Hadhramaut and its Diaspora: Yemeni Politics, Identity and Migration 9781350986671, 9781786731678

Table of contents :
Cover
Author bio
Title page
Copyright information
Table of contents
List of figures
List of maps
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Notes on contributors
Introduction
Notes
Part I Hadhramis in Yemen
1 Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s
Hadhramaut in South Arabia
Hadhramaut in the PDRY
Hadhramaut, the YAR and Yemeni Unity
The Saleh Regime
Hadhramaut and Yemeni Unity
Hadhramaut in a United Yemen
The Saleh Regime Strengthens – and Weakens
The Rise of the Marginalised
The Huthis
Al Qaeda
The Southern Movement (Al-Hirak)
The Yemeni Spring of 2011
The GCC Deal
Failure of the GCC Deal
The Transition and Hadhramaut
The Huthis Take Power
War
Impact on Hadhramaut
Terrorism in Hadhramaut
Longer-Term Consequences of the War
Hadhramaut in a Federal Yemen
Hadhramaut in an Independent South
An Independent Hadhramaut
Notes
2 Hadhrami ‘Exceptionalism’: Attempts at an Explanation
Hadhrami Exceptionalism?
The Making of Modern Hadhrami Identity
The Anti-Colonial Movement in Hadhramaut
Notes
3 Hadhramaut: Social Structure, Agriculture and Migration
Hadhrami Social Structure
Social Aspects of Land Tenure up to 1967
Land Reform during the PDRY: Social Upheaval
Unification and Its Impact on Land Tenure
Land and Social Structure in Hadhramaut in the 1990s
Emigration: A Fundamental Feature of Hadhrami Life
Part II Hadhramis in the Diaspora
4 The Atlas of Sayyid Uthman ibn Abd Allah ibn Yahya of Batavia (1822–1914)
Lithography
The Atlas
Date
Contents
Users of the Atlas
L. W. C. van den Berg
M. J. de Goeje
Various Audiences
Notes
5 ‘Revival’ of the Hadhrami Diaspora? Networking through Religious Figures in Indonesia
Hadhramaut and Foreign Visitors: The Current Situation
Connections between Hadhramaut and Indonesia: Observations, 2014–15
Umar bin Hafiz
Salim al-Shatiri
Publications on Hadhrami Religious Figures in Indonesian
The Accessibility of Southeast Asia from Hadhramaut
From the General Truce to the Independence of the South (1937–90)
Unified Yemen (1990 to the Present)
Notes
6 Arab Muslim Migrants in the Colonial Philippines: The Hadhramaut Connection
Hadhrami Connections from the ‘Mists of Time’
Officials in the Moro Sultanates
Resistance to Colonialism
Collaboration with Colonialism
Independent Ulama and Islamic Reform
Trade and Shipping
The Hadhrami Presence after Independence in 1946
*
Notes
7 Scimitar for Hire: Yemeni Fighters Abroad
Yemenis Abroad
Sword for Hire
The Status of Yemeni Soldiers
The Colonial Era
Hyderabad
The Post-Colonial Era
Patterns of Recruitment
Islamist Fighters
Hadhramis as Fighters?
Muwalladin as Fighters
Local Soldiers as Communications Channels
Notes
8 Citizenship and Belonging among the Hadhramis of Kenya
Making Hadhramis
Formal Citizenship after Independence
Hadhramis as Hadhramis
Hadhramis as Kenyans, Hadhramis as Yemenis
Notes
9 Diaspora or Network? The Hadhrami Diaspora Reconsidered through the Lens of Trade
‘Diaspora’ and Network Analysis
From Diaspora to Network Analysis
Opening the Diasporic Network of Trade
Conducting Business Outside the Diaspora
Hadhrami Networks
Notes
10 Rediscovering Hadhramaut: Paradigms of Research
Defining ‘Diaspora’
The Hadhrami Diaspora As I Saw It
Historicising Globalisation
Indian Ocean Migrations: Early Historical Realities
Hadhramaut before the ‘Long Sixteenth Century’
Understanding Historical Agency
Being Muslim in an Indian Ocean World
Towards some Basic Perspectives
Conclusion: Research Issues Concerning Hadhramaut
Critical Research Issues
Historical
Migration and Destination
The Impact on Hadhrami Society
Hadhramaut’s Relations with North and South Yemen
Note
Part III Research Issues
10 Rediscovering Hadhramaut: Paradigms of Research
Defining ‘Diaspora’
The Hadhrami Diaspora As I Saw It
Historicising Globalisation
Indian Ocean Migrations: Early Historical Realities
Hadhramaut before the ‘Long Sixteenth Century’
Understanding Historical Agency
Being Muslim in an Indian Ocean World
Towards some Basic Perspectives
Index

Citation preview

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Noel Brehony completed his PhD on Libya before joining the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He was in the British Embassy Aden in the early days of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and has followed Yemen since then. He is the author of Yemen Divided: The Story of a Failed State in South Arabia, was published by I.B.Tauris (2011), and co-editor of Rebuilding Yemen (2015), also published in Arabic. He is a past chairman of the British Yemeni Society and the Council for British Research in the Levant and a past president of the British Society for Middle East Studies, and is on the advisory board of the London Middle East Institute at SOAS and the committee of the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia. He is Chairman of Menas Associates.

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‘For this latest contribution to the growing literature about Hadhramaut, the Hadhramaut Research Centre has brought together some of the leading specialists on that fascinating country. The result is a collection of first-rate chapters which provide a rounded account both of Hadhramaut’s position within Yemen and of the Hadhrami migratory networks throughout the Indian Ocean. The timeline covered reaches from the 19th century until the present. Valuable suggestions for further research conclude the volume. Overall, this excellent book provides an important contribution not only to understanding the modern history of the Indian Ocean rim but also to theoretical issues such as social stratification, citizenship and multiple identities, or trading diasporas and network analysis.’ Christian Lekon, Assistant Professor, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University ‘The organisers of the conference ‘Rediscovering Hadhramaut: Paradigms of Research’ as well as the editor of this volume are to be commended for bringing together a formidable group of younger and more experienced researchers. Together, they are pushing the limits of research on Hadhramaut and its diaspora. Besides addressing new material on political, economic and religious issues, the book is commended for including discussions of recent political events and of formulating different perspectives on future research agendas. These must aim at both deepening the empirical basis of our knowledge and seeking a broader contextualisation of Hadhrami history to better understand its present and future. A ‘must read’ for students of Yemen and the Indian Ocean!’ Ulrike Freitag, Director, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin and Professor, Freie Universität Berlin ‘This volume brings together a selection of first-class scholars with a deep knowledge of Hadhramaut and its place in both Yemen and the wider world. It raises important new perspectives on Hadhrami identity, covering historical, geographical, political, social, commercial and military aspects. The chapters offer vital clues to understanding current ambitions among many Hadhramis for greater self governance or even independence. In today’s context of the potential dividing of Yemen, taking a deep look at the history and evolution of Hadhrami identity both inside and outside Yemen is especially important. This is a must-read for anyone wanting to grapple with the regionalist politics unfolding in Yemen and broader region today.’ Elisabeth Kendall, Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies, Pembroke College, Oxford University

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora Yemeni Politics, Identity and Migration

EDITED BY NOEL BREHONY

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Published in 2017 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd London • New York www.ibtauris.com Copyright Editorial Selection © 2017 The Hadhramaut Research Centre and Noel Brehony Copyright Individual Chapters © 2017 Kazuhiro Arai, Noel Brehony, Abdalla Bujra, William G. Clarence-Smith, Nico J. G. Kaptein, Helen Lackner, Leif Manger, Thanos Petouris, Philippe Pétriat, James Spencer, Saadaldeen Talib and Iain Walker The right of Noel Brehony to be identified as the editor of this work has been asserted by the editor in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions. References to websites were correct at the time of writing. Library of Modern Middle East Studies 196 ISBN: 978 1 78453 868 2 eISBN: 978 1 78672 167 9 ePDF: 978 1 78673 167 8 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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Contents List of Figures List of Maps Foreword Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction

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Abdalla Bujra and Noel Brehony I  HADHRAMIS IN YEMEN



1 Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s

19

Saadaldeen Talib and Noel Brehony

2 Hadhrami ‘Exceptionalism’: Attempts at an Explanation

41

Thanos Petouris

3 Hadhramaut: Social Structure, Agriculture and Migration

67

Helen Lackner II  HADHRAMIS IN THE DIASPORA



4 The Atlas of Sayyid Uthman ibn Abd Allah ibn Yahya of Batavia (1822–​1914)

87

Nico J. G. Kaptein

5 ‘Revival’ of the Hadhrami Diaspora? Networking through Religious Figures in Indonesia Kazuhiro Arai

v

101

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HADHRAMAUT AND ITS DIASPORA

6 Arab Muslim Migrants in the Colonial Philippines: The Hadhramaut Connection



124

William G. Clarence-​Smith 7 Scimitar for Hire: Yemeni Fighters Abroad



142

James Spencer 8 Citizenship and Belonging among the Hadhramis of Kenya



164

Iain Walker 9 Diaspora or Network? The Hadhrami Diaspora Reconsidered through the Lens of Trade



187

Philippe Pétriat III  RESEARCH ISSUES



10 Rediscovering Hadhramaut: Paradigms of Research

207

Leif Manger

Conclusion: Research Issues Concerning Hadhramaut 225 Abdalla Bujra Bibliography Index

233 244

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List of Figures 4.1 Map of Hadramaut, from Sayyid Uthman, Atlas Arabi, chart 3. Leiden University Libraries, KITLV M 3o 452

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4.2 Hadhrami settlement, from Sayyid Uthman, Atlas Arabi, chart 4. Leiden University Libraries, KITLV M 3o 452

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4.3 L. W. C. van den Berg, Le Hadramout et les colonies arabes dans l’Archipel indien, Batavia: Imprimerie du governement, 1886, Plate IV

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4.4 Shaykh ibn Alwi, Qamar al-​zaman, Weltevreden 1924, title-​page. Leiden University Libraries, 893 F 21

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4.5 Reverse-​glass painting of a Hadhrami mansion from the Netherlands East Indies. Leiden University Libraries, Coll. Oosters Instituut

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5.1 The Sulu Sultan and his suite, c. 1900 5.2

Young Hadhrami immigrants landing at Surabaya, Dutch East Indies, in the 1920s

116 116

5.3 The Imperial Delhi Durbar, 1903, with the Sultan of Qu’ayti on the second elephant with his wazir. From the archives of the Al-Qu‘aiti Royal Family

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5.4 Amir (later Sultan) Ghalib bin Awadh al-​Qu‘aiti (second right) visiting Shabwa, the capital of ancient Hadhramaut, 1965. From the archives of the Al-​Qu‘aiti Royal Family

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5.5 Mukalla Harbour in the 1950s. From the archives of the Al-Qu‘aiti Royal Family

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5.6 Wadi Hadhramaut, west of Qatn, 1999 © Helen Lackner

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HADHRAMAUT AND ITS DIASPORA

5.7 Cultivation near Hami, seen from the air, Hadhramaut © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)

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5.8 The Mashhed Ziyarah in December 1950 (John Hewitt from the late John Shipman’s collection)

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5.9 Hadhrami elders at a daily meeting in Morogoro, Tanzania, 2016. Courtesy of Abdalla Bujra

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5.10 Issa Msallam Balala (fourth from right) with members of the Hadhrami community in Mombasa, 1965

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Figures 4.1–4.5 are reproduced with permission of University of Leiden Libraries.

Table 3.1 Percentage of agricultural loans according to borrower (not necessarily owner), 1947. Source: Christian Lekon, Time, Space and Globalisation, p. 160

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List of Maps 1

The Indian Ocean

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2

Hadhramaut in Yemen

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3

Main towns and wadis in Hadhramaut

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Foreword A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. Mahatma Gandhi

The preparation and publication of this book would not have been possible without the dedicated hard work of many in the Hadhrami diaspora in association with friends and colleagues in Europe and elsewhere, as well as compatriots in the ancestral homeland of Hadhramaut. Most research on Hadhramaut up to this time must be credited mainly to foreign academics and researchers, and has been focused on Hadhrami emigration and not on Hadhramaut itself –​as this publication shows. The need to adjust this balance and to foster much more research on the homeland encouraged us in the diaspora to establish a research centre in Hadhramaut. We want to enable local and foreign academics to have access to manuscripts and documents, and to meet people on the ground in Hadhramaut. At the same time, part of our mission is to train and guide young researchers in their work. Professor Abdalla Bujra (based in Kenya) submitted a proposal for such a centre in 2009 and a group of us worked to make it a reality. It was part of a great challenge to stimulate the Hadhrami diaspora to take a greater and more active interest in the affairs of their ancestral homeland. I started in May 2010 by setting up a website to connect Hadhramis in the diaspora with their compatriots and encourage them to become more involved in Hadhramaut. At the time, Yemen had entered a phase of uncertainty and crisis that has only deteriorated, making it especially difficult for those in the diaspora to be aware of what was happening in Hadhramaut. Despite this, the proposal for the centre was well received, and we have been able to make significant progress. Professor Bujra and I  reached an agreement to set up the centre with Professor Abdullah Baharoon, president of Al Ahgaaf University in Mukalla, and his deputy Dr Saddiq Maknoon, x

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Foreword

after they had welcomed the idea and accepted our proposal. We agreed that it should be named the Hadhramaut Research Centre (HRC), and that it should be totally independent. We appointed Dr Hussein Taha Assagaaf (head of the English Department of the university) to act as the managing director of the Centre, and Mr Ibrahim Bin Gaflah as head of the training section. The HRC was launched in December 2013 in Mukalla, and we made a modest start with postgraduate courses in training and community services. Our goal to win broader local, regional and international recognition and support was much more difficult than any of us had envisaged. I  was charged with what at times seemed the almost impossible task of seeking sponsors both locally and overseas for such an ambitious concept at a time of political turmoil. We had a clear vision  –​to set up an institution that would become a centre of excellence open to all serious researchers and scholars and able to contribute to the development of the homeland. We decided to organise a conference to show the wider world what we could do, and to gain the support we would need for the HRC to succeed. We had to overcome many hurdles, but on 7 March 2015 the HRC London Conference was held at SOAS under the title: ‘Rediscovering Hadhramaut: Paradigms of Research’. Our strongest support came from foreign academics who had researched and written extensively on Hadhramaut and the Hadhrami diaspora. They welcomed the idea of the Centre, as well as the conference. Papers presented at the conference reflected the importance of Hadhramaut in Yemen, past and present, and the role of Hadhrami emigrants in their ancestral homeland, as well as in their host countries. This publication is based on a selection of those papers, and also includes contributions from Helen Lackner and James Spencer, who graciously responded to an invitation to take part. The chapters of the book should provide readers and researchers with a deeper and broader knowledge of Hadhramaut and Hadhramis. There are several people to whom I wish to give special thanks for participating in the conference and for the chapters they contributed to this book: Professor William Clarence-​Smith, Professor Leif Manger, Dr Nico Kaptein, Associate Professor Philippe Pétriat, Dr Noel Brehony, Professor Abdalla Bujra Al Nahdi, Associate Professor Kazuhiro Arai, Dr Adel Aulaqi, Thanos Petouris, Dr Saadaldeen Bin Talib and Iain Walker, as well as Helen Lackner and James Spencer. xi

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I wish to express my personal gratitude to Safa Mubgar for her unwavering support, encouragement and help in convening the conference, and to her team at MENARC for preparing the promotional material for the event; to the British–​Yemeni Society, for its kind moral and financial support; to Louise Hosking and her team at the London Middle East Institute at SOAS, for all their help with organising the conference; to Thanos Petouris for his technical support during the conference; to Laila and Mbarak Bin-​Dohry, for volunteering at the event; and to Fawzi Bin-​ Dohry, of Xpsolutions, Canada, for setting up the HRC website. I also want to express my thanks to my friend Dr Adel Aulaqi for his continued support, encouragement and advice. The publication of this book would have been impossible without the hard work of my colleagues and friends, Noel Brehony and John Shipman, who both gave me their full support and were generous with their time for both the conference and the book. All of us associated with the book are greatly indebted to John Shipman who sadly passed away after a long illness on 3 November 2016, before its publication. John worked hard to the very end to see the success of this book. He also very generously purchased advance copies to donate to friends after its publication. He will be greatly missed by all of us, as well as his Hadhrami friends. Finally, my grateful thanks to the former governor of Hadhramaut, Khalid Said Al Dayyini, for his generous financial donation and support on the ground, and to his successor Dr Adel Mohammed Bahmeid, for promising continuity in that support. My special thanks go to those who helped me meet the expenses for the conference: Sayyid Mohsin Mehdhar (who also donated the part-​furnishing of the HRC offices in Mukalla) and Abdulrahman Balbhaith of Mukalla, as well as another donor from Saudi Arabia and the many friends who gave their moral support. This ambitious project could only have been achieved through hard work and dedication. We truly hope that, once the turmoil in Yemen is over, the funding and support that are required will be forthcoming from Hadhramis and from regional and international institutions and organisations to assist this important project. Muhammad bin Dohry (Chairman, Hadhramaut Research Centre) xii

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Acknowledgements The editor wishes to acknowledge the extraordinary work of his late colleague and friend John Shipman, who did so much in the editing of this book and placed his unrivalled knowledge of Hadhramaut at the disposal of the contributors. The editing could not have been managed without his constant help and advice and his insistence on the highest standards in the writing. This book would not have been possible without his support – given generously to the end despite his deteriorating health. With his usual modesty he did not want to be named as a joint editor though he performed that role in practice. We hope that this book will stand as a testament to his deep affection for Hadhramaut and Hadhramis gained initially as a Political Adviser in the 1960s and maintained throughout the rest of his life, most recently in his role as Editor of the Journal of the British-Yemeni Society until 2013 and as an active supporter of the Friends of Hadhramaut and the Hadhramaut Research Centre. The editor is very grateful to Muhammad bin Dohry for his time, advice and support, and to Abdalla Bujra, the doyen of Hadhrami studies, whose outstanding work, The Politics of Stratification: A Study of Political Change in a South Arabian Town, published in 1971, remains the standard work on the subject. Charles Peyton deserves the gratitute of the editor and contributors for his patient guidance and work in completing the final manuscript. We have used the simplest method of transliterating Arabic into English. The only symbol used is representing ‘ayn when it appears in the middle of words. We have tried to be as consistent as possible, but have used well-​known transliterations such as ‘Hadhramaut’. In references and quotations, we have retained the transliterations of the original authors. We have used the transliterations of names adopted by the individuals concerned. It should be noted that this can sometimes lead to confusion –​as, for example, some members of the al-​Kaf family spell the name al-​Kaff. xiii

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Notes on Contributors Kazuhiro Arai is an associate professor at Keio University, Japan. He has been conducting research on Hadhramaut and the Hadhrami diaspora since 1996, with special emphasis on Indonesia. He obtained his doctorate at the University of Michigan for a study of the history of the al-​Attas family in Hadhramaut and Southeast Asia. Recently, he has been interested in the commodification of Islam in Indonesia, especially that of the da‘wa-​ related activities by the Hadhrami sada. Other topics of interest include saint veneration in Java and the influence of the prophetic genealogy on a society. Noel Brehony completed his PhD on Libya before joining the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He was in the British Embassy Aden in the early days of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and has followed Yemen since then. He is the author of Yemen Divided: The Story of a Failed State in South Arabia, published by I.B.Tauris (2011), and co-editor of Rebuilding Yemen (2015), also published in Arabic. He is a past chairman of the British Yemeni Society and the Council for British Research in the Levant and a past president of the British Society for Middle East Studies, and is on the advisory board of the London Middle East Institute at SOAS and the committee of the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia. He is Chairman of Menas Associates. Abdalla Bujra was born in Kenya and obtained a PhD in social anthropology at SOAS, University of London. He has taught at universities in the UK, Europe, the United States, Canada, Egypt, Kenya and several other African countries. He was the first full-​time executive director of the Council for the Development of Social and Economic Research in Africa (CODESRIA), and established the Development Policy Management Forum –​both pan-​African NGOs. He has written a book and articles on

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Notes on Contributors

Hadhramaut, as well as six books and many articles on Africa, especially on its governance and political culture. He was a member of the international Social Science Council of UNESCO, the Africa Committee of the American Social Science Council, and the Social Science Committee of the Tanzanian National Scientific Research Council. He worked for the African Union (AU) on the Rwanda genocide. He is presently Director of the Institute of Cultural Heritage at the Muslim University of Morogoro, Tanzania. William G. Clarence-​Smith is Professor of the Economic History of Asia and Africa at SOAS, University of London. He is Chief Editor of the Journal of Global History and is author of Islam and the Abolition of Slavery (2006) and, with Ulrike Freitag, co-​editor of Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s to 1960s (1997). He has published various articles and chapters on the Hadhrami diaspora in Southeast Asia and East Africa, and has studied a number of other diasporas. He is currently writing two books –​ one on Middle Eastern migrants to the colonial Philippines, and the other on Sayyid Wajih, Shaykh al-​Islam of the Philippines, 1913–​16. He has also published on Islam, colonialism, slavery, sexuality, transport, manufacturing, agriculture and livestock. Nico J. G. Kaptein was awarded his PhD in 1989, and teaches Islamic studies at Leiden University. He has held research fellowships at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin, and the Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies. The books and edited volumes he has published include: Muhammad’s Birthday Festival (1993); The Muhimmât al-​nafâ‘is: A Bilingual Meccan  Fatwa Collection for  Indonesian Muslims from the End of the Nineteenth Century (1997); Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade and Islam in Southeast Asia, co-​edited with Huub de Jonge (2002); Islam, Colonialism and the Modern Age in the Netherlands East Indies: A Biography of Sayyid ‘Uthman (1822–​1914) (2014); and Islam, Politics and Change: The Indonesian Experience after the Fall of Suharto, co-​edited with Kees van Dijk (2015). He is Southeast Asia Editor for the authoritative Encyclopaedia of Islam, 3rd edition.

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Helen Lackner has worked mostly as a consultant on social aspects of rural development in over 30 countries. She has lived and worked in all three Yemeni states, and her work has taken her to most of the country’s governorates at different times in the past four decades. She is now focusing on analysis and writing about contemporary Yemen. She published a book on the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in the 1980s, and has edited two on the Republic of Yemen, most recently Why Yemen Matters: A Society in Transition (2014). She has also written chapters on various aspects of Yemeni development for other edited collections. Her analysis of recent developments has been published by International IDEA as ‘Yemen’s “Peaceful” Transition from Autocracy: Could It Have Succeeded?’ (2016). She is now working on a book providing a background understanding of the crisis, to be published in 2017. Leif Manger is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. He has also been a researcher and a research director at the Centre of Development Studies at the same university, and later Founding Research Director of UIFOB Global/​Uni Global, a centre for development and global studies within a university-​related research institute called UNIFOB, later renamed Uni Research. His early, and ongoing, research has been on Sudan and the Horn of Africa. Manger has also worked and published on Hadhramaut and the Indian Ocean, on Palestine and the broader Levant, and more recently on the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan and south-​western parts of China. Manger’s most recent monograph, The Hadhrami Diaspora: Community-​Building on the Indian Ocean Rim (2010), is based on his Indian Ocean research, which deals with the migration history of people from Hadhramaut to areas around the Indian Ocean region, including Singapore, Hyderabad, Sudan and southern Ethiopia. Thanos Petouris is researching the nationalist, anti-​colonial movement in South Arabia and the subsequent process of decolonisation from British rule in the years 1937–​67. His focus is to explain the emergence of national identities during periods of decolonisation, using South Yemen as a case study. He has provided advice to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development on Yemen since xvi

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2010, and was a regular contributor to the Yemen Forum at Chatham House. He has given lectures at the Universities of London (SOAS, LSE, Birkbeck), Harvard, Athens, Warwick and Exeter, and was one of the convenors of the ‘Yemen: Challenges for the Future’ conference at SOAS in 2013. Petouris has been visiting Yemen and Hadhramaut regularly since 2005, depending on conditions on the ground. He has been a committee member of the British–​Yemeni Society (2010–​15) and is an associate member of the Hadhramaut Research Centre at the al-​Ahqaf University. His research has been funded by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation. Philippe Pétriat is Lecturer at Paris 1 Panthéon-​Sorbonne University and researcher at Institut des Mondes Africains (Le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). He is working on the history of the Arabian Peninsula from the late Ottoman Empire to the twenty-​first century. His most recent book is Le négoce des Lieux Saints, Les Grandes familles marchandes hadramies de Djedda, 1850–​1950 (2016). James Spencer read Arabic with Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at Durham University (spending his year abroad in Sana‘a), after which he joined the British Army. Having completing an MPhil in International Relations at Cambridge University, he then worked in risk and resilience consultancy in the Middle East and Africa. He is particularly interested in conflict, with a focus on ways to prevent or forestall it, and how best to recover from it. Saadaldeen Talib graduated from the Medical College of Ain Shams University, Cairo, in 1985. He was a member of the Yemeni Parliament, representing Shibam, from 1997 to 2003. In 2007, he was elected as commissioner to the Supreme National Authority for Combating Corruption, the first anti-​corruption commission in Yemen. In December 2011 he was appointed Minister of Industry and Trade in the reconciliation government. He moved to Singapore in late 2014, following a cabinet reshuffle. He has written a number of papers on the Hadhrami diaspora and on reform and democracy in Yemen. Iain Walker is Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle. Following his master’s fieldwork in Mauritius, xvii

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he carried out doctoral research in the Comoros, and has subsequently worked on issues of mobility and identity in East Africa, as well as in Yemen, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. He has held an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Macquarie University, Sydney, and an ESRC Fellowship at Oxford. His current project, ‘Converging Cultures: The Hadhrami Diaspora in the Indian Ocean’, is part of the Leverhulme-​funded Oxford Diasporas Programme (2011–​15). He is also the author of Becoming the Other, Being Oneself: Constructing Identities in a Connected World (2010).

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Mediterranean Sea

KUWAIT

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Cairo

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I N D O N E S I A Jakarta

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Map 1.  The Indian Ocean 

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Former border (approx) between the two states (PDRY-YAR) during the pre-unification period.

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AL-JAWF HAJJA

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se po

reg

Ha

A B YA N

TA ‘ I Z LAHIJ

Aden

A r a b i a n

S e a

SOQOTRA

ADEN

DJIBOUTI

Gulf of Aden SOMALIA © S Ballard (2016)

Map 2.  Hadhramaut in Yemen 

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Say‛ar tribe

Tamimi tribe

N

Tomb of the Prophet Hud

Tarim

Nahad tribe

Shibam Qatn Wa

adh di H

ramaut

Say‘un

0

Aynat al-Jābir Al-Ghurfa tribe

Wa

Kathiri tribe

Hurayda

75 km

di

Mas

ila

Wadi Du‘ an

Mashhad

Hamūm tribe

Ghayl Ba Wazir Shihr

Riyan Mukalla

d Wa i Ha

Arabian

Sea

jr Primary road Secondary road Other roads Wadi

© S Ballard (2016)

Map 3.  Main towns and wadis in Hadhramaut

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xxi

 1

Introduction Abdalla Bujra and Noel Brehony

Hadhramaut encompasses both the Wadi, the great valley which extends some 600 kilometres from its source in the northern desert to its mouth at Sayhut on the Arabian Sea, and the southern coastal region including Shihr and Mukalla. In its lower eastern reaches, Wadi Hadhramaut changes its name to Wadi Masila, and becomes a perennial river instead of a dry water-​course, flowing through an ever narrower defile. Groundwater in the Wadi and its tributaries, cut into arid volcanic plateaus, the jols, and flood irrigation have supported intensive agriculture and settlements of spectacular mud-​brick architecture. Beneath the cliffs of the Wadi’s precipitous escarpment lie the historic towns of Shibam, Tarim and Say‘un. The pre-​Islamic kingdom of Hadhramaut, from its capital, Shabwa, played a key role in the incense trade until its conquest at the end the third century. Following the arrival of Islam, there developed Hadhramaut’s unique social stratification, and later its particular form of Shafi’i Islam, which contribute to the region’s distinctiveness. Shihr and Mukalla, on the coast, gave Hadhramis in later centuries access to the world of the Indian Ocean, allowing them to escape poverty, drought and political instability to build a diaspora that was estimated in the 1930s to represent as much as 30 per cent of Hadhramaut’s population, and contributed much to sustaining its economy through remittances. 1

2

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

To the north the jols merge into the sands of the Empty Quarter, isolating Hadhramaut in the past but later connecting it to the states of the Arabian Peninsula, which in recent decades have become a major destination for Hadhrami migrants. Above all, Hadhramaut is also part of a geographical Yemen, whose cities in the past 60 years have attracted significant numbers of Hadhrami migrants. In this introduction, we set chapters that follow in this broad historical, geographical and political context. The political borders of Hadhramaut have varied over time to encompass territory between Aden and Dhofar, but always including the Wadi Hadhramaut, the lands between the Wadi and the coast, and the desert region north of the Wadi. This roughly coincided with the territories within the Qu’ayti and Kathiri Sultanates of the early twentieth century, the Hadhramaut Governorate of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY –​known as the Fifth Governorate between independence in 1967 and 1980) and, since 1990, of the Republic of Yemen. In 1998 the Yemeni government proposed to divide Hadhramaut into two governorates, separating the Wadi (to be called al-​Ahqaf, the mythical name for the area) from the coast, in what was seen as a move by the Saleh regime to weaken the region; the draft constitution published in January 2015 includes a provision for a six-​region federal Yemen, with the current governorate incorporating its neighbours of Shabwa and Mahra, in an echo of the surmised borders of the Hadhramaut kingdom of the pre-​ Islamic era. While the concept of al-​Ahqaf was met with strong protest from Hadhramis, and was not implemented, there are Hadhramis today who would welcome much greater self-​government, or even independence, either within the existing or an enlarged governorate. They reflect a sense that Hadhramaut may be a region of a geographical Yemen, but historically has only been part of a Yemeni political entity for short periods. On the other hand, Imamates ruling in north Yemen saw Hadhramaut as inseparable from their Yemen, as did, and still do, the political elites in Sana‘a and Aden. For centuries in the post-​Islamic period, Hadhramaut remained an area of independent and unstable states that were at times controlled by regimes based in other parts of Yemen –​those of the Imam and the Rasulid (1229–​1454) and its successor sultanates. When Badr bin Abdullah Abu Tuwayriq revived the Kathiri sultanate in Hadhramaut in the sixteenth 2

 3

Introduction

century, he invited tribal mercenaries from Yafa to help expel the latest incursion by an Imam. The Yaf ‘ai succeeded, but settled in Hadhramaut, eventually forcing the Kathiris into the eastern part of the Wadi, while Yaf ‘ai clans in alliance with urban elites and surrounding tribes set up independent but often unstable entities elsewhere in the Wadi and on the coast; the Kasadi family established a stronger sultanate in Mukalla in 1703. The Kathiri sultanate was revived under Ghalib bin Muhsen after 1840, but was challenged by the emergence of the Qu’ayti sultanate, established by another Yaf ‘ai family, under Umar bin Awad in Mukalla. Both Ghalib and Umar had made their fortunes in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad and, after returning to Hadhramaut, used their wealth and connections to import mercenaries from Hyderabad to fight increasingly bitter battles in the 1860s and 1870s, exemplifying the interconnection between Hadhramaut and its diaspora.1 The British, who had been in Aden since 1839, had not wanted to extend their protectorate to Hadhramaut, and were almost accidently drawn into the dispute to side with the Qu’ayti, who had got the better of the conflict with the Kathiri. Britain signed the Treaty of Protection with the Qu’ayti sultan in 1888, and over the next few decades the British worked closely with the Qu’ayti rulers, who had a relatively efficient administration. British colonial practices were influenced by their experience in India, and for much of the British period (until 1927) South Arabia came under the control of Bombay (Mumbai), not London. It was only in 1918 that the British, who had kept aloof from the weaker Kathiri sultanate, persuaded the sultan to place himself under the nominal control of the Qu’ayti ruler, and sign a Protectorate agreement. Kathiri sultans, with a much smaller income than the Qu’ayti, struggled to impose control, as they had to contend with wealthy returning migrants with ambitions of their own. Both sultans faced acute problems in maintaining law and order within the Wadi Hadhramaut and the unsettled areas beyond. Harold Ingrams was sent to the area to assist the Qu’ayti and Kathiri rulers and, with the highly influential local mediator and philanthropist Sayyid Bubakr al-​Kaf, another man who had built a fortune and reputation in the diaspora, he persuaded tribal leaders to sign a series of truces to end the endemic warfare. Ingrams’s Peace, as it was called, eventually spread to the whole Wadi and the surrounding tribal areas, and paved the way for 3

4

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

the signing of an advisory treaty in 1937 with the Qu’ayti sultan. Ingrams became Britain’s first Resident Adviser in Mukalla. State finances were put on a modern footing, education reformed, and agriculture improved. The Hadhrami Bedouin Legion (HBL), modelled on the Arab Legion in Jordan, helped the British and the sultans to extend their reach to the remotest parts of the region. However, some towns –​such as Hurayda and Aynat –​ remained independent until the late 1940s, when they were incorporated into the Qu’ayti sultanate. From the 1950s, Hadhrami merchants, who had made their fortunes in Saudi Arabia, and leaders of the Hadhrami diaspora in East Africa grew in importance, at a time when Arab nationalist ideas encouraged by new political movements originating in other parts of South Arabia were eroding the support base of the sultans. Some were influenced by the irshadi reform movement, which had developed mainly within the new merchant classes in Southeast Asia (see below). Political parties linked to nationalist organisations in Aden emerged in Mukalla in the 1950s, but none were strong enough to challenge the status quo at the time, as discussed in Chapter 2. Under the British, the sultanates of Qu’ayti and Kathiri became part of the Eastern Aden Protectorate (EAP), with the Mahra Sultanate of Qishn and Socotra (now Mahra and Socotra) and Wahidi (now part of Shabwa). The Sultans (apart from Wahidi) refused to join the Federation of South Arabia, which the British authorities had set up to take over after their projected withdrawal in 1968 (later brought forward to November 1967). However, the rulers failed to come up with a clear alternative way forward by the autumn of 1967, allowing nationalist revolutionaries to determine the future of Hadhramaut. Though the possibility of the two Hadhrami sultanates becoming independent was raised in the 1950s by the British, they soon rejected the idea as being impractical. A leading figure in the National Liberation Front (NLF) in Hadhramaut, Khalid Ba Ras, describes how at a meeting in 1967 he wanted to talk not merely about unifying Hadhramaut with the rest of South Yemen, but of Hadhramaut becoming part of a united Yemen –​only to be told by one of the NLF leaders not to speak on this issue, ‘as no one here wants unity’ –​an echo of past suspicions about regimes in Sana‘a.2 Chapter 1 continues the story up to the present, arguing that Hadhramaut, despite the abilities of its people, its resources 4

 5

Introduction

and its diaspora, has rarely been able to make its influence felt within the wider Yemen, even though individual Hadhramis have often led in political, economic and cultural life. Several chapters touch on the question of how to define a Hadhrami, even if there is disagreement on what that means. It seems that Hadhrami identity may be more readily defined –​and is more acutely felt –​in the diaspora than in the homeland, at least among the first or early generations of migrants. This transcends status, ethnic origin, the dilution of bloodlines through intermarriage, time and space. Linda Boxberger points out elsewhere that ‘the culture of Hadhramaut and the Hadhrami communities abroad has been shaped by the process of emigration, the return of emigrants, and the maintenance of connections between emigrant communities and the homeland’. Hadhrami identity ‘combined social adaptability and mercantile skills with a strong identification with the southern Arabian homeland and a strong affection for it, which precluded total assimilation of most, although not all emigrants’.3 Iain Walker writes in Chapter 8 that ‘Hadhramis are multi-nationals, transnationals’ and that ‘Hadhrami identity is based on a deep historical understanding and recognition of belonging that is inscribed in, and performed through, daily practice’. In Hadhramaut itself, Hadhramis may share a ‘deep sense of attachment to a homeland with an ancient and honourable heritage’,4 but will also have other more local identities, as well as being Yemenis, South Yemenis or even South Arabians. They may also cultivate an Islamic identity. Putting it at its simplest, a Hadhrami is someone originating from Hadhramaut, but ‘this is not the way that many local people would have regarded the matter in an area where genealogical consciousness ran high and was coupled with a locally varying but at least theoretically rigid system of stratification’.5 In Chapter 3, Helen Lackner describes this stratification, and shows how it was still very much present in the mid twentieth century, while other authors underline its residual importance in the diaspora. Though such stratification affects other parts of Yemen, it has had its greatest effect in Hadhramaut distinguishing sada (sing.:  sayyid), a scholarly elite claiming descent from the Prophet, from the rest of society  –​the mashayikh (scholars and religious figures), the qaba‘il (tribesmen), and the masakin 5

6

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

(poor people).6 It was reinforced over time through codes and customs, and by marriage laws. These distinctions operated within a society where tribal identity was strong, and for long periods of history tribes were often in conflict with each other. The sada and mashayikh were mediators in these disputes, enjoying high status and social prestige. Later chapters discuss the lingering influence of stratification in the diaspora. Stratification has become less rigid, as a consequence of social and economic change in the homeland and in the diaspora communities. Such divisions were anathema to the Marxist leaders of the PDRY, including the Hadhrami sada, who served as heads of state, government and the ruling Yemeni Socialist Party –​thanks partly to having benefited in their youth from the privileges that came with being sada –​but were still present when that regime ended in 1990. In Chapter 2, Thanos Petouris looks at identity as expressed through ‘Hadhrami exceptionalism’, which he defines as ‘the relative maintenance of political and cultural independence in Hadhramaut, and a strong sense of identification within Hadhrami society irrespective of –​but often also because of –​prevailing domestic and external circumstances’. On the other hand, he argues that the stratification system ‘left little scope for the development of a sense of commonality beyond an identification with one of the pre-​assigned social strata’ until the ‘twentieth century brought about a gradual but fundamental change in the pre-​existing social organisation of the region’. He analyses the causes of this change within Hadhramaut and the diaspora, and how it enabled Yemeni nationalist movements to exploit social tensions in Hadhramaut to coalesce around demands for profound political change. He has opened a subject that we hope he and other scholars will explore at greater length. Colonial reforms, the impact of the reformist irshadi movement, and the growth of nationalism in Southeast Asia eroded but did not seriously break down stratification as expressed in the distribution of wealth –​especially land ownership –​ and power within the society. Petouris’s discussion of Hadhramaut being a body politic or corporate entity leaves pending the question of whether such commonality and common identity could become a nation –​however that term may be defined. The answer might be highly relevant to the various options discussed in Chapter 1 about the future of Hadhramaut in the Yemeni state. 6

 7

Introduction

Helen Lackner analyses the profound impact of the land reform on the class system under the PDRY as the state took over the land previously owned by the elite groups of sada and tribesmen, distributing it to tenant farmers or cooperatives. ‘In order to empower the beneficiaries of the land reform and demonstrate the fundamental changes in political power in the country, the left of the National Liberation Front (NLF) sponsored uprisings during which its low-​status beneficiaries were encouraged to evict their former landlords physically’. The effect was to deprive the former elite of their sources of wealth, but also to create within them a legacy of bitterness and resentment. This became politically relevant when, following unity in 1990, the land reform was revoked and properties were restored to previous owners, some of whom sought retribution for their treatment by the PDRY regime. Lackner notes that the tribal elite and the sada soon learned the benefits of working with and not against the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh, president of the Yemen Arab Republic from 1978 and of the united Republic of Yemen between 1990 and 2011, who was anxious to secure local allies. The previously dispossessed profited but, at the cost of embittering and disappointing those who had benefited from the PDRY reforms; their disillusionment with the PDRY’s former ruling party, the Yemeni Socialist Party, created a recruiting ground initially for the Islah party, and may have been a factor in the spread of Salafism in both its peaceful and violent forms. It remains to be seen whether the sense of commonality and identity described by Petouris will be robust enough to resist the challenge of extremism. Lackner’s chapter implies that, despite all the changes discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, the stratification system still exerts a considerable influence. Hadhrami migration and the Hadhrami Diaspora have been explored in several important studies, notably those listed in the bibliography at the end of this book. There is a good summary of the history of migration by Leif Manger in Chapter 10. In Hadhramaut and its Diaspora, we deal with some of the lesser-​known aspects: nostalgia for the homeland as revealed in an atlas produced in Indonesia; the recent revival of contact between Indonesia and Hadhramaut in the field of religion; the little-​researched Hadhrami diaspora in the Philippines; Hadhrami soldiers in the diaspora; identity in the Kenyan Hadhrami community; the diaspora as a trading network functioning independently of the homeland. 7

8

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

A very high percentage of Hadhramaut’s population has been involved in migration, if one includes those remaining in the homeland but receiving remittances and support from the diaspora. Hadhramis have been migrating for over a millennium, driven by population growth, pressure on the limited agricultural and fishing resources, and long periods of political turmoil. Over time, the success of some migrants, expressed in their investment in Hadhramaut, became a powerful pull factor for ambitious Hadhramis. The process of integration in the mahjar –​the name used for the place of destination of migration –​was long. On arrival, the migrant would probably be supported by Hadhramis already present, but after a few years would speak the local language, and often marry daughter of a migrant or a local woman. It was the children of mixed marriages –​the muwalladin (sing.: muwallad) –​who participated more fully in local cultural institutions and practices as they became integrated. Over the centuries, Hadhramis retained their links to the homeland, supporting families and often sending their sons to be educated there, principally in Tarim, and returning after the end of their working lives. Interaction between the homeland and the mahjar was constant. The impact of migration on Hadhrami society and its structures has been enormous, particularly over the last two centuries, as many scholars have shown. Migrants influenced the politics of the Qu’ayti and Kathiri sultanates. The effect of more recent spending by migrants is physically evident in the mosques, tombs and buildings constructed in cities, towns and villages. The loss of remittances from Southeast Asia in the 1940s contributed to two famines. It is difficult to envisage a viable Hadhrami economy without the contribution from remittances. Today, Hadhramis in the diaspora are taking the closest interest in the political future of their homeland, and are among the most ardent advocates of those demanding greater self-​ government, or even independence. Hadhramis in the homeland are more preoccupied with the day-​to-​day reality of being part of a less-than-stable Yemeni state, in which the influence of Hadhramaut has long been weak. Traditionally, Hadhramis migrated to three major regions around the Indian Ocean: East Africa, including Ethiopia and Eritrea, which had seen migration as far back as the time of the Prophet (Port Sudan was another destination); India –​mainly Hyderabad and the west coast; and Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the southern Philippines, all 8

 9

Introduction

being at the time under the control of colonial powers. The largest communities were in the British and Dutch colonies, where Hadhramis could enter and settle without encountering much difficulty, though some resented the degree of control over their presence wielded by the Dutch authorities. In the earlier part of the British period, as we have seen, Hadhramaut came under the purview of Bombay (Mumbai) rather than London, though it is not clear whether this was a factor in the extensive Hadhrami presence in Hyderabad. It is not always evident why Hadhramis chose one destination in preference to another. Once the initial wave of migration had established a presence, others seem to have followed. As Iain Walker has noted elsewhere, ‘Although specific destinations seem to have depended on serendipity as much as on strategy, place of origin influenced destinations in a general sense.’ Walker found that those from the coast tended to travel by sea, and those from around Tarim and Say‘un, ‘possibly because of the proximity to the caravan routes to the coast, also tended to head for the coast and thence to Asia and East Africa’. On the other hand, ‘families from Wadi Du’an [were] more likely to be found elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, and particularly in Saudi Arabia’. One wealthy Hadhrami family in Jeddah claims that its founder was so poor that he walked there from Hadhramaut.7 Helen Lackner in Chapter 3 adds further insight into the geographical origins and destinations of migrants. Hadhramis were involved in the Arab trading networks long before the arrival of the Dutch East India Company in Indonesia, and the numbers migrating to Southeast Asia increased strongly in the latter half of the nineteenth century, though it is surprising how little this phenomenon has been studied. The Dutch authorities took an interest in the movement and in Hadhramaut in the later part of the nineteenth century, as the several references in the chapters of this volume to the extraordinary work of Lodewijk van den Berg attest. His study of Hadhramaut was based wholly on interviews with Hadhrami immigrants.8 The work of van den Berg and other Dutch scholars, for example, provided quite detailed information about the distribution and activities of Hadhramis in the Dutch East Indies. At that time most Hadhramis were engaged in trade, usually on a quite small scale, and in shipping, carrying pilgrims to Mecca and spices and textiles to the Middle East. Some thereby acquired substantial real estate. There was a substantial community of sada in Surabaya, but very few in Batavia. 9

10

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

In Chapter 4, Nico Kaptein focuses on a sayyid who was one of the most productive scholars of the Dutch East Indies and left more than 150 publications, written in Arabic or Malay. He played a very important role as an adviser to the Dutch government and in Muslim affairs. In 1881 he started drawing a map or atlas of the world and Hadhramaut for the members of the Hadhrami diaspora to cater for their feelings of nostalgia and attachment to the homeland, and to help them visualise it: Indeed, the links between Hadhramis in the diaspora who could afford this and the homeland were typically tight, and the traffic between these two parts of the world often intense –​to carry out trade, for family visits and for pilgrimages, for example. Moreover, many Hadhramis continued to send boys from the diaspora to the homeland for their education. As a result of these contacts, there were strong cultural bonds between the homeland and the diaspora.

As nationalist movements gathered strength in the mid-twentieth century, migration to Southeast Asia ceased. Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore became independent states and adopted policies that favoured local interests over those of migrant communities, no matter how well established. As Leif Manger notes in Chapter 10, the new governments imposed ‘stricter rules of movement than had applied during the period of colonial occupation, stricter rules about national identities, and various national policies for dealing with “non-​national” populations’. He adds that ‘in Singapore, independence signalled the start of a phenomenal economic development that also changed the fortunes of Hadhramis, particularly vis-​à-​vis the Chinese’. By then, as elsewhere, there had been generations of intermarriage with local people, producing the muwalladin. In Chapter 5, Kazuhiro Arai gives a fascinating account of the current relationship between Hadhramaut and the Hadhrami community in Indonesia. He describes how prestigious sada visit Jakarta and other cities to be hosted by prominent sada families, attracting to their speeches and celebrations large numbers of muwalladin and Indonesians. His work also shows that Indonesians have revived the practice of travelling to Tarim to 10

 1

Introduction

study in its important religious institutes, echoing the way in which previous generations of Hadhramis sent their sons to the homeland for religious education. There may have been at least 2,000 Indonesians in Tarim at the start of the current conflict, which has forced them to leave. Arai concludes: For those in Hadhramaut, Southeast Asia may no longer be a destination of migration, but it has become a place for periodic visits where they can meet with relatives, visit the tombs of saints of Hadhrami descent, communicate with ulama and recruit students. For those in Indonesia, Hadhramaut has become a more familiar place because of visits by notables and the abundance of books on religious figures from the region. In other words, popular connections across the Indian Ocean have been revived in a more religiously ​oriented form. Indonesia has appeared as a new focal point of the Hadhrami diaspora, and its status was enhanced after the virtual closure of the region to outsiders. At the same time, the opening of Hadhramaut in recent decades has enabled an abundance of scholarship that has contributed to knowledge of the region among not only those in the diaspora, but also a much wider audience.

It would be interesting to know whether what is happening in Indonesia is unique or is found in other parts of Southeast Asia, and elsewhere outside the Arab world. In Chapter 6, William Clarence-​Smith demonstrates that it was much more difficult for Hadhramis to enter the Philippines, where the Spanish authorities were ‘more hostile to foreign Muslims than either their Dutch or British colonial neighbours’ and ‘given their long tradition of war with the Moros, suspected foreign Muslims of spying and stirring up holy war’. This mind-​set continued after 1898, when the Americans replaced the Spanish. The chapter digs deeply into Spanish and American archives to throw light on this often neglected part of the Hadhrami diaspora. As Clarence-​Smith notes, the ‘the presence of well-​entrenched Hadhrami families in the 1990s begs the question of exactly when they settled in the country’. He deduces that ‘the Hadhrami presence in the Philippines was probably more extensive’ than stated by previous researchers, concluding: ‘It is to be hoped that future generations of researchers, 11

12

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

alerted to these possibilities, will be able to find fresh evidence for a more rounded telling of the story, perhaps by obtaining histories from the families established in the country’. The stratification of Hadhrami society affected its members’ role in the diasporic communities. The sada, and to a lesser extent the mashayikh, helped spread Islam and their Shafi’i Sufi traditions. They functioned in mosques and religious institutes, and acted as religious advisers and judges. The superior education of the sada families, and to a lesser extent of the mashayikh, propelled them into senior positons in Southeast Asia in colonial times, and their descendants –​often muwalladin –​ can be found today in political positions and parts of the civil service elite in Southeast Asia. Some sada also engaged in trade –​the Singaporean al-​Kaf family is just one example of sada commercial success. Most of those from lower strata were involved in small businesses, trading, crafts and manual labour. Like the sada, the qaba‘il (tribesmen) have been involved in all aspects of migration to most destinations since it began. In Chapter 7, James Spencer makes an original contribution by examining the role of Hadhramis, nearly all qaba‘il, in the ranks of defence and security services. The best-​ known example of this is the role of mercenaries from Hadhramaut in the service of the Nizam of Hyderabad, which had an important impact on the political and military development of Hadhramaut itself in the late nineteenth century. Spencer points out that a majority were drawn from the descendants of the Yaf ‘ai tribes that had been in Hadhramaut since the sixteenth century (supplemented by later migrants). Relatively few indigenous Hadhramis had much inclination to work in the military, particularly among the sada –​though sada have been in senior positions in the modern Yemeni armed forces. The most obvious reason for a lack of soldiering is, to quote Spencer, ‘a Hadhrami’s unique selling point … was probably scholarship –​particularly jurisprudence –​followed by international trade, both requiring literacy. To soldier –​a trade an illiterate could follow –​was therefore less lucrative. This is partly corroborated by soldiers’ diversification into trade as soon as they had the means to do so’. It would be interesting to explore further whether Hadhramis regard these Yaf ‘ai settlers as indigenous or as muwalladin descendants of migrants; some of them (known as tulud) had been in Hadhramaut for a very long time. Spencer shows that, in the twentieth century, Hadhramis have served in Eritrea, 12

 13

Introduction

where there were long-​established Hadhrami communities, as well as in the armed forces of some Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. More recently, Hadhramis and other Yemenis have been trained by the Saudi and Gulf armies to help the forces of President Hadi in the civil war in Yemen. Spencer and Leif Manger both refer to an infamous muwallad terrorist: Osama bin Laden. In Chapter 1, we discuss the threat that Al Qaeda poses today in Hadhramaut. In Chapter 8, Iain Walker explores today’s population of Hadhramis in Kenya. He shows that they are well integrated in the coastal areas, where other Arab migrants have settled, but still retain links –​some tenuous, but others stronger –​to the homeland, manifested in the genealogy books of the sada and their retention of Yemeni passports –​and, in a few cases, the long-​ expired travel documents issued by the Qu’ayti and Kathiri states. Walker finds, as noted above, that Hadhramis are multi-​nationals, transnationals: their identity is an ‘ethnic’, particularist and contingent one. And while Kenyan or Yemeni passports are useful tools in the contemporary world, Hadhrami identity is based on a deep historical understanding and recognition of belonging that is inscribed in, and performed through, daily practice, in various places and various spaces, that, in national terms, sees Hadhramis as being at once both/​neither Kenyan and/​nor Yemeni.

