ÙÙÙÙÙ Ù٠أستطع اÙتعاÙØ´ ٠عÙ٠عÙÙ Øساب د٠اب٠ÙاخÙاÙÙ For I could not coexist with them at the expense of the blood of my father and my brothers
This chapter, which covers the period from Aḥmad Ḥaydarâs death in 1987 until Yemeni unification in 1990, compresses a series of crucial personal, tribal, and political developments into the short span of three years. The fact that, in this book, the broader periods of the preceding and the following chapters occupy a space comparable to those three years after the death of Aḥmad Ḥaydar and the investiture of his son MujÄhid as his successor, reflects the significance of this time in MujÄhidâs life.
The first years of MujÄhidâs shaykhdom were marked by his efforts to establish his position as the leader of his tribe and to exact revenge on bayt al-Aḥmar for the deaths of his father and his brothers. At the same time, the political drama of the coming years began to unfold when President á¹¢Äliḥ approached the young shaykh and tried to include him in his patronage networks, in order to use his desire for retribution to control the growing power of Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar. For this purpose, á¹¢Äliḥ approached MujÄhid and tested the possibility of their relationship from a number of angles and by using different techniques and measures; first he tried to win MujÄhid over, then he took a coercive and threatening position. His dealings with MujÄhid exemplify the very essence of á¹¢Äliḥâs âtribal politicsâ and the spectrum of manipulative techniques he employed in order to strengthen his power vis-à -vis the tribes. When rapprochement failed despite á¹¢Äliḥâs efforts, a period of instability followed, characterized by tribal unrest and armed insurrections, it produced grievances and resentments among the tribe of SufyÄn (and many other tribes) that continued to sour relations between them and the regime well beyond the end of the yar.
All this happened against the background of a short but politically important period. On the level of macropolitics, the years covered by this chapter
MujÄhid once called the years after the assassination of his father the most momentous time of his life. Certainly they were also the most important years, for they formed the idea of shaykhdom to which he clung afterwards. When attempts at rapprochement between him and á¹¢Äliḥ failed, the principle of opposition began to shape MujÄhidâs life just as it had his fatherâs. His rejectionist attitude towards the ruling system became, in fact, so dominant that it
1 The Time of the Raids (1987)
Nothing contributed so greatly to render MujÄhidâs choices seditious and warlike as the period at the beginning of his career, when shaykhdom became his lot as the result of a blood feud with the most powerful tribal family in post-1962 Yemen, a feud to which three of his elder brothers and his father had fallen victim. Catapulted as a fourteen-year-old to the top of an intractable tribe, and entrusted with the duty of avenging the blood of his kin on bayt al-Aḥmar, he became a focal point of the politics of manipulation and machinations that kept President á¹¢Äliḥ in power. MujÄhidâs premature exposure to the dark sides of power, and his resilience and resistance to political attempts to exploit his cause, explain his subsequent path of opposition to the regime that became the theme of his life.
When I was at school, I was surprised when a large host of our tribesmen descended to al-Jawf.6 We had no telephones in those days. I had only to look at them to know that something was dreadfully wrong. I welcomed them and asked them why they would visit me in these numbers. They said, âYour father sent us to take you back home.â I took my clothes and my personal weapon and went with them. When we reached SufyÄn, masses of people were gathering at the graveyard of JassÄr near WÄsiá¹ al-á¸alÊ¿a. At this sight I froze with terror. People came and offered me their condolences, others worked on filling my fatherâs grave. Later on that day, those who had come from afar returned to their home villages. But most of them stayed with me and kept watch over me in a vigil. They did not leave me to sleep alone and remained sitting at my side all night long.
The next morning, the tribesmen and [the other] shaykhs of Dhū Aḥmad gathered in order to elect me as their new shaykh. Because of my grief, I was still petrified as though turned to stone. I did not want to be elected. I did not want to become the shaykh. Grief made me deaf and blind to all but one subject: that was revenge.
After the assassination of a shaykh, it is custom for the tribe to gather and elect his eldest son as his successor, and at that time I was my fatherâs eldest remaining son. In the days after my fatherâs funeral, our tribal segment convened in my home village. Because the assassination of a shaykh is a black disgrace, normally a tribe accepts the succession of the son by consensus, and this is what happened to me. After my election, the elders of DhÅ« Aḥmad set up a document confirming my shaykhdom, bearing their signatures and fingerprints, and the dawshÄn announced my investiture in SufyÄnâs sÅ«qs and public places.
