Page 114 - Arabian Studies (V)

104 Arabian Studies V

All that comes down concerning obedience to God and His Apostle
applies also to the Imam because he is God’s Vicegerent and Caliph.
These spiritual teachings arc combined in the Upper segment of the
Yemen with factional68 attacks against what they call ‘Denicrs of Interpre­
tation’69 who do not hold with the Imamic doctrine—the majority of the
populace.70 This is to justify the violent plundering71 forays which
inevitably every Imam despatches against the cultivators, the peaceful sons
of the populace in the Lower Yemen and Tihamah.
[13]
7. The Imamate and the propagation of learning
The Yemen, in truth, even under the auspices72 of the Imams, was profuse
in activity on an extensive scale in (the sphere of) learning, the door of inde­
pendent judgement (ijtihad)73 was open, the mosques crowded with
scholars (*ulama*) and pupils, and production in the field of (literary)
composition used to excite astonishment and admiration.74
The underlying reason for this is that the Yemeni populace possesses an
ancient heritage of civilisation, and inclines by its nature towards learning
and knowledge, in quest of which it roves to the remotest parts of the earth.
Added to this inclination is the fact that the door of independent judge­
ment (ijtihad) lies open, and that the stipulations75 for the Chosen Imam
are that he should have attained the degree of independent judgement
{ijtihad), for pre-eminence in this freedom with regard to learning is the
K foundation upon which the Imamate is essentially based. The Imams
would not have had the right to the development of an entity distinct from
the authority of the Islamic Caliphate had they not been able to demolish
the traditional framework76 that used to encompass the populaces of the
Arab Islamic Caliphate.
The obstinate rigid notion holding that the Islamic Schools have become
restricted to the Four Schools had become spread abroad, and it had
li become difficult to conceive of creating another school except through a
revolutionary venture.
' !
Moreover, since the jurisprudence (fiqh), sciences of learning, and
Schools of the four Imams77 had emerged under the auspices of the
Umayyad and ‘Abbasid Caliphs only, and by the very nature (14] of the
case the title to the Caliphate of the People of the House was ignored, it
was inevitable that any ambitious person of the ‘Alawls wishing to avenge
himself, or retaliate, or to found an ‘Alawl state on a religious basis,
:
! should demand the return of the title to the Caliphate to the People of the
House. Before anything else, any ambitious person of this sort must inevit­
ably smash the iron moulds into which the Four Imams had poured the
! fundamental bases {usul) of jurisprudence (fiqh), legislation (tashrT), and
the fundamental Islamic principles, one and all, after which they had closed
the door of independent judgement {ijtihad).
Hence sprang the revolutionary theory of the opening of the gate of inde­ f
pendent judgement {ijtihad), so that the first Fifth School, namely the
HadT-ite78 Zaydl School, might enter through it, and so that it would be
feasible for him to force a political theory, which the other Imams (of the

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