rawbah Soured milk from which the fat has been removed to make butter
riyal The currency of Yemen. Also the large Maria Theresa thaler, the principal coinage of pre-Republican Yemen and of many neighbouring countries (from the Spanish real)
Saba (Also Sheba, Sabaeans.) The name of a people and of the most prominent state in pre-Islamic Yemen. According to traditional genealogy, it originates with Saba b. Yashjub b. Ya’rub b. Qahtan. The earliest mention of Saba seems to be the biblical account of the Queen of Sheba’s visit to the Prophet Solomon in the tenth century BC; names of Sabaean kings appear in Assyrian inscriptions of the eighth and seventh centuries BC. Sabaean rule extended from the capital, Marib, over much the same area as present-day Yemen. In the late fifth century BC various parts of the kingdom began to break away from central authority, but Saba remained a formidable power. From the first century AD onwards the Himyaris claimed the title ‘Kings of Saba’, and at the end of the third century succeeded in unifying Yemen under their control.
saltah A stew based on broth and vegetables, topped with fenugreek flour whipped to a froth with water (from a verb meaning ‘to dip bread into food’)
sambuq A medium-sized boat
sayl A flash flood
sayyid A title given to a male descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. Whether to use sayyid or the alternative sharif seems, today at least, to be a matter of regional usage
sha’ir A poet (from the verb meaning ‘to sense, to perceive’). Infrequently, according to Lane’s Lexicon, ‘a liar’… ‘because of the many lies in poetry’
shamlah A striped blanket or rug of wool
shari’ah Islamic law, based on the Qur’an and on the Tradition of the Prophet Muhammad
sharif A title given to a male descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. See also sayyid.
sharifah A title given to a female descendant of the Prophet Muhammad
sharshaf A women’s black outer garment consisting of three pieces – skirt, cape and veil. Introduced in the more recent Ottoman occupation
shaykh The root meaning is ‘an old man’. In general, ‘a leader’ – from the headman of a small village to the chief of a large tribe; also, occasionally, the head of a traditional trade organization. Some prominent Islamic scholars are also given the title. In Hadramawt, the term is used for descendants of families who had enjoyed high religious status in pre-Islamic times.
shilin Shilling. A unit of currency in the former South Yemen
sitarah A large multicoloured cotton cloak worn by women
Sufi Loose term denoting a devotee of various (more or less) mystical brands of Islam
Tahirids A dynasty named after Tahir b. Ma’udah, the father of its founders. Members of the family had been prominent as governors under the Rasulids, and with that dynasty’s final collapse in 1454 the Tahirids assumed power in Lower Yemen and Tihamah, also occupying San’a for limited periods. They suffered heavy defeats at the hands of the Mamluks in 1516, but a Tahirid was still in control of Aden in 1538, when the Ottomans captured the port and began their first take-over of Yemen.
tahish A monster encountered in lonely places
Umayyads Dynasty of caliphs who ruled the Muslim world from Damascus, 661–749. Their ancestor was Umayyah, a first cousin of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandfather. They were overthrown by the Abbasids, but a cadet branch survived as rulers in Andalucia.
wabr Hyrax syriaca, the biblical coney
wadi A valley; a (seasonal) river bed
wali A holy man
waliyyah A holy woman
wallah ‘By God!’ An oath asserting the truth of a statement
YAR The Yemen Arab Republic began life on 26 September 1962, when a republican revolution in San’a overthrew the last Zaydi Imam, al-Badr. The YAR ceased to exist on 22 May 1990, when it merged with the PDRY (People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen) to form the unified Republic of Yemen.
zabj Playful (and at times apparently insulting) banter, often exchanged at the beginning of a qat session. Possibly connected to the Classical Arabic zamaj, ‘to sow discord among others’
zannah An ankle-length shirt, fitting closely around the torso. Usually white, but other colours become briefly fashionable
ziyarah A visit. Often used of a visit to the tomb of a holy man or prophet
Bibliography
As this is not an academic book, I have not tried to give a complete list of sources. However, the following list is reasonably full. The intention is threefold: to include titles mentioned in the text, to provide guidelines for further reading, and to list sources which may have escaped the attention of specialists. For the benefit of the Arabists, I have rendered Arabic names and titles in the most commonly accepted form of transliteration, that used in Arabian Studies. The arrangement by section is to some extent arbitrary; for example, the Bents’ book Southern Arabia might as well appear under ‘Suquṭrā’ as ‘Ḥaḍramawt’.