The gathering in WÄsiá¹ al-á¸alÊ¿a was the first of two tribal convocations necessary to establish MujÄhid as the full successor to his fatherâs positions. The day after his fatherâs funeral, he was elected senior shaykh of DhÅ« Aḥmad. Two years later, during the âwar of NÅ«riyyaâ in 1989, in a second, much larger tribal gathering, the whole tribe of SufyÄn also confirmed MujÄhidâs succession to the position of senior shaykh of SufyÄnâs Ruhm moiety, one of the two highest-ranking positions in the tribal structure of SufyÄn.9
The election ceremony as a ârite of passageâ marked MujÄhidâs departure from childhood and school life to his passage into adult life and the
The counsellors of my father were at my side. They remained with me after my fatherâs murder and continued to do so until their deaths. I profited from their experience and their knowledge of tribal law and custom (Ê¿urf wa-silf) and the relations between the tribes. The intimate knowledge of the tribes and their affairs and positions was vital to our survival, because of the conflict with the regime and the blood revenge issue between us and bayt al-Aḥmar. [In dealing with the other shaykhs,] we constantly and incessantly checked and rechecked the true and the untrue [among the shaykhs] through their words and deeds.
For a period of one month, we received mourners from among the shaykhs of BakÄ«l and other tribes. Five days after the funeral of my father, Shaykh Ê¿AbdallÄh DÄris delivered an invitation for a meeting with á¹¢Äliḥ in Sanaa, but I refused to accept. I was still horrified by the death of my father. á¹¢Äliḥ responded by sending military leaders and cars loaded with foodstuffs, sheep, and money. I received the military leaders, but I did not accept the gifts that came with them. Some tribal elders came to me and took the gifts, telling me that it is Ê¿ayb (disgrace) to send them back. The military leaders worked to convince me that á¹¢Äliḥ was not involved in the killing of my father and placed sole responsibility for his death on Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar.
á¹¢Äliḥâs attentiveness to the situation in SufyÄn was justified. After the death of Aḥmad Ḥaydar, the wrath of the SufyÄn was directed at his murderers and those they suspected of being the mastermind of the whole affair: Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar. Under the provisions of ḥukm al-muḥaddash12 â eleven-fold penalties for certain types of murders that are considered particularly disgraceful â the feudâs potential for destabilization further multiplied. According to the legal interpretation of the SufyÄn, enraged by the gross disgraces inflicted on their shaykhly family and collective honour, the killing of MujÄhidâs brother Ḥasan in 1981 alone, which marked the very beginning of the feud, led to an enormous blood debt, and two other brothers were killed, Ḥaydar and ḤÄmis. In addition, the assassination of MujÄhidâs father and their senior shaykh was also considered a black disgrace, for which eleven-fold penalties were due. The number of black disgraces inflicted on bayt Ḥaydar had reached dizzying heights, such that the affair could no longer be solved through mediation and material compensation. The reputation (naqÄʾ) of bayt Ḥaydar was at stake and could only be restored by the taking of blood.
At this juncture the SufyÄn faced an exceptional situation. By 1987, the potential for conflict that had accumulated in SufyÄn transgressed the dimensions of a petty tribal feud or an affair of honour and exchange of well-calculated blows of violence between hostile families or tribal segments. Exacerbated by the political power of Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar and his backing by the state, and the particular viciousness that had evolved between bayt Ḥaydar and bayt al-Aḥmar
After my father was killed, Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar called on those shaykhs of ḤÄshid who were his friends to leave their home villages and relocate to Sanaa14 because he dreaded a sweeping attack [of SufyÄn] on ḤÄshid to avenge the killing of my father and my brothers. Yet my counsellors strongly advised against summoning the tribe of SufyÄn for an all-out attack on ḤÄshid, lest it cause the death of masses of innocent ḤÄshid tribesmen. Instead, we agreed on targeting those whom we suspected of being behind the deaths of my father and my brothers. I set up a team of tribesmen, seasoned men, utterly without fear, known for their fierceness and fighting prowess. We left for the mountain pass NaqÄ«l al-GhÅ«la that separates the territory of BakÄ«l from ḤÄshid to the south. At NaqÄ«l al-GhÅ«la we entrenched ourselves in a place that overlooked the road, and there we lay in wait for members of bayt al-Aḥmar and bayt AbÅ« ShawÄrib. We stayed there for a long time, monitoring the movements on the mountain pass, but none [of them] came, or they were too heavily guarded. Eventually, we grew weary of waiting and went home.
Why AbÅ« ShawÄrib?
Because MujÄhid AbÅ« ShawÄrib had a hidden hand in killing my brother Ḥasan [in 1981]. We did not merely suspect it. We knew it.15
A few days later, we decided to head directly to DhÄ« BÄ«n [in KhÄrif of ḤÄshid], the village of MujÄhid AbÅ« ShawÄrib, with the aim of breaking into his house and killing him. Two of my sentries had been observing and reconnoitring the house and its environs and informed us when MujÄhid AbÅ« ShawÄrib was at home. After driving a long distance on a gruelling rough track, we reached DhÄ« BÄ«n and broke into his house. But we did not find him. They told us that he had left one hour before. We only found his brother Ê¿Askar AbÅ« ShawÄrib, and in the far distance we saw a foreign woman fleeing on a horse. They told us that she was the French wife of Ê¿Askar AbÅ« ShawÄrib, this is what they said. We did not kill him [his brother Ê¿Askar] because he was a weak man who mattered to no one, and our chivalry (shahÄma) did not allow us to kill a weak man. His death would not have enraged the tribe of ḤÄshid, nor would it have taught them the taste of pain. So we raised the barrels of our guns skyward, and did not shoot. On our return, we came across the house of a ḤÄshid shaykh called Ibn ḤÄjib. We did not find him, but we found his brother, who beseeched us not to kill him, and as a result, we spared him and made do with firing a single shot at his right hand.16 He dropped his weapon and we took him with us as a captive. I continued to roam with my men in order to get experience and, if possible, to avenge my kin and kill my enemies with my own hands. This was my way to ease my grief. My counsellors worked hard to hold my impulse in check and prevent me from accompanying my tribesmen on these raids, but I enforced my will and went with them to take revenge.
