Page 132 - Arabian Studies (V)

122 Arabian Studies V
Qasim Ghalib, commenting on the above, speaks of the large areas of
ground around these Imamic tombs where the rich arc buried so that they
may be resurrected in company with the Imams. He accuses the Imams also
of appropriating awqaf to themselves.
64. Zubayrl cannot but have been aware that it would be a most
uncommon Yemeni, of whatever class, who, given the opportunity, would
refrain from acquiring land, nor would all Yemenis be scrupulous as to the
means used to acquire it. It is not to be supposed that the Imams’ failings in
this respect were greater than those of others before or after 1962.
65. In fact the Imams have developed irrigation projects, built
samsarahs (hostelries), stone huts for wayfarers. Imams Yahya and Ahmad
furthermore constructed quite a number of rough motor roads or masonry
mountain ways on which I travelled in 1966.
66. Cf. fn. 45 on this attitude.
67. Qur’an, xxxiii, 36.
68. By ‘factional’ he means ZaydI.
69. Cf. fn. 54.
70. Nello Lambardi, ‘Divisioni amministrative del Yemen: con notizie
economicheedemografiche’, Oriente moderno, Roma, 1947, xxvii, 143-56,
quotes a Yemeni document that claims the Zaydis are slightly in majority.
The Central Planning Organisation’s Socio-economic report 1970-1974,
published in San‘a’, avoids any attempt at a breakdown of population by
religion, but other sources seem to indicate a definite Shafi‘1 majority.
Lambardi’s source, 7Im al-buldan, San ‘a 1360/1941, makes the Zaydis
55%, the Shaft Is 45% of the inhabitants—reckoned at somewhere over 4
millions, with 60-70 thousand Jews and 50,000 Ismafilis (Tayyibi Fatimis).
71. Zaydi governors and soldiers from the north were appointed by the
Imams to collect taxes from the agriculturally richer districts of the Shafi‘I
south. In theory the system was fair and not burdensome, but, as managed I
by corrupt officials and tough soldiery, it pressed hard on the peasant. This
was the principal and real grievance of the southern peasant. In the north
taxes were collected bi-’l-amanah, i.e., by local assessment, not by Imamic
officials, but at least in some southern districts the old system of direct
Government taxation had not changed under the Republic as late as 1974.
The Shafi'Is however suffered from their own leaders to judge by the
information given me by a Shafi‘I. The Government assessors, he said,
used to go to the villages and the local headman (*dqil) would provide them
with food and entertainment. They would look only at the few places he
took them to see and in three days they would do what, had they inspected
the district properly, would have taken them a month. They would then
send back their report, but the central authorities, if a man was to pay 100
riyals, might add, say, another 50 riyals to it—the additional sum being
dalled damm. As far as I am aware this has no basis in law. Tax-farmers
(jmultazimin) bid for the farming (iltizam) of the markets at auctions
(muzdyadah) and kept watchers (muraqibin) so one could not avoid
payment, and there were taxes on everything.
It is this harsh incidence of taxation to which Zubayrl is alluding, but as
Muh. b. Muh. Zabarah, Nashr al-‘arf Cairo, 1359-76, i, 560, says, after