What is and what is not compulsory reading is, of course, a matter of taste. While anything by al-Hamdānī is of prime importance for the earlier period, readers of Arabic might start with al-Qāḍī ‘Abdullāh al-Shamāḥī’s Al-yaman, a clear and concise guide to Yemeni history up to the 1960s; the gazetteers of al-Ḥajarī and al-Maqḥafī are both invaluable as works of reference; and the annals of al-Washalī are a fascinating personal record written in an age of change. In English, the books on Ḥaḍramawt by Freya Stark and the Ingramses are – like many of the South Arabian titles published by John Murray – classics; Doreen and Leila Ingrams’s Records of Yemen, a vast collection of documents on the country, includes some early and hard-to-find accounts by outsiders but has the disadvantage of being neither portable nor affordable. Paul Dresch’s Tribes, History and Government is scholarly, wide-ranging and well-written; Francine Stone’s Tihāmah book is both informative and beautiful. Personally, should I ever find myself marooned on Suquṭrā during the season of storms, there are three books I would hope to have with me: Ibn al-Mujāwir’s Tārīkh al-mustabṢir, a work of sometimes dubious reliability but packed with sūq gossip; Serjeant and Lewcock’s wonderful book on Ṣan‘ā’; and, of course, Hava’s Dictionary.
General Background
‘Abdullāh b. ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Mujāhid al-Shamāḥī, al-Qāḍī, Al-yaman: al-insān wa ’l-haḍārah, Beirut, 1406/1985
Aḥmad Jābir ‘Afīf et al. (eds.), Al-mawsū ‘ah al-yamaniyyah, Ṣan‘ā’, 1412/1992
Bidwell, R.L., The Two Yemens, Harlow, 1983
Bradley, Chris, Discovery Guide to Yemen, London, 1995
Daum, Werner (ed.), Yemen: 3000 Years of Art and Civilisation in Arabia Felix, Innsbruck–Frankfurt/Main [c. 1988]
Dresch, Paul, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen, Oxford, 1989
al-Ḥajarī see Muḥammad b. Aḥmad
al-Hamdānī see al-Ḥasan
al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad al-Hamdānī, Ṣifat jazīrat al- ‘arab, ed. Muḥammad b. ‘Alī al-Akwa‘, Ṣan‘ā’, 1403/1983
Hava, Revd J.G., Al-farā’id al-durriyyah: Arabic-English Dictionary, Beirut, 1915
Ibn al-Mujāwir see Yūsuf
Ibrāhīm Aḥmad al-Maqḥafī, Mu ‘jam al-buldān wa ’l-qabā’il al-yamaniyyah, Ṣan‘ā’, 1988
Ingrams, Doreen and Leila (eds.), Records of Yemen, 16 vols., Neuchâtel, 1993
Ingrams, Harold, The Yemen: Imams, Rulers and Revolutions, London, 1963
Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Malik al-Marwanī, Al-thanā’ al-ḥasan ‘alā ahl al-yaman, Beirut, 1411/1990
Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ḥajarī, al-Qāḍī, Majmū‘ buldān al-yaman wa qabā’ilihā, 2 vols., ed. Ismā‘īl b. ‘Alī al-Akwa‘, Ṣan‘ā’, 1404/1984
Nashwān b. Sa‘īd al-Ḥimyarī, Muntakhabāt fī akhbār al-yaman min kitāb shams al-‘ulūm, ed. ‘Aẓīm al-Dīn Aḥmad, Leiden, 1916, reprinted Ṣan‘ā’, 1401/1981
Niebuhr, Carsten, Travels through Arabia, trans. and abr. R. Heron, Edinburgh, 1792
Serjeant, R.B., and Bidwell, R.L.