Armed raids (pl. maghÄzÄ«) are a phenomenon that occurs far more frequently among the semi-nomadic societies of SufyÄnâs sister tribe Dahm in al-Jawf and among the desert tribes of the Empty Quarter.17 Among the sedentary tribes of highland Yemen, with their well-defined borders and strong agricultural background, armed raids are very rare. Their occurrence in 1987 indicates the
Ultimately, it was the concerted precautions of the major ḤÄshid shaykhs, who temporarily relocated to Sanaa to elude a confrontation with SufyÄnâs avengers, and Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmarâs capacity to recruit large armed escorts, that continued to frustrate MujÄhidâs attempts at exacting revenge. For the time, his attempts to avenge the deaths of his father and his brothers floundered. After some time, and without having achieved anything, he and his men returned to SufyÄn, mourning the dead, nursing their grievances, forgetting nothing, and forgiving less.
2 The Godfather (1988)
á¹¢Äliḥ said many words about his innocence of the killing of my father. He said that, while he had not been his friend, only a fool would doubt my fatherâs honour and honesty. He insisted that this was a tribal issue [between bayt Ḥaydar and bayt al-Aḥmar] that he had nothing to do with, and that any desire to conspire against my father was far from him. He gave me the military rank of a first lieutenant, a six-month scholarship for my schooling, monthly salaries for my tribal guards, and a water project for my village. He invited me to let him know if there was any other benefit I would ask of him. He wanted me to have a taste of how it is to belong to him.
á¹¢Äliḥ offered MujÄhid these personal and financial benefits that were meant to form the foundation of a relationship of dependence. In Yemen, as in much of Middle Eastern politics, state-financed shaykhs have been a fixture for centuries. Yet financial patronage was always a double-edged sword: rather than ânurturingâ the tribal system, patronage was meant to drive a wedge between the shaykhs and their tribal home constituencies by generating differences in status and wealth between them and their tribesmen, whose economic situation and living conditions often were and remained dire.19 For the shaykhs, the elevation and insulation from their tribal communities and their daily affairs was a mixed blessing, as the influx of wealth and their orientation towards the capital often weakened their authority and influence in their often faraway tribal constituencies. From the point of view of the state, this was a welcome side effect of patronage because fragmented tribes without strong leaders were weak and did not pose much threat.
What really counted for a tribe, and what MujÄhid strived to attain from á¹¢Äliḥ, was tawáºÄ«f, the (mass) employment of tribesmen in the military and public administration. Only tawáºÄ«f allowed a tribe to penetrate into sensitive areas of the military and administrative apparatus, thus profiting sustainably as a whole. The tribes that were granted this access were of course handpicked; they were exclusively ḤÄshid tribes, and of the ḤÄshid only SanḥÄn (á¹¢Äliḥâs tribe) and HamdÄn Sanaa (the tribe of his predecessor al-GhashmÄ«).20 Only
It was á¹¢Äliḥâs policy to kill the father and reap the son. His policy was killing or otherwise ruining the great shaykhs who were opposed to him and patronizing their sons and making them obedient. á¹¢Äliḥâs policies were guided by a certain basic pattern; he contributed to the killing of a shaykh who did not march to his tune (lÄ yamshÄ« Ê¿alÄ kayfihi), and then leaked information to the sons of the slain shaykh that he was innocent and that al-Aḥmar was guilty of the crime. He conned his way into the confidence of the son by creating facts that discredited al-Aḥmar and reflected adversely on al-Aḥmarâs integrity. Of course he killed in an intelligent and hidden way without giving reasonable grounds to suspect his involvement. á¹¢Äliḥ considered this method the best way to control the BakÄ«l bogeyman (al-baÊ¿baÊ¿ al-bakÄ«lÄ«). He feared that the undisguised
killing of the shaykhs of BakÄ«l would make the BakÄ«l unite against him and remove him from power. In this way, á¹¢Äliḥ manipulated the sons of the slain shaykhs and managed to push them in the direction in which their fathers had refused to go. And á¹¢Äliḥ aimed at dealing with me in the same way.
