dynastic logic unfamiliar to traditional Zaydism, but well known from later periods. The main sources are the Kitāb al-azhār and al-Bahr al-Zakhkhār of Ibn al-Murtaḍā (d. 840/1436) as well as the Wābil by al-Miqrāʾī (d. 990/1582).
The so-called “orphan’s decree’ has been discussed in research related to the Jews of Yemen, especially concerning twentieth century Jewish-Yemeni sources, that refer to the practice of forced conversion of Jewish minor orphans to Islam and their removal (nazʿ) from their remaining family environment. Although this occurred during the reign of al-Mutawakkil Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn (r. 1904-1948), he is not mentioned as a driving force; rather, he seems to have been challenged through it, by not clearly identified actors from within the Zaydi spectrum.
This paper sheds light on the Islamic-legal background of this practice, focussing on a particular passage from the Sharḥ al-Azhār (Ibn Miftāḥ, d. 877/1472), and two fatwas from late 18th/early 19th century Yemen that refer to the practice of Imam Sharaf al-Din Yaḥyā (d. 965/1558) as precedent. Following the question of what it means, in political terms, to revive a practice attributed to Imam Sharaf al-Din, in theory or practice, this paper seeks to identify the Zaydī subgroup supporting this practice and its political positioning within the Qāsimī and Mutawakkilī political context.