(eds.), Arabian Studies, Cambridge–London, 1974–85
al-Shamāḥī see ‘Abdullāh b. ‘Abd al-Wahhāb
Smith, G. Rex, The Yemens (World Bibliographical Series), Oxford, 1984
Wilson, Robert T.O, Gazetteer of Historical North-West Yemen, Hildesheim, 1989
Yāqūt b. ‘Abdullāh al-Ḥamawī, Al-buldān al-yamāniyyah ‘ind yāqūt al-ḥamawī, ed. al-Qāḍī Ismā‘īl b. ‘Alī al-Akwa‘, Beirut-Ṣan‘ā’, 1408/1988
[Yemeni Centre for Research and Studies], Dirāsāt yamaniyyah, Ṣan‘ā’, 1978–
Yūsuf b. Ya‘qūb Ibn al-Mujāwir, Ṣifat bilād al-yaman (tārīkh al-mustabṢir), ed. O. Löfgren, Leiden, 1951–4, reprinted Beirut, 1407/1986
Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Yemen
‘Abdullāh b. ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Mujāhid al-Shamāḥī, al-Qāḍī, Al-hijrāt al-yamaniyyah, Cairo-Ṣan‘ā’, 1396/1976
Anon., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, trans, and ed. G.W.B. Huntingford, London, 1980
Beeston, A.F.L., A Descriptive Grammar of Epigraphic South Arabian, London, 1962
——et al. (eds.), Sabaic Dictionary, Beirut-Louvain-la-Neuve, 1982
Bidwell, R.L., and Smith, G. Rex (eds.), Arabian and Islamic Studies (festschrift for R.B. Serjeant), London, 1982
Doe, Brian, Southern Arabia, London, 1971
al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad al-Hamdānī, Kitāb al-iklīl, VIII, ed. Nabīh Amīn Fāris, Princeton, 1940, reprinted Beirut–Ṣan‘ā’, n.d.
Ḥusayn Aḥmad al-Sayāghī, al-Qāḍī, Ma ‘ālim al-āthār al-yamaniyyah, Ṣan‘ā’, 1980
Ismā‘īl b. ‘Alī al-Akwa‘, al-Qāḍī, Barāqish fi kutub al-mu’arrikhīn (unpublished typescript), Ṣan‘ā’, 1407/1986
Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Qādir Bā Faqīh, Fi ’l-‘arabiyyah al-sa‘īdah, Ṣan‘ā’, 1408/1987
Muḥammad b. ‘Alī al-Akwa‘, Al-yaman al-khaḍrā’ mahd al-lḥaḍārah, Ṣan‘ā’, 1402/1982
Muṭahhar ‘Alī al-Iryānī, Nuqūsh musnadiyyah, Ṣan‘ā’, 1990
Nashwān b. Sa‘īd al-Ḥimyarī, Mulūk ḥimyar wa aqyāl al-yaman, ed. Ismā‘īl b. Aḥmad al-Jirāfī and ‘Alī b. Ismā‘īl al-Mu’ayyad, Beirut, 1978
Pirenne, J., ‘Les Sud-Arabes à travers leur Art’ (and other articles), Les Dossiers de l’Archéologie, no. 35, Dijon, March–April 1979
Pyotrovsky, M., Malḥamah ‘an al-malik al-ḥimyarī as‘ad al-kāmil, trans. Shāhir Jamāl Āghā, Ṣan‘ā’, 1404/1984
——Al-yaman qabl al-islām, trans. Muḥammad al-Shu‘aybī, Beirut, 1987
Robin, Christian, ‘Le Haut Plateau’ (and other articles), Les Dossiers de l’Archéologie, no. 35, Dijon, March–April 1979
——Les Hautes-Terres du Nord-Yémen avant l’Islam, 2 vols., Istanbul, 1982,
——’Les plantes aromatiques que brûlaient les Sabéens’, Saba, no. 1, n.p., 1994
Serjeant, R.B., South Arabian Hunt, London, 1976
Wahb b. Munabbih al-Yamānī, Kitāb al-tījān fī mulūk ḥimyar, Hyderabad, 1347/1928, reprinted Ṣan‘ā’, 1979
Yūsuf Muḥammad ‘Abdullāh, Awrāq fī tārīkh al-yaman wa āthārihi, Beirut, 1411/1990
Later Yemen
Aḥmad b. ‘Alwān, al-Shaykh, Al-futūḥ, ed. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz Sulṭān Ṭāhir al-Manṣūb, Ṣan‘ā’, 1412/1992
‘Alī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ‘Alī al-Mas‘ūdī, Murūj al-dhahab wa ma‘ādin al-jawhar, 4 vols., ed. Muḥammad Muḥyī al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Ḥamīd, Beirut, n.d.