When, in the post-​colonial period, it became more difficult for new migrants to go to Southeast Asia, India and East Africa, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis were welcomed in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. These wealthy petrodollar countries needed large labour forces, both educated and unskilled, that Yemen, and Hadhramaut in particular, were able to provide. Yemenis were given special treatment by Saudi Arabia following the signing of the Treaty of Taif in 1934. Despite the political strains between the PDRY and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia welcomed Hadhrami migrants in the 1970s and 1980s, and they came from all strata of Hadhrami society. Some of the most successful business houses in Jeddah were created by earlier generations of Hadhrami migrants, and they often sought to help people from their place of origin to find work in the kingdom. The reception of Yemeni migrants in these countries has been quite different from that in areas of traditional migration. For one thing, the issue of cultural integration does not arise. It is easier to bring a Hadhrami wife to 13

14

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

the Gulf –​but non-​citizens are not usually allowed, even in the twenty-​ first century, to marry female citizens in Saudi Arabia, for example. The transfer of money to the homeland is relatively simple, as is regular movement to and from the homeland. Hadhramis can live and work in Saudi Arabia for decades without becoming citizens, but remain ineligible for some state benefits and support. When Yemen appeared to condone Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990, Saudi Arabia expelled over 800,000 Yemenis at short notice –​no matter how long they had been in the country. On the other hand, Yemenis were welcomed again after a few years, and by 2010 their numbers were back to the levels of the past. Another aspect of the diaspora has been the way in which various communities around the Indian Ocean and beyond have interacted with each other, creating networks to their mutual benefit. In Chapter 9, Philippe Pétriat uses network analysis to describe examples of how this functioned, based on his investigation into the activities of Hadhrami merchant families in Jeddah in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On first arrival, they would interact with local Hadhramis, but as their interests expanded they built up relationships with Hadhrami merchants in Singapore, Bombay (Mumbai), Iran and Cairo. The linking of these relationships to other indigenous and trading networks gave the Jeddah merchants access to both local and international trade, using them for market intelligence, credit and currency exchange. These networks were not limited to trade: ‘But we can observe also that even sayyid scholars who travelled in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, settling for long periods outside Hadhramaut, came to rely on much broader networks than the Hadhrami diaspora’. They used these networks to discuss matters of religious interpretation, for education in the institute at Tarim, for business, and for visiting their extended families. In Chapter 10, Leif Manger, who has conducted research into several diverse communities in the diaspora, starts with the issue of conceptualising the terms ‘diaspora’ and ‘network’ in order to gain a deeper understanding of the Hadhramis as a diasporic community. Manger’s emphasis here is on the use of the network as an analytical tool for understanding the Hadhramis in the countries to which they had migrated. He argues on the basis of his case studies that ‘in their various diasporic communities, do not constitute any pre-​determined community, society or group. 14

 15

Introduction

The Hadhrami diaspora has no centre except for its point of origin, and is characterised by being highly adaptive’. He also discusses globalisation, both contemporary and historical. He argues that historical globalisation extends between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries CE, and discusses Islam and the role Hadhramis played in resisting European domination in their respective destinations, not on behalf Hadhramis alone but on behalf of Muslim communities in general. In his Conclusion, Abdalla Bujra ends the volume by giving his personal perspective on the current state of research, noting that in recent decades the focus in Western scholarship has been on the Hadhrami diaspora and not on Hadhramaut itself. The work of Hadhrami scholars, mostly published in Arabic, is much less well known. He identifies key areas for future research that can be led by the Hadhramaut Research Centre, with the aim ‘not so much to “rediscover” Hadhramaut as to expand the traditional focus of education and research beyond religious studies, Arabic and genealogy’. The success of the Centre illustrates how many Hadhramis in the diaspora want to use their expertise, experience and resources for the good of the homeland and its people. The chapters in this book illuminate many aspects of Hadhramaut, Yemen and the diaspora, but show that research on these issues, though impressive and attracting the attention of leading scholars, is still comparatively undeveloped. It is the hope of the contributors that this volume will stimulate a new generation of scholars, particularly Hadhramis, to make use of public and private archives to learn more about all aspects of Hadhramaut and its diaspora.

Notes 1. For a more detailed account of the period from 1600 to 1900, see R. J. Gavin, Aden under British Rule, 1839–​1967 (London, 1975), pp. 157–​73. 2. Khaled Ba Ras, Ayuha al-​Madi … wadaa (Mukalla, 2012), p. 313. 3. Linda Boxberger, On the Edge of Empire:  Hadhramawt, Emigration and the Indian Ocean, 1880–​1930s (New York, 2002), p. 19. 4. Ibid., p. 11. 5. Ulrike Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut (Leiden, 2003), p. 39.

15

16

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 6. These were analysed in great detail in Abdalla Bujra, The Politics of Stratification: A Study of Political Change in a South Arabian Town (Oxford, 1971). 7. Iain Walker, ‘Hadhrami Identities in Saudi Arabia’, in Noel Brehony and Saud al-​ Sarhan (eds), Rebuilding Yemen: Political and Social Challenges (Berlin, 2015), pp. 45–​6. 8. Lodewijk W. C. van den Berg, Le Hadramout et les Colonies Arabes dans l’Archipel Indien (Batavia, 1886).

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Part I

Hadhramis in Yemen

18

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1 Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s Saadaldeen Talib and Noel Brehony

One impact of the tumultuous events in Yemen since 2011 is that Hadhramis now demand a greater say in how Yemen and their region are governed. Since the late nineteenth century, Hadhramaut has been a part, successively, of the Aden Protectorate and then of the Eastern Aden Protectorate in British South Arabia, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY, 1967–​90), and, from May 1990, the Republic of Yemen, but has not achieved the influence that might have been expected from the numbers and attainments of its population and its economic resources. Political and economic developments in Hadhramaut have been determined by regimes in Aden (one-​fifth of the PDRY’s population was Hadhrami), Sana‘a (one-twentieth) and by forces in other parts of Yemen –​and since March 2016 by civil war and the intervention of a Saudi-​led coalition. Even when Hadhramis have held top political positions in Yemeni regimes, they have been less effective than politicians from some other Yemeni regions in fostering the interests of their homeland. To understand why, we examine the place of Hadhramaut in Yemen in the last few decades, and assess how recent political developments might affect Hadhramis in their homeland and diaspora. 19

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

Hadhramaut in South Arabia Under the British system, Hadhramaut was separate from the rest of South Arabia. The sultans of Qu’ayti and Kathiri resisted pressure to join the South Arabian Federation, and may even have contemplated making Hadhramaut independent or possibly linking it to Saudi Arabia. They clearly saw Hadhramaut as distinct from the rest of Yemen, reflecting the fact that, for much of its history, it was made up of independent entities. On the other hand, the Arab nationalist forces competing to take over from the British saw Hadhramaut as an integral part of a future South Yemen, though some were cautious in the mid 1960s about advocating Yemeni unity.1 These parties were covertly active in Mukalla and Say‘un, drawing on the nationalist ferment inspired by Nasserism and by the nationalism and revolutionary ideas sweeping the countries of the diaspora. The Movement of Arab Nationalists (MAN) recruited its first cells in Hadhramaut in 1960. At a meeting in Sana‘a in 1963, MAN leaders launched the National Liberation Front (NLF) to spearhead the liberation of South Arabia. From its bases in Yemen, and drawing on support provided by Egyptian forces, the NLF gave priority in the early 1960s to fighting the British and the sultans in Lahij, Fadhli and Lower and Upper Yafa, close to the border, and then in Aden. The focus in Hadhramaut was to use the MAN network as a basis for penetrating key institutions, including the Hadhrami Bedouin Legion (HBL) and the sultans’ security forces. The NLF achieved this without the British or the sultans fully appreciating the scope and depth of its organisation.2 Ali Salim al-​Beidh, a sayyid from Raidat Abd al-​Wadood and a leading figure in the central NLF leadership, had a supervising role, and even visited East Africa to seek financial support for the NLF from the large Hadhrami community.3 The armed struggle in Hadhramaut was launched only in April 1967, assisted by four experienced NLF fighters sent from Aden. Had the sultans been present in the critical month of August 1967, they might have been strong enough to rally support against the NLF, but were in Geneva attending meetings held by the United Nations Committee for Independence of South Arabia. When they returned to Mukalla by boat on 17 September, they were met by a delegation from the HBL and the NLF, which refused 20

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Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s

them entry.4 In early October, the NLF formally took power in Hadhramaut, with little resistance. The NLF leaders in Hadhramaut came from the extreme left, and even before the People’s Republic of South Yemen (PRSY) was set up on 30 November 1967, there were ‘soviets’ in parts of Hadhramaut.5 With some encouragement from al-​Beidh, the new governor of Hadhramaut Faysal al-​Attas pursued radical policies (see Chapter 2) that alienated the more pragmatic figures around Qahtan al-​Sha‘abi, the new president of the PRSY, who were appalled at what they saw as chaos. When, in May 1968, the Hadhrami NLF announced the formation of the People’s Democratic Republic of Hadhramaut, Qahtan sent the armed forces to remove al-​Attas, purge the Hadhrami NLF and bring the region under the control of Aden. Any prospect that Hadhramaut might have become independent of Aden, or seceded from the PDRY, came to an end.

Hadhramaut in the PDRY The PDRY went through a turbulent and violent period in its early years, driving tens of thousands of people, many Hadhrami, into exile. However, from the mid 1970s, especially after the NLF had become the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), in 1978, Aden –​benefiting, unlike Sana‘a in the YAR, from the administrative system inherited from the British –​ provided its citizens with a fairly effective and largely incorrupt administration able to deliver government services to most parts of the country. Hadhramaut, like other regions, was affected by Aden’s drive to abolish tribalism and its determination to make the PDRY a civil state in which religion was a private concern. Violence against Sufi shrines in the Wadi in the late 1960s was gradually replaced by an effort to win the acquiescence, if not endorsement, of the PDRY by religious scholars and clerics in the 1980s. Earlier socialist economic policies, which had had profound and often adverse consequences in Hadhramaut, gradually became more pragmatic. Aden’s alliance with the Soviet Union enabled it to build a modern military, but had the effect of isolating it from GCC states (apart from Kuwait) for much of the 1970s, and of making the GCC cautious in the backing it provided in the 1980s. Moscow and its allies never gave enough to the PDRY to lift it from poverty, while the rest of 21

2

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

the Arabian Peninsula benefited from the oil booms of the 1970s and 1980s. The economic problems of the state were mitigated to some extent in Hadhramaut by the inflow of remittances, especially in the early 1980s, from the traditional diaspora and the expanding Yemeni communities in the Gulf states.6 The late arrival of the NLF, and the peripheral nature of the region to the main struggle in the West, partly explain why Hadhramaut had less influence throughout the life of the PDRY than Aden, (where many of the main leaders were of North Yemeni origin), Lahij and Abyan. Thus, at the first NLF conference in March 1968, there were only 13 delegates from Hadhramaut, which had a population of 492,000 (in 1973) compared with 45 for Abyan (311,000) and 34 for Lahij (291,000). On the other hand, individual Hadhramis often had a strong influence because of their role in the independence fight (for example, Ali Salim al-​Beidh) or their high level of education. A few from the diaspora went to the PDRY to offer their services to the government. Hadhrami politicians, who were often assiduous in building support in their home region, proved adroit at either staying out of or picking the winning side in the power struggles within the PDRY after 1975, which in effect became a battle between political and military leaders from Abyan (led by Ali Nasser Muhammad) and their rivals from Lahij. In January 1986, a virtual civil war broke between these two factions, leading to the death of at least 5,000 people and great damage to the reputation of the PDRY and its economy, as well as much physical destruction in Aden. Hadhramaut was not affected directly. With many of the top PDRY leaders dead, in exile with Ali Nasser Muhammad, or in gaol, two Hadhramis were left in nominal command of the state. Al-​Beidh, a survivor of this and later crises, became secretary-​general of the YSP, and Haydar al-​Attas the new president. Though other Hadhramis were in key positions (Salih al-​Siyayli as minister of state security, for example), real power lay with military figures from Lahij –​Ali Nasser’s supporters from Abyan were in the north, and were used by Sana‘a to put pressure on Aden. The Hadhrami-​led regime struggled to maintain its legitimacy and the economy, and it soon became clear that the PDRY had been mortally wounded by the 1986 civil war. It was finished off in 1989, when the 22

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Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s

collapse of the Soviet Union exposed Aden’s strategic error of cutting itself off from the West and the GCC. As we shall see, the impact of the PDRY on Hadhramaut was to create in some an attachment to the idea of an independent southern state, or at least a distinctive southern region in a federal Yemen. Such sentiments are shared by other parts of the former PDRY, where people have a nostalgic memory of a PDRY, based on the good days of the early 1980s, that provided a degree of equality and reasonably good government services. Others recall the brutality of the PDRY’s early years, and the conflict and instability of its last few years.

Hadhramaut, the YAR and Yemeni Unity After the demise of the PDRY, the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh took control of Hadhramaut; the ability of Hadhramis to influence the regime’s policies further diminished. To understand the situation, it is essential to look at the nature and functioning of the Saleh regime.

The Saleh Regime The Yemen Arab Republic, set up in 1962 following the overthrow of the last Imam, had experienced eight years of civil war and, after a brief period of stability in the early 1970s, saw two of its presidents assassinated within the 18 months before Ali Abdullah Saleh came to power in 1978. After a difficult start, he developed a system that enabled him to stay in power for the next 33  years, and still survives. He built up strong defence and security forces commanded by relatives and close allies drawn from his Sanhan tribe, a member of the Hashid Tribal Confederation. Around this core he constructed networks of patronage embracing tribal, local and commercial elites who provided loyalty in return for jobs for their followers, contracts for associates and positions for themselves and their allies. This was given political expression in the General People’s Congress (GPC), which delivered Saleh majorities in presidential and parliamentary elections. According to Peter Salisbury, ‘It was made up of a wide array of voices: Islamists, tribesmen, businessmen, Arab nationalists, Nasserists 23

24

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

and civil society actors. Broadly nationalist and developmental in its outlook, the party served as much as a mechanism for distributing patronage and rewarding regime loyalists as it fulfilled any ideological function’.7 Saleh was a master at divide and rule, keeping opponents at each other’s throats and his allies suspicious of each other. In 1990, Abdullah al-​Ahmar, the head of the Hashid confederation, helped found a new political party, the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, known as Islah. Though this was in opposition to the GPC, al-​Ahmar operated his own networks of influence, including in the security forces. He shared with Saleh an interest in preserving the system from which both could benefit. From its foundation Islah, whose core membership is not dissimilar to that of the GPC, took in members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis. It was a convenient tool for Saleh at a time when he had to contend with the influence of the well-​organised and Hadhrami-​led YSP. General Ali Mohsen, who was a long-​term ally of Saleh –​they were from the same tribe and village –​was a leading military figure commanding the First Armoured Division, the largest and most effective part of the Yemeni armed forces at the time, and close to Islah.

Hadhramaut and Yemeni Unity Both Yemeni regimes had seen their respective states as being two parts (shatrayn) of a single Yemen, and spoke endlessly of their goal of unification; but each concentrated on building their respective systems. They were deeply involved in each other’s affairs, signing unity agreements in 1972 and 1979 after fighting brief border wars. Until the early 1980s, the two states were of roughly equal strength; the population of the YAR was four times larger, but the PDRY was better organised politically and militarily, and the YSP had a secret branch in the YAR from its foundation in 1978. By late 1989, the Hadhrami Ali Salim al-​B eidh and his colleagues concluded that their salvation lay in a confederation with the YAR  –​ spurred by the potential economic gains of being able to exploit oilfields that lay across their borders in Marib and Shabwah. The YAR leaders were also ready for unity in the form of a federation. Instead of the expected confederation or federation, Saleh and al-​B eidh agreed, 24

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Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s

in private talks in December 1989, to the implementation of full unity within a year, later reduced to six months. Haydar al-​Attas, though head of state and opposed to the deal, was politically too weak to reject it, and the only senior PDRY figure who openly objected was another Hadhrami, al-​Siyayli.8 The south seemed to have negotiated a very good deal:  the two regime political parties (the GPC and YSP) would share power, and Sana‘a would bankroll the large southern bureaucracy. Al-​B eidh was vice president and Haydar al-​Attas prime minister, setting a precedent that has been followed in nearly every instance since then, whereby the premier has been from Hadhramaut. However, the leaders, who did not share a common vision for unity or a strategy for implementing it, insisted on a transition period of only six months to bring together two such diverse systems. The arrangement quickly fell apart, and its demise was signalled when the YSP won only 20 per cent of the seats in the 1993 elections (approximately its share of the Yemeni population) –​ almost the same as Islah, which was set up after unification. Saleh made it clear that there could no longer be a 50–​50 share of power. Despite a major effort by internal and international players to find a compromise, the inevitable civil war broke out in April 1994, which saw the northern armies, supported by the defeated YSP faction of 1986, isolate Hadhramaut from the rest of the south, before occupying Aden and achieving unity by force of arms. In May 1994, al-​Beidh announced the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Yemen (DRY), with himself as president; he was asserting as late as 2015 that the state and his presidency still existed. Among those who joined al-​Beidh in the DRP were Haydar al-​Attas, while ten out of 17 ministers in the DRP cabinet were Hadhramis. The DRP was not aiming at secession but at establishing a regime for all Yemenis. Its leaders were almost immediately forced to move to Mukalla, and then to flee to Muscat. Other Hadhramis, mostly associated with Ali Nasser Muhammad, took ministerial jobs in the Saleh regime. As usual, Hadhramaut was not central to the struggle, but the realisation that Hadhramaut had substantial oil resources was a factor in everyone’s calculations. One of the most significant developments after unification was the announcement of a large commercial oil discovery 25

26

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

in Hadhramaut’s Masila basin; but it was soon exploited –​along with oil found in Marib –​to feed the patronage systems of the Saleh regime.

Hadhramaut in a United Yemen President Saleh extended his methods of rule, initially to embrace supporters of Ali Nasser Muhammad and amenable local elites in Hadhramaut and elsewhere in the south, but soon favoured the interests of his northern clients, leading to what many southerners called ‘northern occupation’. Tens of thousands of southern military and security personnel were forcibly retired, while state land was given or sold cheaply to regime cronies. Southerners who co-​operated were rewarded, and many others took jobs in the north, accepting the reality of unity and trying to make it work. Hadhrami politicians were co-​opted by the Saleh regime, including prime ministers –​Faraj bin Ghanem and Abd al-​Qadir Ba Jamal, for e­ xample –​ though most were soon disillusioned. The companies exploiting and servicing Hadhramaut’s oilfields were run by associates of Saleh and Islah, and Hadhrami oil revenues were used to finance regime patronage.

The Saleh Regime Strengthens –​and Weakens Within two months of the end of the 1994 war, Saleh consolidated his hold on power under the guise of constitutional reform and democratic participation. With the acquiescence, once again, of the networks associated with Islah, presidential powers were further increased during the 1997 parliamentary elections, in which the GPC won 75 per cent of the seats. Abdullah al-​Ahmar, the leader of Islah, was nominated as speaker by both the GPC and Islah, underlining his de facto personal and tribal alliance with Saleh. The 1997 elections saw the first introduction of Saleh’s son, Ahmed, into politics, when he became a member of parliament. Before the end of his term, Ahmed had been appointed commander of both the Special Forces and the elite Republican Guards. Though he did not run for parliament in 2003, he had by then become the most probable candidate to succeed his father. Other close relatives of Saleh –​and Abdullah al-​Ahmar –​were expanding their hold on the political, military and business arenas. Corruption was now threatening the development 26

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Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s

and viability of the state. Prominent scholars have referred to the system as ‘a kleptocracy’.9 The year 2003 marked the peak of Yemen’s oil revenues, to which the Hadhrami fields in Masila made the largest contribution. As output fell, the networks that had co-​operated to exploit the system to their mutual benefit started to compete with each other to maintain their shares of a declining pot. In the presidential election of 2006, a recently formed alliance –​ the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP)  –​dominated by Islah but including the YSP, put up a Hadhrami candidate, Faisal bin Shamlan, to compete against Saleh. Shamlan was close to another prominent Hadhrami politician, Faraj bin Ghanem, who had resigned from the post of prime minister in protest against the regime’s policies. Saleh won the election easily, but bin Shamlan and his backers emerged with great credit, and shocked Saleh into a short-​ lived period of reform. From then on, the regime began to disintegrate. Peter Salisbury notes that ‘both Saleh and Islah affiliates would spend much of the next four years working to undermine and degrade one another’s political, military and economic networks while jostling for influence in the government institutions they controlled, seriously undermining overall governance and security’.10

The Rise of the Marginalised Conflict within the regime gave the opportunity for other forces to emerge, notably the Huthis in the far north, Al-​Hirak in the south and Al Qaeda in several parts of Yemen.

The Huthis Zaydis make up some 30 to 35 per cent of Yemenis, and dominate the north-​west highlands  –​the origin of power of the Imamate regimes of the past and the homeland of the two most powerful tribal confederations (the Hashid and Bakil). Their religious practices differ from those of the Twelver Shia, and are very close to the Sunni Islam of the Shafi’i school of law that spread in Yemen from the twelfth century. Zaydis and Sunnis have lived in harmony for over 900 years. The Huthi movement originated 27

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

in the early 1990s, in an organisation called the Believing Youth, set up by Hussein Badr al-​Din al-​Huthi. It represented a reaction against what al-​Huthi regarded as the betrayal of Zaydi values by the Saleh regime, manifested in the emergence of Islah and the intrusion of Wahhabism and Salafism in their homeland in the Sa‘ada governorate. Added to this was a bitter resentment at the economic and social marginalisation of the Sa‘ada governorate by the Saleh regime. Increasing militancy and government reaction led in 2004 to the first of six rounds of major fighting, which lasted until 2010, between the government and the Huthis. The latter were never defeated, gaining fighting experience and capturing weapons from the Yemeni army.11 It was Ali Mohsen’s First Armoured Division that did most of the fighting; Huthi leaders have since regarded Mohsen, his unit and Islah as their main enemies.

Al Qaeda Another side-​effect of the growth of Salafism was the emergence of a more militant stream, which led to Yemenis fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s and then returning to Yemen. There they formed the core of a branch of Al Qaeda, after the movement was founded by Osama bin Laden –​a Saudi whose family originated in Hadhramaut. After 9/​11 the Saleh regime, under pressure from Washington, all but destroyed the movement; but, following the escape from prison of 23 of its members in 2006, it re-​formed and became Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) –​the Saudi and Yemeni branches merging in 2009. In its first years, AQAP focused on using Yemen as a base from which it could organise terrorist attacks against Western and Saudi targets, though it carried out attacks in many parts of Yemen, including Hadhramaut.12

The Southern Movement (Al-​Hirak) Following unification, the YSP began to lose ground in Hadhramaut and elsewhere in the south, as it was seen to be bargaining with the regime for a share of power rather than representing the grievances of southerners. The Southern Movement (Al-​Hirak) emerged in late 2006. Initially it demanded greater rights for southerners, but it quickly generated a 28

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Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s

demand for secession, or at least the creation of a federal state of two regions, which had been the model the YSP had preferred in its internal discussions in 1989. Attempted repression by the regime drove more southerners to support Al-​Hirak, not least in Hadhramaut (particularly Mukalla). Hadhramis –​including Ali Salim al-​Beidh and Haydar al-​Attas in exile, and Hassan Baum in Yemen –​were prominent leaders of the movement. Hadhramis thus fully participated in growing demands for the secession of the South. Large rallies took place, and a campaign of civil disobedience was mostly centred in Mukalla, where Al-​Hirak was strongest. But from the outset the Southern Movement lacked an agreed strategy and leadership, and faced resistance from southerners who supported unity (if not the Saleh regime), including from the GPC and Islah, which had established themselves in the south after 1990.

The Yemeni Spring of 2011 The fractures in the regime noted above dangerously widened when the Arab Spring reached Yemen in February 2011, in the form of massive demonstrations and the appearance of tented camps in the squares of Sana‘a and other cities, including Aden, Mukalla and Say‘un. Though they were organised by young activists, Islah provided logistical support. The key moment came on 18 March, when plain-​clothes gunmen killed at least 50 young protesters. Many of Saleh’s supporters abandoned him, and Ali Mohsen announced that his forces would defend the demonstrators. Civil war seemed likely, as Saleh and his opponents moved military units loyal to them to capital. The Huthis, Al-​Hirak and AQAP saw opportunities to exploit the withdrawal of security forces from the far north and from southern Yemen. In Hadhramaut there were attempts to bring various factions and currents together under an umbrella organisation called the ‘Welfare of Hadhramaut’. In mid-2011 the major political factions in Hadhramaut issued a document setting out the future path for the region: ‘Hadhramaut: The Vision and Path’. This was the first time in many decades that Hadhramaut had declared a clear will to demand its rights in any future arrangements, in a united or divided Yemen. 29

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora

The GCC Deal The international community –​the GCC supported by the United Nations Security Council –​intervened, with the agreement of the main protagonists, to prevent civil war. Saleh was induced to sign the Yemen Transition Deal on 23 November 2011.13 This required him to resign in exchange for immunity for him and his relatives; but he was allowed to remain in Yemen, and continued to be the leader of the GPC. Saleh’s vice president since 1994, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, became interim president pending his election as leader in a single-​candidate ballot –​held in February 2012 –​as part of a two-​year transition. A government was appointed that comprised equal numbers of the GPC and the JMP (but including no Huthis or representatives of Al-​Hirak). The deal provided for an inclusive National Dialogue Conference (NDC) that would make recommendations for a draft constitution to enable elections to take place in 2013. At the same time, the military and security forces were to be re-​structured to break up the power and influence of the patronage networks, and make them accountable through professional leadership to an elected government. Major economic assistance was promised by the international community. The NDC brought together over 565 delegates, half from the south. Thirty per cent of its members were women, and 20 per cent represented the youth. Eighty-​five places were allocated to Al-​Hirak, but only 35 to the Huthis, feeding their sense of marginalisation, while many southerners rejected the Al-​Hirak candidates chosen by President Hadi to represent them. The process produced over 1,800 often conflicting recommendations, which were then passed to another committee tasked with drafting a constitution (completed in January 2015).14 There was agreement that Yemen should have a federal structure, but President Hadi gave the task of defining its regions to a special  –​and, in the view of the southerners and Huthis, rigged –​committee, which proposed that there should be six regions, four in the north and two in the south. Southerners and Huthis accepted federalism, but rejected the regions suggested by this committee. Most southerners wanted the south to be a single region. The Huthis objected to being part of a region that had no access to the sea or to oil resources. Even so, the committee drafting the constitution was told to act on it –​a move that the Huthis, in particular, saw as highly provocative. 30

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Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s

Failure of the GCC Deal There were three main flaws in the transition deal –​which, it should be stressed, was a pragmatic arrangement to prevent a civil war, not a blueprint for a future Yemen. First, insufficient action was taken to remove the influence of Saleh, his sons, and Islah rivals from the armed and security services. The elite formations were broken up, but the loyalties and networks at brigade and battalion level proved to be too deeply embedded. The failures were exposed in 2014 and 2015: elite units still loyal to Saleh allied with the Huthis, who in their advance upon Sana‘a targeted military formations associated with Islah. Second, the decision to allow Saleh to stay enabled him to manipulate his military and tribal allies to disrupt the transition arrangements. Third, much of the promised money has not been disbursed. Donors demanded reforms to ensure that their aid was not absorbed into the networks of corruption; but the effect has been that the living standards of ordinary Yemenis have fallen to even lower levels since 2011. The Huthis have been able to exploit the resulting discontent, and claim to stand up for the rights of people against foreign interference that brings little tangible benefit.

The Transition and Hadhramaut Many Hadhramis and southerners felt that those representing the south in the NDC did not speak for them, though they accepted the main outcomes of the NDC, which recognised the grievances of the south and made proposals to deal with them. Their chief objection was to a proposal that the south be divided into two regions within a federal Yemen –​Aden and Hadhramaut –​with the latter incorporating Shabwa and Mahra. The majority of southerners had wanted a single southern region, but many northern politicians feared that southerners would use that as a stepping-​ stone towards secession. The proposal provoked widespread demonstrations, including in Mukalla. But some Hadhramis –​perhaps more in the diaspora than in Yemen –​welcomed the idea, arguing that the experience of the previous 47 years was that self-​government, or even independence, was better than direct rule, or misrule, from Sana‘a or Aden. 31

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The Huthis Take Power The Huthis had even stronger objections to the proposed federal structure, which would have left them in a region without access to the sea in neighbouring Hajjah and oil in al-​Jawf. They had co-​operated with the political transition, but used the opportunity to establish their political party, Ansar Allah, in Sana‘a, advocating populist policies. They extended their influence into neighbouring governorates using their militias, but also persuading tribes to ally with them. They formed an alliance (probably as early as 2012)  with Saleh  –​the latest of his divide-​and-​rule manoeuvres  –​and he used his influence in the elite military units to assist, or at least not impede, the advance towards Sana‘a of Huthi militias, as well as working with them to target military units associated with Islah and Ali Mohsen. By September, the Huthis had occupied Sana‘a, and now controlled much of north-​west Yemen, forcing President Hadi to sign the Peace and National Partnership Agreement (PNPA), which granted them significant political concessions in exchange for their agreeing to withdraw from Sana‘a. Either through hubris or inexperience, they did not implement their part of the agreement, and instead started advancing for the first time into Sunni-​majority governorates. Without giving ground, they demanded more and more concessions from Hadi, eventually forcing his resignation –​a move they had clearly not anticipated. With Hadi gone, Ansar Allah took power on 6 February through a Revolutionary Council; their militias immediately attempted to take over Sunni-​majority governorates. Two weeks later, Hadi fled to Aden, withdrew his resignation, and made the city the temporary national capital, setting in train the events that led to his plea for intervention from the GCC and the international community.

War On 26 March 2015, a ten-​nation coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched a military operation to restore the legitimate regime of President Hadi. UNSC Resolution 2216 demanded that the Huthis withdraw from land they had occupied, hand over weapons, and take part in negotiations.15 A sustained air campaign was accompanied by ground attacks, mostly 32

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Hadhramaut in Yemeni Politics since the 1960s

using Yemenis trained in Saudi Arabia and the remnants of the military units loyal to Hadi. Much of the fighting in the south and in Ta‘izz was in the hands of local resistance groups, supported by coalition air attacks and arms supplies. UAE grounds forces played the major role in fighting in Aden. Troops from other coalition members were deployed on several fronts, with a particular emphasis on Marib, where a force was assembled to threaten Sana‘a. As the war progressed, it took on an increasingly sectarian character –​a phenomenon that was new to Yemen. AQAP –​and an emerging Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) –​exploited the situation to pose as defenders of Sunni Islam against Zaydi Shi‘ism. Salafi militias have since appeared in Aden. By the time peace talks started in Kuwait, on 21 April 2016, there was a virtual stalemate in the war, with the Saudi-​led coalition in control of much of Marib and Al-​Jawf, as well as the south and the centre of Ta‘izz. However, its opponents had not been dislodged from Sana‘a or from much of the north. Immense damage had been done to Yemen’s economy and infrastructure. Nearly 7,000 people have died, while tens of thousands have been injured and millions displaced. The war greatly exacerbated an already dire humanitarian crisis. The peace process is likely to take a long time, and any agreement will not be easy to impose on the many local groups that have been forced to defend their homelands and depend on themselves for the basic necessities of life. Yemen might remain unstable for some time. If its divided leaders put national and humanitarian interests before their own personal and factional advantage, and can be prepared to compromise, there is a chance that Yemen might avoid becoming the failed state that many analysts have predicted. The international community, led by the GCC, seem prepared to finance the reconstruction of Yemen; but such an undertaking will require billions of dollars, and will need to be sustained for many years.

Impact on Hadhramaut The Huthis did not attack Hadhramaut, and the military units in the Wadi Hadhramaut remained loyal to Saleh, while those that were left on the coast were associated with Islah. As a consequence, Hadhramaut has been spared from the destruction of infrastructure and economic assets. Life was very 33

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difficult –​but better than in most other parts of Yemen. Like other southern governorates, Hadhramaut has been forced to depend much more on itself since 2011, and particularly since the beginning of 2015. Hadhramis have long known not to expect too much from governments based in Sana‘a or Aden, and local administrative resources and tribal structures can help to compensate for the absence of help from the central government. Meanwhile, the diaspora has provided support and remittances have continued to flow into the area.

Terrorism in Hadhramaut AQAP used the hiatus caused by the withdrawal of military units in southern Yemen in 2011 to take control of parts of Abyan, and to set up Islamic emirates. It was driven out by security forces in mid 2012, and reverted to operating as a patchwork of separate gangs in Shabwah and Hadhramaut. AQAP attacked isolated military units, assassinated senior security officers and made forays into towns, taking advantage of a thin security presence. A handful of AQAP members in Hadhramaut have sworn loyalty to Abu Bakr al-​Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS; but AQAP remains the main threat to security. The weakness of the central government and the growth of AQAP were both factors in persuading the Hadhrami Tribal Alliance –​which claims to represent 185 tribes, and is led by shaikhs from the Humum tribe –​ to organise itself in December 2013 to provide protection to oilfields. In Mukalla, military units were withdrawn soon after the start of the coalition offensive, giving AQAP the opportunity to move into the resulting vacuum. Though the Hadhrami Tribal Alliance entered parts of Mukalla to counter this, it avoided a confrontation, instead negotiating an arrangement whereby it, AQAP and the local council, would co-​operate in maintaining urban services and keeping the Huthis out. AQAP abused its position to build up cash taken from banks and acquired from smuggling, but withdrew from Mukalla and other parts of the coast in May 2016, when confronted by a coalition force sent to the city. It will remain a threat until there are enough coalition forces to clear it from the mountains to which its militants have retreated, and the situation in Yemen has stabilised. 34

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Longer-​Term Consequences of the War The war has increased divisions in Yemen, and empowered regional and local groups throughout the country. As a Chatham House report put in June 2016, The civil war has had a profound effect on Yemeni society, sharpening or calcifying pre-​existing divisions and turning hitherto largely unimportant differences into serious rifts, a series of competing narratives of victimhood that will have to be addressed as part of a future political process.16

The report spoke of brutalisation and polarisation, echoing the views of most other analysts. Those involved in the UN-​led peace negotiations are aware that an agreement between the major political forces will only be a first step in a long process of persuading a variety of local groups and interests to accept it. Hadhramaut has been less affected internally by the divisive forces unleashed in other regions, and has suffered relatively little direct physical damage. The major oilfields in the Masila basin were producing a total of around 75,000 barrels per day before the crisis, though that was half of the 2005 figure. International oil companies were continuing to show interest in Masila until late 2010, and seemed to believe that more oil could be extracted from new discoveries or advanced recovery techniques. Masila is not a large resource by international standards, but 79 per cent of Yemen’s oil output currently comes from fields in Hadhramaut and Shabwa.17 The Hadhrami population is estimated to be around 1.2  million, but this does not include Hadhramis working elsewhere in Yemen, as well as the large numbers in the diaspora. Wealthy Hadhramis in the diaspora have provided support for people through remittances and welfare, and some have invested or considered investing in developing the economy of both Hadhramaut and southern Yemen. From 2013, the Hadhrami Tribal Alliance has assisted local authorities and oil companies in providing basic security for the main oil facilities. Like many other Hadhramis, the tribes resent what they see as the 35

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exploitation of their oil by elements associated with the Saleh regime. With oil contributing so much to the Yemeni economy, governments in Sana‘a or Aden now see the resource as being ‘theirs’. Hadhramis demand that any future Yemeni government give priority to Hadhrami service companies and workers in these operations, earmarking a percentage of the oil revenues to be spent in the governorate. There are pressures from within Hadhramaut, possibly encouraged by the diaspora, to use what may become a new political settlement in Yemen to seek a different future for the region. Three possible options are discussed below.

Hadhramaut in a Federal Yemen The range of options outlined by the NDC remain on the table, and there is a process for revising them. If the current draft constitution is accepted, it must first be approved in a referendum. It includes proposals for the allocation of revenues generated by oil and gas to federal, regional and local governments. The NDC agreed that people and companies in regions in which oil and other resources were located should be given priority in relation to jobs and contracts for the exploitation of such resources. There appears to be a consensus within Yemen that the proposal for a six-​region Yemen needs to be revisited, though there is no agreement on the number of regions or their borders. If the proposed Hadhramaut region is accepted, it would have significant oilfields, and potentially create a more viable entity than other federal regions in the current proposal. Al-​Hirak and others will strongly resist the idea, and it remains to be seen how much support there might be for the proposal in the three governorates concerned.

Hadhramaut in an Independent South Al-​Hirak asserts that southerners want a return to independence, though some might be satisfied by an arrangement in which the south forms a single region in a federal Yemen, with a referendum after a period of years offering the choice of permanent separation. Divisions over strategy, organisation and leadership have weakened the movement, and it 36

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has attracted little support from the international community. Many southerners, including those who live and work in the north and occupy leading positions in the civil service, the armed forces and the business community, want to remain part of a united country. Part of Al-​Hirak participated in the NDC, though all but a rump abandoned the dialogue when the final report called for a federal Yemen of six regions. The Hadi regime apologised for the treatment of the south after 1994, and the NDC agreed a programme to reinstate southern officers and officials, and to address other grievances, though the money to pay for this had not yet been produced. Most analysts agree that the war has led to growing support for the idea of a southern state, or at the minimum a separate southern region in a federal Yemen. Al-​Hirak has become much more assertive, arguing that the south had a viable country before 1990, thinking of the golden period of the 1980s, not the difficulties of the 1970s or 1986, and could recreate it. Al-​Hirak has a strong organisation in Mukalla and parts of the Wadi Hadhramaut, but many Hadhramis do not share the imagined memories of a good PDRY. Some Hadhramis say that they no longer want to be ruled by politicians from Lahij and Abyan. Others play leading roles in Al-​Hirak but want Hadhramaut to have a greater say in the government of any future southern state than they did in the PDRY.

An Independent Hadhramaut Other Hadhramis would prefer independence, though the voices calling for this are heard mostly in the diaspora. They look back to the long periods of history in which Hadhramaut was not under the domination of a state centred in another part of Yemen. They argue that the region, with its oil, its superior cultural and educational levels, and its access to a wealthy diaspora, would be potentially viable as an independent state. There was even an effort, in April 2013, to draft a constitution for Hadhramaut as a region, with an option of future independence and immediate local powers equivalent to those of an independent state. The problem is that Hadhramis would find it very difficult to persuade other Yemenis to accept the loss of this vital region. So many Hadhramis are embedded in Aden, Sana‘a and other cities that independence would be disruptive. It is also uncertain 37

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whether Shabwa and Mahra would want to join a greater Hadhramaut or remain part of Yemen. There is no reliable measure of public opinion to assess support for these options, and the practicality of each of them is unlikely to become clear until the postwar settlement has been agreed. Any such settlement will be difficult; all sides will have to make potentially unwelcome compromises. Yemen needs years of stability and a massive injection of foreign assistance in order to ensure its long-​term viability. If the various political groups cannot find a peaceful way forward, then instability and chaos will ensue, leading to the rapid expansion of AQAP and ISIS and creating opportunities for militias based on tribal, regional or religious interests to present even greater challenges to both Yemen and Hadhramaut. * The history of Yemen since the late nineteenth century would suggest that Hadhramaut is now an integral part of the country, and not a separate entity, linked as before the twentieth century to a wider Indian Ocean world. Governments based in Sana‘a or Aden have had the greatest influence on events in the governorate. While individuals have exerted great influence within Yemeni regimes, Hadhramaut itself has not –​despite its relative wealth in resources and access to the diaspora. One unintended consequence of the war could be an increase in the weight of Hadhramaut, relatively less damaged by the war’s destruction, within Yemen. Hadhramis have been embittered by the way in which its assets have been exploited by narrowly based and undemocratic elites. Many feel that now is the time for more assertive Hadhrami leadership to demand that Hadhramis receive priority in determining the use of these resources. They have an emotional attachment to their homeland and aspire to greater autonomy. The lack of a unifying leadership in Hadhramaut and a consensus among the international community that Yemen must remain united are factors that Hadhramis will have to take into account. Hadhramis have shown that they can come together in support of the Hadhrami Tribal Alliance and the ‘Hadhramaut: The Vision and Path’ document, as well as the attempts to draft a new constitution for their region in 2013. One outcome of the events of recent years in Yemen is the strong popular desire to take greater control over their own lives and regions. If the international 38

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community and Yemeni leaders do not take this into account, Yemen as a state is likely to fail. One of Hadhramaut’s major strengths is its diaspora. From Indonesia, India, the shores of Africa, the GCC states and beyond, stories of success in business, politics, scholarship and the arts by Hadhramis abound. Yemeni governments have rarely tried to engage the diaspora in plans to develop the homeland. It should now become a priority to do so.

Notes 1 . Ba Ras, Ayuha al-​Madi … wadaa, p. 313. 2. Ibid., pp. 162–​3. 3. Ulrike Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut: Reforming the Homeland (Leiden, 2003), p.  459; personal communication from Muhammad bin Dohry. 4. They allowed entry to the frail Mahra Sultan and one member of the Qu’ayti ruling family, who became a senior figure in the PDRY. 5. The name of the country was changed to the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in 1970. 6. Hadhrami migration during the latter years of the PDRY was mostly within Yemen. One study has shown that Hadhramis made up a majority of the migrants coming from other parts of the PDRY to Aden. Hadhramis returning from the diaspora during that period often chose to stay in Aden, not the Hadhrami homeland. See Suleiman Faraj Bin-​Azoon, ‘Hijrat al-​hadharim ila Adan: Dirassah mydanyah li-​sillatihim bi-​mawatininhim al-​asli wa I’laqatihim al-​ ijtimaa’iah’. Available at www.hadhramidiaspora.com/​search?updated-​ max=2014-​11-​05T22%3A09%3A00-​08%3A00&max-​results=5 (accessed 31 July 2016) 7. Peter Salisbury, ‘Yemen: Stemming the Rise of a Chaos State’, Chatham House Research Paper (London, 2016), p. 10. 8. Noel Brehony, Yemen Divided:  The Story of a Failed State in South Arabia (London, 2011), p. 198. 9. Robert D. Burrowes and Catherine M. Kasper, ‘The Salih Regime and the Need for a Credible Opposition’, Middle East Journal 61: 2 (Spring 2007), n8. 10. Salisbury, ‘Yemen: Stemming the Rise of a Chaos State’, p. 13. 11. For further background, see Barak Salmoni, Bryce Ladoit and Madeleine Wells, Regime and Periphery in Northern Yemen:  The Huthi Phenomenon (Santa Monica, 2010). 12. For more on AQAP, see Gregory Johnsen, The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda and America’s War in Arabia (New York, 2013).

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 13. Yemen Transition Agreement, 2011. Available at al-​ bab.com/​ documents-​ reference-​section/​yemen-​transition-​agreement-​2011 (accessed 31 July 2016). 14. A description of structure and outcome of the NDC can be found at en.wikipedia.org/​wiki/​National_​Dialogue_​Conference. 15. United Nations, Security Council Demands End to Yemen Violence, Adopting Resolution 2216 (2015), with Russian Federation Abstaining, 14 April 2015. Available at www.un.org/​press/​en/​2015/​sc11859.doc.htm (accessed 31 July 2016). 16. Salisbury, ‘Yemen: Stemming the Rise of a Chaos State’, p. 35. 17. World Bank, The Republic of Yemen: Unlocking the Potential for Economic Growth (Washington, DC, 2015), p. 104.

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2 Hadhrami ‘Exceptionalism’: Attempts at an Explanation Thanos Petouris

In memory of Leila Ingrams (1940–​2015)

Since 1990 Hadhramaut has experienced the longest period in its modern history during which it has been administered as a singular territorial unit by one political authority: that of the unified Republic of Yemen. However, the degree to which Hadhrami society has been assimilated into a wider notion of Yemeni nationality, and whether Hadhramis themselves identify with the normative characteristics of a perceived Yemeni-​ness, remain debatable.1 Because of what has been depicted as a ‘truly individualistic culture developed by an individualistic people’,2 Hadhramaut has invariably been represented as an exceptional part of both Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula: a region with an independent historical trajectory and a society that has been able to maintain a distinctive form of socio-​political organisation. This has been especially reflected in the works of both early travellers and colonial administrators, and has undoubtedly affected the ways in which Hadhramaut has been perceived within its regional and historical context. At the same time, late twentieth-​century scholarship on Hadhramaut has tended to concentrate on the history and role of the Hadhrami diaspora, and the position of the region within the broader context of the Indian Ocean rim. This has allowed for a better understanding of developments 41

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in the region itself and an appreciation of the contributions of prominent Hadhramis to their host countries. The aim of this chapter is to concentrate on developments in the Hadhrami homeland –​to trace political and social change in Hadhramaut and attempt to contextualise it in relation to developments both in the diaspora and in British South Arabia, within which Hadhramaut became progressively embedded after 1933. I attempt to explain why specific political activity took place in Hadhramaut, particularly during the 35 years of British colonial involvement in the region. The focus on the period of British colonial rule is by no means intended as a way of robbing Hadhramis of their historical and political agency. In fact, the British colonial project catalysed socio-​political processes that were already in motion before the proponents of the ‘forward policy’ arrived in Hadhramaut.3 To this end, this chapter examines the socio-​political changes that took place in the region during the middle of the twentieth century within the context of the so-​called Hadhrami Awakening (al-​Nahda al-​Hadhramiyya), and the South Arabian anti-​colonial struggle. It attempts to frame what it calls Hadhrami exceptionalism within the parameters of the emergence of a local notion of commonality and the articulation of a particular nationalist ideology. It also argues that the construction of an explicitly Hadhrami form of identification  –​as articulated firstly by the cultural reformist movements and later on by the nationalist parties that joined the South Arabian anti-​colonial struggle  –​was the product of primarily domestic political developments. Furthermore, it is hoped that tracing the results of specific domestic and external processes in Hadhramaut will facilitate a better understanding of the reasons behind current developments in the southern regions of Yemen, which are experiencing a renewed struggle for self-​determination.

Hadhrami Exceptionalism? The use of the term ‘exceptionalism’ in the social sciences has been problematic for a number of reasons. It has more often been employed as a way of obscuring rather than explaining socio-​political phenomena by resorting to some intangible set of special characteristics of a particular geographical or political entity, beyond which further investigation or comparisons 42

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with similar cases become impracticable. The aim of this chapter is not to fence off Hadhramaut as a self-​contained socio-​political entity, which can only be approached through the lens of its perceived particularity, but rather to explain why specific manifestations of political activity took place in Hadhramaut. In the words of Fred Halliday, it is important to question ‘how, within the general context of modernity and under the impact of exogenous political and social change, specific articulations of class and nationalist ideology occurred’.4 Thus, by Hadhrami exceptionalism I mean the relative maintenance of political and cultural independence in Hadhramaut, and a strong sense of identification within Hadhrami society irrespective of –​but often also because of  –​prevailing domestic and external circumstances. Scholars often tend to focus on the outward particularities of the region, taking into account its geographical isolation from the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.5 This detachment of the area from its immediate geopolitical surroundings has helped to preserve an idiosyncratic form of social organisation, supported by a local variety of Shafi’i Islam, while allowing for the development of a bidirectional diasporic network with Hadhrami communities throughout the Indian Ocean rim. Though elements of this pre-​modern form of social organisation still survive today, the rapid incorporation of the region into the modern colonial and commercial networks of southern Arabia and the Indian Ocean at the beginning of the twentieth century brought about significant social and political change within Hadhramaut. Although the role of the diaspora in effecting change at home cannot be overestimated,6 it can nonetheless often obscure our understanding of social processes originating in the homeland. Of pivotal importance to the modern history of the region has been British colonial interference, which dates to long before the first Treaty of Protection of 1888 between the United Kingdom and the Qu’ayti Sultans of Shihr and Mukalla.7 The active British intervention in local Hadhrami conflicts and their unequivocal support for the Qu’aytis in relation to both the Kasadi and the Kathiri dynasties shaped the Hadhrami political system and signalled the beginning of the end of what Bujra calls ‘the traditional period’.8 Furthermore, the decision of the colonial authorities to divide the hinterland of the Colony of Aden into the Eastern (EAP) and Western (WAP) Aden Protectorates –​in what has been described as a ‘British administrative fiction’9 –​strengthened the 43

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fragmentation of the region and institutionalised the differing degrees of their respective economic and social development. As a result, the integration of Hadhrami society within broader regional and state structures remained problematic in respect not only to the Federation of South Arabia, but also to its successor states: the PDRY and the Republic of Yemen. But perhaps the most significant unintended consequence of British intervention in Hadhramaut was that it sowed the seeds of its own demise by unwittingly encouraging the emergence of a particular kind of Hadhrami nationalism, which found its expression within the broader South Arabian anti-​colonial movement. In essence, the development of modern state structures and the centralisation of political power in the person of the Kathiri and Qu’ayti sultans and their nascent state institutions led to the creation of the very political field within which the anti-​colonial struggle was enacted. Consequently, a defining characteristic of this ‘exceptionalism’ is the emergence of a distinct form of identification among the people of Hadhramaut, which does not necessarily overlap with that of the rest of the former South Yemen and is even less congruent with that of the modern Republic of Yemen. Particularly during the anti-​colonial struggle, local and tribal southern identities –​be they Adeni, Aulaqi, Lahji, or otherwise –​were progressively subordinated and eventually amalgamated into a broader South Arabian and later South Yemeni national identity, albeit without losing their meaning at the local level. This has not been the case with the Hadhramis, who have been able to maintain a relatively consistent sense of belonging to a single community, and to resist state-​led initiatives to reform local social conventions. Characteristic of this shared sense of identity is the speed with which old religious and social customs were revived in Hadhramaut after the demise of the South Yemeni socialist regime, which had promoted radical change in the region, and the unification of modern Yemen. The sense of Hadhrami isolationism has arguably also been reinforced by the character of Western, and to an extent local, scholarship, which has tended to treat Hadhramaut as a self-​contained polity, and has placed a particular focus on the study of the region within the Indian Ocean rim, largely ignoring its relationship with its Arabian hinterland. Early literature on Hadhramaut was dominated by the writings of foreign travellers and 44

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explorers, who were intrigued by the remoteness of the land and the distinctiveness of its cultural heritage. Although many of these travellers and subsequent scholars made invaluable contributions to our understanding of society in the region over the past two centuries, some of that scholarship suffers sometimes from an overly romanticised, orientalist view of the region and its people. And it becomes clear from the writings and reports of subsequent British colonial officers that the colonial view of this part of the empire was indeed tinted by the notion of its supposedly exceptional nature. After the unification of Yemen, and the opening up of Hadhramaut to researchers, this body of scholarship was supplemented by a number of works emphasising the diasporic networks between the homeland and its extended communities abroad at different historical periods. Little attention has been placed on the socio-​political development of Hadhramaut within the unified Yemeni state, and the role of Hadhramis in it –​despite the fact that the past 27 years have marked the longest period in recent history during which the region has been unified and under the direct, albeit weak, political control of a single state entity. During the protracted period of the integration into the modern and colonial state systems, the region of Hadhramaut experienced political and social transformations that distinguished it from the other South Arabian protectorates. These changes, born out of the particular social conditions of Hadhramaut, resulted in a notable shift in the ways in which Hadhramis understood themselves not only as members of a specific social stratum, but also as part of a larger community with shared interests and a collective adherence to a perceived Hadhrami-​ness. This identification with a particular form of Hadhrami commonality has determined the political outcomes of the anti-​colonial struggle, and has conditioned later responses of Hadhrami society to state interventions.