á¹¢Äliḥ told me that he was innocent of any desire to kill my father and that he had nothing to do with his murder. He said he would stand with me and support me if I listen to him and implement his demands, which turned out to be utterly unacceptable for me. He requested that I postpone the pursuit of avenging my father and my brothers and demanded a á¹£ulḥ [truce] between me and bayt al-Aḥmar for a period of fifteen years.
In tribal customary law there is a case called ârespect for socially important personsâ (iḥtirÄm li-l-shakhsiyyÄt al-ijtimÄÊ¿iyya al-kubrÄ). Such a person may ask the avenger to grant his enemy a certain period of truce as a human duty in order to alleviate the suffering of that enemy and to
give him the opportunity to leave his home and to return to it safely so that he can arrange his personal affairs, gather food reserves, and the like [before the process of blood revenge sets in]. According to the type of the case, the truce may be valid for a period of one month, two months, six months, one year, two years, and more. The avenger has the right to refuse and not grant a truce. People deal with this matter according to the type of crime: if it was wilful murder, the avenger [often] refuses to grant his enemy a truce. If the killing was a matter of self-defence, the avenger understands and grants the opponent a temporary truce.
I refused [to grant a truce] because I suspected that á¹¢Äliḥ had a hidden hand in the murder of my father and my brothers. Instead, I demanded that he enforce [state] law to prosecute the killers who lived in Sanaa under the protection of the state and received monthly salaries from the government for carrying out these murders. The killersâ rewards and salaries came from the state treasury and were granted by á¹¢Äliḥ. The killers were in Sanaa with Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar in al-Ḥaá¹£aba neighbourhood, protected by the state that also rewarded them with privileges, military ranks, and state jobs. I demanded that á¹¢Äliḥ arrest them and put them on trial and enforce justice rather than asking me for a fifteen-year truce.
At that time, I did not yet fathom á¹¢Äliḥâs true intention. Only years later I understood that he had been trying to transform my mission of active revenge into a sleeper case that he would activate at a time of his choosing, in order to use it against Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar. He planned to rekindle my revenge as a means of removing Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar from power at an appropriate time. There was the issue of his son, Aḥmad á¹¢Äliḥ, whom he wanted to bring into position. This meant his plan for dynastic succession had been in place a long time. The succession of his son Aḥmad was a subject of disagreement between á¹¢Äliḥ and Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar. á¹¢Äliḥ knew that al-Aḥmar would never accept it, so when Aḥmadâs time came he wanted to be able to get rid of Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar. And á¹¢Äliḥ knew that only we, the tribe of SufyÄn, were capable of destroying bayt al-Aḥmar.
The assassination of Aḥmad Ḥaydar and á¹¢Äliḥâs attempts to form an alliance with his heir coincided with a period of fundamental political disagreement between á¹¢Äliḥ and Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar; this disagreement revolved around issues of Yemeni unification and presidential succession. At that time, the policy of rapprochement between the Yemeni sister states had gained new momentum and â for the first time since the 1960s â unification seemed to have had a genuine chance of success. á¹¢Äliḥ had an instinct for political changes and the moment when a situation turned in his favour. His awareness of the unique historical and political opportunity was combined with his vested interests. He viewed Yemeni unity and the three million partly detribalized southerners as a welcome counterbalance to the influence of Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar and some other influential northern shaykhs. Likewise, the southern armed forces were considered more disciplined and loyal than the northern army, and, above all, the southern army had not been infiltrated by the northern tribes.23
Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar, on the other hand, had been a fierce opponent of Yemeni unity and had been instrumental in thwarting efforts at unification since the early 1970s.24 His aversion to the pdry and socialism was irreconcilable, as he saw the fundamentals of his being, thinking, and acting (that is, tribalism and Islam) threatened by the political and ideological system of the pdry, which he vilified as being based on âatheist-communist-opportunist-anarchist
All this scheming [was] in order to pass his power on to his son. [á¹¢Äliḥ even risked] wars, poverty, and [letting his country slip into] backwardness in order to secure the succession of his son. How wrong he was! If he worked properly and built a nation and provided justice and stability and development, the Yemeni people would have loved him even before Aḥmad came to power. And [later on] al-ḤūthÄ« would not have come.
And now he tried to exploit the killing of my father and to buy me with stipends and a military rank and salaries for my tribal guards. He wanted to harness my cause to his own advantage. But I rebelled, even if it cost me dearly. For I could not coexist with them at the expense of my fatherâs and my brothersâ blood.
3 The War of NÅ«riyya (1989)
If MujÄhid had been morally shocked by the killings of his brothers and his father, after their meeting his respect for the president had plummeted. Instead of bringing about reconciliation, cooperation, and a relation of confidence, the encounter had only served to increase the antagonism between them. For á¹¢Äliḥ their meeting had been a total failure. While MujÄhid had accepted a military rank, the water project, and salaries for his tribal guards, he had rejected á¹¢Äliḥâs
I took over the office of the shaykh at a young age, and since then I have been preoccupied with defensive wars and revenge issues. In the year after the meeting with á¹¢Äliḥ, a soldier kidnapped a girl from al-Ḥarf city. We seized upon this opportunity to wage a war on the regime. We blocked the road, besieged the garrison in the Qishla in al-Ḥarf and cut off its food and water supply. We killed twenty-five soldiers and officers and took fifteen captive. Only one of us was killed and one other injured. This war was called the war of NÅ«riyya, because NÅ«riyya was the name of the girl who had been abducted by the soldier in al-Ḥarf.