‘Alī b. Muḥammad b. ‘Ubaydullāh al-‘Abbāsī al-‘Alawī, Sīrat al-hādī ila ’l-ḥaqq yaḥyā ibn al-ḥusayn, ed. Suhayl Zakkār, Beirut, 1401/1981
Anon., Tārīkh al-dawlah al-rasūliyyah fi ’l-yaman, ed. ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshī, Damascus, 1405/1984
Ḥabshūsh see Ḥayīm
Harris, Walter, A Journey through the Yemen, Edinburgh, 1893, reprinted London, 1985
Ḥayīm b. Yaḥyā b. Sālim al-Futayḥī Ḥabshūsh, ‘Ru’ya ’l-yaman’, Ru’yat al-yaman bayn ḥabshūsh wa halévy, ed. Sāmiyah Na‘īm Sanbar, Ṣan‘ā’, 1412/1992; the French translation by Samia Naïm-Sanbar [Sāmiyah Na‘īm Sanbar], Yémen, Arles, 1995
Ḥusayn b. ‘Abdullāh al-‘Amrī, The Yemen in the 18th and 19th Centuries: A Political and Intellectual History, London, 1985
Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Nahrawālī al-Makkī, Quṭb al-Dīn, Al-barq al-yamānī fi ’l-fatḥ al-‘uthmānī, ed. Ḥamad al-Jāsir, Beirut, 1407/1986
Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Zabārah, Nashr al- ‘arf, Ṣan‘ā’-Beirut, n.d. (vol. I), 1405/1985 (vols. II and III)
al-Muqaddasī see Shams al-Dīn
Playfair, R.L., History of Arabia Felix, Bombay, 1859, reprinted St Leonards–Amsterdam, 1970
Pridham, B.R. (ed.), Contemporary Yemen: Politics and Historical Background, Beckenham, 1984
Salwā Sa‘d Sulaymān al-Ghālibī, Al-imām al-mutawakkil ‘ala ’llāh ismā‘īl ibn al-qāsim, n.p., 1411/1991
Shams al-Dīn al-Muqaddasī/al-Maqdisī, Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī ma ‘rifat al-aqālīm, ed. M.J. de Goeje, Leiden, 1967
Varthema, Ludovico di, Travels, ed. G.P. Badger, London, 1863
Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim, Ghāyat al-amānī fī akhbār al-quṭr al-yamānī, ed. Sa‘īd ‘Abd al-Fattāḥ ‘Āshūr, Cairo, 1968
The Twentieth Century
‘Abdullāh al-Sallāl el al., Thawrat al-yaman al-dustūriyyah, Ṣan‘ā’–Beirut, 1405/1985
‘Abd al-Wāsi‘ b. Yaḥyā al-Wāsi‘ī al-Yamānī, al-Shaykh, Tārīkh al-yaman (farjat al-humūm wa ’l-ḥazan fī ḥawādith wa tārīkh al-yaman), Ṣan‘ā’, 1990–1
Aḥmad ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Mu‘allamī, Kitābah ‘alā Ṣarḥ al-waḥdah al-yamaniyyah [Ṣan‘ā’, 1994]
Aḥmad Shabrīn al-Qarda‘ī and Muqbil Aḥmad al-‘Umarī/al-‘Amrī, Al-shahīd al-shaykh ‘alī nāṢir al-qarda‘ī, Ṣan‘ā’, 1993
Aḥmad Waṣfī Zakariyyā, Riḥlatī ila ’l-yaman, Damascus, 1406/1986
Ameen Rihani [Amīn al-Rayḥānī], Arabian Peak and Desert, London, 1930
Fayein, Claudie, A French Doctor in the Yemen, London, 1957
Holden, David, Farewell to Arabia, London, 1966
Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-‘Arashī, al-Qāḍī, Bulūgh al-marām fī sharḥ misk al-khitām, ed. and continued by Fr. Anastase-Marie al-Kirmilī, Cairo, 1358/1939, reprinted Beirut, n.d.