The Making of Modern Hadhrami Identity The use of ‘identity’ as a category of analysis in the social sciences has had a chequered history, because of the ways in which it has entered the vocabulary of political practice. Brubaker and Cooper have consistently argued in favour of replacing it with less laden terms.10 This can help avoid the pitfalls associated with the employment of an overly reified concept such 45

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as identity, which can often resemble essentialist approaches that see it as an almost natural human attribute, and concentrate instead on the processes that give meaning to the term at different historical junctures. Their suggestion of the use of the term ‘identification’ emphasises the role of the agents that do the identifying –​including individuals and institutions, as well as discourses and public narratives.11 And it is in reference to this concept that ‘identity’ is employed in this chapter. This is a particularly relevant stipulation when attempting to approach modes of identification in Hadhramaut, and can assist in teasing out the nuances of what can be seen as a monolithic, essentialist, all-​encompassing Hadhrami identity. The emergence of a sense of commonality within Hadhrami society, both at home and abroad, is congruent with the development of modern, centralised administrations in the Hadhrami mainland, with the gradual decolonisation of the Indian Ocean host countries of the diaspora and the rise of nationalist politics there, and with active British colonial involvement in Hadhrami affairs as part of the so-​called ‘forward policy’. This is not to say that, before this period, individuals lacked a sense of attachment, particularly to the land and heritage they had been born into;12 or, on the other hand, that pre-​modern forms of social organisation and self-​understanding ceased to exist thereafter. However, these attachments had not effected tangible, collective political action. The Hadhramis of the ‘traditional period’ were not only deeply socially divided, but also adhered to a form of social organisation that prevented social mobility and the development of a meaningful sense of collective belonging. As Boxberger has shown, until the first decades of the twentieth century, Hadhramis would primarily identify with one of several social strata into which they were born.13 Although scholars disagree over the exact number of categories that make up the Hadhrami social stratification system, it should suffice for this study to distinguish four major categories: the sada (sing.: sayyid), descendants of Prophet Muhammad’s family; the mashayikh (sing.: shaykh) religious scholars; the qaba‘il (sing.: qabili), armed tribesmen, both settled and nomadic; and the masakin (sing.: miskin), unarmed town-​dwellers.14 It is also important to note that this social structure is not as ‘beautifully crystallised’ as Serjeant suggests.15 In fact, our understanding of the Hadhrami stratification system, and of the roles of its various social groups, has been largely informed by those who 46

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have been mostly privileged by this system –​namely, the sada. Because of their access to education, and the cosmopolitanism that characterises their religious activities, they have been the interlocutors of choice for both colonial administrators and foreign scholars. Seen from the viewpoint of the qaba‘il, or of those masakin families that acquired fame and wealth abroad, it becomes evident that Hadhrami social relations are not as inflexible as previously thought; that they tend to adapt to local needs and societal change; and, more importantly, that the exalted social location of the sada did not necessarily translate into political authority in all parts of the region.16 This system of social stratification was maintained by a hegemonic religious discourse that ascribed social precedence, and occasionally supernatural abilities, to the ahl al-​bayt (the family of the Prophet and his descendants), and was supported by a set of symbolic and material practices that helped perpetuate established social divides.17 The reproduction of these social divides was enabled by the virtual monopoly by the sada of the educational and religious institutions of Hadhramaut.18 At the same time, the sada were in a position to maintain the ideological and social unity of their group in relation to the rest of Hadhrami society through membership of their particular Sufi order, the Ba Alawi Tariqa, and the strict enforcement of the principle of kafa‘ah, which prevented their womenfolk from marrying members of other social groups. The social relations engendered by the Hadhrami stratification system allowed for the perpetuation of a system of voluntary exploitation and social exclusion that left little scope for the development of a sense of commonality beyond an identification with one of the pre-​assigned social strata. However, apart from being marked by belonging to a particular social stratum and observing its attendant norms, Hadhrami commonality was also regularly re-​enacted during the numerous ziyarat religious festivals (lit.: visits. See Figure 5.8). These festivals also played the role of local market fairs, located in inviolable spaces (hawtat) protected by the spiritual authority of a particular sayyid family, and enabled the free movement of both products and people.19 They took place in various parts of the region, attracted pilgrims of all social origins and geographical areas, and were usually associated with the tombs of illustrious ancestors.20 Although these festivals’ primary aim was the renewal of the religious legitimacy of the particular 47

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sayyid (and occasionally mashayikh) family whose ancestor was being venerated, they also allowed people to affirm their shared adherence to a common religious tradition. This form of social organisation, which early travellers and historians alike romantically saw as a living fossil of the Biblical era, was underpinned by the further distinction of genealogical descent.21 Though not overlapping with the meaning accorded to the various social strata, categories of descent distinguish between natives and foreigners in Hadhramaut –​ a distinction that frequently entered the vocabulary of daily practice and informed the ways in which Hadhramis saw themselves and others within their community. Thus, the sada, the Qu’ayti sultanic family and the servant stratum (subyan) are seen as having foreign origins (Iraqi, Yaf ‘ai and African respectively); the mashayikh and qaba‘il claim descent from Qahtan, the legendary progenitor of the southern Arabian tribes; and some of the masakin are thought of as a remnant of the autochthonous Hadhrami population. And although autochthony did not confer any social privileges, in later years it became increasingly relevant within the reformist, anti-​sayyid discourse of the nationalist movement. The twentieth century brought about a gradual but fundamental change in the pre-​existing social organisation of the region, which enabled the Hadhramis to conceive of their own position within that system and the wider world in ways that were not possible before. This change allowed for a notable shift from modes of identification based on social groups to one that was derived from a broader consideration of the Hadhrami community as a whole. The Hadhramis were not just a community beset by horizontal divisions of social status and vertical divisions of descent, merely sharing in the same ancestral land and heritage, but began to understand themselves as a body politic, a corporate entity with common interests and the ability to challenge the pre-​ existing order collectively. This was effected through the progressive erosion of the traditional system of stratification, which lost some of its essential social functions, and its systematic replacement by a modern, centralised state structure, which also exposed the former’s inherent weaknesses. It was also a by-​product of the new ways in which the diaspora was able to participate in the politics of the homeland, and to maintain active networks of both commerce and intellectual exchanges with it. 48

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The earliest challenge to the existing social order took the form of the long-​ running Irshadi–​ Alawi conflict that originated in the Dutch East Indies in 1905 over the marriage in Batavia of a sharifa to an Indian Muslim.22 The affair became representative of a broader movement for education and social reform within the Hadhrami diaspora in Southeast Asia. The movement emerged in response to similar efforts by Chinese reformers in the East Indies, and to the possibility of Hadhramis being outflanked by the other diasporic communities.23 There, the Hadhramis, who came mostly from the sada and mashayikh strata, found themselves not just living and working outside the normative requirements of their traditional social groups, but also together formed part of a single merchant class within the host society.24 The social divisions of the homeland had no relevance in a field where personal ability, not descent, was responsible for entrepreneurial success –​especially given the increasing diversity of the social makeup of Hadhrami entrepreneurs abroad.25 Eventually, the social conventions of the homeland became more of an obstacle to the collective advancement of the diaspora. They perpetuated a mentality of inequality, to the extent that the sada were accused of stopping the children of the masakin from being taught beyond a particular level at the schools they ran.26 It was no accident that the Jam’iyyah al-​Islah wa al-​Irshad al-​Arabiyyah (Arab Association for Reform and Guidance), which was founded in Batavia in 1914 and brought together the reformist elements of the diaspora, placed the emphasis in its work on education; by 1935 it managed no less than 30 schools in the East Indies. Mobini-​Kesheh argues persuasively against seeing al-​Irshad and the divisions within Hadhrami diasporic communities as mere manifestations of a conflict between sada and non-​sada.27 But in Hadhramaut, where social roles were more rigid, any attempt at reform was seen as an affront to the established social hierarchy, and inevitably pitted at least those of the sada with political or religious authority against the rest of society. Though the so-​called Hadhrami Awakening took place within the broader framework of religious renewal and reform that swept through the Arab world in the wake of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, its scope reflected the particular needs and circumstances of the Hadhrami community at home, rather than in the diaspora. This became clear by the late 1920s, during the rise of Indonesian nationalism.28 By then, the first generation of Hadhrami graduates of the Irshadi schools had turned their 49

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attention to conditions in Hadhramaut, not only because of the precariousness of their presence in their host countries, but also because British involvement and the ‘Ingrams Peace’ (Sulh Injrams)29 were creating conditions on the ground that allowed easier contact between the homeland and the diaspora, and encouraged investment in the region’s material and human resources. Characteristically, Irshadis not only funded the opening of schools and clubs in Hadhramaut, but also ensured that graduates of their schools in Indonesia managed and even taught in them.30 The effect of supporting new schools in Hadhramaut was to remove from the control of the sayyid group one of its most important resources:  education. It is telling that, as late as the early 1960s, Abdalla Bujra found twice as many sada and mashayikh educated males in Hurayda as in the other social groups.31 Furthermore, the quality of education that the Irshadi schools were offering, both at home and in the East Indies, went beyond the narrow scope of the hitherto existing traditional religious education, and was geared towards a modern curriculum that would equip Hadhramis in their endeavours abroad.32 The experience of effective –​mostly colonial –​administration in the diaspora and the achievements of the Hadhrami communities there were in stark contradistinction to conditions at home. Thus, many Hadhrami scholars have consistently interpreted modern political developments in Hadhramaut as essentially stemming from a perennial struggle between tradition and reform.33 Perhaps the most significant feature of the Awakening was the development of the Hadhrami press, first in the East Indies and then in Hadhramaut itself. Although the subject-​matter of the diaspora press was different to that of the mainland press,34 one common element was the dissemination of opinion pieces  –​rather than just news  –​on a host of topics affecting Hadhramis, and the wide geographical area over which they circulated. Notably, handwritten journals from the Wadi Hadhramaut found their way to Egypt, and printed ones from the East Indies reached as far afield as East Africa. Journals were passed around in cultural clubs and literary circles, exchanged among friends and relatives, and travelled along the Hadhrami migratory networks throughout the Indian Ocean. The experience of reading the opinions of people detached not only spatially but also socially from the reader was of a profoundly egalitarian nature –​especially since social interaction in Hadhramaut tended to adhere to a set of predetermined 50

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rules related to social origin. The various periodicals, though ephemeral, allowed people from various parts of Hadhramaut and the diaspora to perceive themselves as members of the same imagined community.35 Apart from the unequal social relations it engendered, the Hadhrami stratification system was predicated on mutual dependence between its constituent strata. It allowed for the achievement of a relatively stable social balance, with the sada and mashayikh fulfilling the role of mediators between the various groups. Lekon describes the points of convergence of what he calls the ‘segmentary and patrimonial societies’, and Bujra offers an analytical explanation of the networks of interdependence between the social strata that maintained the political, religious and economic functions of the town of Hurayda.36 More importantly, this system developed and adapted in the absence of a modern, centralised state. Until British involvement with the region, the two Sultanates that the colonial authorities recognised, the Kathiri and Qu’ayti, had put in place rudimentary institutions that were unable to deliver effective administration beyond the boundaries of the two ‘state’ capitals.37 The Hadhrami countryside was essentially dotted with autonomous city-​states administered by local sayyid or mashayikh families, such as the al-​Kaf in Tarim and the al-​Attas in Hurayda and Mashhad, who, through their management of holy enclaves, acquired political authority over them. A less common case is that of the tribal Ibn Abdat family, whose wealth from its business in Batavia and Singapore allowed it to take over the town of al-​Ghurfa and administer it independently for more than a decade.38 The two Sultans drew their legitimacy both from the fact that they operated as the arbiters of last resort for disputes even within each other’s nominal territories, and, more significantly, from their recognition by an outside colonial authority.39 In essence, the states existed as a function of external relations with the British, and within the arbitrary, bureaucratic colonial order of precedence.40 Consequently, the implementation of the British forward policy in the EAP, and the attempted consolidation of the existing chiefdoms into functioning modern states, spearheaded by Harold Ingrams (1897–​1973) and supported by the two sultanic dynasties and some prominent sada families, not only challenged the existing social order, but enabled the emergence of new forms of identification within Hadhrami society. On the one hand, the new state structures made use of existing institutions, such as local 51

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councils, which were predominantly controlled by the sada. However, traditional institutions could not bring to bear the demands of a modern state bureaucracy while also managing the expectations of both the central government and the population. Freya Stark gives a detailed account of popular resentment in Hurayda against the callous imposition of new taxation by the local mansab, whose aim was to support the new functions of his office.41 On the other hand, the new centralised administrations in Say‘un and Mukalla supplanted traditional forms of mediation and governance, thus eroding the hitherto existing system of social exclusion. Appointments to state office, and implementation of the law, did not –​at least in theory –​depend any longer on social origin. And although this shift towards a more egalitarian model of governance did not take place swiftly, it allowed Hadhramis to look beyond the social barriers that had excluded them from taking a full part in political and economic activity in their homeland.42 The involuntary incorporation of the Hadhrami mainland into the British realm of colonial governance effectively led to the construction of Hadhramaut as an imagined political community. The gradual appropriation of the domain of culture by modernising social forces both at home and in the diaspora constituted the first stage of the nationalist, anti-​ colonial project that eventually brought about the demise of both the old social order and its colonial supporter. Hadhrami nationalism, as a discourse of power, sought to replace the colonial order with a national one.43 Its agents were the very people who were excluded by the Hadhrami system of social stratification, even if some nominally belonged to the privileged strata. What is distinctive about Hadhrami nationalism is not only its focus on Hadhramaut as a geographical unit, but also its ability to transcend the two existing polities of the Kathiri and Qu’ayti states. The emergence of particular forms of commonality and identification within Hadhrami society has followed a pattern that differs from similar processes in the other British Protectorates of South Arabia. In the Hadhrami case, this was the result both of exogenous pressure on the diaspora that was being threatened by resurgent local nationalisms in the host countries, and of the collapse of fixed social relations in the homeland. These developments signalled the end of the ‘traditional period’ and the transition into an era of new forms of political activity in response to 52

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centralised, modern state institutions and colonial interference. Dominated by the emergence of a politically active local civil society and the gradual formation of a militant anti-​colonial movement, which used the language of nationalism to compensate for the failures of earlier attempts at reform, it connected Hadhramaut with the rest of South Arabia, mobilising an unprecedented assemblage of people in support of a single cause.

The Anti-​Colonial Movement in Hadhramaut Perhaps the first public expression of opposition to the British colonial presence in Hadhramaut took place through the traditional medium of poetry.44 The anti-​imperialist qasida of Salah al-​Ahmadi, which is still well-​known in Hadhramaut, and the pro-​British response it elicited from Muhammad bin Hashim, were indicative of the emergence of a new discursive space, grounded on a nationalist narrative, which transcended divisions of geographical distance and social position.45 Writing from Hyderabad in 1937 about political conditions in his homeland, al-​Ahmadi is able to appeal to a wider audience at home and in the diaspora in the name of a shared sense of identification with the ‘land of al-​Ahqaf ’, the mythical name for Hadhramaut.46 Although al-​Ahmadi’s poetry did not call for specific action against colonialism, merely lamenting the state of affairs at home, it identifies Hadhramaut in contrast to the British presence. The poet himself is not only able to evoke shared experiences and notions of what it is that sets the country apart from the rest of Arabia; he also appeals to fellow Hadhramis on the basis of their shared attributes, chief among which is honour (sharaf). Nevertheless, early opposition to British involvement in Hadhrami affairs remained within the confines of the reformist discourse conducted mostly among the intellectual and political elite. Among those who particularly welcomed the British intervention were members of the sada business families, with the al-​Kaf of Tarim actively bankrolling Ingrams’s programme of pacification.47 By encouraging British involvement, the sada saw an opportunity to secure Hadhrami interests in the commercial networks of the Indian Ocean at a time of widespread nationalist sentiment across the region, and to create economically favourable conditions at home. Indeed, the so-​called ‘Ingrams Peace’ and the initial state-​building 53

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reforms the British advisers promoted, with the help of the Kathiri and Qu’ayti sultans, succeeded in creating conditions of relative peace and stability in Hadhramaut. But the rapid modernisation of state and social institutions and the attendant changes in economic activity,48 along with the concentration of political power in the person of the sultans and their appointed councils, led to increasing hostility and resentment within various segments of the population. Under British tutelage the Hadhrami political system became considerably more authoritarian and centralised than it had formerly been. As we have seen, the ‘traditional period’ was characterised by the existence of competing and complementing political institutions whose functions and legitimacy rested on their ability to mediate between the various social strata, and depended largely on public consensus. More importantly, these institutions were in effect decentralised, and their overlapping jurisdictions allowed people to choose where to appeal to, depending on their needs or grievances. Their replacement by central state institutions, such as the Department for Tribal Affairs in the case of the Qu’ayti state, not only concentrated power in the hands of the sultans and their embryonic ‘governments’, but also exposed them to public scrutiny, at the same time reducing the role of the traditional elites. The emergence of modern state structures, albeit under the apparent custodianship of the British colonial apparatus, opened up the political space within which local power struggles were enacted and nationalist politics acquired meaning. The state and its agencies became the object of contestation between groups that did not necessarily correspond to the pre-​existing social strata. Bujra describes how the sada adapted themselves to the new political order, and how they were able to control the new institutions.49 This time, however, he identifies a different segment of the same sayyid families as having acquired prominence. It was the younger, more educated, well-​ travelled, and often richer generation of sada that challenged the position and privileges of the previous generation, or the prominence of particular clans within the same family.50 At the same time, the need for the sultans to establish their authority over their states and bring under their control both the urban and segmentary population led to the emergence of a parallel hierarchy within the state-​dependent administrative elite. In this case, and in spite of token concessions to the other social groups, it was again the 54

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traditionally privileged groups of the sada and mashayikh that were able to exploit their access to the new power structures and maintain their positions of authority, albeit in a new guise. The two Hadhrami states, Kathiri and Qu’ayti, reinforced their monopolies of control over their respective territories by a number of means, including the establishment of various military units, the issuing of travel documents, and the introduction of administrative divisions. But it is characteristic that, in spite of all the practical and symbolic differentiations between the two –​flags and travel documents, for e­ xample –​ both administrations were unsuccessful in effecting a sense of belonging among their subjects, let alone a nationalist sentiment. The reasons for this can be traced to the unifying character of the British presence in Hadhramaut, on the one hand, and to the sense of commonality engendered by the shared experiences in the diaspora, on the other. The British put in place what was in effect a dualistic system of power in Hadhramaut, which was symbolically reflected even in the positioning of the Residency directly across the street from the royal palace in Mukalla. The constant and explicit interventions of the British in the internal affairs of both sultanates blurred the boundaries between colonial and local authority, and created two parallel jurisdictions to which Hadhramis appealed at will.51 Moreover, the fact that the British Resident Advisers had under their direct control the most important military unit in the whole of the EAP, the Hadhrami Bedouin Legion,52 reinforced the independent scope of their office, and placed them above local political actors, in the position of a pan-​Hadhrami authority. This state of affairs is also reflected in Dostal’s research on popular opinion in Tarim, in which he found that popular perception attributed what were in fact the shortcomings of the sultanic administration to the British.53 This binary structure, and the unwillingness of the British administrators to avoid interference in domestic affairs, inadvertently further weakened the authority of the states they were propping up. In the case of the diaspora, the majority of organisations that offered support to migrants were of an inclusive (often also pan-​Arab) character, and avoided distinctions between Kathiri and Qu’ayti subjects.54 Moreover, at a time of heightened nationalist activity in the host countries, the Hadhramis were often identified by local authorities and nationalists alike as a single, alien group. 55

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Another significant change that affected postwar Hadhramaut was a dramatic shift in diasporic activity. After the end of World War II, all Hadhrami diasporic destinations in the eastern Indian Ocean were progressing towards independence, and the implementation of strict regulations over the financial activity of those they regarded as alien. Apart from the loss of remittances from these countries, which contributed to the outbreak of the two Hadhrami famines of 1943–​4 and 1948–​9,55 the loss of access to the Southeast Asian markets spelled financial disaster for the majority of the mostly sada and mashayikh families that had interests there.56 Thus, East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula supplanted Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent as the Hadhrami destinations of choice. And while it was mostly members of the upper strata from the inland wadis who had migrated to the latter, the proximity of the former –​which made the journey significantly cheaper –​coupled with the fact that some of these countries hosted considerable Arab-​speaking populations, meant that the Hadhrami migrants there came mostly from poorer social backgrounds, were predominantly from the coastal areas, and were able to maintain closer links with the homeland.57 This shift in the demographics of the diaspora meant that a larger proportion of the hitherto marginalised social strata were able to acquire skills and wealth abroad. But their aspirations were at the same time frustrated by the inability of the sultanic administrations to deliver on the expectations of their subjects. Until the middle of the twentieth century, political activity in Hadhramaut was dominated by the polarisation caused by the Irshadi–​ Alawi conflict, was confined to the local level, and was hampered by the fragmentary and ephemeral character of clubs and associations. Most were founded either by the sultans and by prominent sayyid families, or in support of specific corporate interests (for example, the abolition of double taxation), and were usually short-​lived, either through lack of interest or because their early success so alarmed the colonial and local authorities that they banned them. By the 1950s, with the emergence of the first graduates from the reformist schools and the return home of a large number of skilled, educated migrants from Southeast Asia, associational activity in Hadhramaut intensified. The new social institutions of the ‘Hadhrami Awakening’, namely the schools, associations and newspapers that spearheaded the reformist discourse of the 1930s and 1940s, became vehicles of 56

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nationalist ideas providing people among all social strata with an alternative way of participating in the politics of the country. A direct effect of these socio-​political developments was the rise of nationalist activity in both Hadhrami sultanates. The ‘event of the palace’, the 1950 riot in Mukalla following the replacement of the Omani Qu’ayti wazir with a Sudanese one, has been invariably viewed as a watershed in Hadhrami anti-​colonial politics.58 It highlighted not just the fact that a number of important government posts were held by foreigners, but also the strength of nationalist sentiment in Hadhramaut, and became a pivotal event for the further politicisation of Hadhrami youth. It is characteristic that, especially after this incident, the language of reform was displaced in the local and diasporic press with a decidedly nationalist vocabulary focusing on the need to rid Hadhramaut of foreign influence. Schools such as the Madrassah al-​Wusta (Intermediary School) in Ghayl Ba Wazir became focal points of nationalist activity and recruitment for the nascent nationalist movements. In the Madrassah al-​Wusta, for example, which boasts a number of prominent Hadhrami nationalist leaders among its students, the group Al-​Zaytuna functioned as a recruiting ground for the Movement of Arab Nationalists (MAN).59 The spread of nationalist ideology was also helped by the fact that teachers had either been trained in, or came directly from, Egypt, Sudan and Iraq, where they had been in contact with the major pan-​Arab political movements of the time. Egyptian teachers in particular became instrumental in the dissemination of Nasserite ideology across the Arab world, as those who were sent on secondment were chosen directly by the Egyptian state.60 With their expenses covered by Egypt, they became indispensable to the nascent states that aspired to develop a modern educational system from scratch. Eventually, the Colonial Office intervened to block the recruitment of Egyptian teachers, which sparked further reactions.61 British attitudes towards the politicised youth of Hadhramaut proved equally counterproductive. The suspicion with which the colonial and local authorities treated young dissidents, who ‘even had the effrontery to quiz a senior State official at a public debate’,62 meant that the educational establishment remained effectively beyond their control, and became one of the more powerful tools for the recruitment of supporters to the nationalist movement.63 57

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The incorporation of Hadhramaut into the structures of the British Aden Protectorate allowed for the participation of Hadhramis in the political life of the colony of Aden, in the debate about the future of the British presence in the region, and in the creation of the Federation of South Arabia.64 Apart from running their own organisation in Aden, the Hadhrami Patriotic Association (al-​Jam’iyya al-​Wataniyya al-​Hadhramiyya), Hadhramis also became involved in all major nationalist movements that were active in Aden, often in leading roles. This can be attributed to the fact that political activity in Aden was freer than in Hadhramaut, where political parties were banned, but also to the recognition that the future of the country was inextricably linked to developments in Aden and the other Protectorates. The old reformist demand for closer collaboration, and even outright unity, between the Kathiri and Qu’ayti states  –​which was always viewed with suspicion especially by the former, because of the difference in size and resources between the two –​remained a priority. The South Arabian League (SAL) was arguably the first major Adeni political organisation that made significant inroads into Hadhrami society,65 particularly among those who were against the rapid pace of modernisation –​namely, the tribes and the older generation of the sada. One of its national leaders, Shaykhan al-Habshi (1920–95) was a Hadhrami; but the League also enjoyed the support of wealthy Hadhrami merchants of the diaspora, particularly from Jeddah.66 According to one of its local leaders, Salem Hassan Ba Joh (1937–2013), the appeal of the SAL was based on its attention to local problems and its focus on the unity of the whole of South Arabia; in his words, it was ‘an umbrella organisation’.67 However, as the influence of the SAL in Aden started to wane, mostly because of its association with the local ruling families and its inability to forge a credible nationalist programme of action, it was also supplanted in Hadhramaut by a host of new political organisations. The Arab Socialist Party (ASP), with links to the Adeni Front for the Liberation of South Yemen (FLOSY) and the People’s Socialist Party, appears to have emerged in the wake of moves to unify the South Arabian movements in 1965. Kostiner contends that FLOSY was popular in Hadhramaut because of its anti-​establishment rhetoric, which contrasted with the moderate approach of the SAL, and because its rival National Liberation Front (NLF) had been preoccupied with internal struggles.68 But the same divisions that plagued the Adeni movement over 58

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the use of armed struggle against the British led also to the split of the ASP into radical and moderate contingents, and the shifting of local allegiances towards the NLF. The radical People’s Democratic Front, under Ali Salim al-​Beidh (b.1939), eventually declared its allegiance to the NLF in 1966, thereby joining the South Arabian armed struggle. The Hadhrami nationalist movement grew organically from within local society, as the ideological successor of the earlier reformist organisations of the 1930s and 1940s. The NLF, in particular, considered the Irshadi–​Alawi conflict as a precursor to the kind of class struggle it was fighting in South Yemen, and portrayed itself as the direct spiritual inheritor of the early Hadhrami reformers.69 Thus the Nationalist movement stood in a dialectical relationship with the other movements of South Arabia, but did not act merely as their local outlet. However, the short-​lived character of the various nationalist organisations brings into question the extent of popular support the NLF enjoyed. It was often the case that prominent figures changed their allegiance in response to political developments in Aden. Still, the broad membership of the movement was composed primarily of hitherto unmobilised segments of Hadhrami society, and did not include more than a few hundred active supporters. The alliance between nationalists and disaffected tribes, which provided the movement with the ability to mobilise support beyond the urban centres, was also of central importance.70 Moreover, the proliferation of newspapers since the 1950s, and the frequent organisation of public meetings, meant that the majority of the population had access to, and even indirectly participated in, the ongoing nationalist discourse.71 The Hadhrami nationalist movement, then, was anchored in the particular social and political conditions of the country, which were different from those encountered by the nationalists in Aden and the WAP. An interesting peculiarity of the Hadhrami nationalist movement was the existence of a small but radical group of Maoists among the ranks of NLF supporters, prominent among whom were Faysal al-​Attas (also known as al-​Nu’ayri (1938–2014)) and Abbas al-​Aydarus –​both members of well-​ known sayyid families.72 Scholars of the South Yemeni nationalist movement tend to attribute such leanings to the influence upon the homeland of ideas animating the diaspora, and to contacts between Hadhramis and radical movements in southeast Asia and Zanzibar.73 Although, the effect 59

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of the exchange of ideas along the Indian Ocean trade routes should not be underestimated, the paradox of young Hadhrami sada adopting Maoist ideology can be traced back to domestic developments in Hadhramaut. Maoism provided the ideological language and revolutionary practice to precipitate the demise of the traditional system of social stratification, and to respond to the failure of the existing political order to address the demands of the disenfranchised but educated youth. Membership of the sada social stratum was not in itself enough to fulfil the aspirations of a literate generation, which was also unable to migrate as freely as before in an increasingly nationalistic regional environment. The cruelty with which Hadhrami NLF leaders dealt with the sada, and the ardour with which they tried to transform local customs after independence, reflect their deep resentment against traditional societal practice and their demand for a radical break with the past.74 Even after independence from Britain, the nascent People’s Republic of South Yemen found it difficult to integrate Hadhramaut into the newly formed state structures. Although of only marginal importance, the little-​known episode of the short-​lived ‘People’s Democratic Republic of Hadhramaut’ (May–​June 1968), which was proclaimed by Faisal al-​Attas and his Maoist comrades with tacit Chinese support,75 is indicative of the persistence of Hadhrami provincialism. This episode not only reflected the internal divisions between moderate and radical members of the NLF, who had found refuge in the remoteness of the Hadhrami hinterland, but also the degree to which regional divisions persisted after British withdrawal from the region, particularly in the eastern part of the country. * This chapter is a preliminary attempt, both empirical and epistemological, to approach the question of the putatively exceptional position of Hadhramaut as a geographical and political entity, and its distinct contribution to the politics of the rest of South Arabia. It explores which socio-​ political conditions gave rise to particular forms of identification and to nationalist ideology in Hadhramaut, and who were the agents of these developments. As has been shown, shifts within the Hadhrami diasporic communities and the reordering of social relations at home led to the articulation of a Hadhrami identity that went beyond earlier, pre-​modern attachments to tribal and territorial units. This identification with a broader 60

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notion of Hadhrami commonality became manifest in the emergence of a nationalist, anti-​colonial movement that sought to overturn the existing socio-​political order and reform the relations it had engendered. While the movement joined forces with South Arabian organisations more broadly, it maintained its distinct Hadhrami character. Asked about the achievements of the South Yemeni revolution, Faisal al-​ Attas boldly declared –​in an unequivocal expression of socialist conviction: ‘We’ve made the Mahris speak Arabic, made the Hadhramis think they’re Yemeni, and made the people ask for a lower salary.’76 The pace at which the achievement of having integrated the former EAP lands and societies into the rest of South Arabia, and subsequently into Yemen, appears to have unravelled merits a closer look at local political processes over time.

Notes 1. On the persistence of ‘Hadhrami-​ness’, see Ulrike Freitag, ‘Reflections on the Longevity of the Hadhrami Diaspora in the Indian Ocean’, in A. I. Abushouk and H. A. Ibrahim (eds), The Hadhrami Diaspora in Southeast Asia: Identity Maintenance or Assimilation? (Leiden, 2009), p. 19. 2. George Rentz, ‘Recent Literature on Hadramaut’, Middle East Journal 5:  3 (1951), p. 371. 3. On the British forward policy in the East Aden Protectorate, see R. J. Gavin, Aden under British Rule, 1839–​1967 (London, 1975), p. 301. 4. Fred Halliday, ‘The Formation of Yemeni Nationalism: Initial Reflections’, in J. Jankowski and I. Gershoni (eds), Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab Middle East (New York, 1997), p. 40. 5. For a geographical delineation of Hadhramaut, see Ruthven W. Pike, ‘Land and Peoples of the Hadhramaut, Aden Protectorate’, Geographical Review 30: 4 (1940), p. 628; and Abdalla S. Bujra, The Politics of Stratification: A Study of Political Change in a South Arabian Town (Oxford, 1971), p. 1. 6. Ulrike Freitag, ‘The Significance of Studying a Trade Diaspora’, ISIM Newsletter 1 (1998), p. 30. 7. The British negotiated with the Naqib of Mukalla and the Jemadar of Shihr the abolition of the slave trade as early as 1863 and 1873, respectively. William Harold Ingrams, A Report on the Social, Economic and Political Condition of the Hadhramaut (London, 1936), p.  170. For a concise overview of the history of British political relations with Hadhramaut, see John Shipman, ‘The Hadhramaut’, Asian Affairs 15: 2 (1984), p. 158. 8. Though Bujra (Politics of Stratification, p. 9) places the end of the ‘traditional period’ in the year 1940, it makes more sense to think of it as a protracted

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora transitional period between the old and new political order, beginning with the establishment of the Qu’ayti dynasty in Mukalla in 1881 and ending with the defeat of the Ibn Abdat of al-​Ghurfa in 1945, which brought to an end the period of local autonomous cities, and asserted the authority of the two British-​recognised states of the Al-​Kathiri and Al-​Qu’ayti dynasties over their respective territories. 9. Spencer Mawby, British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates 1955–​67:  Last Outpost of a Middle East Empire (London, 2005), p. 21. 10. Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, ‘Beyond Identity’, Theory and Society 29: 1 (2000), p. 2. 11. In fact, they propose a number of different terms that are able to share between them the semantic burden of identity, such as categorisation, self-​ understanding, commonality, connectedness, and so on. Ibid., p. 14. 12. Linda Boxberger, On the Edge of Empire:  Hadhramawt, Emigration, and the Indian Ocean, 1880s–​1930s (Albany, 2002), p. 11. 13. Ibid., p. 17. 14. Scholars differ widely on the question of further subdividing the masakin based on their ethnic origins and particular occupation. Thus, Bujra (Politics of Stratification, p. 13) mentions three major ‘social strata’; Christian Lekon, Time, Space and Globalisation: Hadhramaut and the Indian Ocean Rim 1863–​ 1967 (Gleichen, 2014), distinguishes between six ‘status groups’ (p.  80); Boxberger (On the Edge of Empire, p. 18) gives seven ‘identity groups’, with further internal divisions; and Mikhail A. Rodionov, The Western Hadramawt: Ethnographic Field Research, 1983–​91 (Halle, 2007), suggests eight ‘social strata’ (p. 26). 15. Robert Bertram Serjeant, ‘Social Stratification in Arabia’, in R. B. Serjeant (ed.), The Islamic City (Paris, 1980), p. 129. 16. Sylvaine Camelin, ‘Reflections on the System of Social Stratification in Hadhramaut’, in U. Freitag and W. G. Clarence-​Smith (eds), Hadhrami Traders, Scholars, and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s to 1960s (Leiden, 1997), p. 149. See also Bujra, Politics of Stratification, p. 142. 17. Such practices include the appellatives sayyid, sharifa, habib; the kissing of hands; the reservation of prominent places during religious and secular occasions for the sada; the institution of the mansab; the wearing of group-​specific garments; the application of the principle of kafa‘ah in marriage, and so on. Bujra, Politics of Stratification, p. 15. 18. Ibid., p. 27. 19. On the functions of the hawtah enclaves in Hadhramaut, see Robert Bertram Serjeant, ‘Haram and Hawtah: The Sacred Enclave in Arabia’, in Abd al-​ Rahman Badawi (ed.), Mélanges Taha Husain offerts par les Amis et ses Disciples à l’Occasion de son 70iéme Anniversaire (Cairo, 1962), pp. 41–​58.

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Hadhrami ‘Exceptionalism’ 20. For an account of the most important such festival at the tomb of the Prophet Hud and the ‘regulations and traditions governing the visit’, see Abd al-​Qadir Muhammad al-​Sabban, Visits and Customs: The Visit to the Tomb of Prophet Hud (Ardmore, PA, 1998), p. 20. 21. For a discussion of Hadhrami social divisions based on genealogical descent, see Bujra, Politics of Stratification, p. 47. 22. For more on the history of the conflict, see Natalie Mobini-​Kesheh, The Hadhrami Awakening: Community and Identity in the Netherlands East Indies, 1900–​1942 (Ithaca, NY, 1999), p. 91. 23. Natalie Mobini-​Kesheh, ‘The Arab Periodicals of the Netherlands East Indies, 1914–​1942’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-​, Land-​en Volkenkunde, 152:  2 (1996), p. 238. 24. Abdalla S. Bujra, ‘Political Conflict and Stratification in Hadramaut I’, Middle East Studies 3: 4 (1967), p. 371. 25. William Gervase Clarence-​Smith, ‘Hadhrami Arab Entrepreneurs in Indonesia and Malaysia: Facing the Challenge of the 1930s Recession’, in P. Boomgaard and I. Brown (eds), Weathering the Storm: The Economies of Southeast Asia in the 1930s Depression (Singapore, 2000), p. 240. 26. Robert Bertram Serjeant, The Saiyids of Hadramawt:  An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on 5 June 1956 (London, 1957), p. 26. 27. Natalie Mobini-​Kesheh, ‘Islamic Modernism in Colonial Java: The al-​Irshad Movement’, in U. Freitag and W. G. Clarence-​Smith (eds), Hadhrami Traders, Scholars, and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s to 1960s (Leiden, 1997), p. 241. 28. Ibid., p. 245. 29. William Harold Ingrams, ‘Peace in the Hadhramaut’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 25: 4 (1938), p. 537. 30. Ulrike Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut: Reforming the Homeland (Leiden, 2003), p. 430; and Mobini-​Kesheh, ‘Islamic Modernism in Colonial Java’, p. 246. 31. Bujra, Politics of Stratification, p. 30. 32. For a detailed account of the curriculum, see Ulrike Freitag, ‘Clubs, Schulen und Presse: Formen und Inhalte des hadramischen Reformdiskurses in Südostasien und im Südjemen (c. 1900–​ 1930)’, in D. Rothermund (ed.), Aneignung und Selbstbehauptung: Antworten auf die europäische Expansion (Munich, 1999), p. 72. See also Mobini-​ Kesheh, ‘Islamic Modernism in Colonial Java’, p. 243. 33. Abd al-​Rahman al-​Millahi (1933–​2013), Hadhrami historian and member of the Movement of Arab Nationalists, personal communication in al-​Shihr, 13 April 2010.

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 34. Hadhrami journals of the mainland focused on mostly religious themes and reform, while the diaspora publications focused on education and conditions at home. On the mainland Hadhrami press, see Ulrike Freitag, ‘The Early Press of Hadhramaut, 1900–​1967’, in A. Pistor-​Hatam (ed.), Amtsblatt, Vilayet, Gazetesi und unabhängiges Journal: Die Anfänge der Presse im Nahen Osten (Frankfurt, 2001), p. 149; on its diasporic counterpart, see Mobini-​Kesheh, ‘Arab Periodicals of the Netherlands East Indies’, p. 245. 35. In his Imagined Communities:  Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London, 2006), Benedict Anderson makes a compelling argument on the role of printed literature in creating a profound sense of comradeship among people separated by both space and time (p. 36). 36. Lekon, Time, Space and Globalisation, p. 64; and Bujra, Politics of Stratification, p. 49. 37. Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut, p. 400. 38. William Harold Ingrams and Doreen Ingrams, ‘The Hadhramaut in Time of War’, Geographical Journal 105: 1/​2 (1945), p. 11. For a history of the conflict, see Boxberger, On the Edge of Empire, p. 220. 39. Characteristic of the different ways in which sultanic authority was perceived by locals and foreigners is the incident described in Doreen Ingrams, A Time in Arabia (London, 1970), p. 75. Upon her asking a tribesman to which sultan he was a subject, he drew a dagger and shouted: ‘I am subject to no one!’ 40. See John M. Willis, ‘Making Yemen Indian: Rewriting the Boundaries of Imperial Arabia’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 41: 1 (2009), p. 33, where he describes the elaborate British pecking order of the chiefs of the South Arabian Protectorates, and British overtures towards Sultan Awadh bin Umar al-​Qu’ayti (r. 1902–9), who was among the Protectorate chiefs invited to the Delhi Durbar of 1903 for the coronation of King Edward VII. 41. Freya Stark, A Winter in Arabia (London, 1940), p. 168. 42. For a discussion of the changes to the existing social order brought about by the new political system, Bujra, Politics of Stratification, p. 132 43. On nationalism in a colonial context, see Partha Chatterjee, ‘Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse?’, in The Partha Chatterjee Omnibus (New Delhi, 2010), p. 42. 44. An English translation of all three poetic exchanges between al-​Ahmadi and Ibn Hashim can be found in Flagg Miller and Ulrike Freitag, ‘Three Poems on British Involvement in Yemen, 1937’, in C. Amin, B. Fortna and E. Frierson (eds), The Modern Middle East: A Sourcebook for History (Oxford, 2006), p. 493. On the role of the poet as a source of social authority in Hadhramaut, see Mikhail A. Rodionov, ‘Poetry and Power in Hadramawt’, New Arabian Studies 3 (1996), p. 118. 45. Ulrike Freitag, ‘A Poetic Exchange about Imperialism’, in L. Edzard and C. Szyska (eds), Encounters of Words and Texts: Intercultural Studies in Honour

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Hadhrami ‘Exceptionalism’ of Stefan Wild on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday (Hildesheim, 1997), p. 210. 46. See verse 7 of his poem in Miller and Freitag, ‘Three Poems’, p. 494: ‘The land of al-​Ahqaf [Hadhramaut] has been lost, like an ax-​mangled piece of meat, abandoned in the cold.’ 47. William Harold Ingrams, Arabia and the Isles (London, 1966), p. 231. While the al-​Kaf road, also known as the East Road, from Tarim to the coast was originally conceived and financed by Sayyid Sir Abu Bakr bin Shaykh al-​Kaf (1890–​1965), the latter was also instrumental in persuading several tribes to sign up to Ingrams’s truce, mostly through financial incentives. 48. A recurring example in contemporary literature is the building of roads that affected the traditional sources of income of the tribesmen, either as camel-​ drivers or providers of protection during travel, and became a constant source of resentment against the British. 49. Bujra, Politics of Stratification, p. 139. 50. Ibid., p. 149. 51. Ibid., p. 127: ‘Both individuals and groups made appeals against legal and other decisions to the [Resident Adviser], to the Sultan, and to the Wazir, displaying confusion as to the ultimate source of power.’ 52. On the HBL, see Cliff Lord and David Birtles, The Armed Forces of Aden and the Protectorate, 1839–​1967 (Solihull, 2011), p. 43. 53. Walter Dostal, ‘Vorläufige Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung zur Feststellung der politischen Meinungsbildung in Südarabien’, Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien 95 (1965), p. 17. 54. Abdallah Ba Atwa, former secretary-​general of the Hadhrami League of East Africa, personal communication in Taris, 19 April 2010. 55. Christian Lekon, ‘The Impact of Remittances on the Economy of Hadhramaut, 1914–​1967’, in Freitag and Clarence-​Smith, Hadhrami Traders, Scholars, and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, p. 270. 56. Margaret Luce, the wife of the governor of Aden, Sir William Luce, describes in her diary her meeting in Say‘un with a very bitter Sayyid Sir Abu Bakr bin Shaykh al-​Kaf, who by 1956 had lost most of his fortune in Singapore, and was unable to provide the hospitality he had formerly offered foreign visitors. Margaret Luce, From Aden to the Gulf: Personal Diaries, 1956–​1966 (Salisbury, 1987), p. 17. 57. Boxberger, On the Edge of Empire, p. 47. 58. Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut, p. 485, gives an exhaustive account of the incident  –​an incident which claimed between eight and 18 lives. 59. Muhammad Sa‘id Mudayhij, al-​Madrasa al-​Umm: al-​Madrasa al-​Wusta bi Ghayl Ba Wazir (Aden, 1998), p. 107; personal communication with Abd al-​ Rahman al-​Millahi, who graduated from the Madrasa al-​Wusta in 1953.

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 60. Gerasimos Tsourapas, ‘Nasser’s Educators and Agitators across al-​Watan al-​ ’Arabi: Tracing the Foreign Policy Importance of Egyptian Regional Migration, 1952–​1967’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 43: 3 (2016), p. 330. 61. Michael Crouch, An Element of Luck: To South Arabia and Beyond (London, 1993), p. 163; and Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut, p. 509. 62. Sir Hugh Boustead, A Review of Progress: Memorandum on Administrative and Agricultural Development in Eastern Aden Protectorate, 1949–​1958 (Mukalla, 1958), p. 52. 63. Haydar Abu Bakr al-​Attas, personal communication in London, 28 February 2011. He had his scholarship to study in the UK cancelled after participating in a demonstration in Mukalla against the visit of the governor of Aden, Sir Charles Johnston, in 1962. Instead, the MAN funded his studies in Cairo, where he became secretary of the Yemeni Students’ Association. 64. Peter Hinchcliffe, John T. Ducker and Maria Holt (eds), Without Glory in Arabia: The British Retreat from Aden (New York, 2006), p. 24. 65. Muhsin Muhammad Abu Bakr bin Farid, Mahatat Ra’ysiyya fi Masira Hizb al-​ Rabita (n.p., 2009), p. 37. 66. Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut, p. 517; and Joseph Kostiner, The Struggle for South Yemen (London, 1984), p. 43. 67. Salem Hassan Ba Joh (1937–​2013), personal communication in Mukalla, 15 April 2010. 68. Kostiner, Struggle for South Yemen, p. 134. 69. Helen Lackner, PDR Yemen:  Outpost of Socialist Development in Arabia (London, 1985), p. 36. 70. Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut, p. 501. 71. Ibid., p. 504. 72. For more on Faisal al-​Attas (1938–​2014), see Thanos Petouris, ‘Faysal al-​Attas: The Maoist Sayyid’, British–​Yemeni Society Journal 22 (2014), p. 32. 73. Joseph Kostiner, ‘Arab Radical Politics:  Al-​ Qawmiyyun al-​ Arab and the Marxists in the Turmoil of South Yemen, 1963–​1967’, Middle Eastern Studies 17: 4 (1981), p. 466. 74. On the brutal treatment of sada after independence, see Engseng Ho, The Graves of Tarim:  Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley, 2006), p. 311. For a collection of decrees on the ‘Regulation of Social Customs and Traditions’ after independence, Mikhail A. Rodionov and Hanne Schönig, The Hadhramaut Documents, 1904–​51: Family Life and Social Customs under the Last Sultans (Beirut, 2011), p. 245. 75. Lillian Craig Harris, China Considers the Middle East (London, 1993), p. 115. 76. Faisal al-​Attas quoted in Ho, Graves of Tarim, p. 311.

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3 Hadhramaut: Social Structure, Agriculture and Migration Helen Lackner

Like all areas of Yemen, Hadhramaut has peculiarities that differentiate it from other governorates. The main focus of this chapter is on the socialist land reform of the 1970s, how it changed social relations and self-​perceptions of the various groups, and how its reversal after unification transformed the situation. Finally, I  give a tentative explanation of the relevance of these changes in the current socio-​political situation of the region. All researchers give at least some attention to the issue of emigration from the area. They generally attribute it to two main factors:  internal warfare and poverty.1 While the casual late twentieth-​century visitor to Hadhramaut, and particularly to Wadi Hadhramaut in the interior, was struck by the apparent wealth of the area, manifested by lush, irrigated agriculture and palm groves alongside vast and impressive mud-​brick villas and palaces, these were largely funded through the income from emigration, and represented the fruits of a particular moment in time: the first half of the twentieth century. This chapter is based partly on an analysis of some of the literature on the region, but is primarily informed by the time I spent in Hadhramaut from the 1980s to the first decade of this century. In particular, I worked and lived in Hadhramaut for two years in the late 1990s, and this provided 67

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a major opportunity to follow the changes that have taken place in social structure, land ownership and perceptions over the previous half-​century.

Hadhrami Social Structure The seminal work on Hadhrami social structure is Abdalla Bujra’s 1971 study of social stratification, which presents Hadhrami society as having three main social strata, each having subdivisions. These are: • the sada, who claim descent from the prophet, and have the highest social status in society; • the mashayikh, or qaba‘il, which Bujra separates into two subgroups. He attributes the status of the first to religious scholarship and ancestral descent from holy men. The second are the tribesmen claiming descent from Qahtan. He gives these two groups the same status level, though he ranks the former above the latter by virtue of their scholarship; • the third group brings together all low-​status elements of society, the cultivating group (harthan), the servant group (akhdam) and those involved in ceremonial services (subyan).2 Bujra’s work has remained a major reference on Hadhrami social structure, even though it raises a number of unresolved issues:  it includes neither traders nor slaves, both important categories in Hadhramaut, and is based exclusively on the category of descent or kin relations. Finally, while his list may be correct for the town of Hurayda in the early 1960s, other studies have demonstrated that his classification cannot be used without modification elsewhere in Hadhramaut. Sylvaine Camelin, for example, points out that this structure is not reproduced in Shihr, a coastal Hadhrami city where she worked in the 1990s. She also points out that Bujra’s view is clearly influenced by the specific location of his informants in that hierarchy, as well as the timing of his fieldwork. In her experience, there was a further group –​the hadar, or settled urban people; and she also mentions both the slave and soldier categories, which are distinct despite both working as military men.3 68

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While these two studies clearly show that there is some structural variety, it is useful to refer to a more general study of social structure in Yemen by Joseph Chelhod. It covers the whole social field, including the categories mentioned by these other two authors. Chelhod provides the following comprehensive list of ascribed social categories:  the sada, religious scientists; qaba‘il, tribesmen (including landowners and farmers), traders, artisans; anadil (public criers, weavers, barbers, and so on); and finally akhdam (servants of African origin).4 What this and other studies show is, first, that there are modifications in this structure in different parts of Yemen and, second, that researchers’ descriptions and definitions are affected by their own fieldwork experience. But all authors agree that these categories are supposed to be closed and ascribed  –​that is, determined by birth  –​and that each group is endogamous, only marrying within, though people of equivalent groups can intermarry. At the outset, it is worth noting that the Yemeni structure is known to be less rigid than the Indian, though both focus on the taboo of intermarriage between groups. In both cases, however, as Yemen is patrilineal, men can marry downwards without losing status, thereby raising the status of the woman and her children, whereas a woman marrying downwards would lose status both for herself and for her children. Major anthropologists have for a long time challenged these ‘immutable’ categories, which have often been compared to the Indian caste system, best explained in Louis Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus (see bibliography), which has been widely criticised for providing too rigid an approach. In the cases of both India and in Yemen, it is clear that, over time, and regardless of ideological statements to the contrary, movement between these categories does in fact take place, even if not very frequently. These studies clearly show that there is a range of options, and that the system is not universally predetermined. They also show that researchers’ descriptions and definitions are affected by their own fieldwork experience. While, in principle, wealth does not affect status, in practice it certainly enables people of lower status to improve their own status significantly. Involvement in certain activities does not necessarily 69

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automatically lower a man’s social status. The most obvious example concerns the trading group. Traders, who were not a particularly high-​ status social group, have in the course of the past century considerably changed their situation. Two main phenomena have caused this. First, the involvement of people from other higher-​and lower-​status groups in trade has ensured that the activity is no longer associated with low status: sada from Wadi Hadhramaut in Southeast Asia are a prime example, demonstrating the permissibility of retaining high status while being involved in trade.5 Second, the ability of some traders (regardless of their social origin) to considerably enrich themselves has enabled them to achieve a higher status. The increasing importance of wealth as an indicator of status, taking over from religious knowledge or cultural factors, has significantly contributed to this change, and can largely be attributed to the influence of new norms imported from abroad, alongside fundamental changes in the country’s economic and political structures.