It was a large and violent confrontation. The regime was forced to dispatch two military brigades to al-Ḥarf, one brigade from Ê¿AmrÄn [city], and another from á¹¢aÊ¿da called liwÄʾ al-Ê¿urÅ«ba under the command of Brigadier General Ê¿Abd al-Ê¿AzÄ«z al-Dhahab from Ḥizyaz in SanḥÄn. [This was] in addition to the battalion that was already stationed in Qishla in al-Ḥarf city. The soldier who kidnapped NÅ«riyya was from this battalion. He was from HamdÄn Sanaa tribe.
Among the SufyÄn, as always, a common threat effectively suspended the tribeâs segmentary loyalties, it pushed the rivalries and jealousies of one segment against another into the background, and it forged the tribe into a cohesive unit: al-ḥarb al-khÄrijiyya tajmaÊ¿ al-kull (âan external war unites everyoneâ). During the war, old contracts and agreements between SufyÄnâs moieties Ruhm and á¹¢ubÄra came into effect; these aimed at mutual cooperation in upholding the inviolability of the tribeâs territory â agreements that
The government sent the wakīl of Sanaa governorate to demand that we lift the siege on the Qishla and release the captured soldiers, but we refused. We demanded the release of Nūriyya and her kidnapper in order to punish him under tribal law. The government refused to hand him over to us, because it feared that soldiers would stop serving in the army if there were reason to expect their extradition [to tribal jurisdiction] in case of conflicts between the army and the tribes.
When the negotiations [between the SufyÄn and the regime] were still in progress, some lesser shaykhs of SufyÄn went to where the captives
were detained and lied to the guards, telling them that we had reached an agreement with the wakÄ«l to release the captives. The guards believed them and set the soldiers free. When news of this treachery came out, the tribe of SufyÄn reacted with outrage. They rose and announced the annulment of the shaykhdom of those traitor shaykhs and elevated my shaykhdom above that of all other shaykhs of SufyÄn.
When we felt that we had achieved what we desired in [terms of] damaging the reputation of the army and the state, we lifted the siege [of the Qishla in al-Ḥarf] and returned to our homes without having reached any understanding with the state.
The most important qualities of a shaykh in Yemen include his intimate knowledge of tribal affairs and customary law, as well as his superior skills in conflict mediation and verbal suasion.33 If the situation arises, however, a shaykh must also be able to prove his assertiveness towards his opponents, and show his courage and leadership qualities in war.34 MujÄhidâs courage and, not least, the âdisgracefulâ blunders of the state strengthened his position when, during the war of NÅ«riyya, a second tribal gathering took place and the whole tribe of SufyÄn confirmed his shaykhdom. The day after his fatherâs death in 1987, his home segment DhÅ« Aḥmad had elected him as their new shaykh. Because MujÄhid had also âinheritedâ the position of the senior shaykh of Ruhm moiety, which is in constant competition with the senior shaykh of the á¹¢ubÄra moiety over the rank of senior shaykh of the whole of SufyÄn (shaykh mashÄyikh SufyÄn), his shaykhdom had to be confirmed âat the first opportunityâ (fÄ« awwal furá¹£a) by the whole tribe. To this end, representatives of all segments of SufyÄn, from across the vast territory of the tribe, had to gather; this opportunity arose during the general tribal mobilizations during the war of NÅ«riyya.
The dawshÄn who publicly announced the confirmation of my shaykhdom by the whole of SufyÄn was [again] Muḥammad NÅ«bÄ«. It happened that the dawshÄn proclaimed my shaykhdom at the time of nightfall. Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar was furious about these events and the outcome of the election. We were told that he said, âThis is a maghrib declaration and at maghrib the devils are present.â36
The war of NÅ«riyya was part of a broader development that was not limited to SufyÄn. During the second half of the 1980s, a number of conflicts between the tribes and the government flared up in northern and north-eastern Yemen. SinÄn AbÅ« Laḥūmâs diary entries provide ample evidence that BanÄ« Ḥushaysh, Murhiba, and BanÄ« ḤÄrith were also plagued by unrest.37 In 1986, a conflict broke out between the Qayfa and Ê¿AwaḠtribes near al-Bayá¸Äʾ; this spread into the adjacent areas and prompted the intervention of the army.38 In 1988, Arḥab gravitated outside state control.39 In 1989, at almost the same time as the war of NÅ«riyya, a confrontation between the tribes and the regime erupted in the Maʾrib area; this conflict went down in history as the âMaʾrib revolutionâ (thawrat Maʾrib). The Maʾrib revolution spread from Nihm into Ê¿AbÄ«da and from there into KhawlÄn, Arḥab, JadÊ¿Än, MurÄd, and al-Jawf, and temporarily rendered the area âa war zone.â40 In his memoirs AbÅ« Laḥūm notes that á¹¢Äliḥ,
In SufyÄn, in particular, á¹¢Äliḥâs plans came to nought. In dealing with MujÄhid Ḥaydar, á¹¢Äliḥâs most artful manoeuvres only engendered backlashes. His efforts at integrating MujÄhid into his finely crafted patronage networks and using him as a secret weapon against Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar only served to intensify MujÄhidâs ire and his deep-seated antipathy for the regime. Worse still, SufyÄn had risen against the regime and dragged the army into an open confrontation. Supported by a wave of indignation against the blunders of the army during the war of NÅ«riyya, MujÄhidâs tribal position and recognition were stronger than before.
