Page 106 - Arabian Studies (V)

96 Arabian Studies V
been written by a Zaydl and not by a Shafii like himself. Zubayri in
turn was to influence a much younger man, Muhsin al-‘AynI (later
to become a Premier in Republican Yemen), especially by the views
expounded in his al-Khud'at al-kubrau where Zubayri advances the
proposition that the populace (sha'b) must have sovereignty in the
Yemen as the cure for the country’s ills. ‘In saying this I do not
invite the elimination of the Mutawakkili ruler but I do invite elimi­
nation of his divine will which persists in enslaving the populace,
negating its humanity and denying its rights, as also it refuses that it
should have a government representing it and expressing its will
[iradah].' These remarks have about them the ring of our own 17th-
century attack on the theory of divine right and are with other
expressions in fact not part of the native Yemeni vocabulary but are
derived from the West.
Muhsin al-‘AynI, drawn from a different social class from that of
Zubayri, a product of the Orphan School at San‘a’ and a Ba‘thist,
writing about 1957 speaks in more moderate tones.14 We want a
ruler, he says, who derives his power from us—We the Tribes.
(Muhsin is of tribal descent, it is said of Ban! Bahlul.) We want a
ruler stripped of his holiness—we want a ruler called Mus‘id, Salih,
Sa‘Id, ‘AIT, Muhammad, just like you, me and other people. We
have tried these (Imamic titles) al-Mutawakkil ‘ala ’llah, al-Hadi ila
’1-Haqq for 1,096 years, and the result is plain to see. I direct these
words to the Sayyids first of all, and say that we are not against the
Sayyids as a group among the people, but we do not want the ruler
to be a ruler because he is a Sayyid. There is no reason why a Sayyid
should not govern the Yemen, but because he is a man, because he
is competent, because he is one of the people. Muhsin points out,
that in Cairo, Sayyids do not differentiate between themselves and
others. Some Sayyids with whom he has discussed the Yemen have
a liberal outlook and attribute the state of affairs there to a ruler
who justifies his evil actions behind the names of God! He avers
that he is not attacking the Sayyids as such, nor are all the Sayyids
to blame for the current situation and the privileges they enjoy. ‘On
the contrary you tribes and men of the Yemen are those who dili­
gently sought out the Sayyid, looking everywhere for him,
according him the place of honour at your meetings, urging him to
idleness and seeking good fortune (barakat) through him’. You
made the Sayyids a special class, he says, neither cultivating nor
labouring, but ruling, judging and living by your efforts. (In point
of fact this is not quite true for, in Shaharah, I photographed
Sayyids with little picks £oing to work in their fields) There should
be no Zaydism and Shaft‘Ism, no Hashimism and Qahtanism,
no tribes- and towns-men, no turbans and caps, no Tihamah