Social Aspects of Land Tenure up to 1967 According to Bujra, and confirmed by my own experience, prior to the socialist period of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), ownership of land was restricted primarily to two social groups: the sada and the qaba‘il (tribesmen). Unusually, in the west of the Wadi the lower-​ status people who had traditionally lived in the area and owned land for many centuries –​those whom Bujra calls harthan (tillers, agriculturalists) –​ also owned land. As Bujra points out, until the establishment of the Qu‘aiti state neither the subyan nor the akhdam were allowed to own or share-​crop land. They were supposed to carry out only their traditional and menial tasks. No other group would have sold them land at that period, but when the new state was set up a formal rule of legal equality was established. Since then any subyan or akhdam has been able to buy land. This means that all the land owned by these two groups has been acquired recently.6

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There are indications from a range of localised studies that overall land ownership in the west of the main Wadi was more diverse, in the middle the Wadi more under the control of tribes, and in the east mostly under the ownership of sada. Of course, it is important to take into consideration that there were changes over the period, particularly relating to the concentration of wealth among the households that contained successful migrants and the worsening poverty of those unable to migrate. Poverty was the main incentive to migration. Some families, particularly the most famous sada families such as the al-​Kaf from Tarim, and the al-​Attas from Hurayda, for example, became wealthy and increased their power and ownership of agricultural land,7 thus maintaining their high status, and indeed even increasing it, as is attested in the many travellers’ tales, as well as in the attitude of the colonial authorities to their leading members.8 But migration was an activity that anyone could carry out, provided they could raise the initial funds to finance their trips. How wealthy they became in Southeast Asia or East Africa also depended heavily on their contacts and support networks there, which privileged the sada who, in addition to their trading and other businesses, used their religious authority to ensure good positions in the lands where they settled. A rough indication of land tenure is provided for 1947 in the data on agricultural loans. While this is information on borrowers who were active in agriculture, and includes both owners and managers, it gives some indication of the situation in the various parts of the Wadi.

Table 3.1  Percentage of agricultural loans according to borrower (not necessarily owner), 1947 Sayyids and shaykhs Whole of Wadi Hadhramaut West (Shibam) cereals Centre (Say‘un, Tarim) dates East (Aynat)

10 11 7 16

Source: Christian Lekon, Time, Space and Globalisation, p. 160.

71

Qabilis

Maskins

30 58 20 19

60 31 73 65

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With respect to tribal relations with land, Christian Lekon discusses the issue in a somewhat ahistorical way, lumping together all periods between 1863 and 1967, during which time he states that the extended family, which enlisted the help of non-​qabili agricultural labourers paid in cash or with part of the harvest, was the main producing unit … land was collectively owned by the ‘lineage’ while possession of single plots was held by family heads. These plots could be rented or sold, although the agreement of other ‘lineage’ members was necessary if this involved an outsider. Neglect of cropping caused the loss of the plot in the long term. Possession of plots was inherited from father to son …9

In short, it can be said that the basic pre-​socialist situation was one in which land ownership was restricted to the tribes and the sada in most of Hadhramaut, though there were some exceptions, where the original inhabitants of an area who were part of other groups also owned some land. By definition, original inhabitants excluded the lowest-​status groups, who are widely believed to have come from Africa in past centuries, often as slaves, though no rigorous studies have demonstrated this origin.

Land Reform during the PDRY: Social Upheaval The PDRY was the only socialist regime in the Arabian Peninsula, or indeed anywhere in the Arab world. Despite the major internecine political struggles that tore apart the political elite, the regime instituted a fairly stable socio-​economic regime in the rural areas. The 1970 Land Reform Law inaugurated a dramatic change in social relations in rural areas, including Hadhramaut  –​particularly in the Wadi area. It reduced the ceiling for private ownership of agricultural land to 20 feddan (8.3 hectares) of irrigated or 40 feddan (16.6 hectares) of rain-​fed land per household. The large farms previously belonging to local elites were effectively confiscated, although there was a financial compensation mechanism in the law. All land became state property, and agricultural areas were either divided between their tenants or turned into state farms. 72

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The implementation mechanism for the law played a major social and political role. This was particularly the case in the cotton-​growing areas of Abyan, where most of the sharecroppers and workers were second-​or third-​ generation immigrants from the Tihama plain, and in Wadi Hadhramaut, where the sada in particular had previously wielded strong ideological dominance through their religious status, as well as practical control over the lower-​status cultivating class through ownership of and control over land and water. In order to empower the beneficiaries of the land reform and demonstrate the fundamental changes in political power in the country, the left of the National Liberation Front (NLF) sponsored uprisings during which its low-​status beneficiaries were encouraged to evict their former landlords physically. In some cases, these evictions included violence and acts of humiliation. One of the few accounts of events in Fuwa, in coastal Hadhramaut, as recorded by French journalist Eric Rouleau, noted, quoting his interviewees: The Agrarian Reform has not been implemented in Hadhramaut. The beneficiaries themselves don’t want it ‘as they are paralysed by total terror of the feudalists and a false understanding of religion …’ Our task (the workers tell us) is to impose the agrarian reform law [properly against] the large feudalists.10

There were two main forms of exploitation of the land: some new land­ holders of the small plots were brought together in co-​operatives, ‘membership of which shall be obligatory for all persons benefiting from state land and agrarian reform. Membership may also include persons other than those benefiting from state lands and agrarian reform among small owners.’11 A few continued to cultivate the land as individual smallholders; other areas were turned into large state farms, where the farmers were treated like factory workers and paid monthly wages. In 1988 there were ten state farms in Hadhramaut, cultivating 10,000 feddan,12 and 11 co-​operatives cultivating 147,000 feddan.13 The average landholding per household in Hadhramaut in the mid 1980s was 3.5 feddan, indicating that the ceilings set by the Land Reform Law were way above the amount of land available. Even then, the majority of landholders (18,372) were private, while there were 3,425 co-​operative holders14 –​that is, people who cultivated their land collectively. This clearly shows how small the holdings were, and that there 73

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was far too little agricultural land available overall to support good living standards. Water, which is as important to agriculture as land, and is often scarce in an arid country like Yemen, was effectively nationalised. It was managed by the Department of Irrigation, which controlled all drilling equipment. This turned out to be particularly important in Hadhramaut, where the vast majority of crops are irrigated and groundwater is available. In Wadi Hadhramaut there were projects financed by the Soviet Union, as well as by the World Bank, to develop agricultural potential and increase the area that was irrigated through more powerful pumps and longer canal networks. These projects dug deep boreholes that were equipped with diesel pumps, and the irrigation networks were managed at the co-​operative level or by state farm managers. While co-​operatives were not new, and some successful ones had existed prior to independence, such as the tobacco growing co-​operative in Ghayl Ba Wazir –​also in coastal Hadhramaut –​they changed after the land reform, the number of smallholders vastly increasing, and the complete abolition of large landholdings, whose owners had previously dominated the institutions.15 With respect to the Wadi, the main issue was the transfer of lands from the sada to the low-​status farming group that had previously been working it as sharecroppers or cash labourers. I will not enter here into details about the successes and failures of co-​operative organisation, but the main points to be noted are, first, that co-​operatives were largely under the control of the officials managing them, and, second, that significant changes took place to increase control by individual beneficiaries in the course of the 20-​year period prior to unification –​so that, by the time of unification, most co-​operatives did little more than manage the water-​distribution mechanism, jointly market produce, purchase inputs and organise access to machinery. However, as was originally intended by the organisers of the uprisings, their main long-​term impact beyond the socialist period was to contribute towards a new self-​perception on the part of the low-​status group. The social impact of the land reform was vast. The implementation mechanism first deprived the former ruling groups of a main source of income and wealth; it was also humiliating for them, finally creating a legacy of resentment, or worse, among landowners and others from 74

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the former ruling groups, whether tribal or sada. The low-​status former agricultural workers and sharecroppers were empowered by their new assets, but also by the ideological statements about the equality of all, and their ability to achieve positions of power in the new economic and political institutions. The official cancellation of the former social strata contributed to a gradual transformation of the world-​view of many of these beneficiaries. During the socialist period, in most of Yemen, the word fellah (plural fellahin) was used in its common Arabic meaning of farmer or peasant. In Hadhramaut, because historically those carrying out this profession were all from the lower-​status groups, the word took on the meaning of ‘low-​status person involved in agriculture as tenant or cash labourer’, and thus became a derogatory epithet equating agricultural activities with low status –​something that is absolutely not the case in other parts of Yemen, where agriculture is the mainstay of tribespeople and has high status. The political impact of the land reform and the empowerment of the low-​status groups had the effect that they largely supported the Yemeni Socialist Party, which had not only given them access to land and resources, but also provided them with education and medical facilities, and in many areas even electricity and other amenities of modern life. As a result, the party was equally disliked by most among the high-​status groups, which saw it as the cause of their loss of power. There were some very notable exceptions, with nationalist sada during the liberation period later joining the YSP and taking some very senior leadership positions, including two of Yemen’s main political figures since the 1970s: Ali Salim al Beidh, a tribal sayyid from coastal Hadhramaut, and Haydar Abu Bakr al-​Attas, an urban sayyid from Hurayda.16

Unification and Its Impact on Land Tenure Unification in 1990 brought about a sudden and dramatic transformation in living conditions and administration for all citizens of the former PDRY. Those living in rural areas were particularly affected, and Hadhramis were no exception. While the first three years –​that is, when the YSP was sharing power with the GPC in Sana‘a in the transitional regime  –​saw only limited changes in the local administrative system, 1994 represented a 75

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watershed, marking the end of the previous regime politically, economically and socially. Council of Ministers Decree 65 of 1991 was intended to solve the problem of agricultural land. It stated that all nationalised agricultural lands were to be returned to their previous owners. It formally recognised the right to compensation of the farmers who had cultivated and in many cases improved the lands during their tenure of about 20 years. They were uniformly to receive five feddan of land, irrigated and ready for cultivation. The discussion below focuses on the situation in Hadhramaut, and does not address what happened in the governorates of Lahij, Abyan and Shabwa, which had different histories and circumstances with respect to the implementation of this decree. In Hadhramaut, this regulation was applied almost immediately, mostly through ‘agreements’ between the parties, with the former beneficiaries of land reform returning to their earlier status of working the land of the sada as sharecroppers or labourers. I vividly remember working in Wadi Hadhramaut during Ramadan in 1992, going from farm to farm discussing irrigation methods and areas to be covered by each irrigation structure with farmers. Despite fasting, the dozens of farmers I met were all very patient, and spent considerable time explaining to me why they preferred smaller, square-​ish basins to larger, longer, more rectangular ones. The interviews took place in the sun, and took time they would otherwise have spent working their fields. At the end, I  usually asked them what their tenure situation was, and most replied that they would be losing their farms at the end of that cultivation season, and did not know whether they would continue working them as sharecroppers or daily labourers, or simply be thrown out. Some had already reached agreements with their landlords to continue working the land as sharecroppers. The likely outcome depended considerably on the personal relationship between the farmer and the landowner. But as they would, at best, receive only a share of the crop, there is little doubt that impoverishment through reduced agricultural income was one of the main outcomes for the farmers who lost control over the farms they had managed and cultivated for the previous two decades. I was struck at the time by their willingness to discuss something so equably that was unlikely to benefit them. 76

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After the 1993 elections, when the YSP had lost most of its political influence, and in particular control over local administration, power in Hadhramaut was restored to the two main groups that had earlier been the more powerful –​first the sada, and second the tribesmen. Most leading members of these groups had spent much, if not all, of the period of the PDRY in exile, mainly in Saudi Arabia. These two groups, and particularly the tribesmen, were given more authority under the Saleh regime, which considered them proxies for its control over the region. Subsidies from the Department of Tribal Affairs strengthened the position of tribal chiefs, while the sada benefited from a return to religion as a major element of social and political control –​though their strengthening was limited by a very different and less co-​operative relationship between the sada and the ruling clique in Sana‘a. Here, again, there was something of a shift: under the British, the sada were given precedence; under Saleh, the tribes gained ascendancy, partly because the Sana‘a ruling clique had a tense relationship with the northern sada (who were the rulers under the Imamate, and were therefore not favoured by the regime, which had a primarily tribal and military base). Upon their return to Hadhramaut, many of these newly empowered elements saw the new political situation as an opportunity to take revenge over the ‘upstart’ low-​status people who had, in their view, ‘stolen’ their lands during the intervening period. Between 1996 and 2000, I was involved with an externally supported project that had originally started life as a mechanism to implement the compensation element of Decree 65. Its main aim was to reclaim and prepare state lands in these governorates to be distributed to the dispossessed farmers. Due to the strong hostility of the new regime to providing any assistance to the dispossessed farmers, the project was significantly transformed with respect to its objectives and activities. Hostility came from the returned landowners and political powers not only at the governorate level, but also at the central level, in Sana‘a, where support for the project was lukewarm, at best. While it was estimated that over 20,000 farmers had been dispossessed, the project as a whole was described as one of ‘poverty alleviation’, which only proposed to provide land to 1,950 farmers,17 who included other poor people who had not lost lands. Other poverty-​alleviation activities were also included in the project. In practice, by the time the project was completed, only 190 77

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families had received land.18 The land to be developed for compensation was all allocated by the central government, and consisted of state lands as well as former state farms on land reclaimed by the previous regime –​that is, land that had not previously been cultivated or privately owned.

Land and Social Structure in Hadhramaut in the 1990s For a number of reasons, the situation in Hadhramaut in the 1990s was somewhat different from that found in other governorates. On the side of the powerful, the main difference was that the vast majority of returnees came with very authoritarian visions. Many of them were also imbued with a belief in their ‘natural’ and innate superiority over those currently in occupation of land, due to their relative positions in the social structure; this was particularly the case for sada and leading tribesmen. As mentioned above and confirmed through months of fieldwork in the governorate, all the sada and tribesmen I met considered that the only groups entitled to own land were themselves, and that lower-​status people had no right ever to own land. In many discussions with them, it became clear that their objection was not only to providing land as compensation to these farmers, but specifically that these farmers would own the plots with official titles. Proposed project funding agencies insisted that the compensation plots should be owned by the beneficiaries with full titles, conferring the right to sell or do whatever they wanted with the lands. There was no intention of buying or confiscating land, and all the sites chosen for the project were recognised state lands, which had either never been cultivated or had been abandoned for centuries, thus making them state land according to principles of urf and shari’a law. Despite appearing to be complete deserts, with no water access and no sign of any cultivation for centuries, all the sites proposed by government were immediately subject to challenges by various elements claiming ownership. This was in most cases based on a deliberate confusion between political rights over land controlled by a tribe and rights of exploitation and private property. When asked for documentation to prove their ownership, some claimants became violent and, in one case at least, brandished a gun, shouting that the gun was his document. Some of the objections were ostensibly focused on the right of the state to own land –​something that was seen as a ‘revival’ 78

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of the socialist period, which these returned owning classes anathematised, ignoring the existence of state lands in the period of the Kathiri and Qu’ayti sultanates. Such objections considerably reduced the area available for the project. Opposition to giving ‘compensation’ lands to the now dispossessed former beneficiaries of the land reform was dealt with by government and the project by redefining the land-​distribution programme as one focused on poverty alleviation, and the consequent proposed inclusion of other poor people who had not previously been evicted from their farms. However, in the region itself, this programme was perceived as one that would give land to a social group that the newly powerful despised and resented. Fieldwork clearly demonstrated that the extent of hostility between the groups was directly related to the experience of implementation of the land reform: where lands had been handed over to the fellahin with little objection or violence, agreement was relatively easy; where this had happened with considerable hostility and violence, objections to providing new lands to the fellahin were virulent. Discussions between project staff and the community leaders where lands had been identified for the project were long and detailed, and every effort was made to reach consensus. One of the main objectives of the project was to develop social solidarity and cohesion, and to avoid further tensions –​one reason why the project had been refocused towards poverty alleviation. This was also necessary, as the government had not offered enough land to provide for all of the dispossessed –​nor, indeed, could the project finance the rehabilitation of 100,000 feddan of land, even if such a large area had been made available. One theme that recurred, and was almost always the final stumbling block that prevented agreement, was the issue of ownership of the new plots. The World Bank, which was supporting the project, had determined that the five feddan plots to be distributed to the dispossessed fellahin should be formally owned and recorded as private property. While this was not seen as a major issue in other governorates, in Hadhramaut it was the main issue, even in communities where things were otherwise going smoothly. The sada and tribal leaders considered the formal ownership of agricultural land to be something that was their exclusive right, and regarded the low-​status group as simply ineligible to own land. This was 79

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their ‘bottom line’; as far as they were concerned, the issue was not one of access to resources (though obviously five feddan of irrigated land ready for cultivation was a significant asset for a household), but one of principle –​ namely, that the fellahin who, after unification, had been returned to their earlier low status could no longer claim equality, regardless of the constitution, and that ownership of land would have given them an elevated status to which they were not entitled. The issue of land tenure and the return of agricultural lands to their previous owners was only one aspect of the socio-​economic and political struggles that changed considerably after unification. While the leading sada and tribesmen soon learned that co-​operation with the Saleh regime was a prerequisite for retaining and increasing their influence, and therefore supported him and the General People’s Congress (GPC) in elections, the low-​status people who had been the prime beneficiaries of the socialist regime did not, on the whole, maintain their loyalty to the YSP, which they considered weak and unable to defend their interests effectively. Instead they shifted their support to the opposition party that seemed strongest. Within the context of a new form of politics, in which religion played a major part, Islah was the party that seemed most likely to be able to support them. Some of this new approach manifested itself in a Sufi–​Salafi rivalry, which in social terms pitted the sada against lower-​status people, and in political terms the GPC against Islah.19 One of the main attractions of Islah was its explicit assertion of equality and rejection of the traditional categories of social status. With the rise of southern separatism and the civil war wracking Yemen in 2015–​16, there also appears to be a shift away from Islah towards more fundamentalist and aggressive Islamists, in the form of AQAP and, to a lesser extent, ISIS, as is indicated by the types of actions that have been taking place since 2014.

Emigration: A Fundamental Feature of Hadhrami Life Poverty and warfare were prevalent for a number of centuries, and were the main push-​factors –​together with periods of famine –​for the major waves of emigration dating back to the eighteenth century. There has also been inward migration of some Yaf ‘ai tribes, some of whom went further east. Movements have also been affected by international politics, 80

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with the British, Dutch and others playing significant roles in reducing or increasing migration, and thus affecting both numbers travelling and their destinations.20 Throughout the period, agriculture has been unable to sustain the Wadi’s population. Earlier in the twentieth century, prior to the introduction of deep wells and machine-​driven pumps, there was far less agriculture. Shortly thereafter the palm groves started to disappear, as the falling water table deprived the trees of the water they needed in many locations. Similarly, many of the most impressive buildings date from the first half of the century, sometimes described as a ‘golden age’21 of Hadhrami migration –​a term that overlooks difficult times in the region itself, and focuses on the situation of the migrants in their adopted homes, mainly in Southeast Asia. As the main local sources of income in Hadhramaut were agriculture and, on the coast, fisheries as well as trade, the poverty induced by the insufficiency of water and the small size of landholdings meant that the low-​status and poorer people migrated, along with others traditionally involved in trade or military activities. The recent discovery and exploitation of local oil resources has, as in other parts of Yemen, had only a very limited influence on living conditions in the region itself. Wadi Hadhramaut also prided itself for many centuries as a centre of religious learning led by a large group of sada who, like all other groups, also migrated. Given their ability to derive benefits from their religious authority, sada tended to emigrate to all available destinations. Although neither systematic nor exclusive, there were frequently social and geographical links between origin and destination. The wealthier sada of Tarim and the elsewhere in the Wadi tended to travel east to what are today Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where their involvement in trade as well as religious leadership allowed them to increase their wealth and status both in their land of settlement and back at home; the outcome is most visible in the many palaces from the period, belonging mostly to the al-​Kaf family in Tarim. Other names that have remained outstanding and important include al-​Attas, al-​Haddad, al-​Saqqaf, bin Sumayt and al-​Kathir.22 Tribesmen such as the Tamimi and low-​status poorer people tended to go to East Africa, where they worked as labourers and, when successful, became small shopkeepers or craftsmen; while other low-​status people from the western part of the Wadi, and in particular from Wadi Du’an in the early twentieth century, 81

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travelled to what was in the process of becoming Saudi Arabia. Some of these have become household names and, starting from the most modest activities, are now some of the best-​known and wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia: the most striking example of these are the bin Laden, bin Mahfoudh, Ba Khashab and Buqshan families. Broadly speaking, those from eastern Hadhramaut tended to travel east; those in the centre mostly travelled south, towards East Africa and Zanzibar; and those in the west travelled mostly west and north, to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Sudan, but mainly to Saudi Arabia. But it must also be noted that people of every status ended up in all destinations, and that emigration was by no means restricted to any particular social group but included them all. Destinations were also connected with timing and the impact of international political relations between the dominant states in different periods. For example, British rivalry with other imperial powers at different times caused restrictions on the movements of Hadhramis, thus influencing the direction and volume of migration. While poverty, war and famine have driven people out of Hadhramaut for the past two centuries, it is clear even today that interest in migration has persisted as the population has continued to increase, while resources have not. Since unification, the population of Hadhramaut, as elsewhere in Yemen, has continued to increase at a fairly rapid pace of about 3 per cent per annum. So there are plenty of candidates for emigration, though the most desirable destinations have changed significantly. While a few still try and join relatives in Southeast Asia, this has become far more difficult, due to the socio-​economic circumstances of the majorities in these countries. The main pole of attraction in recent decades has been the Arabian Peninsula, particularly Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf Cooperation Council states. Here, as in many cases, earlier family and community connections play an important role in facilitating travel. During the Socialist period, and since then, the very successful families in Saudi Arabia mentioned above have sponsored large numbers of other poor people from their home areas.23 This has not only contributed to improving the living standards of poorer low-​status people in the region, but has also strengthened the Salafi and more fundamentalist movements, enabling them to challenge the GPC. At the time of writing, Hadhramaut is less affected by the fighting associated with the Saudi-​led coalition than other places, but 82

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the governorate is under the control neither of Saleh and his GPC nor of the Huthis, who have practically no presence there despite the large number of sada households. The governorate is largely under the control of some powerful armed tribesmen, in association with AQAP on the coast, while in the interior ISG and others demonstrate their presence through occasional violent attacks on loyalist troops. The legitimate government has only a limited presence. * Hadhrami society has experienced very considerable social, economic and political upheaval in the past century, with dramatic shifts in power and influence for members of the different social strata. But certain underlying characteristics have persisted: tension between the various hierarchical strata; changes in political alignment to retain or recover influence; insufficient resources to provide an adequate living standard to the population; strong links with other countries through migration and return; and the importance of trade, as well as agriculture and fisheries, in furnishing basic local resources. Struggles over land tenure in the past half-​century were the focus of wider struggles for control of both natural resources and positions in the hierarchical social structure of the region. Political positions and support for political parties have been determined by these other foci of struggle.

Notes 1. See Leif Manger, The Hadhrami Diaspora: Community-​Building on the Indian Ocean Rim (New York, 2010), p. 111; and Christian Lekon, Time, Space and Globalisation: Hadhramaut and the Indian Ocean Rim 1863–​1967 (Zurich, 2014), p. 164. 2. Abdalla Bujra, The Politics of Stratification: A Study of Political Change in a South Arabian Town (Oxford, 1971), p. 44. As Bujra explains here, ‘The ceremonial services which the Subyan perform are connected with marriage, circumcision and with birth ceremonies, with feasts and festivals, and with funeral procedures.’ 3. Sylvaine Camelin, ‘Reflections on the System of Social Stratification in Hadhramaut’, in U. Freitag and W. G. Clarence-​ Smith, Hadrami Traders, Scholars, and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s–​1960s (Leiden, 1997), p. 155.

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 4. Joseph Chelhod, ‘L’Ordre social’, in Joseph Chelhod (ed.), L’Arabie du Sud, Histoire et civilisation (Paris, 1985), vol. III, p. 16. 5. Among many other discussions of this, see Manger, Hadrami Diaspora, p. 140. 6. Bujra, Politics of Stratification, p. 63. 7. Lekon, Time, Space and Globalization, p. 159. 8. For the 1930s, see, for example, Freya Stark, Winter in Arabia (London, 1946); for the 1950s, Eva Hoeck, Doctor among the Bedouins (London, 1962). 9. Hoeck, Doctor among the Bedouins, p. 64. 10. Eric Rouleau, ‘L’étoile rouge sur le Yemen du Sud’, Le Monde, 28–​29 May 1972. 11. PDRY, The Agrarian Reform Law (London, 1978), p. 8. 12. PDRY Central Statistical Organization (1990), Statistical Yearbook 1988, p. 149. 13. Ibid., p. 150. 14. Ibid., pp. 166, 168. 15. See Helen Lackner, PDR Yemen:  Outpost of Socialism in Arabia (London, 1985), p. 176. 16. See also Chapter 2, above. 17. In the four governorates concerned. 18. See Lackner, ‘Land Tenure, Social Structure and the State in the Southern Governorates in the Mid-​1990s’, in Kamil Mahdi, Anna Wuerth and Helen Lackner (eds), Yemen into the Twenty-​First Century: Continuity and Change, (London, 2007), p. 217. 19. For brief discussions of various aspects of these points, see Engseng Ho, The Graves of Tarim:  Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley, 2006), pp. 312–​16; and Manger, Hadrami Diaspora, pp. 135–​6. 20. Other chapters in this book address these issues in detail, as does much of the academic literature on Hadhramaut, including Manger, Hadrami Diaspora; Ho Graves of Tarim; Lekon, Time, Space and Globalisation; and others. 21. Manger, Hadrami Diaspora, p.  30. Manger identifies this as the 1920s and 1930s; other authors are less precise, but it generally refers to the period prior to the 1960s and excluding the famine years of World War II. 22. Ibid., p. 114; and Iain Walker, ‘Hadhrami Identities’, in Noel Brehony and Saud Al-​Sarhan (eds), Rebuilding Yemen: Political, Economic and Social Challenges (Berlin, 2015), pp. 46–​9. 23. Walker, Hadhrami Identities, esp. pp. 49–​53.

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Part II

Hadhramis in the Diaspora

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4 The Atlas of Sayyid Uthman ibn Abd Allah ibn Yahya of Batavia (1822–​1914) Nico J. G. Kaptein

Migration to Southeast Asia led to a high visibility of Hadhrami Arabs in what is now Indonesia, but which in the period covered in this chapter was known as the Dutch East Indies.1 These migrants married local women, and this eventually led to a sizable community. Based on the official colonial statistics, in 1883 there was a total of 10,888 Arabs on Java and Madura (including 1,662 in Batavia), while a further 9,613 Arabs lived in the rest of the archipelago.2 In 1905, the total number of Arabs in the Dutch East Indies had risen to 29,588 (of whom 19,148 were on Java and Madura). These numbers were very small compared with the indigenous population, which numbered more than 37 million at the time,3 but the influence of these Arabs was disproportionately large, particularly in trade and –​not surprisingly –​in religion. In this chapter I will not go into the importance of this group in colonial society, because this has already been done very competently by others; I will focus instead on a publication of a particular person who formed part of this diaspora: Sayyid Uthman ibn Abd Allah ibn Aqil ibn Yahya al-​Alawi’s Atlas Arabi. Sayyid Uthman, as he is called in colonial historiography, was born in 1822 in Batavia, the capital of the Dutch East Indies (present-​day Jakarta, Indonesia). As his title of address shows, he was a member of the social class of the sada, the traditional religious nobility, which claimed descent from 87

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the Prophet Muhammad. He spent his first 19 years in his native city, and subsequently lived and studied religious sciences in the Middle East until the age of 40, notably in Mecca from 1841 to 1847, and in Hadhramaut from 1847 to 1862, interrupted by travels to other parts of the Middle East in 1855–​6. In 1862 he finally returned to Batavia, where he quickly gained a reputation as an authoritative scholar of Islam. Initially, his life in Batavia seems to have been rather separated from the European segment of colonial society, but from 1889 until his death in 1914 he closely co-​operated with the Dutch colonial administration, and from 1891 onwards he was Honorary Adviser for Arab Affairs. Sayyid Uthman’s most important contact in the Indies was the Islamic scholar and administrator Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857–​1936), who left the Dutch East Indies in 1906 for Leiden, where he took up the chair in Arabic. Sayyid Uthman played a pivotal role in relations between the colonial authorities and the Muslim population. Sayyid Uthman was one of the most productive scholars of the Dutch East Indies. He left more than 150 publications, written in Arabic or Malay, which he printed from 1869 onwards on his own lithographic printing press in Batavia. A  number of his publications are traditional works on theology, law or ethics. In other treatises he reflected on current affairs from an Islamic perspective. In this chapter I  will deal with the atlas he compiled and printed on his lithographic press in 1883. Before I discuss this atlas, I will first provide some information on this method of printing.

Lithography Lithography is a means of printing that was invented in 1796 by a German scholar, and became popular in Southeast Asia in the first half of the nineteenth century because it was cheap and flexible, and thus enabled the printing of books using, for instance, Chinese and Arabic characters. The process of lithographing was quite simple. First, the text to be printed was written in mirror writing on a flat limestone using a greasy substance. Subsequently the stone was covered with ink, which adhered to the greasy parts but not to the rest of the stone, and was then printed on a piece of paper. The result is a text that looks like a manuscript. Although the technique of lithography had already been introduced in Batavia in 1829 by the 88

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British missionary W. H. Medhurst (1796–​1857), it took until 1848 before the first lithographed book was published by an indigenous printer.4 In 1869 Sayyid Uthman started using a lithographic printing press to disseminate his writings. It is not known how he learned to operate his press, but he (or his assistants?) became very good at it; he not only produced highly readable texts in a very clear Arabic script, but was also able to draw complicated patterns, such as genealogical trees and conversion tables for dates. Over time he also started to apply different colours by hand –​for instance, in pictures of the different phases of the moon in an astronomical work, made to establish the appearances of the new moon.5 These features find their culmination in the atlas, which is a graphically complicated item drawn on the lithographic stone with great skill, and beautifully coloured by hand in various colours, like pink, green and yellow.

The Atlas Date I know of few copies of the atlas that have been preserved. The oldest dated copy I have seen is kept in the National Library in Jakarta, dated A.H. 1301, which year began on 2 November 1883. The copy I have used here is kept in Leiden University Library and dates from 21 Rabi al-​thani 1309, which corresponds to 24 November 1891.6 It is evident that this latter copy is a reprint, and that Sayyid Uthman kept the atlas in print for a long time. It seems that the atlas was not changed dramatically over time, although a close comparison of the maps in the various editions might show that more details were included with the advance of time. Of course, some colours might differ in the various copies, but this is only natural, because the colours were added by hand to each printed copy.

Contents The atlas consists of four large printed sheets. The maps are preceded by a drawing of the universe in concentric circles, with the earth located at the centre. Chart 1 is an accurate map of the world, showing on the first half the two Americas and on the second the rest of the world. Chart 2 depicts the Arabian Peninsula, with special attention given to Hadhramaut. Chart 3 is a 89

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Figure 4.1  Map of Hadramaut, from Sayyid Uthman, Atlas Arabi, chart 3. Leiden University Libraries, KITLV M 3o 452.

map of Hadhramaut with a number of colours and symbols indicating, for example, mountains, vegetation, roads and water.7 Chart 4 shows the layout of an imagined Hadhrami settlement, with its characteristic architecture, such as mosques and the multi-​storey houses, as well as agricultural land. This chart also contains the colophon of the work, which reads as follows: With this chart this atlas comes to an end. We ask the Almighty God that He completes for us what we intended with the making of this atlas, and that He forgives us that we have made pictures of celestial bodies, trees and other things. Its reprinting (i’adat tab’ihi) was completed on 21 Rabi al-​thani in the year 1309. The one who asks forgiveness from his Master in death and in life Uthman ibn Abd Allah ibn Aqil ibn Yahya.

As we see, in this colophon Sayyid Uthman emerges as a very pious person, who for religious reasons is reluctant to make pictures, and it is indeed striking that, in his representation of the Hadhrami settlement, not a single person or animal can be seen. 90

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Figure 4.2 Hadhrami settlement, from Sayyid Uthman, Atlas Arabi, chart 4. Leiden University Libraries, KITLV M 3o 452.

Of particular interest is the long caption belonging to chart three, the map of Hadhramaut, ‘the Eastern part of Yemen which falls under the protection of the Ottoman state’. After a number of lines on its borders and its degrees of longitude and latitude on the globe, some general observations on its population are offered: … Its inhabitants are Arabs and their religion is Islam, they adhere to the Shafi’i School of Law and there are no adherents of heretical innovations [mubtadi]. Part of the inhabitants consists of Alawid sada, who originate from our Lord Husayn ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib, the grandson of the Messenger of God –​may God bless him and grant him peace. Another part are the shaykhs, some of whom descended from a number of Companions, and others from the Family of Knowledge and Piety. Another part consists of Arab tribes who are armed to the teeth to protect their land and others who can be called craftsmen. The means of subsistence of all of them is for the major part trade and agriculture. Their immovable property mainly consists of land and palm trees. Their livestock consists of camels, cattle, sheep,

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora horses and donkeys. Their food consists of wild plants and animals, corn [al-​dhura], and dates, and with their bread [idam] they eat meat, fish, milk and honey. The fruit they eat consists of fresh dates, grapes, figs, pomegranates and lotus fruit. To their nature belongs their trustworthiness, and this even holds true for those of them who live in the mountains. They possess an absolute devotion to trade, generosity [muru’a] and a dislike of problems, and they reward the beautiful and they neglect the meaningless …8

All in all, we have here not only a very beautiful, but also a very interesting work –​a work that raises many questions. For instance, which examples of maps had Sayyid Uthman had at his disposal in making his own maps? His first chart with the earth in the centre of the universe might have been in harmony with older cosmological understandings of the universe, but was not compatible with modern atlases and insights that were readily available in European circles in the Dutch East Indies.9 On the other hand, the relatively new Suez Canal (al-​tur‘a), which had been opened some 14 years earlier, in 1869, is depicted on Chart 2. The location of the borders of Hadhramaut indicated on the map might be a fruitful area for further study, because of the intricate relationship between maps and power.10 In the remainder of this chapter I want to limit myself to the questions of who used the atlas and why, and for whom Sayyid Uthman made this work. In the next section I will deal with the people I know of who made use of the published work.

Users of the Atlas L. W. C. van den Berg The first person I know of who used the atlas was a Western academic by the name of L. W. C. van den Berg (1845–​1927). He was adviser for Eastern languages and Mohammedan law from 1878 until 1887, when he returned to the Netherlands. During his stay in the Indies he became acquainted with Sayyid Uthman. Van den Berg is known for his book on the Arabs in the Dutch East Indies, which he wrote in his capacity as an adviser under the command of the governor-​general. The colonial government regarded 92

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Figure 4.3  L. W. C. van den Berg, Le Hadramout et les colonies arabes dans l’Archipel indien, Batavia: Imprimerie du governement, 1886, Plate IV.

the Arabs in the Dutch East Indies as potential troublemakers, and the aim of van den Berg’s investigation was to gain a better insight into this segment of the population. In the resulting book of 1886, Sayyid Uthman is praised for his loyal attitude towards the government. 93

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Van den Berg appears to have discussed the preparation of his book with Sayyid Uthman, and he used a sketch of Sayyid Uthman’s map of Hadhramaut as the basis for his own map of the region. In addition, he also used images of, for instance, houses, a cistern and a mosque that he took from Sayyid Uthman’s atlas.11 I include here Plate IV, which depicts a water reservoir and a mosque. This picture is almost identical to the mosque and the reservoir (siqaya) drawn by Sayyid Uthman. Interestingly, in van den Berg’s book, next to the small building, a man is depicted, to give an indication of the scale of the structure. The human figure is absent in Sayyid Uthman’s atlas. As we have seen, in the colophon of his atlas, Sayyid Uthman asked God for forgiveness for having included drawings; clearly, for him, the drawing of living beings was a step too far.

M. J. de Goeje A second person who used the atlas was Michaël Jan de Goeje (1836–​1909). He was professor of Arabic in Leiden from 1866 to 1906, and is primarily known as a philologist and editor of classical Arabic texts. He never visited the Dutch East Indies, but was familiar with the work of Sayyid Uthman, including his Atlas Arabi. De Goeje had an interest in the geography of Hadhramaut, and had been trying to get information on this subject by invoking the assistance of van den Berg in the Indies. De Goeje requested van den Berg to ask his informant Shaykh Muhammad ibn Hasan Babahir, who was a prominent Hadhrami living in Batavia, to write down everything that he knew about his homeland –​ but this produced no result.12 Fortunately, de Goeje managed to get hold of a copy of the atlas of Sayyid Uthman, which was invaluable to his research. This copy had been sent to Europe by the Batavia-​based Dutch lawyer, Dr M. C. Piepers (1835–​1919), in order to be reviewed in the Revue Coloniale Internationale. It is not known how Piepers had come into possession of this atlas, but it is possible that he purchased it from Sayyid Uthman himself. Piepers was active in the Dutch Indies judiciary from 1864 to 1894 in various capacities, including as chairperson of the Native Courts (landraad) and, from 1879, in functions attached to the High Court. It seems probable that, in these capacities, he will have had contact with Sayyid Uthman concerning legal issues, and that the two men knew each other. 94

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De Goeje eventually published a brief article in German on the atlas in the 1886 issue of the Revue Coloniale Internationale. He compared the atlas with the data he had acquired from Arabic geographical texts and orientalist writings on Hadhramaut, and he found that on the whole Sayyid Uthman was accurate in his atlas, and considered the map of Hadhramaut, which according to him Sayyid Uthman had based on his own memory and on information from others in Batavia, to be ‘really meritorious’. De Goeje was apparently so impressed with the atlas that he wanted Sayyid Uthman to assist him in acquiring a number of inscriptions from Southern Arabia. He considered Sayyid Uthman ‘a learned man who is able to understand the academic significance of the study of inscriptions’.13 As an appendix to his article, Charts 4 and 5 of the atlas are also included in the journal; notably, Chart 4 does not contain a date or a colophon. Otherwise these charts are similar to the copy of the atlas I have used.

Various Audiences Although the atlas was noted and appreciated by Western scholars it seems certain that they were not the audience Sayyid Uthman had had in mind when he first made the atlas at the end of 1883. In this phase of his career, he was barely in touch with the European segment of the population in the Dutch East Indies and, as a matter of course, all of his works were naturally addressed to a Muslim audience. When we investigate his publications before the production of the atlas, we see, for instance, a pilgrim’s guide and devotional works, mainly in Malay. The atlas forms an exception to this, because it is in Arabic. For this reason, and because the work focused on Hadhramaut, I think that Sayyid Uthman made his atlas to cater primarily for his fellow Hadhramis in the colony. By making this atlas, and in particular the map of Hadhramaut and the various pictures of Hadhrami architecture and scenery, Sayyid Uthman appealed to the sense of nostalgia that members of the Hadhrami diaspora felt for their homeland. Indeed, the links between Hadhramis in the diaspora who could afford this and the homeland were typically tight, and the traffic between these two parts of the world often intense –​to carry out trade, for family visits and for pilgrimages, for example. Moreover, many 95

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Hadhramis continued to send boys from the diaspora to the homeland for their education. As a result of these contacts, there were strong cultural bonds between the homeland and the diaspora. As a Hadhrami scholar, Sayyid Uthman aimed at retaining and promoting the sense of being Hadhrami among the members of the diaspora in the Dutch East Indies, and the atlas provided an instrument to accomplish this aim. Through the maps, travel to and within Hadhramaut was facilitated, and the chart of the imagined Hadhrami settlement appealed to the nostalgic attachment that members of the Hadhrami diaspora might have felt for their homeland. As a publisher, he must have been convinced that the project was commercially feasible, and that there were enough members of the  Hadhrami diaspora in the Indies to provide a good market for the atlas. There are also other items of the cultural production in the same milieu that catered to a nostalgic attachment to Hadhramaut among members of the diaspora. For example, a short Malay poem from 1924, entitled ‘Qamar al-​zaman’, contains the life story of Sayyid Uthman, and on the title page the characteristic Hadhrami architecture is drawn next to –​on the right –​the scenery of Java, thus depicting the two worlds in which Sayyid Uthman had lived his life.14 Another example is a reverse-​ glass painting15 of a Hadhrami mansion, as is mentioned in the Arabic caption on the painting. The work is undated, and originates from the Dutch East Indies. Despite the fact that, in 1883, when the atlas was first published, Sayyid Uthman was still operating in an almost entirely indigenous sphere, as we have seen the atlas became known in European circles, and this greatly contributed to the exposure of Sayyid Uthman outside his native environment. As a result of the admiration for Sayyid Uthman’s atlas, people such as C. Snouck Hurgronje also started to scrutinise his other writings, and this brought Snouck, at the time still based in Leiden, to the conclusion that Sayyid Uthman basically accepted colonial rule, and that he might be useful as an intermediary between the colonial administration and the Muslim population.16 Once Snouck Hurgronje arrived in the Dutch East Indies in 1889, to work on Dutch Colonial policies towards Islam, he immediately involved Sayyid Uthman in his 96

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Figure 4.4 Shaykh ibn Alwi, Qamar al-​zaman, Weltevreden 1924, title-​ page. Leiden University Libraries, 893 F 21.

activities, and he would remain on the payroll of the colonial government until his death in 1914. After Sayyid Uthman had gained respectability in colonial circles, we see that his writings were sometimes mentioned positively in the Dutch colonial press.17 It is likely that these reports generated a demand for the works 97

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Figure 4.5  Reverse-​glass painting of a Hadhrami mansion from the Netherlands East Indies. Leiden University Libraries, Coll. Oosters Instituut.

of Sayyid Uthman among an audience of Europeans who had mastered Malay. On 6 April 1891 the Dutch Locomotief newspaper announced that the works of Sayyid Uthman had become available through the well-​known Dutch bookseller G. Kolff & Co., in Batavia. Around 1897, we see a Dutch language catalogue of some seventy works by Sayyid Uthman being brought into circulation and sold by Kolff.18 About a year later, a catalogue was published by another well-​known bookseller in Batavia, Albrecht & Co.19 In both these catalogues, the atlas is also offered for sale –​by Kolff (no. 48) for f. 4, –​, and by Albrecht (no. 348) for f. 5,50.20 The copy I used for this paper was also sold by Albrecht, as the Dutch note on the cover shows.21 * We can thus see that Sayyid Uthman originally made his atlas for the members of the Hadhrami diaspora to facilitate the journey to Hadhramaut and travel within it, and to help them visualise the homeland, and thus to promote their sense of attachment to Hadhramaut and cater to their feelings of nostalgia. In this capacity, he can be called a ‘diasporic cultural entrepreneur’.22 Moreover, the atlas was also noted by Western academics and administrators, who formed an audience for it that Sayyid Uthman had not 98

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originally had in mind when he first produced it. The most important and most unexpected consequence of the making of the atlas was the great appreciation the work won from Western academics who were attached to the Dutch colonial apparatus. As a result of this, Sayyid Uthman achieved an entrée into colonial circles, and this eventually led to his involvement in the colonial administration as honorary adviser for Arab affairs.

Notes 1. This paper is an elaboration of pp. 95–​6 of my book Islam, Colonialism and the Modern Age in the Netherlands East Indies: A Biography of Sayyid ‘Uthman (1822–​1914) (Leiden, 2014). 2. Lodewijk W. C. van den Berg, Le Hadramout et les colonies arabes dans l’Archipel indien (Batavia, 1886), pp. 105–​9. 3. Jozlas Paulus et al. (eds), Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-​Indië, Tweede Druk, vol. I, pp. 298–​302, s.v. ‘Bevolking’ (‘Population’) (Nijhoff/​Leiden, 1917–​39). 4. Kaptein, Islam, Colonialism and the Modern Age, pp. 75–​8. 5. Sayyid Uthman, Tawdih al-​adilla ala shurut shuhud al-​ahilla (Batavia, 1299/​ 1882). 6. The Jakarta copy bears the signature ‘1090*’. The copy from Leiden University Libraries bears the signature ‘KITLV M 3o 452’. When sorting out the collection of the Oriental Institute, in November 2015 three hitherto unknown, uncatalogued copies of the same print run turned up in Leiden University Libraries. 7. As late as 1932, the German explorer and geographer Hermann von Wissmann (1895–​1979) considered the topographical data on this map quite accurate. See Daniel van der Meulen and Hermann von Wissmann, Hadramaut: Some of Its Mysteries Unveiled (Leiden, 1932), p. 96. 8. This caption was also translated into German in Michaël J. de Goeje, ‘Hadramaut’, Revue Coloniale Internationale 1 (1886), pp. 102–​3. 9. Jozlas Paulus et al. (ed.), Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-​Indië, Tweede Druk, vol. IV, pp. 406–​14, s.v. ‘Topografische dienst’ (‘Ordnance Survey’). 10. See, for example, Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York, 1993). 11. Van den Berg, Le Hadhramout, pp. 7–​8 and plates 2–​4. 12. Michaël J. De Goeje, ‘Hadramaut’, p. 101. Van den Berg was de Goeje’s first pupil, and it is significant that de Goeje exposes his lack of co-​operation here so openly. Perhaps de Goeje was still annoyed about the following. Together with his colleague R. Dozy, de Goeje had arranged for a job for van den Berg in Leiden after his graduation, but the latter had refused because he preferred a more lucrative job in the colonies. See Daniel van der Zande, ‘Martinus Th.

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora Houtsma (1851–​1943): Een bijdrage aan de geschiedenis van de oriëntalistiek in Nederland en Europa’ (PhD thesis, Utrecht, 2 vols, 1999), vol. 2, p. 424n89. 13. De Goeje, ‘Hadramaut’, p. 117. 14. Also included in Kaptein, Islam, Colonialism and the Modern Age, p. 5, fig. 1. 15. This is a technique by which an image is painted on the reverse side of a sheet of glass. 16. Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, ‘Een Arabische bondgenoot der Nederlandsch-​ Indische regeering’, in Arent Jan Wensinck (ed.), Verspreide Geschriften van C. Snouck Hurgronje, vol. IV-​1 (Bonn/​Leipzig, 1924 [1886]), p. 78, where the atlas is mentioned. 17. See, for example, Locomotief, 14 March 1890, explicitly mentioning his atlas. Available at www.delpher.nl. 18. Anonymous, Said Oesman:  De geleerde Arabier (Batavia, no year). Leiden University Libraries 896 D 33. 19. Leiden University Library: KITLV Library bb 94. 20. The ‘f.’ stands for Dutch florin. When we compare this price to other books, this was quite high, most books costing no more than f. 1, –​. 21. On this cover it is mentioned that Sayyid Uthman is a member of the Order of the Dutch Lion; he achieved this order in 1899. Thus, although the work is dated 1891, it was sold after 1899. 22. I borrow this expression from Leif Manger, as voiced in his presentation during the conference at SOAS on 8 March 2015 –​which was the inspiration for this book.