One night, I was surprised by one of my tribesmen knocking at the door. When I opened it, he produced a mine and six hundred thousand riyals. I asked him what it was. He answered, âThis is what some men of al-Ê¿Uá¹£aymÄt gave me to put under your car and blow you up.â I thanked him, and told him that the money was his reward, but I took the mine. After this, á¹¢Äliḥ knew that I held no goodwill for him and he stopped paying the salaries of my guards. Ever since, he was odious to me and I to him.
According to Dunbar (1992: 459â460), the âfourth phaseâ of unity efforts lasted from 1988 to 1990. On this period, see also Brehony 2011: 151â167. The main reason for the renewed tensions between the pdry and the yar in late 1987 and early 1988 related to issues of oil exploration in common frontier areas that were not demarcated and the yarâs participation in the Arab Cooperation Council (acc); for the latter see Burrowes and Schmitz 2018: 51â52.
Brehony 2011: 151â153.
Abū Laḥūm 2004: vol. 3: 352.
Dunbar 1992: 468.
Al-Aḥmar 2008: 242.
Large parts of the Jawf depression, with the exception of the Baraá¹ plateau, are lower in altitude than SufyÄn, hence the way from SufyÄn to al-MatÅ«n is considered to be a âdescent.â
Shaykhly succession is both hereditary and elective, see Dostal 1974: 7â9; AbÅ« GhÄnim 1985: 251â298; Gingrich 1989: 195â210; Dresch 1989: 99â106; Weir 2007: 97â204; and Brandt 2014a: 95â98. According to tribal traditions, the shaykh is considered âprimus inter paresâ (Gingrich and Heiss 1986: 19), whose investiture and performance must be approved by the members of his tribal constituency.
In the tribal societies of Yemen, the dawshÄn is a herald of non-tribal, i.e., âvulnerableâ status. The dawshÄn belongs to the social category of the ahl al-khums, see Serjeant 1977: 231â232. The dawshÄn of an individual tribe is only permitted to move about within the tribal area â e.g., SufyÄnâs dawshÄn only circulates within the territory of the SufyÄn. He makes proclamations for the shaykh, eulogizes people of note on social occasions, often in rhymed prose, and announces weddings and funerals. Chelhod (1970: 75) thinks their name originated from the expression dhÅ« shaʾn (âone with an issueâ) which then evolved into dawshÄn. Not all tribes in Yemen perceive of the position of dawshÄn in the same way. According to Chelhod (1985: 30), the profession of dawshÄn did not exist in á¹¢aÊ¿da until 1974. In Munabbih, in the 1980s the position of the dawshÄn was unknown, see Gingrich 1989: 129. With regard to MujÄhid, I noticed that he vividly recalled a dawshÄn by the name of Muḥammad NÅ«bÄ« who regularly took action at key points in MujÄhidâs life. At my request, he further explained the dawshÄnâs special role: âMuḥammad NÅ«bÄ« was a famous dawshÄn, who later on worked for the Red Crescent [Red Cross]. During a war, as a dawshÄn, according to tribal customary law he had the right to move between the parties to the conflict, to provide services, and to rescue the injured from a battlefield. In a war between two tribes, the dawshÄn has the right to aid the wounded, remove those killed, and provide all kinds of service[s] and food. He may transfer correspondence between the parties to the conflict until their reconciliation.â This basically corresponds with al-Ê¿AlÄ«mÄ«âs (1988: 78, 83) description of the dawshÄnâs roles and tasks.
The senior shaykh of SufyÄnâs other moiety, al-á¹¢ubÄra, traditionally comes from bayt Ḥubaysh, which is as noble, ancient, and deep-rooted as bayt Ḥaydar of Ruhm (see Dresch 1989: 202â204). The question of which of the two shaykhly houses is more important and thus takes the position of shaykh mashÄyikh (senior shaykh) of SufyÄn is largely a matter of opinion and changes over the time; habitually both bayt Ḥaydar and bayt Ḥubaysh have claimed this position at various times.
In cultural anthropology, the term rite of passage is the Anglicization of rite de passage, a French term innovated by the ethnographer Arnold van Gennep in his work Les rites de passage (1909).