Ismā‘īl b. Muḥammad al-Washalī al-Tihāmī al-Ḥasanī, (Dhayl) nashr al-thanā’ al-ḥasan, ed. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Shu‘aybī, Ṣan‘ā’, 1402/1982
Luce, Margaret, From Aden to the Gulf, Salisbury, 1987
Muḥammad b. ‘Alī al-Akwa‘ al-Ḥuwālī, Ṣafhaḥ min tārīkh al-yaman wa qiṢṢat ḥayātī, Damascus, n.d. (pt. I), [Aden], n.d. (pt. II), n.p., 1414/1993 (pt. III)
Muḥammad Ḥasan, Qalb al-yaman, Baghdad, 1948
Nazīh Mu’ayyad al-‘Aẓm, Riḥlah fi ’l-‘arabiyyah al-sa‘īdah, Beirut, 1407/1986
Scott, Hugh, In the High Yemen, London, 1942
Smiley, David, Arabian Assignment, London, 1975
al-Washalī see Ismā‘īl
Yaḥyā al-Sudumī, Suqūṭ al-mu’ āmarah, [Ṣan‘ā’], 1994–5
Ṣan ‘ā’
‘Abd al-Raḥmān Yaḥyā al-Ḥaddād, Ṣan‘ā’ al-qadīmah, Ṣan‘ā’, 1992
‘Abd al-Wāsi‘ b. Yaḥyā al-Wāsi‘ī, al-Shaykh, Al-badr al-muzīl li ’l-ḥazan fī faḍl al-yaman wa maḥāsin Ṣan‘ā’dhāt al-minan, Cairo, 1345/1927
Aḥmad b. ‘Abdullāh al-Rāzī, Tārīkh madīnat Ṣan‘ā’, ed. Ḥusayn b. ‘Abdullah al-‘Amrī and ‘Abd al-Jabbār Zakkār, Damascus, 1394/1974
‘AIī b. ‘Abdullāh b. al-Qāsim b. al-Mu’ayyad bi ’llāh, al-Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn, Wasf Ṣan‘ā’, ed. ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad al-Ḥībshī, Ṣan‘ā’, 1993, and English translation by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, City of Divine and Earthly Joys (forthcoming)
Anon., Ṣafaḥāt majhūlah min tārīkh al-yaman, ed. al-Qāḍī Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-Sayāghī, Ṣan‘ā’
, 1404/1984
Isḥāq b. Yaḥyā b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī al-Ṣan‘ānī, Tārīkh Ṣan‘ā’, ed. ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad al-Ḥibshi, Ṣan‘ā’, n.d.
Muḥammad b. ‘Abd al-Malik al-Marwanī, Al-wajīz fī tārīkh bināyat masājid Ṣan‘ā’, Ṣan‘ā’, 1408/1988
Muḥammad ‘Abduh Ghānim, Shi‘r al-ghinā’ al-Ṣan‘ānī, Beirut, 1987
Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Ḥajarī, al-Ḥājj, Masājid Ṣan‘ā’, Ṣan‘ā’, 1361/1942, reprinted Ṣan‘ā’–Beirut, 1397/1977
al-Rāzī see Aḥmad
Serjeant, R.B., and Lewcock, Ronald, Ṣan‘ā’: An Arabian Islamic City, London, 1983
al-Wāsi‘ī see ‘Abd al-Wāsi’
Watson, Janet C.E., A Syntax of Ṣan‘ānī Arabic, Wiesbaden, 1993
Zayd b. ‘Alī ‘Inān, Al-lahjah al-yamāniyyah fi ’l-nukat wa ’l-amthāl al-Ṣan‘āniyyah, [Cairo?], 1400/1980
Qāt
‘Abd al-Malik ‘Alwān al-Maqramī, Al-qāt bayn al-siyāsah wa ‘ilm al-ijtimā‘, Beirut-Ṣan‘ā’, 1407/1987
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Mu‘allamī, ‘Tarwīḥ al-awqāt fi ’l-munāzarah bayn al-qahwah wa ’l-qāt’, in Aḥmad ‘Abd al-Raḥman al-Mu’allamī, Al-qāt fi ’l-adab al-yamanī wa ’l-fiqh al-islāmī, Beirut, 1988
Kennedy, John G., The Flower of Paradise, Dordrecht, 1987
Weir, Shelagh, Qat in Yemen, London, 1985
[Yemeni Centre for Research and Studies], Al-qāt fi ḥayāt al-yaman wa ’l-yamāniyyīn, Ṣan‘ā’-Beirut, 1981–2
Aden
‘Abdullāh al-Ṭayyib b. ‘Abdullāh b. Aḥmad Abī Makhramah [Bā Makhramah], Tārikh thaghr ‘adan, ed. Oscar Löfgren, Uppsala–Leiden, 1950, reprinted Beirut, 1407/1986
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