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5 ‘Revival’ of the Hadhrami Diaspora? Networking through Religious Figures in Indonesia Kazuhiro Arai

The purpose of this chapter is to place in historical perspective the current ‘closure’ of Hadhramaut to outsiders. The focal point of the discussion is my observation of how the human network of the Hadhrami sada –​the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad –​across the Indian Ocean operated in 2014–​15 in Indonesia. Close interaction between Hadhramaut and Southeast Asia, once the most important destination for Hadhrami migrants, was until recently considered a thing of the past. After World War II the region ceased to be an attractive destination for those considering leaving the homeland, because of the policies of newly founded nation states such as Indonesia on immigration to and remittances from their territories. Movement of people between the two regions was further obstructed by the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in the 1970s and 1980s. The relationship between Hadhramaut and Southeast Asia changed for the better after Yemeni unification in 1990, but has been adversely affected by the recent political turmoil in the country. I try to argue here that, despite these developments, Southeast Asia has proved to be a region that remains important for the Hadhramis. 101

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Hadhramaut and Foreign Visitors: The Current Situation At the time of writing (November 2015), the security situation in Yemen is critical, and there is no sign of any improvement. The background to the events that led to the intervention of the Saudi-​led coalition in March 2015, and the progress of the war since then, are discussed in Chapter 1. Hadhramaut itself has escaped much of the fighting, but is affected by the way in which the crisis has exacerbated Yemen’s profound economic and social problems, while offering increased opportunities for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to expand its operations, not least in Mukalla in Hadhramaut. The crisis has forced many countries to close their embassies or move them outside Yemen. For example, the embassies of Japan, the UK and the United States can no longer provide any services to their nationals remaining in the country. On 20 April 2015, the Indonesian embassy was heavily damaged by bombing targeting a nearby ammunition warehouse. Indonesian nationals living in Yemen have also been affected. A distinctive characteristic of the Indonesian community in Yemen, compared to other foreign communities, is that it includes a large number of students, studying religious subjects in several cities. One of the best known is Tarim, where there are three important institutions: Al-​Ahgaff University (Jami’at al-​Ahqaf), Dar al-​Mustafa and Ribat Tarim. Graduates become eligible to obtain teaching positions in their home countries, so that a termination of study would jeopardise their prospects. Nevertheless, many Indonesian students have been evacuated from Yemen, and particularly from Hadhramaut. Jawa Pos, a major newspaper in Indonesia, reported as early as 17 November 2014 that the Indonesian embassy in Sana‘a had coordinated the evacuation from Yemen of some 20 Indonesian students –​14 males and six females. The paper noted that this had been the fourth such evacuation arranged by the embassy, and the total number of evacuees had reached 80. On the other hand, some Indonesians were reluctant to be repatriated. Although the situation in cities such as Sana‘a and Aden, and in much of western Yemen, was critically unstable, Hadhramaut had been much quieter, and the people there could live relatively safely. Tempo, an 102

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Indonesian weekly magazine, reported on 1 March 2015 that tension in other parts of the country had not been felt in Tarim, and that the people of Hadhramaut were collectively trying to maintain security in the region.1 For students in Tarim, returning to Indonesia in the middle of an academic year meant that they would have to devote at least another full year to the completion of their studies. For them, and for students expecting to graduate after a few months, it was a difficult decision to abandon college.2 However, the evacuation of Indonesian nationals accelerated after 25 March 2015. By 5 April, 792 nationals had been evacuated from Yemen, of whom 590 had already returned to Indonesia. The remaining 202 were safely quartered in Djibouti and the Saudi Arabian city of Jizan.3 Most Indonesians in Hadhramaut who chose to leave the country must have fled to Oman by land. When the team formed by the Indonesian government to accelerate the evacuation of its nationals reached Tarim on 5 April, via the Yemen–​Oman border, the total number of the students in that town was around 1,500.4 There were 500 in Mukalla, the capital city of the governorate, which had come under the influence of AQAP.5 The office of the al-​Ahgaff University in Indonesia has stopped sending the prospective students to Hadhramaut; they were waiting for the situation in Tarim to improve to make study feasible.6

Connections between Hadhramaut and Indonesia: Observations, 2014–​15 Despite the difficulty involved for people outside Hadhramaut in visiting the region, its residents –​especially those in the inland towns of Say‘un and Tarim –​seem to have less trouble travelling abroad. During my stay in Indonesia between September 2014 and March 2015, the country received various visitors from Hadhramaut –​as well as visits by those of Hadhrami origin from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, most of them being of sayyid origin. Among Hadhramis, the sada care most about their genealogy, recording their lineage in detail and deriving a sense of continuity from it. When a religious figure (usually a sayyid) visits Jakarta or other towns in Indonesia, local sada hold banquets in his honour. He will meet with local ulama, Hadhrami or otherwise, conduct religious ceremonies and visit the tombs 103

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of religious figures (mostly but not exclusively sada) who migrated from Hadhramaut. In many cases, the occupants of such tombs are known for their propagation of orthodox Islam among the local population, and some are considered to be saints. If a visitor is an eminent personality, such as the principal of a religious institute, he will attend religious ceremonies such as the hawl, which commemorates a departed saint, and the reading of the mawlid, a panegyric poem in honour of the Prophet, recited on the occasion of the Prophet’s birth month (Rabi al-​Awwal in the Hijri calendar). Since my stay in Indonesia coincided with one of the largest hawls in Jakarta and with the month of mawlid, a number of Hadhrami notables were visiting the country to attend these events. They included the following figures.

Umar bin Hafiz In Indonesia, Umar bin Muhammad bin Hafiz is probably the most renowned religious figure from Hadhramaut at the present time. Born in Hadhramaut and educated in Yemen and Hijaz, Saudi Arabia, he founded his own school, Dar al-​Mustafa, in 1993, at his house in the Tarim area. The school, initially only a seminary, and Umar himself, soon attracted the attention of the local community and of wealthy Hadhramis abroad. With the help of supporters, the religious school developed into one of the most famous of its kind in Hadhramaut and attracted many foreign students, mostly from Southeast Asia. The school now occupies a large building in the Aydid district on the outskirts of Tarim. In recent years, Umar has visited Indonesia and other countries in Southeast Asia on a regular basis. A  visit starts at the hawl of al-​ Shaykh Abu Bakr bin Salim (1513–​84), held on a Sunday in the month of Muharram, the first of the Hijri calendar, in Jakarta’s Cidodol district. Abu Bakr was a Sufi sage of wide repute who passed away in the village of Aynat, in Hadhramaut. Although he had never been to Southeast Asia, he is venerated there, as well as in Africa and Hadhramaut, to this day. Many of his descendants migrated to or have visited Southeast Asia, and recently his hawl in Jakarta has developed into one of the largest of its kind in Indonesia, in terms of the number of participants –​said to approach 40,000. 104

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The hawl is organised by Muhsin Idrus al-Hamid, of the al-​Hamid family clan of sada, who have been prominent in the religious and social life of Aynat for generations. Muhsin, a resident of Jakarta, is a chemical engineer and former corporate CEO; like Umar bin Hafiz, he is a descendant of Abu Bakr bin Salim. The hawl of Abu Bakr bin Salim had been an annual event in the Javanese town of Jatibarang at least since 1957, though on its present scale it represents a quite recent phenomenon. It was started by Muhsin and others in Jakarta around the time of the death, in the mid 1990s, of its original organiser. Umar’s attendance signifies its growing popularity and ultimate status as one of the largest ceremonies of its kind.7 In 2014, the hawl was held on the morning of 16 November. The street around the site was filled with participants, and young people in the uniform of Majelis Rasulullah, a study group promoting the da‘wa (call to Islam) run by the disciples of Umar bin Hafiz, who were available to guide the public. The day started with the recitation of some qasaid (poems) and prayers that Abu Bakr and others had composed, accompanied by music played by young students. A brief biography of Abu Bakr was then read by Ahmad Muhammad Alatas, the head of Maktab Daimi, a section of Rabithah Alawiyah (Alawi Union) that maintains the detailed genealogy of the Hadhrami sada. After that some guests from abroad spoke, including Alawi al-​Sari from Abu Dhabi, before Umar bin Hafiz stood to make a speech that was translated by Jindan bin Jindan, Umar’s disciple and the leader of al-​Fachriyah, an organisation for da‘wa and Islamic education in Tangerang, a suburb of Jakarta. After the hawl, Umar visited Islamic schools run by his disciples, led a mawlid session at the Monas (National Monument) in the centre of Jakarta on the following day before departing for the central Javanese city of Solo and later visiting Surabaya and Gresik in East Java and Lombok Island. This part of his tour was arranged by local sada organisations such as the Alawi Union and his former disciples. One of his objectives will have been to recruit new students to his school in Hadhramaut, as well as potential disciples who, after graduation, would arrange his future visits to Indonesia. Despite the current turmoil in Yemen, his visits (and those of others from Hadhramaut) continue. For example, he attended the hawl of al-​ Shaykh Abu Bakr bin Salim in Jakarta again in 2015. 105

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Salim al-​Shatiri The most important visitor from Hadhramaut during the month of the mawlid (December 2014–​January 2015) was Salim bin Abd Allah bin Umar al-​Shatiri, the principal of Ribat Tarim. Like Umar bin Hafiz, he is a highly regarded religious figure in Hadhramaut, and often visits Indonesia to lecture and lead religious ceremonies. He stayed in the house of Abdurahman bin Syech bin Salim Alatas, a local notable of Hadhrami sayyid descent. On 21 December 2014, he attended the reading of the mawlid held at Majlis Ta’lim al-​Habib Abu Bakar bin Hasan al-​Atthos in Depok, a city just south of Jakarta. Abu Bakar al-​Atthos, the founder and head of the Majlis, is a descendant of a Hadhrami who migrated to Batavia and became a leading member of its Arab community in the first half of the twentieth century. Salim al-​Shatiri, the main guest at the ceremony, arrived at its climax to lead the mawlid reading, witness a marriage of local residents and give an address. He was accompanied by his nephew Abd al-​Qadir bin Muhammad al-​Shatiri (often referred to as Jilani) and other Hadhramis. Some of those present, mostly local Indonesians, later followed in his footsteps, jostling one another to grab from what was left on a plate of fruit that had been served to Salim, as a means of acquiring a share of his spiritual aura. On 25 December (a public holiday in Indonesia), Salim had a meeting with some 800 Indonesian ulama from Jakarta, Banten and Tangerang, in the Sunda Kelapa Mosque in central Jakarta, according to the organiser.8 This was arranged by Majelis Al Muwasholah Baina Ulama il Muslimin –​a committee intended to facilitate interaction between Muslim ulama, founded in 2007 by Umar bin Hafiz, which has coordinated meetings between Hadhrami and Indonesian religious scholars.9 The agenda included lectures by Salim and others (including the above-​mentioned ‘Jilani’) delivered in Arabic, followed by translations into Indonesian.10 At the end of the meeting, Salim verbally gave all participants ijaza (‘permission’) to transmit the contents of his lecture to others. In addition to contacting local ulama, Salim also had a meeting with several hundred local Hadhrami sada on 26 December, at the ceremony hall of Daarul Aitam (a home for orphans), a waqf property set up by the sada in Jakarta’s Tanah Abang district. The speech was intended to encourage the Indonesian community of Hadhrami sada to be mindful 106

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of their holy lineage and history.11 Judging from his speeches during his visit, Salim’s intention was to promote greater moral discipline within the Muslim community in Indonesia, whether of Hadhrami origin or not, rather than to share knowledge with them. Such an approach was influenced by the fact that many Indonesians would have studied at his school in Tarim. On 4 January 2015, Salim bin Abd Allah al-​Shatiri attended the hawl of his brother, Hasan bin Abd Allah al-​Shatiri. It was held in the Jakarta house of Abdurahman bin Syech bin Salim Alatas, an entrepreneur of Hadhrami sayyid descent who was Salim’s host during his visit. Hasan al-​Shatiri had been one of Abdurahman Alatas’s teachers. Alatas has acted as an agent for Ribat Tarim, in Indonesia, sending students there, and has made his Islamic boarding school (Pondok Pesantren Masyhad Annur), in the suburb of the Western Javanese town of Sukabumi, a branch of the Ribat. Several Hadhramis resident in Hadhramaut, the UAE and Saudi Arabia accompanied Umar bin Hafiz and Salim al-​Shatiri. Others came independently, visiting relatives and friends. These included two interesting personalities. The first was Abd al-​Rahman bin Ali bin Abu Bakr Balfaqih, a publisher and book trader from a family that runs the Tarim Modern Bookshop (Maktabat Tarim al-​Haditha), the largest bookshop in the town. He also founded the Tarim Centre for Research and Publishing. With his close friend and associate Yahya Alkhatib, a businessman in Singapore and the son of the renowned religious scholar, the late Omar bin Abdullah Alkhatib (d. 1997), he has been a frequent visitor to Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to see friends and relatives. Recently he started to trade books in the region. In Surabaya, a centre of trade and the publishing of religious books in both Arabic and Indonesian, he purchases books for sale at his shop back in Tarim. For example, during his stay in Surabaya in November 2014, he purchased a few thousand copies of books in Arabic to sell to students in Tarim from Southeast Asia and local people in Hadhramaut. The bookshops and publishers in Surabaya are in most cases run by the descendants of Hadhrami migrants. For example, Dar al-​Kutub al-​ Islamiyya, a publisher that has its own shops in Jakarta and Surabaya, was founded by a member of the al-​Aydarus family, one of the eminent sayyid 107

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families of Hadhramaut. Alawi bin Abu Bakr al-​Hamid, the head of al-​ Haramayn publishing in Surabaya and a Hadhrami sayyid, is one of the figures who help Abd al-​Rahman bin Ali Balfaqih to purchase books and send them to Tarim.12 Abd al-​ Rahman’s son Muhammad is currently studying at the International Islamic University Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur. Muhammad had managed to graduate from Sana‘a University, but his studies had been interrupted by the political turmoil of the capital city. In such cases, Southeast Asia can provide Hadhrami youths with opportunities to continue their studies at graduate level. The second notable visitor to Jakarta was Abd Allah bin Ali al-​Attas, the mansab (head) of the al-​Attas family. This clan, which claims descent from the Prophet, has its seat in Hurayda, in Hadhramaut. The family has had two mansabs since the time of Ali and Muhammad, the great-​ grandsons of the founder of the family, Umar bin Abd al-​Rahman al-​Attas (d. 1661). Abd Allah is the mansab of Muhammad’s line, and has been the more active of the two. Many members of the family migrated to Southeast Asia, where their descendants are found in cities including Jakarta, Bogor, Pekalongan and Purwakarta. Abd Allah bin Ali attended ceremonies such as the above-​mentioned hawl of Hasan al-​Shatiri, and a function with the al-​Attas family in Bogor –​where the mausoleum of a local saint, Abd Allah bin Muhsin al-​Attas (d. 1933) is a visitor attraction. In Hadhramaut, people such as Umar bin Hafiz, Salim al-​Shatiri and the mansab of the al-​Attas family are always inundated with guests, so that Indonesia around the month of the mawlid provides scholars with an excellent venue for contact with them.13

Publications on Hadhrami Religious Figures in Indonesian Publication of books on Hadhrami religious figures has been significant since at least the beginning of the 2000s. In certain bookshops, one can find the manaqibs, or hagiographies, of saints of Hadhrami descent who died in Indonesia, as well as of those who had never been to Southeast Asia. Typical themes are the words of famous ulama and arguments in favour of their controversial practice of visiting graves and organising hawls. Recent 108

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translations into Indonesian of Arabic books are also copious, including the works of Abd Allah bin Alawi al-​Haddad (d. 1720), one of the key figures in the development of the Alawi Tariqa (a Sufi order), who resided in al-​Hawi, a suburb of Tarim, as well as those of Zayn bin Sumayt, and the commentary on Ratib al-​Attas written by Ali bin Hasan al-​Attas (d. 1758/​9). Bookshops selling such books include Cahaya Ilmu and Mutiara Ilmu, in the Ampel district of Surabaya. In Indonesia, these texts have limited print-​runs and are not distributed widely, so that it is usually necessary to go to specific shops in order to obtain them. Some are available in Jakarta from Menara Kudus, in Kwitang district, and from Gramedia, the largest book chain and publisher in Indonesia. Shops around a saint’s tomb or street stalls on the day of a hawl are other possible sources. In spite of the relative abundance of books on religious figures, there are few on the culture, society and history of Hadhramaut itself, except for some translations of books published in the West. The name of a book such as Hadhramaut, Bumi Sejuta Wali (‘Hadhramaut: Land of a Million Saints’) well indicates what Indonesian readers expect, and how authors try to depict the region. It offers an account of the history of Hadhramaut and a brief introduction to its major towns. The information is derived from Arabic sources written by the sada, and much of the description of principal towns is devoted to the biography of the saints those towns produced. The text comes with coloured pictures of landscape, towns, streets and houses of the saints, and above all or their tombs in the graveyards of Hadhramaut. The book’s cover features Umar bin Hafiz and Salim al-​ Shatiri. Hadhramaut is mostly depicted in such books as the origin of revered saints. These books are essentially light reading, and are not intended to stimulate profound discussion on religious matters. One of the most popular works of this kind is 17 Habaib Berpengaruh di Indonesia (‘17 Influential Habibs in Indonesia’). First published in October 2008, and reprinted 11 times by November 2013, the book comprises short biographies of 17 descendants of the Prophet who continue to exert influence in Indonesia. Among them, 16 are of Hadhrami origin, having lived in various towns in Java and beyond –​for example, Husein bin Abubakar al-​Aydrus (from Luar Batang, Jakarta) and Muhammad bin Idrus al-​Habsyi (from Surabaya). The 17th is Muhammad bin Alawi al-​Maliki, who lived in Saudi Arabia 109

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but had many disciples from Indonesia. Each chapter narrates the life history of a sayyid, giving his birth and death dates, genealogy, teachers and disciples, with anecdotes illustrating his piety. Popularly visited graves are also described. The breadth of available information on Hadhrami religious figures was boosted by Alkisah, a bi-​weekly magazine published in Jakarta. It was first produced in 2003 by Harun Musawa, a Hadhrami sayyid whose family ran a publishing business. It initially covered news related to Islam in general, but later changed its policy to focus on the activities of Hadhrami sada, which helped it to sustain its readership, and confirmed a demand for news about the sada. Articles included biographies of saints, reports on the activities of young sada, hawls in Indonesia, and some news on Hadhramaut. It even covered the ziyara (annual visit) of the Prophet Hud, a pre-​Islamic figure whose domed tomb is situated in the eastern end of Wadi Hadhramaut. Although publication stopped after March 2014, the magazine helped Indonesian readers to become familiar with the activities of the sada, leaving a precious contemporary account of their religious life in Indonesia.14 The mini-​boom of book publication occurred in parallel with the increase in the number of Indonesian students studying in Hadhramaut, visits of Hadhrami religious figures to Indonesia, and the more recent revival of saint-​veneration in Java, as well as greater youth involvement in da‘wa-​related activities. Those involved in these activities will cite the life histories of their Hadhrami teachers or other upright men of Hadhrami descent at every opportunity. They may even translate Arabic materials into Indonesian, so that many Indonesian nationals, including the descendants of Hadhrami immigrants, can read these accounts –​though the quality of translation is, in most cases, quite poor. The extent to which these phenomena have had an impact on local religious activities remains to be seen, pending a proper survey. There are Indonesians who show no interest in –​and sometimes criticise –​what can be called the cult of saints. Even some sada, especially those who place emphasis on a modern style of education, stay away from activities related to saint-​veneration. My argument here is that direct connections between the people of Hadhramaut and those of Southeast Asia, through religious education, have at least accelerated in the past 20 years. 110

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The Accessibility of Southeast Asia from Hadhramaut My observations in 2014–​15 indicated that the problems then afflicting the Republic of Yemen had not, up to that time, deterred residents of Hadhramaut from going abroad. On the other hand, travel to the region from outside Yemen has become difficult –​not because of legal barriers (such as visa controls) but because of security concerns. For various historical reasons, it has not been uncommon for Hadhramaut to be inaccessible to outsiders for extended periods. The main drivers of large-​scale emigration after the eighteenth century were insecurity and tribal conflict –​factors that also deterred visitors and limited the propagation of knowledge of the region. As this and earlier chapters have shown, the main destination for migrants was maritime Southeast Asia; by the turn of the twentieth century, the islands that are now encompassed by Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore had become the chief destinations of Hadhrami migrants, in terms of both their overall number and the volume of remittances to Hadhramaut. They also became the places where da‘wa by religions figures among them was chiefly conducted. This was a period when it was often difficult for foreigners to visit Hadhramaut. Even if they could reach the ‘entrance’ of the region, at Mukalla, movement within Hadhramaut was difficult because of the risk of being kidnapped by the tribes. Some settled people of the region were reluctant to receive foreigners. Thus it was necessary for those outside the region to seek a proper contact point to obtain information. It is telling that, until the early 1930s, the most comprehensive source of information on Hadhramaut for outsiders was Le Hadhramout et les Colonies Arabes dans l’Archipel Indien (Hadhramaut and the Arab colonies in the Indian Archipelago) by Lodewijk van den Berg, a Dutch scholar and colonial officer. Although the book contains valuable information on the region, the ‘field study’ on which it was based was conducted not in Hadhramaut but in the Dutch East Indies. Van den Berg interviewed newly arrived immigrants from Hadhramaut about the situation of their homeland, putting the results together in a monograph. Without the close human connection between Southeast Asia and Hadhramaut, van den Berg’s study could not have materialised.15 Scholars with Southeast Asian connections found it easier to travel in Hadhramaut. Daniel van der Meulen, a Dutch diplomat, conducted 111

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a research trip in Hadhramaut in 1931 with Hermann von Wissmann, a German geographer. When the two Europeans landed at Mukalla, they met one Alawi al-​Attas, a Javan-​born Hadhrami who came from the influential al-​Attas family. Because Alawi accompanied them, their passage into the interior was relatively smooth. In places, van der Meulen was able to speak to influential people in Malay rather than Arabic. He realised that his days as a civil servant in the Dutch East Indies would facilitate his travel in Hadhramaut.16 Van den Berg and van der Meulen were able to use their involvement with the Dutch colonial state in Southeast Asia to connect, directly and indirectly, with the residents of Hadhramaut. Meanwhile, Hadhramis in Southeast Asia could use their own networks to obtain information on the homeland, while Arabic periodicals published in Southeast Asia at the time covered contemporary news of Hadhramaut. In short, Southeast Asia served as a gateway for information on and physical access to Hadhramaut.

From the General Truce to the Independence of the South (1937–​90) The general truce (Ingram’s Peace) among tribes in Hadhramaut in 1937 opened the way for its residents to live and move in peace within the region. Direct access to the region also became possible for outsiders. It is not surprising that, during this period, fully fledged studies on Hadhramaut, some of which have become indispensable for understanding South Arabian society, were conducted by many scholars, whether Western or Hadhrami. However, this was also a period when the importance of Southeast Asia within the Hadhrami diaspora began gradually to decline. As a result of events during and after World War II, migration to, and remittances from, Southeast Asia almost ground to a halt. Southeast Asia could no longer serve as the access point to Hadhramaut. By the 1960s, Hadhrami migration in the Indian Ocean was a thing of the past; most new emigrants now went to Saudi Arabia and the GCC states. During the PDRY period, it was extremely difficult for those in Southeast Asia to visit the homeland. Although they must have used their own networks across the region to obtain information on Hadhramaut, many were unable to gain first-​hand experience of the region. It was no 112

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longer feasible for religious figures of Hadhrami descent to visit their great ancestors, who provided the backbone of their identity, buried in famous cemeteries such as Zanbal, in Tarim. Ironically, one of the more fortunate outcomes of the PDRY period was the opportunity given to Russian scholars to conduct research on history, local life, architecture and archaeology in Hadhramaut –​which continues to this day.17

Unified Yemen (1990 to the Present) Hadhramaut became much more accessible after the unification of Yemen. Although the establishment and governance of the newly founded Republic of Yemen were problematic, unity brought greater security and quickly led to a resumption of strong contacts between the Hadhrami homeland and the diaspora communities. From the perspective of Southeast Asia, the period after the unification witnessed a phenomenon that has not been observed before: foreign students from former destinations of Hadhrami migration now came to study in Hadhramaut, the majority from Southeast Asia. The most popular destination is the inland town of Tarim, with its three schools for religious studies. Initially the majority of the students were the descendants of emigrants, but the number of non-​Hadhramis increased as the schools became larger, partly motivated by scholarships offered to prospective students in Tarim. After completing their studies (in many cases lasting five years), they returned to their respective homes and started teaching at religious schools, or founded organisations for conducting da‘wa. The first-​generation students who went to Dar al-​Mustafa to study under Umar bin Hafiz, such as Jindan bin Jindan, Munzir Almusawa and Sholeh Aljufri, became famous in Indonesia, and made Hadhramaut an attractive place for those who wanted to study abroad. On the other hand, the revival of Tarim as the centre of religious education has been made possible mainly by the influx of Southeast Asian students, and by free movement to and from Hadhramaut. The publication and trading of books began to flourish. For example, the Tarim Modern Bookshop was just a small bookshop in 1996, but had expanded rapidly by 2001, and further by 2006  –​and continued to do so thereafter.18 Its expansion coincided with the flow of foreign, mostly 113

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Indonesian, students who sought religious knowledge there. The publication of books on Hadhramaut, and of books not usually used as textbooks in religious schools, also increased. Literary works that existed only in manuscript, such as al-​Udda al-​Mufida,19 Tarikh Shanbal,20 Tarikh al-​Shihr21 and ‘Aqd al-​ Jawahir wa al-​Durar,22 have been published, though the quality of editing can be variable. New editions of old printed books also appeared, making them accessible to a new generation. With the introduction of the photocopier, copies of some manuscripts became available in some bookshops. In addition to the newly edited versions of old works, there are publications in unprecedented number on local history, customs, biographies of Hadhrami notables in modern times, manaqib works dedicated to new-​generation saints and collections of poems, as well as academic studies of Hadhramaut. Students from abroad are thus exposed to a variety of books and photocopied manuscripts on Hadhramaut, some of which must have served as sources of information for the books in Indonesian mentioned above. * The opening of Hadhramaut in the last 25 years has also seen an influx of researchers specialising in various disciplines, leading to the publication of new books and articles not only on Hadhramaut itself, but also on the Hadhrami diaspora. Hadhramaut is no longer a neglected region, and the spate of studies on the Hadhrami diaspora  –​if not yet on Hadhramaut itself  –​had not abated by the beginning of 2014. They were likely to be severely challenged by the political violence of 2015 and 2016, however. The close connection between Hadhramaut and Indonesia, and the flourishing publication in Indonesia of books on Hadhramaut that I observed in 2014–​15, are fruits of the relative political openness of Hadhramaut since 1990. For those in Hadhramaut, Southeast Asia may no longer be a destination of migration, but it has become a place for periodic visits where they can meet with relatives, visit the tombs of saints of Hadhrami descent, communicate with ulama and recruit students. For those in Indonesia, Hadhramaut has become a more familiar place because of visits by notables and the abundance of books on religious figures from the region. In other words, popular connections across the Indian Ocean have been revived in a more religiously oriented form. Indonesia has appeared as a new focal point of the Hadhrami diaspora, and its status was enhanced after the virtual closure of the region to outsiders. At the 114

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same time, the opening of Hadhramaut in recent decades has enabled an abundance of scholarship that has contributed to knowledge of the region among not only those in the diaspora, but also a much wider audience. Although it has become extremely difficult for foreigners to visit Hadhramaut, its inhabitants have remained relatively free to move in and out of Hadhramaut. In this sense, the ‘closure’ of Hadhramaut resembles the situation not of the early years of the PDRY, but of the time before 1937 and the general truce. Information on Hadhramaut can be obtained through Hadhrami visitors to Indonesia, for example. If one is interested in the region, it is possible to meet Hadhramis in this Southeast Asian country –​just as van den Berg did in the nineteenth century. However, it should be remembered that those actively involved in the current ‘revival’ of the diaspora in Southeast Asia are mostly from the religiously oriented group of the sada. The activities of other groups or strata within the Hadhrami community in the region are far less visible, if at all. Also, the decrease in Southeast Asian students from Tarim, a bedrock of such interchange, may have a negative influence on human interaction if the current instability is prolonged. In the modern era, the opening and closure of Hadhramaut have formed a cyclical phenomenon that is repeated every few decades. We may now be entering another period of closure, when the region will become inaccessible to foreigners. Despite this perpetual change, at each juncture, Hadhramis within and outside Hadhramaut have found means of coping with the situation in order to maintain contact with one another. At the time of writing, we do not know exactly when Hadhramaut will ‘re-​open’. In the meantime, the diaspora in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Peninsula will be the main contact point for Hadhramis and their homeland.23

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16

Figure 5.1  The Sulu Sultan and his Suite, c. 1900.

Figure 5.2  Young Hadhrami immigrants landing at Surabaya, Dutch East Indies, in the 1920s.

 17

Figure 5.3  The Imperial Delhi Durbar, 1903, with the Sultan of Qu’ayti on the second elephant with his wazir. From the archives of the Al-Qu‘aiti Royal Family.

Figure 5.4  Amir (later Sultan) Ghalib bin Awadh al-Qu‘aiti (second right) visiting Shabwa, the capital of ancient Hadhramaut, 1965. From the archives of the Al-​Qu‘aiti Royal Family.

18

Figure 5.5 Mukalla Harbour in the 1950s. From the archives of the Al-​Qu‘aiti Royal Family.

Figure 5.6  Wadi Hadhramaut, west of Qatn, 1999 © Helen Lackner.

 19

Figure 5.7 Cultivation near Hami, seen from the air, Hadhramaut © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

Figure 5.8  The Meshhed Ziyarah in December 1950 (John Hewitt from the late John Shipman’s collection).

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Figure 5.9 Hadhrami elders at a daily meeting in Morogoro, Tanzania, 2016. Courtesy of Abdalla Bujra.

Figure 5.10 Issa Msallam Balala (fourth from right) with members of the Hadhrami community in Mombasa, 1965.

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Notes 1. Mohammad Rofik Anwari, ‘Ketegangan tak menyentuh Hadramaut’, Tempo, 1 March 2015, p. 12. 2. BBC Indonesia, ‘Trensosial:  mahasiswa di Hadramaut masih main bola’, 2 April 2015. Available at www.bbc.com/​indonesia/​majalah/​2015/​04/​150402_​ trensosial_​yaman_​mahasiswa (accessed 19 October 2015). 3. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, ‘Foreign Minister RI:  Evacuation of Indonesian Citizens in Yemen Was Done Quickly, Safely and Efficiently’, 6 April 2015. Available at www.kemlu.go.id/​en/​ berita/​Pages/​Foreign-​M inister-​R I-​Evacuation-​of-​Indonesian-​C itizens-​ in- ​ Yemen- ​ w as- ​ d one- ​ q uickly- ​ s afely- ​ a nd- ​ e fficient.aspx  (accessed 19 October 2015). 4. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, ‘Update of Indonesian Citizen Evacuation:  Evacuation Team Reports from Tarim, Yemen’, 5 April 2015. Available at www.kemlu.go.id/​en/​berita/​Pages/​Update-​of-​Indonesian-​ Citizen- ​ Evacuation- ​ Evacuation- ​ Team- ​ R eports- ​ f rom- ​ Tarim- ​ Yemen.aspx (accessed 19 October 2015). 5. BBC Middle East, ‘Yemen Crisis: Al Qaeda Seizes Southern Airport’, 16 April 2015. Available at www.bbc.com/​news/​world-​middle-​east-​32341836 (accessed 19 October 2015). 6. Personal communication, Hasan Aljufri, director of the Al-​Ahgaff University in Indonesia, 20 October 2015. 7. Personal communication, Muhsin Idrus al-Hamid, 5 July 2013. 8. Majelis Al Muwasholah Baina Ulama il Muslimin, ‘Halaqah Ilmiah Ulama Bersama Al Habib Salim Assyatiri’, 30 December 2014. Available at web. archive.org/​web/​20150404060020/​http://​majelisalmuwasholah.com/​2014/​ 12/​30/​halaqah-​ilmiah-​ulama-​bersama-​al-​habib-​salim-​assyatiri (accessed 1 August 2016). 9. Information on this council can be obtained from the archives of their website (web.archive.org/​web/​20150507105111/​http://​majelisalmuwasholah. com). According to the site, they started publishing a monthly magazine, Al Muwasholah, in September 2014. I have not obtained the magazine, and the website was closed sometime after April 2015. Their Facebook page is still in operation, however. 10. These addressed prevalent social issues of concern to Muslims in Indonesia, such as smoking and sexual misconduct. The speakers did not have time to discuss specific issues concerning religious doctrine. 11. For example, he said that the young generation knew the name of famous football players and entertainers, but were not aware of the names of their great ancestors. In his view, they needed to know more about their historical background.

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 12. Personal communication, Abd al-​Rahman b.  Ali Balfaqih, November 2014. I do not know how the recent evacuation of Indonesian students affected his business back in Tarim. 13. When I visited Hurayda for the first time, in 2001, the mansab, a man of dignified bearing, was leading the ziyara (visit) of al-​Mashhad, the village close to Hurayda. Since I had limited time on my visit to Hadhramaut at the time, and he was busy as one of the central figures of the ziyara, I had little opportunity to talk to him. But when we met in Jakarta I had the chance to talk alone with him, when he patiently listened and answered my questions. Hurayda is not easily accessible at the best of times, so our meeting in Jakarta, although short, was a precious occasion. 14. For general information on Alkisah, see Kazuhiro Arai, ‘The Sayyids as Commodities: The Islamic Periodical Alkisah and the Sayyid Community in Indonesia’, in K. Morimoto (ed.), Sayyids and Sharifs in Muslim Societies: The Living Links to the Prophet (London and New York, 2012), pp. 247–​66. After publication of the magazine stopped, some Arab Indonesians of sada descent were planning to start another magazine of the same kind, but with greater emphasis on the activities of intellectuals as well as those of religious figures. Personal communication, Ali Yahya, 29 December 2014. 15. It was not until the end of the period that a British colonial officer, W.  H. Ingrams, conducted comprehensive research on the social, economic and political situation in Hadhramaut, publishing the results in 1936. In a sense, it followed up the work of van den Berg, though Ingrams’s version is based on research conducted in Hadhramaut itself. 16. D. van der Meulen and Hermann von Wissmann, Hadramaut:  Some of Its Mysteries Unveiled (Leiden, 1932), p. 45. 17. For example, see M. N. Suvorov and M. A. Rodionov (eds), Cultural Anthropology of Southern Arabia: Hadhramaut Revisited (St Petersburg, 1999). The proceedings of a conference held in 1996, this volume contains articles written by Russian scholars based on research conducted during the Soviet era. See also Mikhail A. Rodionov, The Western Hadramawt: Ethnographic Field Research, 1983–​91 (Halle, 2007), the English version of his dissertation based on anthropological research conducted in 1983–​91. 18. Based on observations by the author. 19. Salim bin Muhammad Ibn Hamid, Tarikh Hadramawt al-​Musamma bi-​al-​ Udda al-​Mufida (Sana‘a, 1991). 20. Ahmad bin Abd Allah Shanbal, Tarikh Hadramawt al-​ Ma‘ruf bi-​Tarikh Shanbal (n.p., 1994). 21. Muhammad bin Umar Ba Faqih, Tarikh al-​Shihr wa Akhbar al-​Qarn al-​Ashir (Sana‘a, 1999).

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Networking through Religious Figures 22. Muhammad bin Abu Bakr al-​Shilli, Aqd al-​Jawahir wa-​al-​Durar fi Akhbar al-​ Qarn al-​Hadi Ashar (Sana‘a, 2003). 23. At the time of editing (July 2016), Hadhramaut, especially Tarim, saw many students coming from Southeast Asia to study religious subjects. They seem to consider the region, or the town, to be safe. Say‘un airport in the inland Wadi was closed, and the students came to Tarim by land across the Yemen–​Oman border. Personal communication, Abd al-​Rahman bin Ali Balfaqih, 4 July 2016. Meanwhile, the Indonesian government continues to urge its citizens not to visit Yemen.

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6 Arab Muslim Migrants in the Colonial Philippines: The Hadhramaut Connection William G. Clarence-​Smith

Lodewijk van den Berg, in his seminal Le Hadhramout et les colonies arabes dans l’archipel indien, asserted that, while Hadhrami ships called occasionally in Philippine ports, there was no settled ‘colony’ there. Indeed, the archipelago lay almost wholly outside their sphere of activity.1 These sweeping statements have unfortunately led most researchers into the history of the Hadhrami diaspora to neglect the Philippines. To be sure, Spaniards and Americans were more hostile to foreign Muslims than either their Dutch or British colonial neighbours, but this did not entirely stifle Hadhrami connections. The southern Philippine islands are home to a significant Muslim population, accounting for about a twentieth of the total population of the country. Spanish colonialists, developing a Christian colony in the north and centre from 1571, called these Muslims ‘Moros’, meaning Moors, which is sometimes rendered today as ‘Bangsamoros’. It is often said that a 300-​year conflict characterised Spanish–Moro relations –​a crusade for Christians, and a jihad for Muslims. This skates over much more complicated processes of interaction, but it remains the case that the Spaniards never fully conquered the Muslims of the southern marches of their colony.2 The Moros were united in their Sunni Shafi’i form of Islam, which may have reached the area from around the fourteenth century CE, but they 124

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never formed a single political or ethnic unit. Some thirteen languages are spoken in the Moro zone, although they are all part of the Austronesian family, and linguists consider that some languages are dialectally related to others. Politically, the zone was divided into three traditional sultanates: Sulu, Maguindanao and Maranao. These states often split up further, particularly in the case of Maranao, which was exceedingly politically fragmented by around 1800.3 Catholic Spaniards, given their long tradition of war with the Moros, suspected foreign Muslims of spying and stirring up holy war. However, Spanish control over the southern Philippines was weak. The Spaniards never exercised more than a tenuous grip on the main towns, even during the last few decades of their rule. Moreover, international obligations stood in the way of restrictive policies, because free trade agreements for the Sulu sultanate were accepted by treaty in 1878 and  1885.4 The Americans, influenced by their Christian Filipino wards, adopted much of the Spanish mind-​set towards the Moros on taking over the colony in 1898.5 The American regime poured resources into establishing a more effective colonial system in the area, and yet was never able entirely to subdue the restive Muslim march.6 Muslim immigrants, many of them apparently of Hadhrami origin, occupied specific niches in the southern Philippines, similar to those that they occupied elsewhere in Southeast Asia.7 They acted as Islamic specialists, notably if they were drawn from families that claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad. Elite men might further assume official roles in the Moro administration. Some resisted Spanish and American domination, whereas others collaborated pragmatically with colonial rulers. To some degree, traders and shippers connected the southern Philippines commercially to the rest of Southeast Asia. In contrast, these migrants were little engaged in independent production for the market, or in waged employment.

Hadhrami Connections from the ‘Mists of Time’ The sultanates of the southern Philippines were rooted in myths of Islamisation that linked them to Hadhramaut and to descent from 125

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the Prophet Muhammad.8 Indeed, a claim of filiation to the Prophet is standard among Muslim ruling houses of the southern Philippines, in contrast with the rest of Southeast Asia, where such claims appear sparingly. These stories vary in detail, and dates have been variously assessed, but the overall thrust of this material is clearly that the Prophet’s blood ran in the veins of the sultans of the Philippines. At the same time, sultans also drew authority from Malay notions of kingship (kerajaan), and from animist legends of princesses emerging from bamboo plants.9 Sharif Hasan is remembered in some stories as the first sultan of Sulu, and the converter of the people to Islam. Local traditions preserve the memory of other Arabs –​sharing this exalted status of descendent of the Prophet –​who entered the area at around this time.10 In other stories, Sayyid Abu Bakr, allegedly born in Mecca, is credited with having been the first sultan of Sulu, arriving around 1450 CE. Like Sharif Hasan, he sometimes morphs into Sharif Hashim.11 Similarly, the founder of the sultanate of Maguindanao, around 1500 CE, is said to have been Sharif Kabungsuwan, a descendant of the Prophet who converted the people to Islam. This man was in turn the son of Sharif Ali bin Zayn al-​Abidin, who had married a daughter of the sultan of Johor, in the Malay Peninsula. Sharif Ali was himself a descendant of Sharif Alawi, and 16th in line from Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.12 A brother of Sharif Kabungsuwan, named Alawi, is claimed as the progenitor of the numerous petty Maranao sultans.13 Strictly speaking, the title of these revered ancestors should have been Sayyid, not Sharif, given their claim of descent through the Prophet’s grandson Husayn rather than Hasan.14 Documents sometimes record such titles as Sayed, Sayid, Si, Sii, and so forth. However, in the Malay world, the term Sarip, or Salip, the local reading of Sharif, was often employed for descendants of both Hasan and Husayn. In Spanish documents, this title was often rendered as Cherif or Sherife, or some other variant of the word. After the flurry of traditions surrounding founding lineages, there is something of a silence until around the middle of the eighteenth century 126

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CE. At that point, one Alawi Balpaki, allegedly from Mecca, is reported to have reformed Islam, while converting many infidels.15 In all likelihood, this was a Hadhrami from the Balfaqih or Bilfaqih sayyid family of Tarim, or possibly from the Ba Faqih sayyid family of Mukalla. The early establishment of families claiming descent from the Prophet creates a considerable problem of interpretation for the modern period. The sources are full of references to people of sharif status, many of whom were believed to possess supernatural powers.16 But observers very rarely stated whether these people came from old, established local families that had lost their connections with the Middle East, or whether they were immigrants of recent vintage. One clue is that the Spaniards sometimes employed the title Si, or Sii, a North African contraction of Sayyid, in contexts suggesting that they were referring to recent Arab immigrants. Thus, in a list of 48 notables involved in selecting a new sultan of Sulu in 1884, there were 19 men entitled Sharif, and four men bearing the title of Si, one of whom was called Si Ayardorus.17 The latter was in all probability a member of the famous and widely dispersed Hadhrami sayyid family of al-​Aydarus.

Officials in the Moro Sultanates References to Arabs taking up senior administrative posts in the southern sultanates became quite common from the eighteenth century CE. By 1810, ulama from as far as ‘the furthest margin of the Red Sea’ flocked to the court of the Sultan of Sulu.18 Although they frequently claimed to come from Mecca, this may have been because such an origin would have enhanced their Islamic credentials. Moreover, quite a few Hadhrami families had a branch established in the holy cities.19 In any event, Sultan Azim al-​Din I of Sulu (r. 1735–​48 and 1764–​74) appointed Arabs, of unspecified origins, to the position of chief qadi, or judge.20 Datu Uto, ruler of the Upper Pulangui river in Mindanao from 1860 to 1888, named an Arab alim ‘from Mecca’ as his chief qadi, and as one of his ministers.21 Harun al-​Rashid, Sultan of Sulu (1886–​94), appointed yet more Arabs as chief qadi.22 The wazir (prime minister) of Sulu in 1886 127

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was Shaykh Mustafa bin Ahmad, whose later career is surveyed below.23 In the Lake Lanao region in 1890, a sharif acted as the local qadi, and was said to possess an Arabic book of laws. But he was referred to as a ‘Turk’, which may have indicated an origin in Ottoman lands.24 Non-​Hadhrami Middle Eastern Muslims certainly acted as religious and political functionaries. Muhammad Ismail, sultan of Sulu (1774–​8), appointed a ‘Turk from Istanbul’ as his chief qadi.25 This was possibly a Shafi’i scholar from Greater Syria resident in Istanbul, given that the Hanafi school of law prevailed in that city, whereas the Shafi’i school was that of the southern Philippines. Jamal al-​Din, sultan of Sulu (1862–​81) had an ‘Afghan’ chief qadi, of indeterminate ethnicity.26 Sharif Afdal of Bukhara, who spoke Hindustani (Urdu), was the chief adviser of Datu Piang of Mindanao in the 1890s, and a key figure in the Islam of Cotobato.27 Although the Hanafi school of law predominated in Inner Asia, there were Shafi’i Muslims there, notably in Bukhara. ‘Sherifs’ acting in an official capacity for sultans persisted for a little while after the American takeover in 1898.28 Foreign ulama of this kind in Mindanao in the 1900s came not only from Arabia, but also from Anatolia, Bukhara, and ‘Afghanistan’.29 But America’s flirtation with ‘indirect rule’ did not last long, and the powers of indigenous sultans were at first reduced, and then officially suppressed after 1913.30

Resistance to Colonialism Some Muslim immigrants of high status appear to have strenuously opposed the spread of colonial power, notably in the Sulu archipelago. From the 1880s, the Jesuits accused sharifs in Sulu, recently arrived from Singapore, of stirring up suicide attacks on Spaniards.31 The missionaries suggested that the authorities should ban the entry of these Sharifs, as they were spreading fanatical versions of Islam.32 Such a prohibition, however, might have contravened the free trade status granted to Sulu in 1878. In the Cotabato sultanate of Mindanao, ‘Sharifs’ were further blamed for fanning the flames of resistance to the Spaniards. This was reported in the Upper Pulangui valley in 1887.33 In 1892, the Jesuits protested that the authorities were doing too little to exclude ‘Malay sharifs’, who were propagating Islamic ‘fanaticism’ and hatred for Spaniards in this area.34 128

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Immigrant Muslims of this stamp were also found in the politically fragmented Lake Lanao region. Thus, in 1890, a ‘Turkish’ sharif acting as qadi was married to the daughter of a local datu (noble). This man was considered to be in connivance with a ‘Syrian’ peddler on the north coast, and the pair stood accused of orchestrating resistance to a major Spanish military campaign.35 In 1891, Spanish forces seized the central fort of Marawi in this region. They killed a reputed sharif during the fighting, albeit indicating neither his name nor origin.36 As a consequence of this campaign, the Spaniards imposed restrictions on the movement of foreign Muslims into the large island of Mindanao, where Spain was free of the international treaties that tied its hands in the Sulu archipelago. A decree of 21 September 1890 set out a prohibition on such people entering Mindanao, although it was possible to request an exemption. One Sharif Abd al-​Rahman, described as a ‘Malay’ and heading for Cotabato, was questioned in terms of this decree in 1892, although he was eventually permitted to proceed.37 The governor of Sulu refused permission for an Arab to travel to Mindanao in 1897, asserting that Arabs were ‘pampered’ by local Muslims.38 Jesuit missionaries complained that official restrictions were not being rigorously enforced.39 After the American takeover in 1898, the influence of ‘fanatical Arab priests’ was regularly blamed for any resistance to the new colonial rulers.40 Thus, ‘old Sayuduceman [Sayyid Uthman], one of the heads of the Moro Church’, promised friendship to the Americans, but then attacked them in 1902.41 ‘Mahommedan priests from Arabia’ were allegedly found ‘in the most remote parts of the Archipelago’.42 One observer noted that ‘relays of Arabs’ came as ‘Koran expounders’ from time to time.43 With the American abolition of slavery in 1903, the gloves were off, and a wave of violence erupted.44 Hajji from Arabia and Central Asia were accused of fomenting attacks in the Pulangui Valley.45 Arabs ‘who knew something of engineering’ helped Datu Ali, the chief anti-​American leader, to build a strong fort.46 Datu Ali, himself boasting of descent from the Prophet, consulted a ‘sherif, his spiritual adviser’.47 In Sulu, Habib Muhammad Masdali, an ‘Arab priest’, stirred up local nobles in 1904. He claimed to be from Mecca, and he had only been in the island for a couple of years. He allegedly provided Moros with invulnerability charms to fight 129

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the Americans. Once captured, he was shipped off to Singapore.48 ‘Arab priests’ were still said to be arriving in Sulu from foreign lands in 1913, preaching ‘death and destruction for Christians’.49 The Americans encountered particular difficulties in subduing the Maranao peoples around Lake Lanao, and a British observer referred to the area as being ‘overrun with … sayids or priests, who are the chief instigators of trouble’.50 ‘Arab priests’ were once again blamed for stirring up trouble in the Lake Lanao area in 1905.51 Violence died down after 1913, though it never entirely disappeared, and the attachment of blame to ‘Arab priests’ for leading anti-​colonial movements only slowly receded from the American colonial record.52 Thus, in 1920, the Americans arrested an ‘Arab missionary’, who was said to have been terrorizing one of the districts near Zamboanga, in north-​ western Mindanao.53

Collaboration with Colonialism The secondary literature refers little to Muslim Arab cooperation with colonial rule, and yet this went back at least to the eighteenth century, in response to changing patterns of Spanish colonial policy. Bourbon reforms were long delayed in this distant outpost of empire, but the Crown gradually distanced itself from the Catholic Church, ceasing to describe clashes with Moros as crusades. More importantly, freedom of religion was promised to any sultanate that accepted Spanish sovereignty, rather than the older choice between death, exile or conversion to Catholicism.54 Official instructions in 1855 still singled out ‘Sharifs’ as people who needed to be closely observed, but advised that Dutch policies towards these people should be copied.55 Presumably, this implied cautious co-​optation. As the Spaniards began, from the late 1840s, to gain the upper hand militarily, with the help of steamers and modern artillery, immigrant Arabs became more willing to co-​operate with them. After a Spanish victory in 1851, the sultan of Sulu and eleven of his datu affixed their seals to a peace treaty, which was also signed by one Sharif Muhammad bin Sarin.56 The name suggests a recent immigrant, although not necessarily a Hadhrami. The colonial authorities awarded him a stipend of 360 pesos a year, ‘on account of his good services to the Spanish government’.57 By 130

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1864, this man had died, and the Sultan of Sulu was proposing that Sharif Abdallah Aola (Awla?) should replace him, with the same salary. Among Sharif Abdallah’s followers were Si Alawi and Si Abdallah Zaman, the first of whom sounds especially Hadhrami.58 Shaykh Mustafa bin Ahmad, claiming birth in Mecca, came to Sulu around 1875, earning a reputation as ‘the most learned man in the tenets of the Mohammedan faith’.59 He played a key role in the official Spanish announcement of a new Sultan, Harun, appointed in Manila on 24 September 1886 as the ally of the Spaniards. Shaykh Mustafa then became the new wazir of Sulu.60 There were others working with the Spaniards, and at least some of them were recent immigrants. From 1882, the colonial authorities recognised Sharif Aqil, ‘the Moro bishop of Basilan and adjacent islands’, as the ruler of the northern half of Basilan.61 One Jesuit wrote in 1887 of Sharif Abu Bakr, settled in the Spanish stronghold of Zamboanga: ‘When he deals with the Spaniards, he pretends great friendship and is very obsequious.’ On the side, though, he was accused of making money out of selling unauthorised passports to Moros.62 For all the American fulmination against ‘fanatical Arab priests’, it is clear that some collaborated with the new colonial masters after 1898. Among the signatories of the Bates Agreement in Sulu in 1899 were Sherif Saguir and Habib Mura, both of whom were to be paid a regular salary by the American administration.63 Sarip Alawi, a name redolent of a Hadhrami connection, assisted the Raja of Tapul Island in the Sulu archipelago. He was reported to be ‘friendly to the Government’ in 1907.64 Not all these descendants of the Prophet were Arabs, however. Thus, Sharif Afdal, who played a major role as a go-​between in American campaigns in the Pulangui Valley in the early 1900s, hailed from Afghanistan or Bukhara.65 Arabs also worked with the Americans in the sphere of education, notably Shaykh Mustafa bin Ahmad, ‘from Mecca’, who had already cooperated with the Spaniards in Sulu. He worked closely with the new administration to develop schools in Sulu and Zamboanga. In 1911, he also edited a periodical, the Sulu News, for the government. He was portrayed as a pillar of the southern establishment.66 Indeed, his death, in 1935, was officially notified to the authorities in Washington.67 131

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Two months after Shaykh Mustafa bin Ahmad had been appointed as ‘native teacher’ in the Moro Province, he was joined by Shaykh Mohammed Ginad on 1 December 1903. The two men received an annual salary of 1,800 pesos, three to six times that of other ‘native teachers’, who seem to have been largely Christian Filipinos.68 These shaykhs were two Arabs, recruited by Dr Najeeb Saleeby, the Christian Lebanese head of schools in Moro Province.69 Mohammed Ginad probably refers to Muhammad Ba Junayd. This Hadhrami family was to become the most prominent in the Philippines in later years.70