On tribal leadership as a cooperative and collective enterprise and the roles and responsibilities of the counsellors of a shaykh, see al-Ê¿AlÄ«mÄ« 1988: 80; Gingrich 1989: 128â129; and Weir 2007: 68â69, 79.
On the levels of violence in honour-bound societies, see Jamous 1991.
By virtue of its hijra status, the (formerly walled) city of Sanaa carries the epithet makhzan al-ruʾūs (head store) â a metaphor for its status as a sanctuary for those threatened by blood revenge, see Serjeant 1983: 39â43 and Ê¿Umar 2004: 186â187. On the institution of the hijra as a protected space, see Puin 1984.
Indeed, there are striking parallels between Ḥasan Ḥaydarâs assassination in 1981 and the assassination of MujÄhid AbÅ« ShawÄribâs father, YaḥyÄ, who was assassinated by the SufyÄn in 1951. Khadija al-Salami (2003: 228â230) recorded AbÅ« ShawÄribâs version of this incident, according to which the SufyÄn lured YaḥyÄ AbÅ« ShawÄrib into the wilderness and killed him there. His body was abandoned in a depression and discovered a few days later by his son MujÄhid AbÅ« ShawÄrib. This strong sense of symbolism and visual parity can be observed time and again in the history of crime in Yemen. The assassination of NÄjÄ« l-GhÄdir in the BayḥÄn massacre of 1972 is another case in which the extravagant setting of his assassination was a cruel and dazzling mise-en-scène of a famous zÄmil, see Brandt 2021: 10. The killing of Ê¿AlÄ« Ê¿AbdallÄh á¹¢Äliḥ in 2017 by the ḤūthÄ«s in some ways corresponded with the assassination of Ḥusayn al-ḤūthÄ« in 2004. Both were killed by a gunshot point blank to the head, and very similar close-up photos of their bodies circulated in the media. á¹¢Äliḥâs death not only matched the killing of Ḥusayn al-ḤūthÄ«, but the visuals of their slain bodies also corresponded in a striking way; in some way, parity was restored in more than one sense. See Brandt 2021: 64.
They shot at his hand because he pointed a weapon at them.
On tribal raiding in Yemen, see, for example, AbÅ« Laḥūm 2004: vol. 1: 52â54 and Dresch 2006 (passim). In his study on the ShÄhsevan of Iran, Tapper (1986) argues that raiding activities, regardless of their complex political backgrounds, greatly contribute to the hostile stereotypes found in historical accounts on tribes; this obviously also applies to the Yemeni context.
Muḥammad Ibn ShÄjiaÊ¿ and á¹¢Äliḥ HindÄ« DughsÄn were close friends of Aḥmad Ḥaydar, and MujÄhid called them âdearest people.â á¹¢Äliḥ HindÄ« DughsÄn was also involved in the ndf rebellion, see Lichtenthäler 2003: 63â64. MujÄhid later married one of DughsÄnâs daughters. Muḥammad Ibn ShÄjiaÊ¿ became notorious in the late 1990s when he spearheaded tribal protests and acts of sabotage against the border Treaty of Jeddah; he also colluded with Osama Bin Laden, see Bergen 2001: 184, 191â192; al-Enazy 2005: 240 n. 4, 241 n. 7, 241 n. 9, 243 n. 18; and Brandt 2017a: 86â90, 92â93. Both shaykhs were assassinated.
On the process of tabaÊ¿Ê¿ud (âdistancingâ) between the major shaykhs and their tribes, see also Dunbar 1992: 468 and Dresch 1995: 38.
On SanḥÄn (and, to a lesser degree, HamdÄn) dominance in the government and military, see Phillips 2011a: 88â93; and Day 2012: 89, 95.
During the 1960s civil war, both NÄjÄ« l-GhÄdir (royalist) and AmÄ«n AbÅ« RÄs (republican) claimed the position of the senior shaykh of the BakÄ«l confederation. NÄjÄ« l-GhÄdir was assassinated in 1972 in the so called BayḥÄn massacre, see Brandt 2019. AmÄ«n AbÅ« RÄs, a close associate of former president IbrÄhÄ«m al-ḤamdÄ«, was poisoned in 1978. After his ascent to power in 1978, á¹¢Äliḥ patronized their sons Muḥammad al-GhadÄ«r and á¹¢Ädiq AbÅ« RÄs and facilitated their political careers in the gpc apparatus.
Hartley (1961: 181) observed a similar custom among the Nahd tribe of Ḥaá¸ramawt: âA truce (á¹£ulḥ) brings into effect a short suspension of hostilities, during which all past incidents of raiding and killing are said to remain âbetweenâ the two parties but rights of retaliation are held in abeyance. By a truce both parties agree to abstain from hostile acts for a specific period, usually six months, after which the truce can be renewed.â
Dunbar 1992: 469â470.
Dunbar 1992: 468.
