Page 124 - Arabian Studies (V)

114 Arabian Studies V
Awqaf of §an‘a’ in 1161/1748 an office which he discharged
honestly for a few years then resigned from it, but left in his will
100 qirsh (riyals) to charity and 100 to the poor of the Banu
Hashim, out of scruples about the waqf.m
In point of fact al-Amir clearly sought that the Imams should
enforce a just Islamic administration which it was probably imprac­
ticable for them to implement without losing the effective political
support of their followers. When al-Mansur succeeded to the
Imamate he counselled him in verse137 to entrust just persons with
charge of the peasantry (al-ra'aya) and he points to the tyranny
(jawr) of the assessor, tax-gatherer and collector of the tithe
(muthammir, qabbad, ‘ashshar). He inveighs against customs and
tolls (mukiis), as do all Islamic 'ulama\ not only those of the Zaydl
school, though it is an open question whether any Islamic ruler has
ever dispensed with this source of revenue. He makes a strong
attack138 on giving zakat money to the ‘turbaned’ (al-
mu'ammamuna) and the House of the Imam—which indeed is
prohibited the ‘AJawis by the sharVah—perhaps the Qudah are to
be included here with the ‘Alawls? He urged al-Mahdi ‘Abbas to
send teachers to the remoter villages, towns and country-side
(bawadi) to remove idolatrous beliefs in trees, stones and domes
iqubab)—i.e., saint-cults.139 Al-Mahdi assented to this and his
governors took over a great wealth of property devoted to these
‘idols’. In short al-Amir’s standpoint was that of Zaydl orthodoxy,
certainly not a polemic against the Imamate as an institution. If one
can honestly construe the opposition to al-Amir over his utilisation
of Sunni collections of Hadith Tradition as an attack on the exer­
cise of independent judgement (ijtihad), Imam Ahmad cannot be
accused of ignoring the Sunni canonical works, for, in making his
decisions by ijtihad, he had no hesitation in selecting from them
when he thought it appropriate to do so.
Al-Badr al-Amir is buried in the cemetery (hawtah) south-west of
the minaret of al-Madrasah Mosque.

i
A l-Shaft‘l and the Yemen
The Shafi'i school of Islam is far from being opposed in principle
to the ‘Alawis, Sayyids or Ashraf, and HadramI Sayyids are
numbered among the leading divines in the branches of this Sunni
rite in south Arabia and Indonesia. Al-Shafii himself went to the
'
Yemen during the reign of the ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Rashid and,
according to the author of Ghayat al-amani,140 ‘he entered San‘a’
and received ‘ilm [learning] from the QadI of San‘a’ who was at the
:
day Hisham b. Yusuf [the Abna’i]141 and from Mutarrif b.
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