Independent Ulama and Islamic Reform Foreign descendants of the Prophet, acting as ulama, were not necessarily connected to either sultans or colonial rulers. Jesuit sources stressed that ‘Sharifs’ served at the pinnacle of the Moro religious hierarchy, referring to them as Muslim ‘bishops’. Literacy in Arabic partly explained their influence.71 They also had a reputation as healers. Thus, during a cholera epidemic in 1882, Moros were reported to have paid a fee to wear the head covering of a Sarip, to protect them against the disease.72 ‘Sharifs’ residing beyond the main sultanates bore the brunt of Jesuit missionising efforts. The Jesuits enjoyed the greatest success in the Davao region of south-​eastern Mindanao, notably on Samal Island, which was an area into which Muslims had only moved fairly recently. In this mission field, some 6,000 Moro Muslims received Catholic baptism in 1894 alone.73 In that same year, a ‘Sharif ’ who had arrived in Davao some three years earlier from Singapore was converted to Catholicism.74 Independent foreign ulama filled the vacuum left by the decay of the courts of sultans and nobles. Some Moros revered these ulama, notably if they were descended from the Prophet, although others resented their pretensions.75 From the 1880s, a major centre of reformist Islam developed at Taluksangkay, near Zamboanga, in north-​western Mindanao. Always independent of Moro political elites, this settlement gave rise to various reform movements up to the 1930s.76 Among the shaykhs who taught, there were foreign Arabs of unspecified provenance.77 Unusually for Southeast Asia, such independent Arab ulama came partly from the ‘Syrian’ community in the Philippines  –​a term that 132

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encompassed Lebanese and Palestinians.78 Thus, Sayyid Wajih al-​Kilani, known as the Shaykh al-​Islam of the Philippines from 1914 to 1916, was a Palestinian from Nablus and Nazareth.79 Active from the late 1920s was Shaykh Muhammad bin Munib Kuzbari, from a family that had taught Hadith studies in the Ummayad mosque of Damascus since 1795.80 His application for entry to the Philippines declared that he wished to teach Islam.81 Muhammad Shwayb, from Lebanon, came to the Philippines to work in a confectionery business, but the firm failed, and Shwayb became a reputed Muslim teacher at the Maganoy madrassa in Cotabato.82

Trade and Shipping Spanish hostility to Arabs was not conducive to their developing trading and shipping links, but these were more extensive than van den Berg suggested. Indeed, Arab and other Middle Eastern traders were recorded in Manila itself over the centuries of Spanish rule.83 As for the south, Arab ships could easily slip in and out of the Moro zone unobserved. Moreover, the Sulu free trade treaties, signed in 1878 and 1885, benefited Arabs based in Singapore, who crop up time and again in the sources. Some of these Arab traders not only claimed to be of sharif status, but also to come ultimately from Mecca.84 A glimpse into this commercial nexus comes from a file on one trader in the 1850s. His name is transcribed in a bewildering variety of ways in the Spanish documents, but it seems to have been Sayyid Ibrahim bin Zayn. He declared that he was an Arab born in Aden, and that he had left with other Arabs on a commercial trip from Singapore to Sulu around 1852, on an Arab ship called Mamado (Mahmud). Due to ill health, he remained in Sulu after his colleagues had returned to Singapore at the end of the trading season.85 Sayyid Ibrahim only appears in the Spanish archival record because of a further twist in his story. After suffering shipwreck, he went to Zamboanga in 1857, where the authorities commented that he was ‘erudite in his religion’, spoke and wrote good English, and was at ease in the company of Europeans. From Zamboanga, Sayyid Ibrahim proceeded to Manila on a Spanish vessel, bearing a passport issued by the Sultan of Sulu. But the authorities in Manila suspected Sayyid Ibrahim of being a spy who had 133

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been sent to report on Spanish affairs. The British consul in Manila denied that the man had any right to British protection, and recommended that he be jailed. Eventually, Sayyid Ibrahim was put on a Chilean sailing vessel bound for Hong Kong.86 A second incident, which also generated many documents in the Spanish archives, occurred shortly afterwards, in June 1861. A  Spanish gunboat, the Elcano, sank a sailing ship off Mindanao, on the suspicion that it was a pirate vessel. A trader on board was named as Sayyid Ahmad Bansia bin Najia. He was possibly of the Hadhrami Ba Naja family, very influential in the Red Sea, though transcriptions of his name in the Spanish documents varied greatly. This man was imprisoned for seven months in Pollock, western Mindanao, together with his son. As a Dutch subject, born in Palembang in southern Sumatra, he carried two Dutch passports, as well as one written in Spanish and issued by the Sultan of Sulu. In 1862, he was resident in Sarangani Bay, on the southern tip of Mindanao. In a petition, written in Malay in Arabic script, he asked for compensation for goods worth 2,000 Pesos. Although it proved impossible to ascertain the facts of the case, and although the captain of the Elcano was formally exonerated of any blame, it was decided to pay Sayyid Ahmad what he requested, for fear of offending the Dutch authorities.87 It is worth noting that Palembang was one of the greatest centres of Hadhrami Arab shipping in Southeast Asian waters at this time.88 Arab traders appear occasionally in the record after the American takeover. One such, Shaykh Salih, was established in Parang, on the west coast of Mindanao, in 1901. He was a British subject.89 ‘Foreign religious adventurers’, mostly from Arabia, also engaged in trade in 1903. Sayyid Abu Bakr, an Arab of unknown provenance, dealt in pearls in Sulu in the early 1910s, and owned his own pearling boat. He also possessed land, and rented out stone houses to members of the Chinese community.90 Sayyid Mahmud bin Muhammad, in Zamboanga in 1904, acted as an agent for a Muslim Indian firm of Singapore, though he may have been an Indian himself.91 However, Arab traders based in neighbouring parts of Southeast Asia seem to have suffered from increasingly protectionist American regulations in their attempts to trade with the Philippines.92 By and large, wealthy Arab entrepreneurs in the American period were locally domiciled ‘Syrians’.93 134

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The Hadhrami Presence after Independence in 1946 The experience of the Moros in the independent republic of the Philippines has been marred since 1946 by almost continuous violence.94 But this has not prevented Hadhrami and Hijazi clans from remaining rooted there. Indeed, internal migration to the rapidly expanding megalopolis of Manila brought both Moro and Arab families to the heart of the Philippines. At least 20 major Arab families were said to be in the country by the 1990s, albeit not all of them of Hadhrami origin. Among them, the Ba Junayd clan stood out, and they were also well represented in West Java and Malaya.95 This family had probably been in the Philippines at least since 1903, as noted above. Some Arabs were accused of being involved in Muslim terrorist violence in the 1990s, but they seem not to have been Hadhrami.96 As in the past, people of Hadhrami origin played a significant role in Islamic education. Thus, Shaykh Omar Bajunaid, ‘a local-​born half-​breed Arab’, became headmaster in 1951 of the Madrasatul Rasheeda, at Pandag, Buluan, in Cotabato Province. Although this school had closed down by 1964, Shaykh Bajunaid moved it to Cotabato City, with official recognition from Manila. But the school burned down in 1973.97 Another Bajunaid served as chancellor of Mindanao State University, and an al-​Bar, probably from the famous Hadhrami sayyid family, was prominent in education in Sulu. Local Arabs typically sent at least one family member for education to Arab lands.98 * A central problem in assessing the Hadhrami contribution to the history of the Philippines is that people specifically noted as being of that origin hardly ever figure in the documents or publications consulted for the writing of this chapter. Sources refer to ‘Arabs’, ‘foreign Arabs’, ‘foreign Muslims’ or ‘Turks’. Alternatively, they refer to people with the title of ‘Sharif ’ or ‘Sayyid’, spelled in a bewildering variety of ways –​or, more rarely ‘Habib’. Furthermore, Arabic proper names are hideously transformed in the process of being registered by local scribes, necessitating much guesswork on the part of the researcher. 135

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One possible overall conclusion is that Hadhrami migrants may have been better represented in the Philippines under Spanish rule than under that of their American successors, as the Americans obtained a tighter grip over the southern Philippines. Both colonial regimes preferred to keep Hadhrami migrants out, but the Americans were more able to achieve that aim. That said, the presence of well-​entrenched Hadhrami families in the 1990s begs the question of exactly when they settled in the country. ‘Syrian’ Arabs, arriving in the northern and central Philippines from the late 1860s, may also have acted as a barrier to the entry of their Hadhrami cousins. While it is certainly true that most ‘Syrians’ in the Philippines were Christians, and that the Muslim minority was mainly drawn from the heterodox Druze variety of Islam, there were a few Sunni Muslims among them, generally of the Shafi’i school of law. This meant that positions as Islamic specialists were at times taken by ‘Syrian’ ulama. Archival peculiarities contribute to making this conundrum harder to crack. The Spanish records in the Philippine National Archives contain fairly well-​preserved Radicación and Pasaportes series, which detail immigration into the islands, and the movement of aliens in and out of the colony. In contrast, local American records were almost entirely destroyed during the Battle of Manila in 1945. As for files kept in archives in and around Washington, they only contain information on the occasional cases that were deemed sufficiently important to interest the metropolitan authorities. Despite all the uncertainties that dog this question, the Hadhrami presence in the Philippines was probably more extensive than van den Berg stated, in terms of economics, politics and religion. It is to be hoped that future generations of researchers, alerted to these possibilities, will be able to find fresh evidence for a more rounded telling of the story, perhaps by obtaining histories from the families established in the country.

Notes 1. L. W.  C. van den Berg, Le Hadhramout et les colonies arabes dans l’archipel indien (Batavia, 1886), pp. 122, 135. 2. Nicholas P. Cushner, Spain in the Philippines: From Conquest to Revolution (Manila, 1971).

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Arab Muslim Migrants in the Colonial Philippines 3. James F. Warren, The Sulu Zone, 1768–​1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State (Singapore, 1981). 4. Ibid., pp. 122–​5. 5. Dean C. Worcester, The Philippines: Past and Present (New York, 1930). 6. Peter G. Gowing, Mandate in Moroland: The American Government of Muslim Filipinos, 1899–​1920 (Quezon City, 1983). 7. William G. Clarence-​Smith, ‘Hadhrami Entrepreneurs in the Malay World, c. 1750 to c. 1940’, in Ulrike Freitag and William G. Clarence-​Smith (eds), Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s–​1960s, (Leiden, 1997), pp. 297–​314. 8. Najeeb M. Saleeby, Studies in Moro History, Law and Religion (Manila, 1976), pp. 16–​17, 23–​4. 9. Thomas M. McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels: Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines (Berkeley, 1998), p. 105; and A. Henry Savage-​Landor, The Gems of the East: 16,000 Miles of Research Travel among Wild and Tame Tribes of Enchanting Islands (London, 1904), vol. II, pp. 104–​7. 10. Cesar A. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines (Quezon City, 1973), Chapters 1 and 2. 11. Ibid., pp. 57–​9, 65–​7, 70; and Wan Kadir Che Man, Muslim Separatism: the Moros of Southern Philippines and the Malays of Southern Thailand (Singapore, 1990), p. 2. 12. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, pp. 23–​5, 30, 71–​2, 76–​7. 13. Ghislaine Loyré de Hauteclocque, À la recherche de l’Islam philippin: la communauté maranao (Paris, 1989), pp. 126–​7. 14. Bianca Scarcia Amoretti and Laura Bottini (eds), The Role of the Sadat/​Asraf in Muslim History and Civilization (Naples, 1999). 15. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, p. 59. 16. José S. Arcilla, Jesuit Missionary Letters from Mindanao, Philippine Province Archive, 1st edition (Quezon City, 1990–​3), vol. II, pp. 297, 303; and Savage-​ Landor, Gems of the East, vol. I, p. 283. 17. Archivo General del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación, Madrid, Spain (AGMAEC), H 2961, Filipinas, 1874–​83, file on the election of the sultan of Sulu, 1884. 18. T. de Comyn, State of the Philippines in 1810 (Manila, 1969), p. 124. 19. Berg, Le Hadhramout et les colonies arabes. 20. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, pp. 21, 333. 21. Reynaldo C. Ileto, Magindanao 1860–​1888: The Career of Datu Uto of Buayan (Ithaca, 1971), p. 44. 22. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, p. 333. 23. Ibid., p. 306; and Najeeb M. Saleeby, The History of Sulu (Manila, 1908), p. 240.

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 24. Philippine National Archives, Manila, Philippines (PNA), Mindanao and Sulu, SDS 9286, Interrogation of Datto Angandug, 6 September 1890. 25. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, pp. 21–​2, 333. 26. Ibid., pp. 23, 333. 27. Savage-​Landor, Gems of the East, vol. II, p. 137; and Ileto, Magindanao, p. 43. 28. Henry O. Dwight, ‘Our Mohammedan Wards’, Forum, 29 March 1900, pp. 26–​ 9; and Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, Washington DC, USA (LC, MD), Frank McCoy Papers, Box 1, Notebooks, 31 January 1904. 29. Savage-​Landor, Gems of the East, vol. II, p. 56; and Michael O. Mastura, Muslim Filipino Experiences: A Collection of Essays (Manila, 1984), p. 96. 30. Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, Chapter 9. 31. Ileto, Magindanao, p. 43; and Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu Cataloniae, Barcelona (AHSIC), FIL-​50, ‘Infieles de Mindanao, Basilan, y Joló’. 32. Arcilla, Jesuit Missionary Letters, vol. II, pp. 430–​1. 33. Ileto, Magindanao, p. 59. 34. AHSIC, FIL-​50, ‘Infieles de Mindanao, Basilan, y Joló’; and Pablo Pastells, ‘Apéndice’, Cartas de las Misiones de Filipinas 9 (1892), p. 638. 35. PNA, Mindanao and Sulu, SDS 9286, Antonio Dias to José Togores, 15 August 1890. 36. Centre des Archives Diplomatiques, La Courneuve, France (CAD, LC), 15CPC, vol. 99, ff. 367–​80, Consul de France to Ministre des Affaires Étrangères, 12 September 1891. 37. PNA, Radicación, Árabes 1858–​ 97, SDS 1715, Letter to Gobernador de Cotabato, 29 November 1892. 38. Majul, Muslims in the Philippines, pp. 103–​4. 39. Arcilla, Jesuit Missionary Letters, vol. II, p. 223. 40. Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 154–​5, 217. 41. LC, MD, Charles Hack Papers, Box 1, Folder 6, Journal, 18 August 1902. 42. Savage-​Landor, Gems of the East, vol. I, p. 276. 43. J. Foreman, The Philippine Islands (Shanghai, 1906), p.  148, and photo opp. p. 534. 44. Michael Salman, The Embarrassment of Slavery:  Controversies over Bondage and Nationalism in the American Colonial Philippines (Manila, 2001). 45. Ileto, Magindanao, p. 43. 46. LC, MD, Leonard Wood Papers, Box 35, Folder 7, L. Wood to War Department, 9 May 1904. 47. Richard Barry, ‘The End of Datto Ali’, Collier’s:  The National Weekly, 6 June 1906, p. 19. 48. Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 158–​9; LC, MD, Hugh Scott papers, Box 56, Folder June–​August 1905, H. L. Scott to Secretary of Moro Province, 6 July 1905.

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Arab Muslim Migrants in the Colonial Philippines 49. LC, MD, Francis Burton Harrison Papers, Box 38, Folder Finley-​1, C.  D. Humphrey, Report, 1913. 50. Savage-​Landor, Gems of the East, vol. II, p. 103. 51. Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, p. 154. 52. Howard M. Federspiel, ‘Islam and Muslims in the Southern Territories of the Philippine Islands during the American Colonial Period, 1898–​1946’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 29: 2 (1998), p. 344. 53. Lewis E. Gleeck, Jr, Americans on the Philippine Frontier (Manila, 1974), p. 76. 54. McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, Chapter 4. 55. Ileto, Magindanao, p. 41. 56. AGMAEC, H 2961, Filipinas, 1874–​83, ‘Acta de nueva sumisión del Sultán de Joló’, 19 April 1851. 57. Najeeb M. Saleeby, Studies in Moro History, Law and Religion (Manila, 1905), pp. 209–​14. 58. Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Spain (AHN), Ultramar, Legajo 5207, Expediente 55, Gobernador de Mindanao to Gefe [sic] del Sexto Districto, 30 April 1864, and annexes. 59. W. C. Forbes, Philippine Islands (Boston, 1928), vol. II, p. 5. 60. Saleeby, History of Sulu, p. 240. 61. John P. Finley, ‘The Non-​Christians of the Southern Islands of the Philippines: Their Self-​Government and Industrial Development’, Report of the Thirtieth Annual Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples (Lake Mohonk, 1912) pp. 106–​7, 114. 62. Arcilla, Jesuit Missionary Letters, vol. II, p. 90. 63. Savage-​Landor, Gems of the East, vol. I, p. 257. 64. LC, MD, Hugh Scott papers, Box 56, Folder 1907, F. S. Dornhill to Adjutant 5th District, Bureau of Constabulary, 28 May 1907. 65. Savage-​Landor, Gems of the East, vo. II, p. 137; Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, p. 84. 66. Forbes, Philippine Islands, vol. II, p. 5; Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, p. 218; and Saleeby, History of Sulu, p. 118; LC, MD, Tasker Bliss Papers, Vol. 45, ff. 8647–8, T. Bliss to District Governor of Sulu, 22 September 1906. 67. National Archives and Records Administration, II, College Park, Maryland, USA (NARA II), Record Group  350, Personal Files, Box 444, Folder Amad Mustapha. 68. Government of the Philippines, ‘Second Annual Report of the Treasurer of the Moro Province, 1 September 1905’, p. 49. 69. Gowing, Mandate in Moroland, pp. 133–​4.

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 70. Omar Farouk Bajunid, ‘The Arabs in Southeast Asia: A Preliminary Overview’, Hiroshima Journal of International Studies 2 (1996), pp. 33–​4; and Mastura, Muslim Filipino Experiences, pp. 99, 106. 71. AHSIC, FIL-​50, ‘Infieles de Mindanao, Basilan, y Joló’. 72. Ibid.; and Arcilla, Jesuit Missionary Letters, vol. II, p. 297. 73. Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome (ARSI), Phil. 1001, X, 34, Padre S. Urios to Father General, 2 December 1895. 74. Arcilla, Jesuit Missionary Letters from Mindanao, p. 399; and Ileto, Magindanao, p. 41. 75. Frank W. Carpenter, ‘Report of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu’, in Report of the Philippine Commission to the Secretary of War, July 1, 1913 to December 31, 1914 (Washington, DC, 1915), p. 393. 76. Midori Kawashima, ‘The Islamic Reform Movement at Lanao in the Philippines during the 1930s: The Founding of the Kamilol Islam Society’, Journal of Sophia Asian Studies 27 (2009), pp. 135–​60. 77. Mastura, Muslim Filipino Experiences, p. 97. 78. William G. Clarence-​Smith, ‘Middle Eastern Migrants in the Philippines: Entrepreneurs and Cultural Brokers’, Asian Journal of Social Science 32:  3 (2004), pp. 425–​57. 79. William G. Clarence-​Smith, ‘Wajih al-​Kilani, shaykh al Islam of the Philippines and Notable of Nazareth, 1913–​1916’, in Mahmoud Yazbak and Sharif Sharif (eds), Nazareth: History and Cultural Heritage (Nazareth, 2013), pp. 171–​92; and William G. Clarence-​Smith, ‘Middle Eastern States and the Philippines under Early American Rule, 1898–​1919’, in A. C. S. Peacock and Annabel Teh Gallop (eds), From Anatolia to Aceh: Ottomans, Turks and Southeast Asia (Oxford, 2015), pp. 199–​219. 80. Kawashima, ‘Islamic Reform Movement’, p. 146; and Linda Schatkowski Schilcher, Families in Politics: Damascene Factions and Estates of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Stuttgart, 1985), pp. 125, 129, 207–​9. 81. NARA II, Record Group 84, Damascus Consulate, Vol. 93, ‘Declaration of an Immigrant Alien About to Depart for the Philippines, 4 May 1928’. 82. Mastura, Muslim Filipino Experiences, p. 99; and University of the Philippines, Institute of Islamic Studies, Manila, Philippines (UP, IIS), Majul Papers, Cesar Majul to William G. Clarence-​Smith, 28 March 2001. 83. Emma H. Blair and James A. Robertson (eds), The Philippine Islands (Cleveland, OH, 1903–​7), vol. xxvii, p. 82; vol. xliv, p. 29. 84. AHSIC, FIL-​50, ‘Infieles de Mindanao, Basilan, y Joló’. 85. PNA, Radicación, Árabes 1858–​ 97, SDS 1715, Tuan Si Ibrahim Zen to Gobernador General, 14 March 1857, and annexes. 86. Ibid.

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Arab Muslim Migrants in the Colonial Philippines 87. AHN, Ultramar, Legajo 5198, Expediente 4, Gobierno Superior Civil de Filipinas to Ministro de Guerra y Ultramar, 19 July 1862, and annexes. 88. William G. Clarence-​Smith, ‘The Rise and Fall of Hadhrami Shipping in the Indian Ocean, c.1750–​c.1940’, in David Parkin and Ruth Barnes (eds), Ships and the Development of Maritime Technology across the Indian Ocean (London, 2002), pp. 227–​58. 89. LC, MD, Hugh Scott papers, Box 55, Folder February to October 1901, Report, 17 November 1901. 90. Savage-​Landor, Gems of the East, vol. II, p. 61; and Louis Kornitzer, Trade Winds (London, 1933), pp. 101–4. 91. LC, MD, Frank McCoy Papers, Box 10, Folder June to December 1904, A. G. Hoosen & Co., 7 June 1904. 92. Carpenter, ‘Report of the Department of Mindanao and Sulu’, p. 406. 93. Clarence-​Smith, ‘Middle Eastern Migrants in the Philippines’. 94. McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, Chapters 6–​11; and Moshe Yegar, Between Integration and Secession, the Muslim Communities in the Southern Philippines, Southern Thailand and Western Burma/​Myanmar (Lanham, MD, 2002), Chapters 19–​22. 95. Bajunid, ‘Arabs in Southeast Asia’, pp. 33–​4; and UP, IIS, Majul Papers, Cesar Majul to William G. Clarence-​Smith, 28 March 2001. 96. Yegar, Between Integration and Secession, p. 347. 97. Mastura, Muslim Filipino Experiences, pp. 99, 106. 98. Bajunid, ‘Arabs in Southeast Asia’, pp. 33–​4.

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7 Scimitar for Hire: Yemeni Fighters Abroad James Spencer

For Safa Mubgar

This chapter discusses issues around mercenaries and soldiering generally, and those relating to indigenous soldiers in South Arabia in particular. It discusses soldiering’s conventions within Yemen, going on to survey Yemenis and Yemeni security providers in the diaspora, and any role of Hadhramis in commercial security operations. It examines the contrasting roles of the first and subsequent generations of Yemenis in the diaspora, and of Hadhramis in particular, and the changing nature and locations of their service as a result of decolonisation at home and abroad, including a brief discussion of the current situation of Yemeni fighters in the diaspora and within Yemen.1

Yemenis Abroad South Arabians have left their homelands since before recorded history: in the pre-​Islamic era, the Kingdom of Sheba encompassed both coasts of the lower Red Sea and the fertile mountains beyond them. South Arabia had maritime links to East Africa powered by the monsoon winds, and to India, whence came many of the goods that travelled the Incense 142

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Route, while the Christian Ghassanids moved up the Incense Route to the Levant. Later, Yemenis were at the forefront of the spread of Islam, with Mauritanian tribes today claiming descent from such propagators, while the oldest mosque in India was built within the lifetime of the Prophet, by someone who had probably journeyed to Kerala via Yemen. Many Yemenis left as traders or scholars, but those with fewer resources or qualifications often went as labourers, or sometimes as fighters.

Sword for Hire The popular view of the nature of commercial soldiering  –​or, as it is often called, being a mercenary  –​has changed in the last few decades. Throughout much of history, the term had no pejorative connotations. Coming from the Latin mercenarius (someone hired for pay), it merely distinguished a fighter who was discharging military service to someone other than their feudal superior. For many centuries, states would contract mercenaries to swell their own forces, or to acquire some specific skill set, such as engineering or artillery. Traces of such customs persist to this day, with the Gurkhas of the British and Indian armies, the French and Spanish Foreign Legions, and even the Papal Swiss Guard.2 One might argue that the Janissaries were also mercenaries, for they fought not for their community or country, but for their ruler (and, in many cases, their legal master). Far from being despised or sanctioned, many historical mercenary commanders received high honours; Sir John Hawkwood, Lord Newark and Thomas Cochrane led the rebel navies of Chile, Brazil and Greece, and the Peruvian navy; all were regarded as heroes at home and abroad. It is also often forgotten that companies also hired mercenaries to protect their assets: the German East Africa Company, the Congo Free State, and the Imperial British East Africa Company, but most notably the Honourable East India Company, which by 1857 employed 280,000 men in three armies. To protect lines of communication, the East India Company also had its own navy: indeed, Aden was not captured by the Royal Navy, but by forces of the company’s Bombay Marine. It is noteworthy that leading commercial soldiers were honoured, including Clive of India and Lord Wellesley, and that, even after the British had assumed 143

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control of the East India Company, private armed forces continued, such as the British South Africa Police. The actions of free-​booting mercenary bands in Africa during the period of decolonisation following World War II seem to have attracted opprobrium upon the term ‘mercenary’. This resulted in the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 8 June 1977,3 which describes a mercenary as someone ‘motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain’. There is some debate over whether modern private security companies constitute mercenaries, although it seems relatively clear that the key issue is the intention to engage in offensive operations. Thus, armed guards employed to deter or counter attacks are not mercenaries. The status of the UAE ‘foreign legion’4 is less clear-​cut, however, as to whether they are indeed mercenaries, or contract soldiers. While the professionalisation of Western militaries is often assumed to date from Cromwell’s New Model Army, in fact for a long time thereafter there was an ingrained mistrust of (and financial objection to) large standing armies. This led to the emergence of small cadres of full-​time soldiers commanded by gentlemen amateurs, often –​particularly after the Napoleonic wars  –​in small imperial garrisons. After the Indian Mutiny and the Crimean War, and spurred on by the worrying professionalism of the Prussian armed forces, the British in particular began to reorganise their armed forces in a series of reforms throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century. One outcome of this was the recall of many British units from imperial outposts, with the concomitant requirement to raise local forces to replace them, including in South Arabia.

The Status of Yemeni Soldiers Interestingly, the status of professional soldiers seems to have been different to that of tribal levies. This difference may have derived from the status of palace guards, who were often slaves (Doreen Ingrams notes, for example, that ‘[i]‌n the Kathiri State a certain measure of order was maintained in the town by armed slaves’),5 and such a status may have been transferred onto soldiers. Ingrams, Hutchison and Wilfred Thesiger (writing within a few years of each other) all note the suspension 144

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of existing tribal loyalties and feuds, replaced by loyalty to the unit for the duration of their service: Although most of the Asakir [lit: soldiers, or ‘mercenaries’ according to Ingrams] are tribesmen in that they belonged at one time to a tribe, they have in a sense lost caste by hiring themselves out for service to a chief, and they have become a class unto themselves.6 It may be wondered, if, on occasion men enlisted from tribes which are hostile to each other carry this enmity with them into the force. Such is not the case, and once in the army they seem to lose their civilian opinions and prejudices and to forget past feuds.7 [T]‌hey [the Rashid] said at once that, acting under my orders, they would consider themselves to be askar or soldiers, not bound by tribal custom.8

However, Oliver Miles (First Secretary in Mukalla in 1966, then Private Secretary to the High Commissioner in Aden in 1967) recalled an incident in the 1960s when a Hadhrami soldier murdered his corporal; the (British) commanding officer immediately sent the fellow-​tribesmen of both murderer and victim on compulsory home leave to their tribal areas. If he had not done so there would have been an immediate revenge killing.9 It is possible that this killing reflects a change in society during the intervening decades (such as the growth of Arab Nationalism or socialism), but it is more likely that it related to a grudge10 within the Hadhrami Bedouin Legion, as when Major David Eales was murdered over a promotion issue in 1965.11 Yemeni and Hadhrami emigration spans several eras but the most pertinent period is that during and after the era of colonial rule by the West.12  While military changes, in particular after the adoption of gunpowder, were significant in terms of styles of fighting, more important still were  the imposition and specification of Westphalian-​style borders and the centralisation of power away from the more fluid and democratic socio-​political system that had prevailed until then. Decolonisation also had a major impact on Hadhramis, with nationalism and republicanism rising both in Yemen and in host countries of the diaspora. Combined with 145

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increased oil revenues in the Gulf, these factors drove relocation from traditional diaspora locations to new ones.

The Colonial Era There were four main regions of Hadhrami emigration: the Horn of Africa and the lower Red Sea; East Africa; the Indian subcontinent; and the East Indies. In the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, there had been a Hadhrami presence recorded since 1272 CE, yet the numbers remained relatively small –​increasing with the advent of steamships in the 1830s and the opening of the Suez Canal  –​and were mostly concentrated in coastal towns. Jonathan Miran notes that ‘Hadramis in Eritrea distinguished themselves as leading business entrepreneurs, patrons, municipal and community leaders, religious specialists and sponsors, and influential nationalist political activists’,13 yet they do not appear to have been soldiers, for the most part.14 There are sporadic exceptions: Arab writers recorded a substantial migration of Hadramis and other Arabians into the Horn of Africa in the first half of the sixteenth century. The immediate context was the Muslim jihads against ‘Christian Ethiopia’, which attracted Hadrami clerics, holy men, and other Arabian mujahidin (‘holy warriors’) who saw it as their duty to be at the forefront of efforts to extend the frontiers of the Dar al-​Islam. Many were members of lineages tracing descent from the Prophet (sada, ashraf); they thus had a customary right to a privileged share in the booty (khums, one-​fifth) and they saw themselves as the natural future religious officeholders in territories coming under Muslim rule.’15

It is debatable whether the motivation for emigration was material or religious, or a combination of the two. Certainly, when the jihad was over, the Hadhramis adopted more prestigious (lucrative!) professions, rather than continuing in soldiering: ‘Following their defeat, many Hadramis chose not to return to their destitute home region and, instead, settled in various Northeast and Eastern African port towns where their religious prestige and baraka earned them influential posts such as those of qadis (judges) and imams (prayer leaders).’16 146

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A similar pattern is noted in Hyderabad: The Arab chiefs made money not only through jagirs [feudal land holding] but also trade and banking but it is unclear what kind of trade they were involved in. Several Arabs lent money to others and it seems they were very cruel and tyrannous when the borrowers including zamindar [baron] and deshmuks [lords] failed to return the money.17

Similarly, in Hadhramaut, ‘Most of the Yaf ‘ai Asakir engaged in trade or money lending, for their salaries were meagre’.18 Miran comments later that ‘the growth and development of Massawa under the Egyptians and the Italians created opportunities in the import–​ export, wholesale, retail, money changing, and shipping businesses’.19 This would suggest that the Hadhramis were the beneficiaries of Egyptian-​and Italian-​made peace, rather than being soldiers who brought peace themselves. This does not seem to have been a function of distaste for the military:  ‘Some [Hadhramis], like Muhammad Salim Ba Tuq, even made fortunes by supplying the Italian colonial forces with vital provisions such [as] hardware materials and cattle.’20 While the reason for this was probably that better returns were to be made trading rather than soldiering, it appears that even what might be termed ‘blue collar’ Hadhramis (the natural recruiting pool for soldiers) avoided soldiering:  ‘an Italian colonial report from 1895 noted how southern Arabian porters had over the past several years gradually replaced local Eritrean porters working on caravans’.21 The choice of the term ‘porter’ –​rather than caravaneer –​suggests that these were purely labourers, not guards. This lack of security function is partly corroborated by an account of an incident in which force seems to have been used against a Hadhrami notable, which found him unable to protect himself: In the 1880s, tensions between Hadrami followers of the Shafi’i madhhab and the Shadhili Sufi order, on the one hand, and possibly followers of the Maliki or Hanafi legal school and the then locally predominant Khatmiyya tariqa, on the other … ended quite dramatically with the expulsion of Abd Allah Ba Junayd from the port town.22

Similarly, the Hadhramis did not have any Hadhrami (or local) guards to protect them when, in the mid-​1940s, there was ‘an intensification of 147

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incidents in which Unionists intimidated pro-​independence activists and targeted Muslims and Arabs in Massawa, Keren, and Asmara’.23 However, the apparent lack of Hadhrami and Yemeni soldiers may actually reflect a lack of reporting:  Miran writes that ‘Sayyid Hasan Muhammad al-​Safi … employed farmers and workers who had escaped from Yemen as a result of the political upheavals that followed the ascent to power of the Zaydi Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamid ad-​Din in 1904’,24 and subsequently quotes a source noting that ‘most Yemenis were porters and houseboys who –​like other Yemeni migrants –​had their own association of labourers under an elected “chief ” [muqaddam]’.25 By contrast, the more contemporaneous Faroughy writes: The excess population was formerly absorbed by the neighbouring countries and by the Italian colonies, where many Yemenis emigrated to work or to join the ‘askaris’ of the Italian colonial army. In 1938, however, the Imam introduced a decree forbidding further emigration of his subjects or their enrolment in foreign armies.26

Faroughy’s account is corroborated by Amedeo Guillet, who employed many such Yemenis in his gruppo banda, in which they formed the infantry element.27 There are also (as yet uncorroborated) reports of Yemenis travelling to Djibouti, where they joined the French Foreign Legion, travelling to Vietnam28 and even fighting at Dien Ben Phu –​although how many of these reputed individuals were Hadhrami is unknown. Walker is more interested in the relationship between Hadhramaut and the Swahili coast –​in particular the muwalladin –​and thus records little of the employment of the Hadhramis there, except to cite an elderly informant insisting that ‘Hadramis went to Africa first for religion, to teach Islam. And then they went for business. Like the Prophet: religion first, then business’; and, a few lines later, Walker notes: ‘Although East Africa was a poor man’s destination there was still money to be made’,29 thus it seems likely that –​as with Hadhramis and Yemenis in the Horn of Africa –​migrants to East Africa were mostly traders and rarely soldiers. Walker also notes that ‘Hadramis emigrated, generally to East Africa and to Indonesia, both historically important destinations for emigrants. Indonesia was the more expensive option: further afield, passage was by 148

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steamer and the fares relatively high’.30 As many works note, the Hadhramis in Indonesia tended also towards trade and religion, much as in the other areas of the diaspora.

Hyderabad The only place where Hadhramis were extensively involved in soldiering was Hyderabad, although this is not as straightforward as it might appear. The first Arabs seem to have arrived in Hyderabad in 1797, but the first Hadhramis arrived in 1817, after the defeat of the Maratha Empire in the Third Anglo-​Maratha War. Khalidi cites contemporaneous sources which state: When the terms of surrender were granted to the Arabs in the battle of Nagpur (1817), Wilayati (Hadramawt born) Arabs were deported to Arabia, but half-​caste Arabs became a problem for the British government. Upon these circumstances, the Nizam of Hyderabad offered an aman (refuge) to muwallad (of mixed origin) Arabs, being Muslim brethren upon the consent of the British government.31

One of the soldiers who took up this offer to go to Hyderabad was Umar ibn Awadh al-​Qu’ayti:32 The Qu‘aiti … is one of the member tribes of the Mausatta Confederacy … of Upper Yafa. The Yafa’is from times immemorial had a tradition for hiring themselves out as mercenaries and it was in this capacity that they were initially introduced into Hadhramaut in the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries of the Islamic Hijra … to assist local princes … The ancestors of the Qu‘aiti dynasty … had been settled at a small village Lahroom not far from Shibam. Umar bin Awadh … was born at Lahroom in the 1790s and … set off for India in 1228H/​1813 ad. He took up service as a ‘Jem’adar’ (Captain of a Group) at the court of the Raja of Nagpur.33

It is moot whether a Yafa’i mercenary resident in Hadhramaut constituted a Hadhrami, in so far as they seem to have maintained their own identity and tribal affiliations. Boxberger writes that: 149

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora The Yafi’i comprised a discrete subgroup of the Hadrami tribes … In some areas, the Yafi’i were referred to generically as asakir, soldiers, reflecting their historical role … There were two categories of Yafi’i in Hadhramawt; the tulud (sing. tild) and the ghurba (sing. ghurab). The tulud were of Yafi’i ancestry but born in Hadhramawt … The ghurba were newcomers to Hadhramawt who came to serve in the armed forces of the Qu’ayti state … Some of the ghurba came to Hadhramawt directly from Yaf and others via service in the armed forces of the Nizam of Hyderabad … Some of these soldiers stayed in Hadhramawt, marrying a woman of the tulud and fathering children who within a generation or two were considered tulud.34

This is corroborated in contemporary accounts: ‘Barak Jang had a country garden on the way to Golconda and when Mr Temple visited him, he arranged a fine show of Arab soldiers mostly from Yemen near Aden’;35 the latter were presumably Yaf ‘ai. However, it would appear that there were also fighters from other parts of Hadhramaut in the Nizam’s service: ‘In the 1930s … the troops of the Nizam of Hyderabad numbered five to six thousand men, of whom between two and three thousand were Yaf ’is mostly with Hadhrami connections and members of tribes including the Nuwwah, Ja‘da, and Say‘ar.’36 The Nizam’s motive for offering a refuge to all these Arabs might have been charity, but more likely it was driven by demography: not only was he the Muslim ruler of a Hindu majority realm, but his army ‘included a number of Sikhs, local Hindus and Marathas, and the rulers wanted to balance the forces with Muslim soldiers, including Arab soldiers, who would be more loyal to them’.37 The Arabs soon became dominant in what would now be termed the private security industry, based on a reputation for competence and probity. ‘By 1854, every man of any substance or influence in the Nizam’s Dominion retained armed Arab guards either for personal safety, collection of rents and debts, or for the security of treasuries’.38 This correlates almost perfectly with their role in Hadhramaut, as Doreen Ingrams recorded: ‘In the Western Aden Protectorate the Asakir are chiefly employed in enforcing tax collection, on police work or as bodyguards to their chief.’39 150

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The Hadhramis rose rapidly to prominence –​and wealth –​within the army: ‘there were at least five Hadrami Jagirdars of influence’ by 1853, notes Leif Manger.40 Hadhrami influence also extended lower down: Temple –​ the British Resident –​reported that that there were three important Arab Jamadars: Abdullah bin Ali; Barak Jang, son of the well-​known Umar bin Awadh, who came from Nagpur; and Ghalib bin Almas. Of the three, two of them were from Hadhramaut. Temple noted that ‘Barak Jung was a mawallad, and though reputed to be a man of great influence I  learnt that his mother came from Nagpur, and his father from the Hadhramaut province of Arabia’;41 while Ghalib Jang  –​the Jamadar of the minister’s Arab escort –​he described as being a muwallad who had very good manners: ‘his father, a full Arab, came from Poona to Hyderabad, and … he himself came from the Yaman Province of Arabia’.42 Ties to Arabia seem to have been strong, and when a feud broke out in Hadhramaut between the Yaf ‘ais and the Kathiris, a tribal group who had found their way into Hadhramaut as mercenaries from neighbouring Dhofar between the 7th and the 10th centuries H … Omar [bin Awadh al-​Qu‘aiti] was appealed to for financial help and leadership by a Yafa’i delegation and in return, they promised to accept him officially as their chief and offer him their loyalty and obedience.43

Interestingly, given the suspension of tribal feuds and politicking observed among asakir in Arabia, this did not seem to have applied in Hyderabad:44 Abdullah Ali Al Awlaqui joined the Nizam forces around 1830 as Jamadar of 1,500 Arab soldiers with the titles Sayf-​ ud-​Dawlah and Mukaddam Jung … On the invitation from Abdullah Ali, Muhsin Al Kathiri came from Hadramawt in around 1830. He started his career under Abdullah Ali, but very soon he rose to the rank of Jamadar … But these prominent Jamadars were involved in quarrels with issues back home in Hadramawt, and finally Nizam had to send Muhsin Al Kathiri away … An axis of Kasadi, Katheeri and Aulaqi was formed to oppose the Qu‘aiti. The Aulaqi, Abdullah bin Ali (d. 1285H/​1868 ad) and after him his son Mohsin were the ch[i]‌ef rivals of the Qu‘aiti as the senior most Jem’adars of Arabs at the Nizam’s court.45

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It might be argued –​based on their tribal affiliation and their accrual of wealth and influence in Hyderabad –​that, rather than Hadhrami mercenaries taking service in Hyderabad, it was ‘Hyderabadi’ Arabs who seized parts of Hadhramaut.46 Indeed, as Gavin describes it, ‘The jemadars [commanders] were educated in India, their army was organised on Indian lines, [and] the founders of the state, such as Awad bin Umar, showed a distinct preference for India.’47 The major exception to the imperial policy of not employing Hadhramis and other ‘resident aliens’ in colonial locations seems to have been general war, when it was ‘all hands to the pump’. Thus Muhammad bin-​Dohry recalls that ‘there were some Hadhramis who participated in the Second World War. In my childhood [I]‌saw two or three in Mombasa who sometimes showed off their military medals.’48 This is also seen in the use of Adeni stokers (in fact, probably from the Hujariyyah) in Royal Navy ships. Known as Lascars, 1,000 of them died in UK naval and merchant ships during World War I.

The Post-​Colonial Era The withdrawal from empire saw an equivalent welling of nationalism in various former colonies. This often encompassed not only citizens of the imperial power, but also other resident aliens. Thus, in Hyderabad: The repatriation of Pathans started and they were sent back to Pakistan. The Arabs were dispatched to Arabia via Bombay. The Moplas returned to the Malabar coast. The Muslim refugees that had come into Hyderab[a]‌d from Bejar and other adjoining areas were all repatriated. The few British officers in Hyderabad at the time were sent to the [United] Kingdom with all their assets.49

In Eritrea, the experience was worse: Anti-​Arab hostility mounted and there were calls to expel Arabs from Eritrea. The press was also mobilized in the anti-​ Arab campaign … As a result of the pressures and harassment, thousands left Eritrea and settled in parts of the Middle East, quite a few going across the Red Sea to settle in Jeddah.50

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In Southern Arabia a similar process was occurring –​the Jews of Aden, and most Parsees, left, and the various parts of the ‘bourgeoisie’ found that they were unwelcome in the new People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. Many either left (semi-​)voluntarily or were forced out. This period coincided with the oil-​driven development in the Gulf. Many Hadhramis  –​ like many Palestinians –​moved to the Gulf, where they were employed in technocratic and administrative fields (although some also went into business in the new entrepôts). Thus: ‘As late as the 1970s young Muwalladin Hadhramis left East Africa and Saudi Arabia to join the UAE police and military when opportunities were available’,51 and the Qataris used to employ some ‘Yemenis’ in their police and army … Shaikh Zayid was generous in giving refuge and work opportunities to a significant number of ‘Yemenis’, most of them Hadhrami, in the 70s and 80s. [A]‌few went into the armed forces … but many went into business or technocratic jobs e.g. in the oil and gas sector.52

Of the former, some seem to have risen to high rank (as their forebears had in Hyderabad): ‘a number of Yemenis were in the UAE army [such as] Brigadier Al-​Mundai al-​Affifi, a nephew of the last Sultan of Lower Yafa’.53 Stephen Day CMG records that The Yafa’is in UAE came later and were treated as the senior Yemenis by Shaikh Zayed, in part out of gratitude for the role they played in his support over Buraimi –​I think a force of Aden Levies were sent … The first Yafa’i to be made their spokesman (both Saudi and UAE made clear there would be no nonsense about ‘Sultan’ or Amir) was Abd al-​Qadir Ali Affifi, who had been passed over as Sultan by us because he had nationalistic ideas and so became a junior Political Officer. Al-​Mundai, a half-​brother, took over on Abdulqader’s death.54

Interestingly, there appears to have been some Colonial cross-​ pollination, which then had a legacy effect: The first Yemenis to serve in Qatar were Yafa’is sent by the Aden government in the 1950s in order to form the Qatari police. Their leader (Bin Shandhour) is still alive and well and a Qatari

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This tradition of service appears to continue to the current era:  ‘A specialist team of GCC ballistic missile defense representatives met Aug. 3–​6 in Kuwait to coordinate the development of the program … said Kuwaiti Armed Forces Brigadier General Adel Hadrami’.56 It should be noted that the cognomen Hadrami may be a vestige of an earlier migration; the individual may be completely naturalised within Kuwait. For others, their relationship is more explicit: a team of around fifty ship-​deployed special forces landed in Crater in early May. The team was composed of Yemenis serving in the Saudi armed forces and other Yemenis trained by the UAE, including army officers who served the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen and younger tribal fighters.57

Yemenis (and other foreigners, such as Baloch) serving in Gulf Armed Forces may account for the variation in the number of reported casualties of the SCARAB-​II strike in Marib,58 and the discrepancy between casualties reported and the number of UAE citizens buried: In sum, of the 45 slain UAE soldiers, Al-​Monitor has only been able to gather the reported names of 35 troops and can confirm reports of the burials of 32 of these identified troops. It thus remains unclear who the remaining killed soldiers are and where they have been buried.59

Patterns of Recruitment One aspect driving and controlling recruitment to the armed forces is the role of agents, whether formal or informal. The jemadar were responsible for recruiting their own soldiers, usually through familial or tribal networks: After reaching Hyderabad the migrant Hadramis lived initially with their kinsmen or any Hadrami who gave them food and shelter for some time. In a majority of the cases, the earlier migrants helped them to find jobs either in the Jamiat

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Scimitar for Hire: Yemeni Fighters Abroad (Sarf-​e-​Khas) or with a Marwadi sowcar or an Arab chief who was maintaining soldiers and was having jagir … For finding employment … there were mediators like Saleh bin Omar Ba-​ Bi-​Lail, Ali bin Sayeed Ba-​Bi-​Lail and Ali bin Omar Ba-​Bi-​Lail who supplied Hadrami men to the employers.60

Indeed, following the recruitment of a varied first generation of Arabs, it appears that ‘Hyderabad was thereafter a mainly Yaf ‘ai preserve’.61 It would appear this regional recruitment continues: ‘the Kuwaiti Amiri Guard was traditionally a preserve of the Mahra’.62 By the late 1960s, many of these had retired to become ‘Shawikdars’ (building porters),63 their sons presumably replacing them in the ranks. This cadre of Mahris was an important centre of mass:  ‘Among prominent Yemenis recruited in Kuwait for the NLF [was] Muhammad Salem Akkush, who was the most important Mahra leader in the PDRY.’64 It is worth noting that other non-​ Mahri Yemeni leaders were also recruited in Kuwait, such as Ali Antar Muhammad, who later commanded the PDRY armed forces, and Ali Shaya Hadi, who became minister of the interior.

Islamist Fighters It would be remiss in a study of fighters in the Yemeni diaspora not to note that not all have fought for states. Indeed, the most (in)famous Hadhrami ever is probably Usama bin Muhammad bin Awadh bin Ladin (Osama bin Laden), from Wadi Du’an, founder of Al Qaeda and director of the attacks on the World Trade Center, inter alia (although, to be accurate, he was actually a muwallad). Many of the ‘Afghan Arabs’ who fought with the mujahidin against the Soviets in Afghanistan were from Yemen; coming from similar geographical and societal backgrounds, they needed little acclimatisation to Afghanistan’s harsh environment. Some Yemenis were motivated by Islamism, but not a few fought for more prosaic reasons: some, such as Tariq Nasr al-Fadhli,65 were former tribal leaders in the South who had taken refuge in Saudi Arabia, and were looking for revenge against the Communists;66 the fact that they were well paid for their service made it all the more attractive to them.67 Many ‘foreign’ Arabs, including Yemenis, went to Iraq to fight the Multi-​National Coalition following its invasion in 2003. Several studies 155

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have been published,68 which claim to show varying proportions of nationalities. On 9 September 2005, the Center for Strategic and International Studies published a report by Nawaf Obeid69 and Anthony Cordesman, which found that ‘the number of Saudis is around 12% of the foreign contingent (approximately 350), or 1.2% of the total insurgency of approximately 30,000. Algerians constitute the largest contingent at 20%, followed closely by Syrians (18%), Yemenis (17%), Sudanese (15%), Egyptians (13%) and those from other states (5%).’70 In the Countering Terrorism Center’s 2007 study of Al Qaeda’s Sinjar Records, Saudi Arabia was by far the most common nationality of the fighters in this sample; 41% (244) of the 595 records that included the fighter’s nationality indicated they were of Saudi Arabian origin. Libya was the next most common country of origin, with 18.8% (112) … Syria, Yemen, and Algeria were the next most common origin countries with 8.2% (49), 8.1% (48), and 7.2% (43), respectively.71

The number of detainees at Guantánamo Bay72 suggests that Saudis did indeed form the largest non-​ national component –​followed closely by Yemenis – in Afghanistan. It is interesting to note, according to the Countering Terrorism Center study, how few Yemenis actually went to Iraq, both proportionally and in absolute terms. Of the 43 Yemeni jihadis in the Sinjar papers who lived in Yemen,73 17 give Sana‘a as their home, four give Aden, one Ta‘izz, one (Jabal) al-​Gharib, two (Wadi) Hadhramaut, two Mukalla, one ‘New Yemen’, one Rabiben (? Jabal Rabid), while 14 merely identify ‘Yemen’ as their origin. In addition, there are two Yemenis who are resident in Saudi Arabia (one of whom has a Hadhrami name), and three Saudis with Yemeni cognomens: one al-​ Yamani, and two al-​Hadhramis. It would appear that, even among jihadis, Hadhramis are less inclined to be fighters; nor are there any records of a Yemeni theologian within ISIS. The First Look report states that, of the 39 people who had a defined intention on arrival in Iraq,74 46.1 per cent wished to become suicide bombers, and 53.9 per cent wished to become fighters. None of the four Hadhramis in the source documentation intended to be suicide bombers, while one of the Sana‘ani suicide bombers has a distinctly Zaydi-​sounding name. 156

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Yemenis have also made their way into, or remained within, ISIS –​110 by January 2015.75 Second-​generation Yemenis  –​possibly muwalladin  –​ such as Nasser and Aseel Muthana,76 British-​Yemeni brothers from Cardiff, also joined ISIS.

Hadhramis as Fighters? It would appear that few first-​generation true77 Hadhramis sought employment as soldiers in the diaspora. The institutionalised state of war that Harold Ingrams78 found suggests that this was not a philosophical disinclination, which raises the question of why ‘blue collar’ Hadhramis did not ‘go a-​soldiering’. But Doreen Ingrams notes that the asakir ‘nearly all originated in Yafa and were brought into the country in the first place by the Kathiris to aid them in expelling the Yemenis’.79 This may suggest that the indigenous Hadhramis have a less martial inclination. However, several Hadhramis have served with distinction, and at senior ranks, in the Yemeni Armed Forces: Salih Abu-​Bakr bin Husainun rose to be chief of staff of the PDRY forces, before being killed in action during the 1994 civil war. The most obvious reason for a lack of soldiering is that a Hadhrami’s unique selling point (to use a modern marketing term) was probably scholarship –​particularly jurisprudence –​followed by international trade, both requiring literacy. To soldier –​a trade an illiterate could follow –​was therefore less lucrative. This is partly corroborated by soldiers’ diversification into trade as soon as they had the means to do so.