Al-Aḥmar 2008: 242. When Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar could not prevent Yemeni unity in 1990, his resistance focused on the dispute over paragraph 3 of the constitution that determines whether sharÄ«Ê¿a law should be the sole source or the principal source of law in unified Yemen, see AbÅ« Laḥūm 2004: vol. 4: 28â32.
Al-Aḥmar 2008: 238. See also chapter 1.
This phenomenon surfaced in many other âsham democraciesâ in North Africa and the Middle East. In Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, Algeria, and Libya the republics began to look more like monarchies, a condition captured by Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddine Ibrahimâs minted word gumlikiyya â meaning a state that is half republic and half monarchy. In contrast to other states in the Middle East, however, the yarâs weakness required a much more elaborate practice of accommodation, negotiation, and compromise, see Owen 2012.
The ṬÄʾif border treaty of 1934 was a temporary settlement of the border conflict between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen, to be renewed every twenty (lunar) years. In 2000, the Treaty of Jeddah acknowledged the provisions of the ṬÄʾif Treaty as final, permanent, and non-renewable; see Schofield 2000 and al-Enazy 2005.
Zaydi HÄdawÄ« doctrine does not support dynastic rule. Since the seventeenth century ce, however, Sunni elements were integrated into the Zaydi school of law; this eliminated some of the theological doctrines of Zaydism, such as the HÄdawÄ« doctrine that the supreme rulership (imÄma) was not inherited and dynastic succession was impossible; see Haykel 2003. For this reason some Zaydi scholars have criticized the two dynasties (the QÄsimÄ« and the ḤamÄ«d al-DÄ«n dynasties) that ruled highland Yemen from the mid-seventeenth century until 1962, particularly for abandoning the original style of Zaydi leadership and succession, thereby effectuating an âadulterationâ and decline of Zaydism, see Haykel 1999: 194; Bruck 2010: 192.
Quietist Salafis distrust or entirely reject democratic forms and parliamentary policy and instead promote complete loyalty to a ruler, even when he is deemed corrupt or unjust, see Bonnefoy 2011: 88â97. In this regard, Salafi doctrine is fundamentally different from the quest for social justice led by many among the Muslim Brothers, jihadis, and also Zaydis.
Dresch 1989: 128 and Dresch 2002: 79. Dreschâs observation refers to tribal contracts of cooperation and joint defence between SufyÄnâs moieties (á¹¢ubÄra and Ruhm) from the time of the 1960s civil war, when the SufyÄn were politically divided into republicans and royalists and yet agreed to jointly defend their tribal territory against external aggression. Similar agreements were in effect among other tribes, see al-RuwayshÄn (1997: 120â126) for KhawlÄn al-ṬiyÄl.
In administrative terms, a wakīl is a kind of secretary of state or sector director.
Caton 1987 and Caton 1990.
In his case study of the career of a MurÄdÄ« shaykh, Shryock (1990: 172) sees an element of shaykhly status in the shaykhâs reputation as âa forceful man, widely feared, whose power engenders violence.â The âtremendousâ reputation of MujÄhid AbÅ« ShawÄrib, too, rested in part on the fighting prowess he had shown during the 1960s civil war, see Dresch 1989: 101. There are, however, exceptions, as some shaykhs never participate in war, see Gingrich 1994: 26; and Brandt 2012.
On the notions of âblackâ and âwhiteâ in Yemenâs tribal concepts of honour and disgrace, see Dresch 1987a and chapter 1.
Maghrib is the time of the Muslim evening prayer that begins after sunset.
AbÅ« Laḥūm 2004: vol. 3: 342â344 and passim.
Dresch 2000: 180.
Dunbar 1992: 468 n. 28.
Dresch 1995: 43. On the conflicts between the tribes and the government in the second half of the 1980s, see Ê¿Abd al-SalÄm 1988: 91; al-Ê¿AbbÄsÄ« 1990: 134â141; Dunbar 1992: 467â468; Dresch 1995: 43â44; Dresch 2000: 180â181; AbÅ« Laḥūm 2004: vol. 3: 342â344. On Maʾrib, see also Blumi 2018: 149â154.
Similar to the war of NÅ«riyya, the Maʾrib revolution was also initially triggered by the violence of the army against a woman, see Dresch 1995: 43. Women have a special iconic status in the tribal societies of Yemen, and any insult to them seriously threatens a manâs honour, see Adra 1982: 187; Dresch 1989: 54â57; Weir 2007: 50â51, 206. Weir (2007: 50) observed that âmenâs honour is most profoundly compromised ⦠if they fail to prevent their women from ⦠being verbally or physically abused by other men.â In the history of SufyÄn further cases can be found in which violence against women triggered the eruption of large tribal confrontations, see Glaser 1884: 170 and Brandt 2016: 135. In addition, in the late 1970s a protracted conflict in KhawlÄn al-ṬiyÄl erupted as a conflict over women, see Caton 1990 and Caton 2005.
Abū Laḥūm 2004: vol. 3: 343. Regrettably, Abū Laḥūm is silent on the nature of his proposals.