Page 128 - Arabian Studies (V)

118 Arabian Studies V

Hadramawt had no British troops at all, only a few RAF personnel at
Riyan air-strip, to operate it. Previously the whole of this great area had
been policed by Arab troops alone. AI-Maqalih (al-Zubayri sha'irun, op^
cit, 28-9) says Zubayri and the Liberals were not anti-Britain in Aden,
considering Britain as ‘the Neighbour (al-Jarah)’ there.
30. This is a well known Mu‘tazilite phrase. The Zaydis of course
believe in such Mu‘tazill doctrines as the intermediate position, known as
manzilah bayna manzilatayn, between the Believer and Infidel, but the
Ash'aris (below, fn. 82) believe there is no such position and there are only
Believers and Infidels.
31. Zubayri completely misrepresents the situation. See p.90 and fn. 33.
His account of segmentation in the Yemen is also far from objective.
32. He means the Yemeni Sayyids. Comment was that this is an expres­
sion of animosity (hiqd) towards them.
33. My informants insisted that *uhud is to be taken in the sense of
‘ages’ here, but they seem mistaken in view of what follows. The British
Colonial policy at this period, so far from being ‘Divide and rule’, concen­
trated on setting up a federation!
34. Zubayri here is drawing on his imagination for as Ahmad al-Shami
has pointed out a tribesman, an Arhabi for instance, is an Arhabi before
he is a Yemeni. There was little sense of unity in those times, though educa­
tion may today have begun to alter attitudes to some extent.
35. This diabolical plot seems to exist only in Zubayri’s imagination!
36. Shatr in view of what follows might be better rendered as ‘a part’.
For al-Shami’s refutation of this concept of the Imamate see p.98.
37. Tuqiis, rites, says al-Shami, is not a Zaydi word, but a Christian
term. For Zubayri it would mean the Zaydi adhan, 'Hayya \ala khayr al-
'amal\ It is true of course that the Zaydis did impose this on such Shafi‘1
territories as Hadramawt when they conquered it, but the Turks of the
second Ottoman occupation forbade it in San‘a’, and it was not imposed
on the Shafi‘1 districts at the time Zubayri was writing. Al-Shawkani, al-
Badr al-tali\ Cairo, 1348 H., ii, 122, tells of a Zaydi Imam’s persistence in
using this form of adhan when the Tahirid ‘Amir b. ‘Abd al-Wahhab had
entered San‘a’.
38. Ifti’at was explained as al-da 'watal-batilah, false claim.
i 39. Zubayri alludes to the coming of the first Zaydi Imam, al-Hadl, to
the Yemen some 1,100 years ago—an ‘AdnanI not a Qahtani! He deli­
berately ignores the essential need of such an office as the Imamate among
the northern tribes. Cf. my ‘South Arabia’ in C.A.O. van Nieuwenhuijze,
Commoners, climbers and notables, Leiden, 1977, 226-47.
40. This alludes to the saying, A l-was was yajri fi Ibn Adam majra 7-
dam, ‘The devil of evil prompting runs in Man as blood runs (in his veins)’.
41. My informants said adamiyyah means ‘humanity’.
42. A standard cliche in the political jargon of the time, a Marxist echo.
43. Zubayri refers to the Zaydi soldiers and officials who collected taxes
from the peasants of the Shafi‘1 districts and to the customs officials
known for their illegal exactions. From criticisms in the current San‘a’
l press it seems that corrupt practice among customs officials persists! A

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