Muwalladin as Fighters One of the key issues that recurs across time and space is the presence of muwallad soldiers. The fact that muwalladin did become involved in soldiering may be due to the muwalladin’s lack of scholastic cachet, especially if they were not sent back to Hadhramaut to be educated. They also had links into their local (mothers’) communities, which may have given them a foot in both camps. A procedural reason for the lack of Hadhrami soldiering probably rests in the manner of hiring through agents. As several sources note, describing several locations, recruiting was usually outsourced to a trusted agent, who 157

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often recruited (and was answerable to and for) his fellow tribesmen. Thus the tribal identity of the agent was key. Since the Hadhramis had previously not been widely involved in contract soldiering –​except the Hadhramaut-​ originating mercenaries in Hyderabad (where they succeeded) –​it would be almost impossible to break into what amounted to a closed shop. Another reason may have been just that institutionalised state of war: as in the pre-​1745 Highlands, there were few fighting men available for export. Doreen Ingrams gives the total mainland population estimates of the Qu‘aiti, Kathiri, Wahidi, Mahri, Irqi and Hauri domains in 1946 as 264,300,80 while there were ‘14,000 Arabs under the control of Abdullah bin Ali’,81 one of three important jamadar in 1868. It is noticeable that, in times of drought (when presumably there was less caravan traffic to protect), non-​scholars did indeed leave.

Local Soldiers as Communications Channels However, the driving reason for the lack of extensive Hadhrami participation (whether in formed units or as individual soldiers) in the colonial dominions was that the imperial powers generally used local recruits. As Clark Hutchison makes clear, Levies constituted a gendarmerie, but also a two-​way channel into their communities.82 Of the Hadhrami Bedouin Legion, Clark Hutchison notes that • it ‘had forts in the more important Bedouin areas and an educational system which included boarding-​schools for Bedouin boys and girls’;83 • ‘the authorities can hand-​pick their recruits, preferring those whose families have a certain measure of authority to speak in and for his tribe’;84 • ‘Generally the presence of soldiers in an area has a deterrent effect on any potential law-​breakers or tribal raiders, and by mixing with the local Bedouin, and by reason of being themselves Bedouin, they do much to assist Government by explanation and advice’;85 • ‘On his return to his tribe [the former soldier] will be an asset to Government, and his understanding and experience will be of help to political officers or other Government servants who may have dealings with his tribe or work to perform in his area.’86 158

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If the Yemeni experience is anything to go by, it would appear that this policy was most effective: ‘[A]‌lthough [Salih Abu-​Bakr bin Husainun] only held the rank of sergeant87 and gave himself no airs, he carried an authority in many distant places.’88 Just as foreigners in Hadhramaut (or Yemen more widely) would not have been able to function in this fashion, nor would Hadhramis in other colonies have had that function abroad, and so they probably were routinely restricted from doing so. It appears that there was limited Hadhrami involvement in selling their scimitars abroad for numerous reasons, but mostly because there were other, more lucrative, forms of employment. The exception to Hadhramis not soldiering –​Hyderabad –​pre-​dates UK colonisation, and the Hadhramis were probably hired because they were of the same religion as the Nizam, and so could oppress, rather than engage, his Hindu subjects. Further, those termed ‘Hadhramis’ seem to have been resident Yemeni mercenaries from elsewhere in South Arabia who broke back into Hadhramaut from Hyderabad. The final observation is that Hadhrami muwalladin did often soldier, possibly as they had lost their fathers’ clerical cachet. Verily, the pen is mightier than the scimitar!

Notes 1. While primary sources have been used where possible, as with much of the routine business of soldiering, there is limited direct evidence, as observed in note 14. As a peer reviewer correctly noted, a considerable amount of the base data thus comprises ‘small bits of evidence found in disparate writings of authors not concerned with military affairs’. As a result, much of the assessment is surmise –​sometimes by inferring from an omission rather than actively evidenced –​but shaved with Occam’s Razor; and making clear what is factual or reported information, and what is assessment. 2. It might be assumed that the Baloch Regiment of Oman was of similar origin, but the port of Gwadar in Balochistan was an Omani enclave from 1784 to 8 September 1958. The Baloch were recruited initially as palace guards, and then, when the Omani army was established, as soldiers. 3. ‘Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977’. Available at www.icrc.org/​ihl/​WebART/​470-​750057 (accessed 31 August 2015). 4. Mark Mazzetti and Emily B. Hager, ‘Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder’, New  York Times, 14 May 2011. The majority of the personnel are

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora Colombians, hired on regular contracts, allegedly for internal security and civil contingency within the UAE. Despite this, many have been deployed in an offensive capacity in Yemen, with additional combat pay. There is also a question as to their status: whether they are part of the UAE Armed Forces or contracted through a private company. 5. Doreen Ingrams, A Survey of Social and Economic Conditions in the Aden Protectorate (Asmara, 1949), pp. 60–​1. 6. Ibid., p. 53. 7. A. M. Clark Hutchison, ‘The Hadhrami Bedouin Legion’, Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 37: 1 (1950), p. 64. 8. Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands (London, 1959), p. 183. 9. Oliver Miles, ‘Yemen: Bad to Worse’, Arab Digest, 19 October 2015. 10. Stephen Day, email to the author, 30 November 2015. 11. Jonathan Walker, Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in Yemen 1962–​67 (Barnsley, 2005), p. 195. 12. Emigrant Yemeni activity is also more visible in the colonial era due to both colonial observation and record-​keeping, which is easier to access than private, local records. 13. Jonathan Miran, ‘Red Sea Translocals: Hadrami Migration, Entrepreneurship, and Strategies of Integration in Eritrea, 1840s–​1970s’, Journal of Northeast African Studies 12: 1 (2012) (New Series), p. 130. 14. This may reflect a lack of a record of the soldiers, and the presence of a record of the elites. Generally, the written record is scant: ‘While there has been some continuous presence of Hadramis in Massawa since the sixteenth century, there is hardly any known documentation of this until the mid-​nineteenth century.’ Miran, ‘Red Sea Translocals’, p. 134. 15. Ibid., p. 133. 16. Ibid. 17. Leif Manger, ‘Hadramis in Hyderabad: From Winners to Losers’, Asian Journal of Social Science 35: 4 (2007), p. 415. 18. Ingrams, Survey of Social and Economic Conditions, p. 53. 19. Miran, ‘Red Sea Translocals’, p. 136. 20. Ibid., p. 137. 21. Ibid., p. 136. 22. Ibid., p. 143–​4. 23. Ibid., p. 149. 24. Ibid., p. 139. 25. Ibid., p. 142. 26. Ahmed Faroughy, Introducing Yemen (New York, 1947), p. 13. 27. Sebastian O’Kelly, ‘The “Man on the White Horse”’ (2010). Available at www. amedeoguillet.com/​ww2-​in-​africa (accessed 27 November 2015).

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Scimitar for Hire: Yemeni Fighters Abroad 28. The ‘Vietnamese restaurant’ at the north-​east corner of Tahrir Square in Sana‘a during the early 1990s was allegedly run by muwalladin children of a former Legionnaire. 29. Iain Walker, ‘Hadramis, Shimalis and Muwalladin: Negotiating Cosmopolitan Identities between the Swahili Coast and Southern Yemen’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 2: 1 (2008), p. 48. 30. Ibid. 31. Omar Khalidi, ‘The Hadhrami Role in the Politics and Society of Colonial India, 1750s–​1950s’, in U. Freitag and W. G. Clarence-​Smith (eds), Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s–​1960s (Leiden, 1997), pp. 4–​5. 32. Leif Manger, ‘Hadramis in Hyderabad: From Winners to Losers’, Asian Journal of Social Science 35: 4 (2007), p. 407. 33. Anon., Al Qu‘aiti Royal Family ‘Overview’ (2015). Available at alquaiti.com/​ history/​overview (accessed 31 August 2015). 34. Linda Boxberger, On the Edge of Empire:  Hadhramawt, Emigration, and the Indian Ocean, 1880s–​1930s (Albany, 2002), p. 30. 35. Manger, ‘Hadramis in Hyderabad’, p. 411. 36. Boxberger, On the Edge of Empire, p. 50. 37. Manger, ‘Hadramis in Hyderabad’, p. 407. 38. Khalidi, ‘The Hadhrami Role in the Politics and Society of Colonial India’, p. 6. 39. Ingrams, Survey of Social and Economic Conditions, p. 53. 40. Manger, ‘Hadramis in Hyderabad’, p. 411. 41. Richard Temple, Journals Kept in Hyderabad, Kashmir, Sikkim, and Nepal (London, 1887), p. 135. 42. Ibid., p. 138. 43. Anon., Al Qu‘aiti Royal Family ‘Overview’. 44. The suspension of feuding and so on was observed within tribes, not between shaykhs, who may not have held to the same truce. 45. Anon., Al Qu‘aiti Royal Family ‘Overview’. 46. It is slightly more complicated than that, in that various Yaf ‘ais, Aulaqis and Kathiris remained in Hadhramaut as a mercenary gendarmerie, and were augmented and directed by ‘overseas Arabs’ to carve out territories. 47. R. J. Gavin, Aden Under British Rule 1839–​1967 (London, 1975), p. 173. 48. Muhammad bin ​Dohry, email to author, 10 September 2015. 49. Manger, ‘Hadramis in Hyderabad’, p. 422. 50. Miran, ‘Red Sea Translocals’, p. 155. 51. Muhammad bin ​Dohry, email to author, 10 September 2015. 52. John Shipman, email to author, 10 September 2015. 53. Noel Brehony, email to author, 10 September 2015. 54. Stephen Day, email to the author, 30 November 2015.

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 55. Ibid. 56. Awad Mustafa, ‘Little Progress Made on Integrated GCC Missile Shield’, Defense News, 30 August 2015. Available at www.defensenews.com/​story/​ defense/​policy-​budget/​warfare/​2015/​08/​30/​lilttle-​progress-​made–​integrated-​ gcc-​missile-​shield/​32390269 (accessed 31 August 2015). 57. Michael Knights and Alexandre Mello, ‘The Saudi-​UAE War Effort in Yemen (Part  1):  Operation Golden Arrow in Aden’, Policywatch 2464, 10 August 2015. Available at www.washingtoninstitute.org/​policy-​analysis/​ view/​the-​saudi-​uae-​war-​effort-​in-​yemen-​part-​1-​operation-​golden-​arrow-​ in-​aden (accessed 12 August 2015). 58. Awad Mustafa, ‘Deadliest Missile Strike Kills 83 in Yemen’, Defense News, 4 September 2015. Available at www.defensenews.com/​story/​defense/​2015/​09/​ 04/​united-​arab-​emirates/​71717268 (accessed 9 September 2015). 59. Mohammed Ali Shabani, ‘Yemen’s African Connection’, al-​Monitor, 10 September 2015. Available at www.al-​monitor.com/​pulse/​originals/​2015/​09/​ uae-​troops-​yemen.html (accessed 12 September 2015). 60. Manger, ‘Hadramis in Hyderabad’, p. 408. 61. John Shipman, email to author, 2 December 2015. 62. John Shipman, email to author, 10 September 2015. 63. Noel Brehony, email to author, 1 December 2015. 64. Ibid. 65. Stephen Day, email to author, 30 November 2015. 66. Robert Worth, ‘Ex-​Jihadist Defies Yemen’s Leader, and Easy Labels’, New York Times, 26 February 2010, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/world/ middleeast/27tareq.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y (accessed 27 February 2010). 67. Telephone conversation with Stephen Day, 7 September 2015. 68. Reuven Paz, Arab Volunteers Killed in Iraq:  An Analysis, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, PRISM Occasional Papers 3:  1 (March 2005). Available at www.imra.org.il/​story.php3?id=24396 (accessed 31 August 2015). 69. During this period, Dr Obeid ‘was Special Advisor for Strategic Communications to Prince Turki al-​Faisal, while Prince Turki was the Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, and then the United States’. See belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/​experts/​2699/​nawaf_​obaid.html (accessed 31 August 2015). 70. Nawaf Obeid and Anthony Cordesman, ‘Saudi Militants in Iraq: Assessment and Kingdom’s Response’, CSIS, 19 September 2005. Available at csis.org/​files/​ media/​csis/​pubs/​050919_​saudimiltantsiraq.pdf (accessed 31 August 2015). 71. Brian Fishman and Joseph Felter, Al Qaeda’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records, Combating Terrorism Center, 19 December 2007. Available at www.ctc.usma.edu/​v2/​wp-​content/​uploads/​2010/​06/​aqs-​foreign-​ fighters-​in-​iraq.pdf (accessed 20 December 2007), pp. 7–​8.

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Scimitar for Hire: Yemeni Fighters Abroad 72. Anon., ‘Countries of Citizenship’, New  York Times. Available at projects. nytimes.com/​guantanamo/​detainees/​by-​country  (accessed  29  September 2015). 73. While the First Look report states 48 Yemenis, several of the entries in the source documentation are translators’ duplicates:  Fishman and Felter, Al Qaeda’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq. 74. Ibid., p. 19, Fig. 13. Again, this figure does not match the source documentation, in which only 13 unique suicide-​borne improvised explosive device bombers can be identified:  three from Aden, three from Sana‘a, one from Ta‘izz, and six from ‘Yemen’. 75. Peter Neumann, ‘Foreign Fighter Total in Syria/​Iraq Now Exceeds 20,000; Surpasses Afghanistan Conflict in the 1980s’, ICSR, 26 January 2015. Available at icsr.info/​2015/​01/​foreign-​fighter-​total-​syriairaq-​now-​exceeds-​ 20000-​surpasses-​afghanistan-​conflict-​1980s (accessed 30 September 2015). 76. Dion Dassanayake, ‘“Why is he doing this?” Devastated Father of UK Jihadists in Isis Video Speaks Out’, Daily Express, 21 June 2014, available at http:// www.express.co.uk/news/world/483929/Isis-Father-of-UK-jihadist-NasserMuthana-speaks-out (accessed 29 September 2015). 77. In other words, excluding Yaf ‘ai mercenaries resident in Hadhramaut. 78. Harold Ingrams, Arabia and the Isles (London, 1942), pp. 243ff. 79. Ingrams, Survey of Social and Economic Conditions, p. 53. 80. Ibid., p. 35. 81. Manger, ‘Hadramis in Hyderabad’, p. 411. 82. This broadly follows the model used after the 1745 Jacobite Uprising to pacify the Highlands, which involved raising the Black Watch, who wore government tartan rather than that of any clan. 83. Hutchison, ‘The Hadhrami Bedouin Legion’, p. 62. 84. Ibid., p. 63. 85. Ibid., p. 64. 86. Ibid., p. 65. 87. He was also a Sayyid, which may have helped his prestige. 88. Jim Ellis, ‘Obituary: Salih abu-​Bakr bin Husainun (1936–​1994)’, Journal of the British–​Yemeni Society, 1995. Available at b-​ys.org.uk/​journal/​obituaries/​bin-​ husainun-​salih-​abu-​bakr (accessed 1 August 2016).

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8 Citizenship and Belonging among the Hadhramis of Kenya Iain Walker

In this chapter I explore some ideas regarding citizenship and belonging, before turning to my case study, which concerns Hadhramis in Kenya and their processes of identity construction.1 Before doing so, I would like to raise, and then put to one side, two questions: one concerning the notion of the group, and the other regarding the often teleological character of such enquiries. I feel that it is necessary at least to acknowledge the fact that, particularly when engaged in multi-​sited fieldwork under pressure of time, I often have to engage the services of someone who possesses preconceptions as to whom a Hadhrami might be; though generally I interact with people who have clearly identified Hadhrami connections.2 I have data to gather and a limited time in which to do it; and from an analytical perspective this data is more likely to be useful if I  talk to Hadhramis who are embedded in a network of relationships with other Hadhramis than to someone who doesn’t quite know where Hadhramaut is. This leads me to the second question, which concerns the concept of the group. I am, and have long been, in agreement with Rogers Brubaker,3 who challenges much work on ethnic groups (sic) and notions of belonging. Groups are not bounded, and while ‘Hadhramis’ might seem like a useful category to work with (in East Africa or elsewhere), it embraces a large and heterogeneous group, and one that often tends to dissipate (or 164

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fragment) under closer scrutiny. True, categories defined by formal criteria of citizenship are more likely to constitute groups; but even here groups are never discrete, homogeneous or exclusive. Some people are more active citizens than others, and the state may take with one hand what it gives with the other. One effect of this is that Hadhrami is only one of several appellations that people I talked to applied to themselves; not surprisingly, one of the most common parallel identities is ‘Kenyan’, but they may also be Yemenis, as well people of the coast, sharifs, Africans, Arabs and so on. These various identities are not necessarily contradictory, although some combinations are taken as being so by some of the actors  –​‘Hadhrami’ and ‘Kenyan’ being a case in point. In some significant ways, therefore, ‘Hadhrami’ is as much an analytical tool as it is an analytical category. Claims of belonging may be based on civic or social (‘ethnic’) criteria –​according to either formal criteria for establishing citizenship or informal communitarian definitions. These are not dichotomous categories: individuals, groups and the state appeal to either or both types in their constructions of identities. Civic identity –​citizenship –​is seen as formal and fixed; individual, but universalist and homogenising; and, until quite recently, exclusive. Social identity, by contrast permits multiple loyalties. That the two ideal types intersect, and that this is recognised, is evident in the growing incidence (and acceptance) of multiple citizenship, as well as in the fact that citizenship is often also, upon closer inspection, neither particularly formal not necessarily fixed. Nevertheless, citizenship as a formal category is generally concerned with relationships between individuals and the state in a way that social identity is not. The framing question here concerns the way in which various aspects of  identity are expressed through identity papers and passports, and through claims to and recognition of belonging; and how the twin criteria for identity  –​civic and social  –​interact in the performance of belonging. I  am not concerned here with the more formal aspects of civic and citizens’ rights, but with the symbolic and potential character of citizenship as manifested in the possession of passports and other documents. Indeed, the passport is an identity marker of particular importance, for although it ostensibly proves citizenship,4 and thus entitlement to a range of rights including, importantly, the right to reside in a given territory and call it home (to belong), I believe that a passport’s cultural and symbolic 165

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meanings are equally significant.5 Indeed, as we shall see, attachment to a state in a political sense is often less important than the social and symbolic ties that are marked by possession of a passport: as the possession of multiple passports becomes increasingly common, the necessarily concomitant increase in non-​resident citizenship is transforming citizenship from a civic into a symbolic category.6 The possession of a passport is no longer exclusively the manifestation of a relationship with a state, and this is particularly true where the state is not even the focus of expressions of attachment, as is the case of Hadhramis who hold Yemeni citizenship. In such cases, a passport makes a symbolic statement about identity, even where this identity is not made explicit through the possession of the passport, so that the identity conferred by possession of a passport as a document may be entirely symbolic. This was true, for example, of the British protectorate passports –​long expired, and issued by states that no longer exist –​that have often been brought out and shown to me by Hadhramis in the region. One reason for this is precisely that Hadhramaut is not an independent state,7 and therefore passports are not issued in its name, nor indeed any other form of identity document. Instead, claims to Hadhrami identity rely on other criteria for belonging: Yemeni citizenship is certainly one, but one that is viewed with ambiguity by some; but since Hadhramaut is often not seen –​on either cultural or historical grounds –​as part of Yemen, it might be equally logically consistent to appeal to Kenyan citizenship as a marker of Hadhrami identity. This poses certain problems in the context of discourses based on formal state identities, since it allows scope for Hadhramis to assume more than one citizenship without calling into question their Hadhrami-​ness.

Making Hadhramis For centuries, Hadhramis have emigrated to a variety of destinations across the Indian Ocean, and the Hadhrami presence in Kenya can be traced back to the early Islamic period, if not earlier. Hadhramis of all social strata emigrated, and the population of those who have, or claim, Hadhrami descent is highly heterogeneous; the social, geographical and temporal depth and breadth of the community means that Hadhramis in Kenya do not all know one another.8 The primary criterion for identification, or confirmation of 166

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identity, is genealogical rather than spatial, reflecting principles of social and political organisation in Hadhramaut itself –​not ‘Where do you come from?’, but ‘What is your tribe?’. All those who claim Hadhrami identity may do so by invoking membership of a tribe or clan –​Basaiba, Ba Shrahil, Balala, Bakhresa, and so on –​and these affiliations, which are genealogically attested in a variety of ways, are taken as ‘proof ’ of an individual’s Hadhrami ancestry. Although the process is generally uncontested, if anyone claims to be Hadhrami who is unable to state their genealogical affiliation, or if there is any doubt, or if the tribe or clan does not appear to be a Hadhrami one, then further enquiry is required. This is a particularly useful, if somewhat essentialising strategy that I use myself: a first step in the exploration of Hadhrami identities. I will return later to the genealogical basis for ascription of identity. Before attending to more socially constructed claims to belonging, however, I wish to trace the processes by which formal markers of Hadhrami identity –​identity papers and passports –​have been developed over the years. In the nineteenth century, the greater part of Hadhramaut was politically organised into two independent sultanates, the Qu’ayti state and the Kathiri state,9 which became British protectorates in 1888 and 1918, respectively. Affiliation to one or the other of the sultanates was based both on tribal or clan identity, and on place of origin; for, while many tribal leaders recognised the sovereignty of one or other of the sultans, some tribes had lands in the territories of both states, and criteria for belonging in a formal sense thus depended on choices, individual or collective.10 During World War I, the Qu’ayti ruler Sultan Ghalib bin Awadh began issuing identity papers (‘passports’) to those of his subjects who required them to travel. Although their status as British Protected Persons (BPPs) entitled them to British passports, the requirement that British passport applications be lodged in Aden (several hundred kilometres away) dissuaded most Hadhramis from applying for them, and those who did have papers generally obtained them in Mukalla, the Qu’ayti capital.11 This, and the fact that the papers were fairly basic, giving only the name, profession and age of their holder, and thus inadequate for the needs of growing bureaucracies and mechanisms of control, led to a proposal in 1930 that a more substantial document, including a photograph (for men), be issued. After some discussion, this was done; but the document –​a Certificate of 167

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Identity –​remained an identity document and not a formal passport; and although it could be used for travel to destinations where a passport was not required, such as East Africa, it made no statement regarding the status of the bearer, and could be issued to any resident of Hadhramaut, subjects and foreigners alike. In 1937 complaints were received from the Singapore government that Hadhramis were arriving without proper papers.12 In view of the fact that ‘proper papers’ could still only be obtained in Aden, Harold Ingrams, the British Resident in Mukalla, proposed that full passports be issued by both Hadhrami states, thus allowing Hadhramis to obtain their documents locally. In addition to facilitating travel, these passports would, unlike the identity papers hitherto available, only be issued to subjects of the Hadhrami states.13 In support of his proposal, Ingrams argued that the issuing of such passports would counter Italian accusations that the British were depriving these states of their independence –​and the process would also help to protect the amour propre of the Hadhrami states. After some discussions with the government in Aden (which opposed the idea, but was overruled by London), he designed and had printed 1,500 Qu’ayti and 500 Kathiri passports. The criterion for eligibility for such passports appears to have been self-​evident: they would be issued to ‘natural-​born … subjects’ whose identity could be verified by a countersignatory, but this verification seems to have been concerned with the identity of the applicant and not his status as a subject, despite the fact that BPP status was now subject to British rules and not local ones. These passports were still extant in the 1960s and, correctly if ironically, given Ingrams’s reasoning, today, though long since expired, they are frequently produced as a proof of British affiliation rather than Hadhrami identity –​which does not require any sort of documentary evidence, particularly in the absence of a Hadhrami state. During the first half of the twentieth century, Hadhramis therefore arrived in Kenya as subjects of one of the two sultans and as BPPs; they retained this status until the independence of South Yemen in 1967. From the 1920s, passports or some other form of identity papers were in theory required, but regulations applicable to Hadhramis were rarely enforced, and it was not until the introduction, in 1948, of new immigration and nationality legislation common to all British territories14 that Hadhramis were required to abide by the rules. These included the requirement that 168

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all be in possession of a passport; but even then there was both laxity and evasion, and following independence the British had to confront the issue of Hadhramis claiming British protection but who possessed no documents at all. In short, there were few effective controls on the movements of Hadhramis into Kenya prior to the 1960s; despite the formal requirements that individuals be in possession of passports, many were not –​and the majority of those who arrived prior to World War II were certainly not. This is not to imply that they were not entitled to such documents, but simply that they did not possess them. Consequently, establishing people’s formal status, when the time came to do so, would prove problematic.

Formal Citizenship after Independence Formal criteria for citizenship were therefore established by two authorities: the British government, which assumed ultimate responsibility for its protégés during the protectorate period; and the Hadhrami states, whose subjects these people were. Upon Kenyan independence in December 1963, most BPPs in Kenya –​the vast majority of whom had been Zanzibari subjects by virtue of their birth in the Kenya protectorate15  –​ automatically became Kenyan citizens. Most of the small minority who did not were Hadhramis who –​by virtue of the fact either that they were born in Hadhramaut or, if born in Kenya, that neither of their parents were born there –​were required either to naturalise (in the former case) or register (in the latter) as citizens. Many Hadhramis would have been happy to register, but were dissuaded by the cost: as non-​Commonwealth citizens the fee was 400 shillings –​eight times the 50-​shilling fee for Commonwealth citizens, and a substantial sum of money.16 But there were also arguments in favour of retaining British status. There was anxiety following the revolution in Zanzibar; anti-​Arab policies were being implemented in independent Somalia; and in May 1965 a rumour circulated in Kenya that Hadhramis would be required to take out Kenyan citizenship or leave the country.17 Although this rumour turned out to be unfounded, leaders of the Hadhrami community asked for a committee to be set up, composed of notable local Hadhrami residents, to approve passport applications for those who wished to obtain BPP papers. Obtaining a Hadhrami passport was itself a lengthy process, 169

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since in addition to the delays caused to the overworked staff of the British High Commission in Nairobi (who, following independence, had assumed responsibility for issuing BPP passports), most applications were referred to Aden, and thence to Mukalla, and the process could take up to 12 months. In view of fears that the expected large numbers of applications would put undue strain on resources, and that the delays would prompt protests, the British government viewed the Hadhrami community’s suggestion favourably. Ahmad al-Attas, deputy minister of the Qu’ayti sultanate (who had undertaken a similar exercise in Jeddah in 1955), and Salim Mohammed Balala, a member of the Kenyan National Assembly and also of Qu’ayti origin, proposed that an official passport office be opened in Kenya. This proposal was approved by the Qu’ayti government in Mukalla.18 Initially it was agreed that the Hadhramy League of East Africa, a local community association, would attest to individuals’ identities and their entitlement to Qu’ayti status, but neither the British nor the Qu’aytis were particularly happy with this decision. Balala himself (a Kenyan citizen and MP) was one of the leaders of the League, and there was a risk that members of the League, called upon to perform a purely administrative role, might politicise the activity, which would certainly have aroused protests from the new Kenyan government; furthermore, the fact that not all members of the League were Hadhramis –​Yemenis and South Arabians were also accepted as members –​meant that passports might be issued to people not entitled to them. It was eventually decided that decisions regarding entitlements to British passports could not be left to a community association, and the Qu’ayti government sent the Controller of Immigration, Issa Musallam Balala,19 to serve as temporary passport officer; he would be able call upon the League in an advisory capacity, as had been done in Jeddah, but the final decision would be his. Similar arrangements were made by the Kathiri state; it had originally proposed appointing a Mombasa businessman, Abdalla bin Said Zubeidi, but for similar reasons also eventually sent a passport officer, one Hussein al-Habshi.20 In both cases, therefore, the decisions regarding formal ascriptions of Hadhrami identity involved both representatives of the Hadhrami states and members of the local community in diaspora in Kenya: a synthesis of the formal and the social. The two passport officers spent just over a year 170

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in Kenya, during which period some 5,000 Qu’ayti and 1,000 Kathiri passports were issued. These attempts to reconcile Hadhrami sociocultural identity with formal concepts of identity, as required in particular by the British, and the increasingly relevant world system of nation states and their citizenship rules more generally, led to some ambiguity. While waiting for the necessary passports to be issued, for example, the Kathiri government in Say‘un authorised the British government to grant visas to ‘every Hadrami (Kathiri) of a non-​Hadrami (Kathiri) nationality’, without reference to Say‘un.21 As the British Resident in Mukalla observed in a letter to Nairobi, the Kathiris wished to ‘obviate the inconvenience whereby Hadramis would have to apply for visas for entry into their own country’.22 There was no suggestion of how a Hadhrami might be defined. The Qu’ayti state made similar arrangements for transit through Aden, although the immigration department in Aden required that travellers carry a certified letter stating that ‘such a person is himself or his father is a Hadhramout born of the Quaity State’.23 This definition hints at differences in criteria for citizenship, since it was at odds with instructions that would later be received by Balala from the Qu’ayti government, to the effect that he should ‘regard as a national of Qu‘aiti any Arab who can prove descent from a grandfather born in Qu‘aiti [and] issue, upon application, a Qu‘aiti passport to any person being of Qu‘aiti origin provided that the person concerned does not already possess a valid passport issued by some other Government authority’.24 As far as the British were concerned, these were worrying instructions that risked ­causing them ‘much embarrassment’:25 in the first instance, BPP status could only be transmitted to the first generation born outside the protectorate, and the instruction to issue passports to grandchildren was contrary to British Nationality law; the second instruction seemed to have no regard for citizenship law whatsoever, and seemed to pave the way for the Qu’ayti state to issue BPP passports to Kenyan citizens, regardless of whether or not the latter were also BPPs. At independence, Kenya, in common with the other East African territories, had introduced citizenship legislation that did not allow for dual citizenship; however, dual citizenship is notoriously difficult to legislate against. No state can strip an individual of his or her citizenship of another state (confiscating a passport, which some authorities do, has no effect 171

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whatsoever on citizenship); and while it is possible for a state to make life extremely difficult for​individuals who do not renounce another citizenship, in most cases (though not all: see below) this is not a pragmatic solution, partly because many states also make it difficult, if not impossible, for its citizens to comply with such demands –​Kenya itself is one –​and a blind eye is therefore often turned, sometimes officially. This was the case for Hadhramis: BPP status could not be renounced, and under Section 12 of the Kenya Constitution, provision was made for those who wished to take up Kenyan citizenship but were unable to renounce citizenship of another country. Even though they also remained BPPs, many Hadhramis therefore applied for registration as Kenyan citizens, particularly since there was a fear (eventually unfounded) that rights to ownership of property or businesses would be restricted to Kenyans. In 1967, upon the independence of South Yemen, these issues became moot, when all Hadhrami BPPs became citizens of the PDRY state. In practice only a very small number of Kenyan Hadhramis claimed their PDRY citizenship (and passports):  most had little interest and even less opportunity to do so,26 opting instead for Kenyan citizenship. Note that they also lost their status as Kathiri or Qu’ayti subjects, since these states were forcibly incorporated into the PDRY. There was therefore a period between 1967 and the unification of the two Yemeni states in 1990 when most Hadhramis in Kenya held only Kenyan passports (although entitled to PDRY ones). Following the collapse of the socialist regime in the south and Yemeni unification in 1990, however, travel to Yemen became both an easier and a more appealing proposition, and increasing numbers of Hadhramis renewed their ties with the homeland, and applied for its passports. I will return to post-​unification Yemeni identities below, but I turn now to consider social expressions of belonging and identity in Kenya.

Hadhramis as Hadhramis Hadhramis in Kenya constitute a reasonably well-​defined community. While many Kenyans, particularly ‘upcountry’ Kenyans, may not differentiate between Hadhramis and others of Arab origin, most locally embedded actors on the coast recognise a distinct Hadhrami qua Yemeni identity.27 While there is, as I have suggested, a teleological aspect to my work, there 172

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is also a recognition of people’s identities. When I arrived on my first visit to Mombasa in my quest for Hadhramis, I  engaged the services of the cousin of a friend from Zanzibar, and for the best part of a week we visited Hadhramis in the town. After a couple of days, I asked my companion how he knew all these people were Hadhramis. ‘Everyone knows’, he replied. ‘Mombasa’s very small, everyone knows each other.’ ‘Everyone’ is of course a relative term; nevertheless, while recent migrants to Mombasa may be less familiar with the identities of longer-​term residents, the dynamics of urban networks are such that, even in a city with a population of a million, it is possible to claim to know (about) ‘everyone’. This is particularly true of the more successful Hadhrami families, who have large businesses, reputations as religious scholars, or, in some cases, buildings and streets named after them; but less well-​known Hadhramis are also part of such networks. My companion, who was not himself Hadhrami, knew where to find a man I had met in Hadhramaut several years earlier, who was not a particularly prominent individual. Names are of course obvious markers, but a familiarity with Hadhrami names, and in particular the ability to distinguish them from other Arab names, is an essential prerequisite for identifying a Hadhrami. Although  –​or perhaps because  –​the Arab population of Omani origin is smaller than in Zanzibar, in Mombasa I was never introduced to an Omani by an interlocutor who had mistaken him for a Hadhrami. There is of course a significant temporal depth to the Hadhrami community. Both written sources and oral traditions confirm the presence of South Arabian migrants –​not necessarily Hadhramis –​on the East African coast as long ago as the beginning of the first millennium; more specific genealogies date Hadhrami arrivals –​particularly of sharifu, descendants of the Prophet  –​to the early Islamic period. This has produced a community with a particular profile. ‘There are four different categories of Hadhrami’, said one informant: those who have ‘lost their genealogies, lost their identity; all they have is their tribal name’; those who have maintained their genealogies and may know where their ancestors’ graves are located but who, while maintaining social and cultural links, have no specific kin links; those who know they have family there, but have not themselves ever visited the homeland; and those who still have links, who visit family in Hadhramaut and speak Arabic at home. 173

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Tellingly, my informant added that representatives of all these categories are in Mombasa, and that they all knew each other –​thus suggesting that the first category, despite what he had just said, had not entirely lost its identity. Nevertheless, his statement is representative of the relative importance accorded to a range of social practices and cultural markers. It would appear to be reasonably acceptable no longer to speak Arabic at home, or not to visit Hadhramaut –​only one category meets these conditions –​in order to claim or be accorded Hadhrami identity, whereas to lose one’s genealogy is to lose one’s identity. Even so, one may still be identifiable as Hadhrami:  even if it is voided of meaning through lack of a genealogy, retention of the tribal name may serve as a basis for re-​establishing an identity. Identities are thus common knowledge: they are practised –​through relationships, through behaviour, through dress and cultural practices –​ and reinforced by reputation. These practices are often explicitly invoked: ‘there are clothes, we wear the futa in the house and to sleep, and there’s food, like boko boko, although no one cooks it at home any more. But there are a couple of restaurants where you can eat it’. Clothing and food are fairly standard cultural markers, widely cited –​they are easy to see, and thus both verify and can be verified. Some are practised more often than others: wearing a futa in the house is a relatively effortless practice; going to one of the restaurants that serve boko boko may be a less frequent event. Rather, enunciations of the potential of such practices assume the status of cultural markers: one does not actually need to go to the restaurant; one simply needs to be aware that it exists, and cite it to the inquiring anthropologist. Wider networks reinforce social cohesion, and gatherings are important. Almost without exception, my informants mentioned a daily majlis held by Mohammad Ba Wazir, a prominent member of Mombasa society: guests are invited to lunch, followed by a qat chew. It is open to all, but Hadhramis are particularly welcome and particularly present. Similarly, there are other gatherings, less obviously Hadhrami but which also serve as interactions around which identities coalesce. During my stay in Mombasa, I was invited by one Hadhrami to join a group of qat chewers who gather every afternoon outside an old cinema; I did so, and as I talked to others about my research I became aware that most of them were also ‘Hadhrami’; or, at least, claimed Hadhrami identities. This is 174

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not to suggest that this group gathered because they were Hadhrami, or that the gathering was part of a strategy of being Hadhrami, but rather that social interactions both here and elsewhere were such that they were brought together through embeddedness in networks that were constructed as Hadhrami in a variety of ways that reciprocally reinforced those very networks.28 There is, as the importance of genealogies suggests, an emphasis on the family. ‘The first priority is to the family. That is the most important. And marrying in the family strengthens the family.’ This sort of observation is also made negatively: ‘Everything is about money and the economy’, said one, ‘which may also be why they marry in the family, to keep the wealth together.’ Another added:  ‘There’s little trust between families. It was all about money, nothing to do with religion.’ And, indeed, although Hadhramis had a reputation for helping one another, closer inspection of Hadhrami business practices in the colonial period reveals that Hadhramis exercised some discrimination regarding those to whom they extended assistance in East Africa: uncles, nephews, family and tribe benefited; others less so. Those who did end up working for non-​kin Hadhramis were often fairly ruthlessly exploited, working long hours and seven-​day weeks until such time as they saved sufficient capital to establish their own businesses –​and, given the conditions, the incentive to do so was fairly strong. As a result, Hadhramis in Kenya have been particularly successful and, whether through religious duty or altruism, a number have funded charitable works. The aforementioned Mohammad Ba Wazir has set up a trust that not only funds projects in Hadhramaut, but has built two schools in Mombasa, one of which is operated by al-​Azhar, funded mosques in Sudan, Indonesia and Tanzania, and sends funds to Hadhrami communities in the diaspora, particularly Djibouti. The profit from the school is ploughed back into the community through a waqf, funding health and education, and if Hadhramis are specifically intended to be the beneficiaries of these initiatives, others are not excluded. Ba Wazir’s Hadhrami identity is therefore reinforced precisely through the extension of his activities beyond the Hadhrami community. If there is a religious element to many activities, such as the construction of mosques, there is also an international element: Hadhramis travel –​ they travel between different places in the Hadhrami diaspora as well as 175

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to Hadhramaut. Hadhramis travel to the homeland to visit graves; they travel to Lamu for maulidi (mawlid); they travel to the tomb of the Prophet Hud in eastern Hadhramaut, an annual pilgrimage that takes place in the month of Sha‘ban; in 2011, on the occasion of the centenary of the death of the scholar Ali Muhammad al-​Habshi, Habib Ali al-​Jifri, a prominent Hadhrami theologian, called upon 30 delegates from Kenya to attend the ceremonies. Students travel to the religious colleges in Hadhramaut, particularly Dar al-​Mustafa in Tarim, and meet Hadhrami students in religious institutions elsewhere. All these activities serve to reinforce Hadhrami identities across the diaspora, and those who travel return to Kenya with a renewed sense of identity. As I have suggested, this identity is particularly dependent upon genealogies, and genealogies are particularly important for the sada.29 ‘There is a book in Tarim held by the mansab of the Jamal al Layl’, said Ahmed bin Sumeit Badawy, head of the custodial family of the Riyadha mosque in Lamu, which keeps a record of all the members of the family, even in exile. The first time I went there I found I was already in the book, so all I had to do was inscribe my children. Sh Abubakar Salim, my grandfather, went and registered, and my uncle too had been and registered.

Repeated visits of individuals to the homeland keep such genealogies up to date; some families have them printed up and distributed to other family members in diaspora, while the more prominent families, such as the al-​Saggaf, issue identity booklets with the holder’s pedigree, certified by the holders of the central genealogical database –​in this case held in Singapore –​which, in a sense, returns us to passports, for this is a circular process: genealogies pave the way for a return both by establishing an identity and by providing very real directions as to where to go and who to see; and, reciprocally, a return allows individuals to update genealogies, completing the cycle. And it is these genealogies that are the basis for formal ascriptions of identity, too, not only in the Qu’ayti state’s desire to issue passports to ‘persons of Qu‘aiti origin’, or to Kathiri instructions to issue visas to ‘every Hadrami (Kathiri) of a non-​Hadrami (Kathiri) nationality’, but in contemporary practice in the Republic of Yemen. Before examining 176

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this further, though, I  would like to delve a little deeper into Kenyan Hadhrami identities.

Hadhramis as Kenyans, Hadhramis as Yemenis ‘You can be Hadhrami and Kenyan  –​you don’t have to make a choice. We’re proud of our ancestry, being Hadhrami.’ This sort of declaration is almost standard among Kenyans of Hadhrami origin, and is either preceded or followed by a discursive aside on the cosmopolitan character of Mombasa specifically, and the coast more generally. ‘There is a lot of mixture here –​there are Asians and Indians, and Chinese and Arabs, Omani and Yemeni, and people from all over, and you are still Kenyan.’ What is noticeable about this particular statement (and many others of this kind) is that no mention is made of ‘Africans’: Kikuyu, Maasai, Luo –​all are generally absent from descriptions of coastal identities, quite simply because they are not seen as coastal people. In this discourse the coast is part of an Indian Ocean world, rather than an African one. This is not new: it is a worldview very similar to early perspectives on the Swahili as being Arab, not African.30 In a letter to the secretary of state for the colonies dated 14 December 1959, representatives of Coastal Arabs (of both Hadhrami and Omani origin) underlined the Arab character of the Kenyan coastal protectorate and the antiquity of the Arab presence on the coast:  according to the writers, Arabs were navigating in the region before the Christian era, and the first recorded Arab presence dates to 684 CE. Under the treaty of 1895, ‘the Protectorate was regarded as an Arab country and an Arab dominion … The majority of Africans presently living in the protectorate are of very recent arrival, to a large extent within the last 10 years.’ This discourse will be familiar to anyone who has worked in coastal East Africa, and is particularly topical in Kenya, with the rise of the Mombasa Republican Council separatist organisation and protests surrounding the Lamu port project. On the one side, the claims that coastal people of Arab origin, identified in various ways but particularly phenotypically and by name, do not belong  –​they are outsiders, immigrants, people who are not African; belonging is spatially defined. On the other side are temporal definitions of belonging based on claims to priority, to autochthony, the 177

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‘we were here first’ argument; but this approach also has a spatial dimension (you were where first?), often quite explicitly. Thus, an informant tells me: ‘Before independence you didn’t see all these black people here. Now Mombasa is full of them.’ In this particular place (the coast), ‘we’ were here first. And this discourse is sometimes extended to Kenya generally. In a well-​known case in the 1990s, Shaykh Khalid Balala,31 the radical leader of the Islamic Party of Kenya, was stripped of his Kenyan citizenship when his passport expired while he was in Germany, the Kenyan government claiming that he was from Yemen. The issue was eventually resolved, and many years later, so the story goes, Shaykh Khalid encountered the future Kenyan prime minister Raila Odinga in Nairobi, pulled his papers (including his grandfather’s birth certificate) out of his pocket, and publicly declaimed his pedigree as a Kenyan. ‘You, however’, he accused Odinga ‘are from Sudan!’32 Jeremy Prestholdt relates a similar exchange between Abdilahi Nassir and Tom Mboya:33 such mutual accusations are a common occurrence, and recall the ‘empty lands’ discourse of apartheid South Africa, whereby a group responds to contestations of its own autochthony by challenging the autochthony of the other. The difference between the spatial and temporal bases of belonging is manifested in the methods of determination of a legal basis for claims to citizenship: jus soli or jus sanguinis. In 1963, anyone born in Kenya of at least one Kenyan-​born parent was a Kenyan citizen, but the 1963 (and 2010) constitution granted citizenship to those born anywhere to a Kenyan citizen, thus shifting the emphasis from jus soli to jus sanguinis: birth in Kenya does not automatically confer citizenship. This moves closer to Yemeni nationality law, which also grants citizenship by descent only, although it is widely recognised that if you can claim spatial belonging, it makes it that much easier to claim social and thus legal belonging. A number of years ago, I received a life story from a man in Say‘un. Born in Hadhramaut, he had worked in the salt trade in Shabwa as a boy, gone to seek his fortune in Kenya when he was 15, and spent the greater part of his adult life in Kenya, before finally returning to retire in Hadhramaut. He then showed me his Kenyan passport:  born in Nairobi. ‘Makes it easier’, he said. Hadhramis may also be Yemenis. The process of inscribing facts on paper both reflects and creates a reality on the ground. The man who claimed to 178

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have been born in Nairobi was simply reinforcing his (claim to) identity as a Kenyan; the government who issues passports to ‘Hadhramis’ is recognising claims to identity that are socially embedded. Today there is no longer a formally inscribed Hadhrami identity: having once enjoyed status on paper, ‘Hadhrami’ has become an ‘ethnic’ category, a community. In one sense, this is to their advantage, as they can claim to be Hadhramis (not Kikuyu) and Kenyans (not Yemenis) –​unless, of course, they are Yemeni citizens. Yemeni citizenship is reasonably simple to claim for those who are entitled to it. According to the Yemeni Nationality Law of 1990, as amended in 1994, and in addition to fairly standard rights to citizenship by descent, Yemeni citizenship was granted to emigrants on the condition that ‘there should not occur a discontinuation between the branch and the homeland for more than fifty Gregorian years’, and that ‘the gap of relationship with the origin of the Yemeni emigrant must be limited to (should not go beyond) that of the grandfather of the father’.34 In practice, given the lack of documentary evidence regarding the dates of departure of emigrants from Yemen, anyone with a Hadhrami tribal affiliation (a tribal name, a genealogy) has reasonable grounds to claim citizenship.35 The process requires the support of two witnesses and the endorsement of the shaykh of the individual’s home village, following which an identity card may be issued, which can then be used to apply for a passport. Although the importance of the genealogy is paramount, the goodwill of the shaykh counts for much: ‘But they can tell anyway –​they look at you and they know if you are Yemeni or not’, said one informant. But, as I have already suggested, and despite the letter of the law, informants confirm that there is no time limit, or restrictions on genealogical depth: once a Hadhrami, always a Hadhrami. By implication, this also works both ways: ‘I’m Hadhrami, even though I have a Kenyan passport. We’re very cosmopolitan.’ * What, then, does it mean to be Hadhrami in Kenya? And why do Hadhramis maintain these identities? The question is all the more pertinent in the context of the dynamics of Kenyan coastal identity politics: while accusations of being foreign are generally levelled at upcountry Kenyans, Hadhramis have occasionally also been othered in this way;36 and, of course, they are othered by these same upcountry Kenyans who see all coastal people of ‘Arab’ origin as foreign.37 Clearly, the positive aspects of Hadhrami identity must outweigh the negative ones. 179

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Identities serve a number of purposes, and we may broadly distinguish three categories of identarian practice:  the instrumental, the symbolic and the affective. Instrumental identities are perhaps the least relevant in claiming Hadhrami identity. Passports and identity papers generally have a very real function, but in this specific case –​and in the absence of formal (or civic) Hadhrami identities –​a Yemeni passport is of little value in Kenya (or elsewhere in East Africa, for that matter). Nor is travelling on a Yemeni passport straightforward in the current political climate: Yemenis require visas to travel almost anywhere; indeed, it is easier for a Kenyan to enter the UAE than it is for a Yemeni. Nevertheless, some have strategic reasons for possessing a Yemeni passport, and it is not uncommon for the ‘safety mechanism’ argument to be invoked: given the history of anti-​Arab sentiment in parts of East Africa, many Hadhramis have Yemeni passports ‘just in case’.38 This of course is a tacit admission of non-​belonging, a have-​ your-​cake-​and-​eat-​it-​too argument: I belong here, but if you really don’t want me I  have somewhere else I  can go. This is understood, and most Hadhramis are discreet about their dual citizenship –​which was, in any case, illegal in Kenya until the promulgation of the new constitution in 2010. There is also the argument  –​perhaps somewhat optimistic  –​that was once given to me by a successful businessman: ‘When Aden is the new Dubai, I’ll be ready.’ Otherwise, there are no real advantages to the possession of a Yemeni passport. Yemen does not grant voting rights to Yemenis overseas, and the limited community support activities undertaken by Yemeni diplomatic missions do not usually depend on beneficiaries possessing Yemeni passports. There is, however, a strong symbolic element to the possession of a Yemeni passport, and indeed of Yemeni papers more generally.39 Numerous informants confess to having a Yemeni passport under the bed (or locked in a chest), while others, recognising the illegality of possessing two passports, possess a Yemeni identity card.40 ‘I just like to have it’, explained one elderly Hadhrami who had not been to Yemen for 20 years, and, given his poor health, was unlikely ever to go again. Such passports are ‘proof ’ of identity to those who are neither in a position to demand it nor have any need to do so: others in the immediate circle and oneself. Hadhramis gain a certain reassurance from possessing these passports, even if, as some make 180

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explicit, ‘it’s no use’. Why, then, go to the trouble of applying –​and paying –​ for one? In a formal sense, these passports are indeed quite useless; but the possession of such documents is symbolic of an individual’s identity as a Yemeni, and thus as Hadhrami: very useful indeed. Passports are held almost despite their lack of functionality: they are very much markers of belonging. The same is true of the identity booklets issued to some of the sada families that serve as portable genealogies: highly symbolic, but with no real function. Providing a conceptual bridge between the symbolic and the affective are the long-​expired British passports issued by one of the Hadhrami states, which are often brought out for my inspection by older men. While some maintain the hope that this British status is still valid, or can somehow be reactivated, most are aware that any basis for a claim to British nationality has long since lapsed, and the passports are little more than reminders of a more illustrious past. Discussions over the passports generally centre upon the dhow trade, the colonial period, and the (positive) British influence upon both the homeland and Kenya: nostalgia for a lost status elides with a more general nostalgia for a lost past. These passports no longer have any formal significance: they have no instrumental purpose, and a limited symbolic one, since few beyond the community have any understanding of what they might once have represented. They serve as expressions of identity, alongside cultural practice, attendance at collective events, participation in social networks, and kin affiliations –​ affective expressions of identity that serve almost to undermine claims to status as a Yemeni (or, for that matter, Kenyan) citizen. Hadhramis are multi-​nationals, transnationals: their identity is an ‘ethnic’, particularist and contingent one. And while Kenyan or Yemeni passports are useful tools in the contemporary world, Hadhrami identity is based on a deep historical understanding and recognition of belonging that is inscribed in, and performed through, daily practice, in various places and various spaces, that, in national terms, sees Hadhramis as being at once both/​ neither Kenyan and/​nor Yemeni. They are both Kenyan and Yemeni insofar as their points of reference fall within the borders of these politically constituted states; but they are neither insofar as both categories are also exclusive. 181

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Notes 1. This chapter emerges from research made possible by the Oxford Diasporas Programme, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and the John Fell Oxford University Press Research Fund. Draft versions of the chapter were presented at the ASAUK annual conference in Leeds (September 2012), the ‘Islam and the Hadrami Diaspora in the Eastern and Western Indian Ocean’ symposium in Leiden (December 2014), and the HRC Inaugural Conference at SOAS (March 2015). I thank the various participants at these conferences for their comments, as well as Noel Brehony and John Shipman, who commented on the final version. 2. Of course, I  also interact with people who have no Hadhrami connexions whatsoever, but this is less problematic. 3. Rogers Brubaker, ‘Ethnicity without Groups’, European Journal of Sociology 43: 2 (2002). 4. Although passports are not strictly proof of the bearer’s citizenship, states usually only issue them to their citizens, and so they are treated as if they were, which is what concerns us here. On the passport and its evolution as a document, see John Torpey, The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State (Cambridge, 2000). 5. See Darren J. O’Byrne, ‘On Passports and Border Controls’, Annals of Tourism Research 28: 2 (2001). 6. See, for example, Yossi Harpaz, ‘Rooted Cosmopolitans: Israelis with a European Passport: History, Property, Identity’, International Migration Review 47: 1 (2013); and Jennifer Skulte-​Ouaiss, ‘Home Is Where the Heart Is; Citizenship Is Where It Is Safe: Dual Citizenship and Europe’, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 20: 2 (2013). 7. Despite calls for it to become one. See Iain Walker, ‘Hadrami identities in Saudi Arabia’, in Noel Brehony and Saud al Sarhan (eds), Rebuilding Yemen: Political, Economic and Social Challenges (Berlin, 2015). 8. On Hadhramis in East Africa see, for example, Bradford G. Martin, ‘Notes on Some Members of the Learned Classes of Zanzibar and East Africa in the Nineteenth Century’, African Historical Studies 4: 3 (1971); Bradford G. Martin, ‘Arab Migrations to East Africa in Medieval Times’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 7: 3 (1975); R. B. Serjeant, The Saiyids of Ḥaḍramawt: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on 5 June 1956 (London, 1957); Françoise Le Guennec-​Coppens, ‘Social and Cultural Integration: A Case Study of the East African Hadramis’, Africa 59: 2 (1989); Françoise Le Guennec-​ Coppens, ‘Changing Patterns of Hadhrami Migration and Social Integration in East Africa’, in Ulrike Freitag and W. G. Clarence-​Smith (eds), Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s–​1960s (Leiden, 1997); and Anne Bang, Sufis and Scholars of the Sea: Family Networks in

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Citizenship and Belonging among the Hadhramis East Africa, 1860–​1925 (London, 2003). Many scholars, as well as Hadhramis themselves, hold that migrants, particularly in the pre-​colonial period, were mostly high-​status sada –​descendants of the Prophet; but as Le Guennec-​ Coppens observes, this seems an unsustainable assumption (Le Guennec-​ Coppens, ‘Changing Patterns of Hadhrami Migration and Social Integration’, pp. 164–​5). One would expect genealogies and identities retained from historically anterior migrations to be high-​status ones, just as one would expect low-​status migrants not to retain theirs. 9. These states were sometimes referred to by the names of their capitals:  the Kathiri administration was based in Say‘un, the Qu’ayti in Mukalla. See Ulrike Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramout: Reforming the Homeland (Leiden, 2003). 10. It should be emphasised that the sultans often had little control over the rural areas of Hadhramaut, although when it was useful the tribes could and did appeal to their authority and roles as arbitrators in resolving disputes. See Abdalla S. Bujra, The Politics of Stratification: A Study of Political Change in a South Arabian Town (Oxford, 1971); Mikhail Rodionov, The Western Ḥaḍramawt: Ethnographic Field Research, 1983–​91 (Halle, 2007); and Mikhail Rodionov and Hanne Schönig, The Hadramawt Documents, 1904–​51: Family Life and Social Customs under the Last Sultans (Beirut/​Würzburg, 2012). However, decisions were far from binding. 11. PRO CO 725/​ 21/​ 5 Colonial Office Aden:  Original Correspondence. ‘Certificates of Identity; Proposed Issue by Sultan of Shihr and Mukalla’. British passports in their contemporary form were first issued following the enactment of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914, but Hadhramis were not required to travel with British papers even if they were entitled to them. Note that the Kathiri state did not issue identity documents at the time. Until 1934, British protection was extended to subjects of the protectorates in question as determined by the rulers of those protectorates, but, following the passage of the British Protected Persons Order, 1934, the status of British Protected Person was defined by the British government and, as we shall see, did not always agree with local definitions. 12. Harold Ingrams to Colonial Office, 18 January 1938, in PRO CO 725/​58/​7 Colonial Office; Aden:  Original Correspondence, ‘Passports and Letters of Identity Issued by the Qu‘aiti and Kathiri States’. 13. Non-​subject residents could continue to receive a Certificate of Identity, but for travel to destinations where passports were required they would have to apply to their own governments. 14. The British Nationality Act 1948. 15. The Kenya Protectorate, comprising a ten-​mile coastal strip that ran the length of the Kenyan coast from the Tanganyika border to the mouth of the Tana River,

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora and a number of offshore islands (including Mombasa and Lamu), was formally under Zanzibari sovereignty, although in practice managed by the colonial government as an integral part of Kenya. The protectorate was granted independence, along with the Colony of Kenya (the former from Zanzibar, the latter from the United Kingdom), on 12 December, 1963; both territories were simultaneously united as a single political unit. See James R. Brennan, ‘Lowering the Sultan’s Flag: Sovereignty and Decolonization in Coastal Kenya’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 50: 4 (2008); and John M. Mwaruvie, ‘The Ten Miles Coastal Strip: An Examination of the Intricate Nature of the Land Question at Kenyan Coast’, International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 1: 20 (2011). 16. Although in relative terms probably commensurate with contemporary fees, this would have been seen as excessive for people who felt they belonged. 17. Telegram, Aden to Colonial Office, 11 June 1965. In DO 176/​57 Commonwealth Office:  Nationality and Consular Department and predecessors:  Registered Files, Commonwealth Nationality (NAT Series), ‘Passport Facilities for Hadrami Community in Kenya, 1964–​1966’. On Somalia, see Leif Manger, The Hadrami Diaspora:  Community-​Building on the Indian Ocean Rim (Oxford, 2010). The Zanzibar case is well known; see, for example, Michael Lofchie, Zanzibar: Background to Revolution (Princeton, 1965). 18. DO 176/​57, ‘Passport Facilities for Hadrami Community in Kenya, 1964–​1966’. 19. It appears to have been a coincidence that this man was also a Balala: they are not closely related. 20. There was another reason for rejecting Zubeidi: the Kathiri government had proposed increasing the passport processing fee from 47/​50 (already significantly higher than the 30/​–​for a BPP passport) to 60/​–​to pay Zubeidi; but the British felt that there was a risk this would serve as an incentive for Zubeidi to issue as many passports as possible, and rejected the proposal. 21. Kathiri State Secretary, Say‘un, to Resident Adviser, Mukalla, 23 August 1964, DO 176/​57, ‘Passport Facilities for Hadrami Community in Kenya, 1964–​1966’. 22. Resident Adviser, Mukalla, to British High Commission, Nairobi, 10 September, 1964, DO 176/​57, ‘Passport Facilities for Hadrami Community in Kenya, 1964–​1966’. 23. Secretariat, Qu‘aiti Government, Mukalla, to Secretary, Hadhramy League of East Africa, Mombasa, 20 July 1964, DO 176/​57, ‘Passport Facilities for Hadrami Community in Kenya, 1964–​1966’. 24. Cited in Free, British High Commission, Mombasa, to Shaw, British High Commission, Nairobi, 6 August 1965, DO 176/​57, ‘Passport Facilities for Hadrami Community in Kenya, 1964–​1966’. 25. Ibid. 26. Following the Marxist takeover, those who travelled to South Yemen and obtained passports often found it hard to leave again.

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Citizenship and Belonging among the Hadhramis 27. Hadhramis are often referred to in East Africa as Yemenis, largely because the independent state whence they came was known as South Yemen  –​and the contemporary state is of course also Yemen. However, very few Yemenis in East Africa are of other Yemeni origins –​and most of those who are are Mahras. 28. While no one contested anyone else’s claim to being a Hadhrami, I am aware that expressions of Hadhrami-​ness and assumptions of Hadhrami identity may have been prompted by my presence. This raises, among other questions, that of the relationship between Hadhrami, Swahili and Shirazi identities, which unfortunately is beyond the scope of this text. 29. For discussion of genealogies, see Engseng Ho, The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley, 2006). 30. See, for example, Carol Eastman, ‘Who Are the Waswahili?’, Africa 41:  3 (1971); and John Middleton, The World of the Swahili: An African Mercantile Civilisation (New Haven, 1992). 31. Again, no close kin relationship to other Balalas mentioned above. 32. Odinga is a member of the Luo group, who appear to have migrated into Kenya from the north within the past 500 years. See Bethwell A. Ogot, History of the Southern Luo (Nairobi, 1967). 33. Jeremy Prestholdt, ‘Politics of the Soil:  Separatism, Autochthony, and Decolonization at the Kenyan Coast’, Journal of African History 55: 2 (2014), pp. 249–​70. 34. Section 2, Article 7, ‘Republican Decree No. 3 of 1994, Executive Regulation of Law No. 6 of 1990 ad Concerning the Yemeni Nationality’, 29 January, 1994. Article 7 granted important rights to emigrants, and was presumably enacted in recognition of the existence of the Hadhrami diaspora. Translation by Muhammad bin Dohry. 35. This is true as things stand. It will be interesting to see whether, given that the 50-​year rule now no longer extends to the pre-​independence period in East Africa, documentary evidence of departure, which would have been compulsory for entry to independent Kenya, will now be required to substantiate these claims. 36. Ahmed Idha Salim, The Swahili-​Speaking Peoples of Kenya’s Coast, 1895–​1965 (Nairobi, 1973). 37. I deliberately avoid the issue of coastal belonging and the associated concept of autochthony here. Claims to belonging were and remain strongly shaped by colonial systems of classification –​the construction of categories such as Swahili, Bajuni, the Twelve Tribes, Coast Arabs, native and non-​native, and so on. Hadhrami identity was not strongly shaped by these colonial strategies. 38. The possession of a Yemeni passport is not a condition for access to rights in Yemen or as a Yemeni, which are accorded to the possessor of identity papers (see note 5).

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 39. I recognise and leave aside here the issues raised by the possession of Yemeni papers rather than Hadhrami ones: the further away one is from the homeland, the less likely there is to be conflict. On the various identities within Yemen, see Iain Walker, ‘Hadramis, Shimalis and Muwalladin:  Negotiating Cosmopolitan Identities between the Swahili Coast and Southern Yemen’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 2: 1 (2008). 40. At least until 2010. Note that Kenyan prohibition of dual citizenship was often interpreted as a ban on holding two passports –​a reflection of the popular conflation of citizenship with passports. Some continue to hold Yemeni papers, but do not apply for a passport in order to avoid paying the fees attached to application for dual citizens in Kenya.

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9 Diaspora or Network? The Hadhrami Diaspora Reconsidered through the Lens of Trade Philippe Pétriat

‘Diaspora’ and Network Analysis To describe and study Hadhrami migration outside Hadhramaut, historians and social scientists have so far placed the main emphasis on the notion of diaspora.1 After its abstraction from Jewish history at the beginning of the 1970s, most notably by Abner Cohen then Philip Curtin, the term ‘diaspora’ has been broadly defined as a nation of socially interdependent and geographically dispersed communities.2 A group, or nation, of people seeing themselves as constituting a community of origin, the diaspora is usually regarded as relying on shared beliefs and organisational or institutional frameworks that keep its people together. Since the 1970s, the term has been extended from the realm of Jewish traders and used to apply to many cases of migrations around the world – ​especially during the 1990s, in the heyday of theoretical debates over globalisation. This use of ‘diaspora’ has been widely disputed.3 In such studies of diaspora communities, priority has been given most often to religious beliefs and institutions. In the case of the Hadhramis, this emphasis is arguably the result of the role of sada (descendants of Prophet Muhammad through his grandsons) in migration, and in the communities 187

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abroad. This, one could argue, means also that the use of such conceptual tools as diaspora is the result of studies that have dealt hitherto with sada more than non-​sada. This chapter will argue that, while diaspora analysis provides illuminating tools for understanding the migrations of sada and their community of scholarship, as well as their role as repositories of religious authority in the Hadhrami diaspora in general, it nonetheless misses important features of other Hadhrami migrations, such as those of traders and commoners established overseas and conducting business alongside, and sometimes independent of, religious activities. Indeed, such international traders would build their success upon their being able to establish networking activities both inside and outside their community. For long-​distance trading, big deals and specialised trade, non-​Hadhrami players would provide their Hadhrami partners with goods, information and transport that they would not have been able to obtain by relying on their diaspora. This chapter deals with mostly non-​sayyid Hadhrami traders. It is largely drawn from private archives documenting the trade that was conducted between Jeddah, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean in the first part of the twentieth century. These sources provide us with a specific perspective on the way Hadhramis outside Hadhramaut would conduct their activities.

From Diaspora to Network Analysis We owe to A. Cohen a first definition of a ‘trading diaspora’. According to him, in the pre-​industrial context, solidarity among dispersed members of a trading community could be based upon shared faith and common religious authorities. Shared faith such as Islam (and more specifically, in the case of the Hausa diaspora studied by A. Cohen, Tijani Sufism) and generally recognised authorities could sustain mutual trust among members of a dispersed community. Belonging to what Cohen called an ‘ethnic’ dispersed community implied for him some common rules and referees. Thus, such belonging used to be an advantage for international or interregional trading between partners established in regions whose languages, economic and political systems, and religious faiths would differ from one another, since such differences usually implied different patterns of trade. 188

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The creation and maintenance of a trading diaspora could provide a solution for problems of transport of commodities, for the maintenance of trust among partners and control of credit, for the exchange of information about markets, and for the settlement of disputes. The pattern exposed by Cohen has been questioned by several historians of migration since the publication of his article in 1971.4 Claude Markovits has highlighted the fact that solidarity between people sharing origin and faith was not systematic, and never sufficient for such a complex business as long-​distance trading. Trust cannot be based on shared origin only. It is mostly based on a local community where people know each other and can check each other’s reputation easily:  a village or a city more often than a country or a whole region. This is what Markovits showed in his study of the global business conducted by Sindi merchants in the modern era, centred on trading houses located in Hyderabad. Their networks of trade and flows of information revolved around this city, and usually employed family members and kinsmen. Sebouh Aslanian has pointed to a similar phenomenon while studying the history of traders originating from New Julfa (in what is now a suburb of Isfahan) and operating in an international kupanek (firm) focused on the city and led by the patriarchs.5 Although a common origin can support solidarity and trustful relations, even members of a diaspora sharing a common geographic origin, common beliefs and common rules need elaborate processes for resolving commercial conflicts. They also require methods to maintain trust across distance and time, with mutually recognised authorities for dispute resolution and mechanisms to implement rulings, be they religious figures or other notables such as large traders. Even members of a same family would need such systems to conduct trade overseas with kin and partners.6 In short, they would need organisations and institutions supported by the exchange of information and of people, as well as goods. Avner Greif elaborated on this when he described the ‘institution’ of the Maghrebi traders’ ‘coalitions’ in the medieval Mediterranean. The exchange of information within the coalition, and the high probability that anyone found to be cheating would be excluded from all collaboration with the remaining members, were elements leading to the institutionalisation of business relations in the coalition.7 As it emerges, whether institutionalised or not, this organised 189

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pattern of relationships linking members for a common activity conducted according to common rules and the exchange of information and goods can be called a network. This chapter suggests that network analysis is a complementary rather than alternative way of studying and describing relations between Hadhramis outside Hadhramaut (more useful when dealing with non-​sayyids), the links they maintained between themselves and with Hadhramaut, and the way they could conduct complex activities such as overseas trade. Networks of trading partners and credit relationships are instrumental in understanding not only what made these traders remain Hadhrami, but also what made their success so evident in the Red Sea at the beginning of the twentieth century. The study of patterns of relationship shows what is common among Hadhramis and what differentiates them –​ or, so to speak, who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’ according to agreed or contested rules and definitions. Questions about Hadhrami identity and projects for reforming the homeland, for example, were by-​products of fierce debates generated among Hadhramis abroad at the end of the nineteenth century.8 One could even argue that distance and connections across geographical space were factors in causing such debates. Geographical distance between Hadhramis and distance from homeland can be seen as incentives for defining what is common among Hadhramis and who is a Hadhrami. As a consequence, distance also helped to make clear who was not a Hadhrami, even if this non-​Hadhrami was a very close partner well integrated into the trading network of a Hadhrami trader.9 In network analysis, separation is not measured by metrical distances between partners. Rather, it is dependent on the number and strength, or weakness, of contacts through which they are connected.10 The power and influence of a trader depend on his position in a system of relations between people (network), and especially on his ability to position himself as an intermediary between groups, and not solely on the number of contacts he is able to summon. Nodal points, linking two or more different groups through one person acting as broker, represent key positions in networks. The trader occupying such a position would be indispensable to the groups seeking to exchange goods or information that he connects. Big Hadhrami traders in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean would not base their trade on their diaspora or rely only on Hadhrami partners, 190

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although such a specialisation might have afforded them comfortable circumstances and provided a safe cognitive milieu. For sure, some traders did rely primarily on the diaspora; this was especially true for beginners and recently arrived migrants. Connections with local Hadhramis would provide these newcomers with spiritual and material resources such as places of worship, accommodation and restaurants run as if they were in Hadhramaut. The most enterprising men would find finance and loans insured by guarantees of kinship or origin from the same neighbourhood in the homeland. The diaspora made it easier to settle and undertake business. Bigger traders would instead take care to include non-​Hadhrami partners in their networks, in order to extend their relationships to other groups that were active in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea trade. This pattern is well exemplified in the case of families such as the bin Zaqr, still a prominent business family in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Ba Naja, a family that, until the beginning of the twentieth century, used to have one of the biggest houses of trade in Jeddah. The former shows how a family rooted in the diaspora and in the local Hadhrami community could gradually broaden its network of trade to include non-​Hadhrami partners. The second exemplifies how Hadhrami traders would build and maintain a network with outsiders who sometimes became main partners, without relying on diaspora institutions.

Opening the Diasporic Network of Trade When he established his business and founded his trading house (bayt tijari) in Jeddah in the late nineteenth century, Muhammad (d. 1923), the father of Sa‘id bin Zaqr (d. 1986), used to trade on his dhow between Aden, Mukalla and Bombay. In 1919, according to the local newspaper of the town (al-​Qibla), he also held the title of head of the Hadhrami community (shaykh al-​Hadarim or shaykh ta‘ifat al-​Hadarim). Since we will dwell upon it later, suffice it to say here that the shaykh’s function was mainly to act as an arbiter within the Hadhrami community of Jeddah and to represent its members at official ceremonies. He would also act, when needed, as an intermediary between the local Hijazi authorities and members of his community –​more specifically the big traders. His fame was shown by the great number of those, including the best-​known personalities, who used to call 191

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upon him during his daily majlis. Sa‘id recorded in his Memoirs the large audience he attracted from within the Hadhrami community of Jeddah, and the strong relationship he maintained with the bigger Hadhrami traders of that town. This sense of belonging and the great importance attached to him by the community explain why Muhammad nominated himself for the function of shaykh al-​Hadarim, or why he accepted it when he was presented with the opportunity. In 1925, when his two sons took refuge in Hodeida during the siege of Jeddah by the troops of King Abdul Aziz (Ibn Saud), they could rely on the family’s connections in the Hadhrami diaspora to find a place and start their business again from the Yemeni port city. Sa‘id records in his Memoirs the helpful welcome they received in Hodeida thanks to his father’s contacts in the large and active Hadhrami community there. Their welcome was all the more appreciated given the circumstances of the two young men. Sa‘id, who was 15, and his older brother Abdallah, who was 16 or 17 years old, had not only had to flee from their hometown like other trading families; they had also lost their father two years previously. Before dying, Muhammad had entrusted his two sons and his inheritance to the legal and effective custody of another Hadhrami merchant of Jeddah, Uthman Ba Uthman, but Sa‘id unfortunately did not record in his Memoirs whether or not this trader went with them to Hodeida. They felt secure in the familiar environment of Hodeida, and confident enough to continue trading with the associates of their father. However, what sealed the success of the two sons, even before they re-​established themselves in the now Saudi-​governed town of Jeddah in 1926, was the concluding of a sharika (contract of partnership or trade association) in which they pooled their family capital with that of two associates. Mustafa Awad had been a close partner of their father; Abdallah had even married his daughter. Mustafa probably was not a Hadhrami. The other, Muhammad Nur Shinkar, was an Indian trader who had also fled from Jeddah. They began trading between the Yemeni ports and Jeddah, making big profits thanks to the dependence of Hijazi cities on the sea trade until 1926, as a result of the state of war.11 The following year, in 1927, they diversified their business with Muhammad Nur Shinkar by founding one of the first motor transport companies in Arabia. The close and successful association with their new Indian partner was sealed during the same year, 192

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when Sa‘id married one of his daughters, according to a customary pattern of marriage among trading partners. Like many other Hadhrami traders and entrepreneurs in the Hijaz and Saudi Arabia, the bin Zaqr family’s second generation would broaden and develop the scope of its activities by creating new connections and partnerships beyond the Hadhrami community that had hosted the first stages of the family business.12 This broadening of the family network was part of an economic strategy for international or interregional traders. By connecting with outsiders, traders would create what network analysts call ‘nodes’, linking traders of a specific network with other networks, thereby giving them access to various trading opportunities: the European trade in the Mediterranean connected to the Red Sea through Suez and Cairo; the East African trade between the Red Sea coast and its hinterland centred on ports like Massawa; the inner Arabian Peninsula trade, led by caravan traders like Najdi merchants, connected the Gulf to Syria and the Red Sea; the Indo-​English trade of the Indian Ocean. By connecting with Indian traders, Hadhrami traders in Jeddah like Sa‘id and Abdallah bin Zaqr secured direct access to textiles, rice, sugar and other goods that were in high demand in the Red Sea, and consequently given great value on local markets. Perhaps as important as the direct access to goods was the access to information about markets (such as supply and demand). Sa‘id records as one of their first good deals the quick sale in Al-​Qunfudhah (now in Saudi Arabia) of sacks and tanks to pack the unusually large quantities of grains and clarified butter (ghee or saman) waiting there to be exported. Having learned of these large quantities through his network of informants –​recently extended by exile and new associations –​Sa‘id immediately shipped bags and tanks from Hodeida, on the dhow run by his brother Abdallah and Mustafa Awad. In the second part of the nineteenth century, big Hadhrami traders used to play a leading role in connecting local markets of the Red Sea to the global trade.13 And yet, as demonstrated in the story of the bin Zaqr family, big Hadhrami traders were not disconnected from the Hadhrami diaspora. They did support Hadhrami institutions such as the shaykh al-​Sada al-​ alawiyyin (head of the Hadhrami sayyids), the shaykh al-​Hadarim (head of the Hadhramis), and waqfs dedicated to the community. Although they might occupy important positions within the diaspora, their success in 193

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business depended on their linkages with many different groups in their trading: Hadhrami with Indian and European trading houses; local with regional and even global trade. The community of origin nonetheless provided newly arrived settlers with reliable resources and connections. It was a comfortable social and economic environment for first-​generation traders, and it remained a safe base for the following generations and their enterprises. While the notion of diaspora focuses on a specific community whose members are dispersed outside their homeland and keep links of various types among themselves, network analysis provides the observer with different perspectives. We should bear in mind that the diaspora and network perspectives are not mutually exclusive. A diaspora itself, particularly when the homeland has been lost or become barely accessible, usually forms a network for the exchange of ideas, products and people. However, by seeing Hadhramis through the lens of trade, we do not take Hadhramaut as an original or referential point –​as one would when seeing Hadhramis as a diaspora. As far as we can infer from archives and private documents, Hadhrami merchants in the Red Sea did not focus their activities of exchange and travel on Hadhramaut. According to their needs and those of their specific businesses, they would instead focus on cities like Cairo, Jeddah, Hodeida, Aden, Bombay, Calcutta and Singapore. Big Hadhrami merchants in Jeddah and elsewhere, such as the Saqqaf family in Singapore, even became closely associated, and sometimes identified with the town in which they had settled.14 Quite significantly, Ottoman and local sources in the Hijaz (for example, Court archives) most often describe the big Hadhrami traders of Jeddah as ‘Jeddah traders’ or ‘Jeddah Ottoman merchants’, and only rarely as Hadhramis. The term only appears when the Hadhrami community became involved as such:  in 1858, for example, when its authorities (shaykh al-​Hadarim, sada) and notables were sentenced for having led a revolt against European diplomats and European-​protected subjects in Jeddah. Jeddah, like Mecca, hosted Hadhrami institutions such as the shaykhal-​ Hadarim and the shaykh al-​sada al-​alawiyya. During the reign of Sharif Husayn as Emir of Mecca, and from 1916 as King of the Hijaz, the Hadhrami community of Jeddah was officially considered as a ta‘ifa –​an organised community with its own specific rules and traditions, under 194

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the authority of a shaykh (head) approved by the government. In 1885, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje wrote that a ta‘ifa of the Hadhramis had been in existence for a long time. According to Ottoman and European as well as local sources, the shaykh of the ta‘ifa used to represent the Hadhramis of the town, and functioned as a broker between the Ottoman or Sharifian authorities and his community. Sources even mention a kind of militia he could enrol to protect the ta‘ifa and support the state army in case of war –​ or, more frequently, Badu attacking the city. The shaykh al-​sada used to be one of the most powerful judicial-​cum-​ religious authorities in town. He would have to check the right of each sayyid to be registered on Ottoman lists endowing them with judicial and fiscal privileges. Sayyids, and Hadhramis linked to them by endowments or kinship, could have some of their legal claims endorsed by the shaykh. He was entitled to manage the estates of Hadhramis who died in the Hijaz without heirs. The head of the sada was the head of an influential corporation of scholars and revered descendants of the Prophet, and usually a master in Sufi groups. He was the official representative of the sada before the Ottoman administration. The institution seems to have disappeared at the end of the Hashemite period (1925). In Jeddah, the Ba Harun family was one of the families most frequently in charge of this function, although it was also held by members of other sayyid families, including the al-​Saqqaf. Hadhramis thus had the main characteristics of a diaspora community, with its structure of authority and distinctive cultural and religious features, which we cannot explore further here, but are nonetheless evident in the specific role of the shaykh al-​sada in the community. Hadhramis who arrived in the Hijaz would quickly find a welcoming milieu, with recognisable rules and routes for getting work and finding partners. Sada and big traders would also benefit from keeping in touch with Hadhrami institutions that facilitated exchange and circulation. Like their fellow countrymen in Southeast Asia, Hadhramis in the Hijaz were also engaged in a double process whereby they cultivated a distinctive belonging to their community, on the one hand, and were deeply involved in the local economy and politics, on the other. In Jeddah and Mecca from the second half of the nineteenth century, Hadhrami settlers even appeared as major local figures, thanks to the economic and political role of their 195

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notables. The big Hadhrami traders of the city still held strong positions in the middle of the twentieth century, although new families were gradually replacing the old ones. Between 1946 and 1950–​1, five out of 13 members of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce were Hadhramis, including its president, Ahmad Muhammad Salih Ba Ashin –​a businessman whose family was already preeminent in the second half of the nineteenth century. The involvement of the big Hadhrami traders of Jeddah in local institutions such as the Chamber of Commerce and Commercial Court, the municipality of Jeddah, and the Ottoman, Hashemite, and finally Saudi consultative councils, is a clue to their integration into local society. Participation in local politics and commercial life gave them a strong influence on political and economic issues, even after the Saudi conquest of the Hijaz (1924–​5) –​although this influence was kept under close scrutiny by the new royal family. It allowed the big Hadhrami traders to play various roles in different, sometimes overlapping, clusters, and to make linkages between various sources of political and economic profit: the Hadhrami diaspora in Jeddah and abroad, the urban civil elite of the Hijaz, the king’s clientele and the powerful group of the big Hijazi traders. Participating in local institutions was not only a way of developing and maintaining prominence in urban society or in the Hadhrami community. It was their association with various circles, not with a particular community or group, that enabled them to thrive. Ibn Saud moved rapidly to put an end to most of the corporate institutions of urban and trading society in the Hijaz. We now turn our attention the question of how these Hadhramis belonged to different groups at the same time, and how they organised their relations with other Hadhramis and non-​Hadhramis.

Conducting Business Outside the Diaspora A distinctive feature of big Hadhrami merchants in the Red Sea was their cautious building of a network whose members were not only Hadhramis, but also non-​Hadhrami partners positioned at key nodal points connecting different groups (clusters) extending over complementary scales and zones of trade. A great part of their success was based on the capacity of big Hadhrami traders to bridge various scales and systems of trade –​most notably the local wholesale and retail Hijazi trade, the trade of the Red Sea 196

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between Egypt and Yemen (including the African coast, where Massawa was one of their trading places), and international trade of the Indian Ocean.15 To capture these networks, historians can resort to correspondences between traders. Patterns of relationships between traders emerge out of exchanged letters, when available. Such a correspondence illuminates both the content of what was circulating among partners (goods, information, orders and receipts) and the organisation built for  –​and resulting from –​such a circulation among a cluster of partners. The correspondence of the Hadhrami trading houses with their partners abroad illuminates, firstly, the concern with developing a diversity of partners and their nodal role, and, secondly, the way such partnerships were maintained and given precedence over others, sometimes at the cost of financial losses. Letters and cables of the Ba Naja’s house of trade, now kept in private archives, are a revealing source for understanding how networks functioned. The trading house of the Ba Naja family used to be one of the most famous Hadhrami trading houses operating in the Red Sea in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The business activities of its members connected the local trade of Jeddah to regional trade in the Red Sea and international trade in the Indian Ocean. Correspondence through letters and cables between partners, both Hadhrami and non-​Hadhrami, was the main instrument for networking. Relying on effective networks to exchange information about markets and trade operations could allow a trader to be the first to make an offer or meet a demand and, consequently, conclude highly profitable deals. Sa‘id bin Zaqr was only one example of a trader able to seize an opportunity quickly and successfully. Credit and mutual indebtedness were instrumental in network organisation and network maintenance. As we will see, even credit was operated through letters and cables with carefully selected partners among Hadhramis and non Hadhramis. However idiosyncratic it may appear, a range of Ba Naja’s correspondence in 1918–​20 gives us an overview of the various partners the trading house used to rely on in trade between Cairo and Singapore at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is also gives a glimpse of how they managed their main activities and linked the local market of Jeddah with the global trade through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. By taking a sample of this correspondence, our aim is to describe how a Hadhrami trading house used to recruit its partners in the Hadhrami diaspora and 197

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in other trading groups, Arab and sometimes non-​Arab, and how these partners constituted an effective network for trade. These various groups –​ kinsmen and closer partners; the Hadhrami traders of Jeddah; the main traders of Jeddah; foreign and more specifically Indian trading communities; and traders of the Indian Ocean port cities –​sometimes overlapped. Acquaintances and connections of a trading family with members of these groups created a cluster organised around the house of trade which, as it emerged, constituted the house’s own, specific network of exchange. In Singapore, one of the main partners of the Ba Naja at the beginning of the twentieth century was Umar al-​Saqqaf, a Hadhrami sayyid whose family is still famous in East Asia for its great businesses in Malaysia and Indonesia, and for its charisma. His family had been particularly preeminent in trade and real estate in Singapore since the foundation of the harbour at the beginning of the nineteenth century. At the end of June 1920, Umar al-​Saqqaf sent a reply to Abdallah Ba Naja, who was the head of Ba Naja’s house of trade, in response to a request for precious stones and information about prices in Singapore’s markets. Umar al-​Saqqaf not only told his partner the prices of incense, sugar, coffee and pepper, but also recorded in his reply the prices of various international currencies, such as the Indian rupee, which was instrumental in fixing prices for overseas transactions. These were then regularly updated so that their value was mutually recognised by partners, and provided clarity in trading and accounting. All ongoing or sealed transactions were registered in the accounts together with the value of the currencies they used. Furthermore, currencies could be exchanged as goods with third parties. In one instance, Umar al-​Saqqaf considered the price of gems in Singapore to be high at the time, and Abdallah Ba Naja was able to trust his partner’s experience and nous. That is precisely what made such overseas partners so useful. Although he did record the price, Umar deterred the Ba Naja from buying gems in Singapore for the time being, and advised Abdallah Ba Naja to check prices in Cairo.16 In Massawa, the locally prominent Hadhrami family of Ba Tuq figured among the partners of the Ba Naja.17 In Aden, and also in Cairo –​where the Ba Naja had their own establishment and residence, as did many traders of the Red Sea –​the house used to work with members of another Hadhrami family, the Ba Zar‘a. These Hadhrami partners in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean were chosen from among the trading elite of each city according to 198

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the business needs of the Ba Naja. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Ba Zar‘a were successful enough to buy the huge caravansary of Hasan Kathuda in Cairo’s trading district of al-​Gamaliyya, which was the place of residence of many Hadhrami traders, according the censuses conducted in 1848 and 1868. The caravansary is still known under the name of Ba Zar‘a. The house of Ba Naja also included non-​Hadhrami partners in its trading network between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It was necessary to rely on these partners for exchange with places where the most prominent and reliable traders were not Hadhramis. Such was the case of the trade with Bombay, Calcutta and the Gulf. In Basra, the Ba Naja relied on the al-​Zakir family, which is known for having settled in the Gulf, and originated from the town of Unayza in Najd. In Calcutta, orders for rice and textiles were placed by the Ba Naja through the trading house of the al-​Khunji family. The name al-​Khunji indicates that the family probably originated in the city of Khunj, in what is now the southern part Iran, not far from the shores of the Gulf. Other Khunjis used to trade in the Gulf cities during the first part of the twentieth century.18 In Bombay, the Ba Naja were in partnership with a Najdi house established in Jeddah and the Gulf, the al-​Fadl, and with an Indian house, the Biha‘i. Depending on the market situation, both houses exported sugar and rice to Jeddah from Bombay, among other commodities greatly needed in the Arabian Peninsula in the aftermath of World War I. News and commodities were not the only items traders would exchange. Cash in widely circulating currencies was used to pay for exchanged goods when bills and cheques would not be sufficient. Credit and debt helped create strong and lasting links between traders. Payments for trade were often delayed, due first to the distances and international boundaries separating partners, and second to a dire lack of cash. In trading groups that functioned as clusters, transferring amounts of debt and credit by adjusting entries in registers was also a way of settling accounts without transferring too much cash, of which transfers were risky and costly. To settle a debt he owed to trader B, trader A could, for example, ask trader C, indebted to trader A, to transfer to trader B the amount he owed to A. Things were even easier when traders B and C were also partners, which frequently happened, as in the cases given below. That is why traders would take care to clarify their accounts as often as possible, and to cross-​check entries in their books through frequent correspondence with their partners. It was 199

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also a way of maintaining trust and strong links between traders, and could act as an incentive for diversifying partnerships. In 1918, the Ba Naja transferred £1,000 to their partners in Bombay, the al-​Fadl trading house. They had been advised by the al-​Fadl to buy pearls on the Bombay market. When that investment failed to yield a profit  –​ mostly because of economic conditions in Europe at the time –​a dispute arose between the two trading houses over who was responsible for its failure. This substantial amount of money could have been invested in profitable activities instead of being immobilised for two unproductive years. The Ba Naja had to wait until April 1920 to get their money back, as Abdallah, the head of the firm, explained in a series of letters he sent from Cairo to his partners, including the al-​Khunji in Calcutta.19 But the dispute did not prevent the two trading houses from continuing their normal business by putting aside this matter for nearly two years, pending its solution. The dispute came to its conclusion when al-​Fadl transferred the £1,000 sterling to al-​Khunji, in Calcutta, which credited it to the account of Ba Naja. This transfer, and the correspondence it gave rise to, shows not only how the money was transferred between a cluster of partners linked by mutual indebtedness and credit, but also how information was circulated among partners within the same cluster, thereby keeping everyone informed of the success or failure of a partner’s claim. The Ba Naja could thus choose to put pressure on a partner by warning others –​among them the al-​Khunji. The system at the time functioned well, and there was no need to resolve the problem by referring it to mutually recognised authorities or community institutions. For big traders, the preservation of their reputation among their partners was far too serious a concern to allow a dispute to remain unresolved. Registers and books of accounts, exchanges of information and money were sufficient references to deal with litigation and imposed settlements. Among partners of different communities who operated in different trading systems, the network could discharge functions similar to those assumed by the diaspora for long-​distance exchange. It is worth noting that the Ba Naja did not receive anything additional to the £1,000, and that they did not claim interest despite the lapse of two years. Indeed, as Abdallah Ba Naja wrote to Salim al-​Khunji, the house preferred to take a financial loss and bring the dispute to a close rather than lose a good and well-​established partnership. Even if the al-​Fadl had 200

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staunchly refused to admit their responsibility, they would still have been considered as tested and reliable partners:  ‘better than others’ and ‘not neglecting anything in their collaboration’. Abdallah wrote to Salim al-​ Khunji: ‘Even if a failure is resulting from their action, we will stand for it.’20 The Ba Naja had got their money back. The alleged failure, however serious it might have been, was not considered a breach of trust, since accounts had never been disputed. Furthermore, for the Ba Naja, their partners, and arguably for other big traders in the Hijaz and India, conducting business with a reliable partner was much more important than claiming interest or compensation. As for other deals concluded with partners across the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, delayed payments or reimbursements might even have been instrumental in maintaining joint business in spite of economic difficulties and a frequent lack of cash. In the long run, trust and years of partnership were the main factors in the building of clusters. What we can infer from the collaboration of the Ba Naja, settled in Cairo and Jeddah, with their Najdi partners, al-​Fadl, established in Bombay, is that these two factors were sometimes more important than short-​term economic profit. In these exchanges, neither community institutions and Hadhrami culture nor ethnic considerations were taken into account. On the contrary, and without forgetting their Hadhrami identity, it seems the Ba Naja and other traders like them would give priority to mutual trust and to their partners’ nodal position in trading networks. At least, that is what is indicated in their letters, and in the way they maintained and made use of their network. An inventory drawn up more than 25 years later, in 1946, shows the solidity of these connections between traders from different points of origin and different systems of trade, bridged by overlapping clusters like the Ba Najas’.21 While new partners had been registered as debtors or creditors and old ones had seemingly disappeared in this inventory, the Biha‘i and Khunji still figured as main partners of the Ba Najas in Bombay and Calcutta.

Hadhrami Networks Certainly, Hadhrami merchants were not alone in forming a diaspora while being deeply involved in their local cities and connecting with other groups through networks of trade. Italian Jewish traders behaved in a 201

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similar way in the eighteenth century when they conducted international business in partnership with non-​Jewish and even non-​Italian traders, such as the Indian traders of Goa.22 Network analysis of Hadhrami migration provides us with tools for comparison with other dispersed communities. It is also instrumental in clarifying what made the success of traders whose reputation depended little on religious status and scholarship, and illuminates how traders could broaden their connections, build a network, and conduct international trade without having recourse to their diaspora. We should nonetheless keep in mind that such networking did not exclude belonging to a diaspora, since groups were overlapping and traders would act as ‘nodes’ or brokers between networks. Diaspora was usually important in the first stages of settlement and building up a business, as was the case for most of the Hadhrami trading families of Jeddah. More specific networks, connecting into and beyond the diaspora, proved more and more useful when a Hadhrami settled far from Hadhramaut and engaged in both global trade and local responsibilities. Networking is an obvious and necessary feature of trading activities, be it at the local scale (the big trader with retailers) or the regional and global scales (the trade through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean). Traders simply cannot help networking, be it in a diaspora or with outsiders. But we can observe also that even sayyid scholars who travelled in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, settling for long periods outside Hadhramaut, came to rely on much broader networks than the Hadhrami diaspora. Like their counterparts in the preceding century, the sada could build their own networks according to their purposes, for the various activities they were conducting at the same time:  for scholarly discussions by Hadhrami sada, with the famous Meccan and non-​Hadhrami scholar Ahmad bin Zayni Dahlan (d.  1886); for education, in schools of Hadhramaut like Tarim’s famous institute; for business, with Indian or Persian merchants; for visiting families; and sometimes for all of these at once.23

Notes 1. See, for example, William G. Clarence-​Smith, ‘Hadhramaut and the Hadhrami Diaspora in the Modern Colonial Era: An Introductory Survey’, in Ulrike Freitag and W. G. Clarence-​Smith (eds), Hadhrami Traders, Scholars, and Statesmen in

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Diaspora or Network? the Indian Ocean, 1750s to 1960s (Leiden, 1997); Syed Farid Alatas, ‘Hadhramaut and the Hadhrami Diaspora: Problems in Theoretical History’, in Ulrike Freitag and William G. Clarence-​Smith (eds), Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s–​1960s (Leiden, 1997); Ulrike Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants and State Formation in Hadhramaut: Reforming the Homeland (Leiden, 2003), Chapter 1; and Engseng Ho, The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean (Berkeley, 2006), Preface. 2. Abner Cohen, ‘Cultural Strategies in the Organization of Trading Diasporas’, in Claude Meillassoux (ed.), The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971), pp. 266–​78; and Philip D. Curtin, Cross-​Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge, 1984). 3. Stéphane Dufoix, La dispersion:  une histoire des usages du mot diaspora (Paris, 2011). 4. Claude Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–​1947: Traders of Sind from Bukhara to Panama (Cambridge, 2000); and Claude Markovits: ‘Des “diasporas commerçantes” aux circulations marchandes: à propos d’un texte d’Abner Cohen’, Tracés II: 23 (2012), pp. 153–​8. 5. Sebouh Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean:  The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (Berkeley, 2011). 6. Elena Frangakis-​Syrett, ‘Networks of Friendship, Networks of Kinship: Eighteenth-​C entury Levant Merchants’, Eurasian Studies I: 2 (2011), pp. 189–212; and Philippe Pétriat, Le négoce des Lieux Saints, Les grandes familles marchande shadramies de Djedda (1850–​1950) (Paris, 2016), Chapter 5. 7. Ayner Greif, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy (Cambridge, 2006), Chapter 3. The seminal study of Mediterranean Jewish correspondence sustaining networks of trade is Shelomo Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed by the Documents of the Cairo Geniza (Berkeley, 1967–​93). 8. Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants, Chapter 6; and Natalie Mobini-​ Kesheh, Community and Identity in the Netherlands East Indies, 1900–​1942 (New York, 1999), pp. 34–​51 and Chapter 5. 9. See, for example, the use of genealogies as travelling documents, and the debates about muwalladin, in Ho, Graves of Tarim. 10. Alain Degenne and Michel Forsé, Les réseaux sociaux: Une analyse structurale en sociologie (Paris, 1994). 11. The town of Mecca was caught by Ibn Saud’s troops in October 1924. He entered Jeddah on 24 December 1925. 12. Mudhakkirat (‘Memoirs’) of Sa‘id Muhammad ibn Ubayd bin Zaqr, Bin Zaqr Private Archives; al-​Qibla 267 (25 March 1919). 13. For developments on the history of Hadhrami traders in the Red Sea, and more particularly in Jeddah, I refer the reader to Philippe Pétriat, Le négoce des Lieux Saints.

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 14. On the history of the al-​Saqqaf, al-​Kaf and al-​Junayd families of Singapore, see Ulrike Freitag, ‘Arab Merchants in Singapore: Attempt at a Collective Biography’, in H. de Jonge and Nico Kaptein (eds), Transcending Borders: Arabs, Politics, Trade and Islam in Southeast Asia (Leiden, 2002), pp. 153–​8. 15. For Hadhrami traders in the Indian Ocean, see Freitag and Clarence-​ Smith, Hadhrami Traders; and William G. Clarence-​Smith, ‘Hadhrami Arab Entrepreneurs in Indonesia and Malaysia: Facing the Challenge of the 1930s Recession’, in Peter Boomgaard and Ian Brown (eds), Weathering the Storm: The Economies of Southeast Asia in the 1930s Depression (Leiden, 2000), pp. 229–​49. 16. Letter from Umar al-​Saqqaf, Singapore, to Abdallah Ba Naja, Jeddah, 23 June 1920, al-​Saqqaf Private Archives. 17. Letter from Muhammad Salih Ba Naja, Jeddah, to Abdallah Ba Naja, Cairo, n.d. (probably end of 1919 or beginning 1920), Ba Naja Private Archives. On the Ba Tuq family in Massawa, see also Jonathan Miran, Red Sea Citizens: Cosmopolitan Society and Cultural Change in Massawa (Bloomington, 2009), Chapter 3. 18. See, for example, Nelida Fuccaro, Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf: Manama since 1800 (Cambridge, 2009), Chapter 3. 19. Letter from Abdallah Ba Naja, Cairo, to Salim al-​Khunji, Calcutta, 22 Rajab 1338 (11 April 1920), Ba Naja Private Archives (Jeddah). 20. Ibid. 21. Accounts of the trading house Abd al-​Rahman Ba Naja, 8 Muharram 1366 (24 October 1917), Ba Naja Private Archives (Jeddah). 22. Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers:  The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno and Cross-​ Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven, 2009). 23. One inspiring historical network analysis of a scholar is Stefan Reichmuth’s biography of Murtada al-​Zabidi (d. 1791), built upon the scholar’s own writings: The World of Murtadā al-​Zabīdī (1732–​91), Life, Network and Writings (Exeter, 2009). For Hadhrami scholars, see Ahmad bin Zayni Dahlan: Freitag, Indian Ocean Migrants, pp. 201–8. The story of Ahmad ibn Abu Bakr ibn Sumayt (d. 1925) is a good example of overlapping scholarly, Sufi and trading Hadhrami networks at the turn of the nineteenth century. See Anne Bang, Sufis and Scholars of the Sea: Family Networks in East Africa, 1860–​1925 (New York, 2003).

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Part III

Research Issues

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10 Rediscovering Hadhramaut: Paradigms of Research Leif Manger

I was invited to contribute this chapter as one of the individuals who have been doing research on Hadhramaut and the Hadhrami diaspora.1 As its title indicates, I seek to address some conceptual challenges that confronted me during my research. The chapter identifies three challenges: defining ‘diaspora’; historicising globalisation; and understanding historical agency. Brief discussions illustrate the relevance of each of these questions, and then some conclusions are drawn.

Defining ‘Diaspora’ One problem is that the concept of diaspora has become overused and under-​theorised:2 more often invoked than defined. This applies both to Robin Cohen’s attempt at producing typologies of diasporas (victims’ diaspora, labour diaspora, imperial diaspora, trade diaspora and cultural diaspora)3 and Paul Gilroy’s attempts at depicting diaspora as a field of creative hybridity.4 A more promising avenue, for me, is to focus more explicitly on the complexity of the concept and the many processes, including transnational movement, that it encompasses. The concept of diaspora is relational, and diasporas need to be understood in the context of both their own internal 207

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differentiation and their economic, political and cultural relationship to one another. In this sense, the concept of diaspora space is a contested space. This means that we need to look at identities and institutions, discourses and practices, rather than presuppose ahistorical constructs. Instead of developing ever more detailed typologies of the various forms of diaspora, I agree with Roger Sanjek’s suggestion that we place diaspora within the general context of other types of human movements in history.5 At certain times, such movements appear to be organised in ways we may term diasporic. If we think like this, we avoid viewing diaspora as a special type of society, and can see it as a contested space. In such cases, an important issue is how a diasporic situation is understood over time, by the people involved. This point relates directly to our understanding of diasporic consciousness. Movements between homelands and diasporic spaces, whether physical or only cognitive, are exercised through a myriad of networks, including those of kinship, trade and religion, and are affected by technologies of travel and communication. But the diasporic reality may also be established through literature, or be displayed in museums; or it may only be available in associations in which diasporic links are celebrated. It is important to explore the circumstances under which collective consciousness develops, but it is also important to discuss it in the context of broader processes through which consciousness and meaning are established. Some narrate the present as a reconfiguration of the past; others argue that whatever occurs in the present represents new developments, and that the past cannot be taken for granted. It is not possible to predict how such debates will surface in particular cases, nor what the specific topics will be. But various modes of historicity exist that makes it necessary to focus on a group’s self-​definition. Shared history is part of this self-​definition.

The Hadhrami Diaspora As I Saw It In a book on the Hadhrami diaspora, I presented some case studies carried out during the late 1990s and early 2000s.6 They were based on data from Singapore, Hyderabad, Sudan and Ethiopia. In those cases, we meet the Hadhramis first during a period in which the European presence in the Indian Ocean region is changing from one founded on commercial 208

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interests alone to an involvement based on an imperial ambition that led to the occupation of ever-​extending territories. Various locales were being subjected to Western rule and exploitation, through mechanisms including not only trade, as before, but also plantation agriculture, mining, cash cropping and intensified forms of slavery. Hadhramis maintained a variety of links to power-​holders and elite groups, and were indeed in many places part of such ruling elites. But new groups of Hadhramis also travelled in these periods, joining the marginalised groups who were exploited in colonial economies. The early Hadhrami migrants, then, were actors in an historical period dominated by Western colonialism and imperialism, but the local characteristics of this domination in the places I studied varied a great deal, and opened up opportunities for a variety of careers and economic niches. In Singapore Hadhramis arrived not long after Raffles had taken control of this strategic location in 1819, and were involved in its enormous commercial development as a global city. They thus became part of the imperial competition in the region between England and Holland, and several Hadhrami families achieved considerable economic success. In Hyderabad, Hadhramis became famous in the nineteenth century for the role they played as soldiers in the army of the Nizam, at a critical period of Indian history in which imperial control of the Mughal Empire was weakened and regional power centres such as Hyderabad were able to develop into political units in their own right. In Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, we see Hadhramis as small-​scale, local traders, but they are still affected by the fortunes of the great powers –​for example, by the dynamics of Egyptian geopolitical interests after Egypt had achieved greater independence from the Ottoman metropolis in Istanbul. These interests, particularly in the second half of the nineteenth century, brought them into contact, and into conflict, with various European colonial powers, such as Britain, France and Italy, and also brought Egypt into competition with the Omani sultanate in Zanzibar and the expanding state in Ethiopia. A history of adaptation is apparent in the evolving economic niches within which the Hadhramis have operated in the four different areas I examined. Such a perspective allows one to see the extent to which links between the four areas and the homeland have varied, producing divergent adaptive results. The most successful traders in Singapore and the other Southeast Asian areas of Indonesia and Malaysia were Hadhramis. 209

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Some of the most successful soldiers in Hyderabad were also Hadhramis. These Hadhramis, together with some leading soldiers of Yaf ‘ai descent, came to play significant political and economic roles in their home countries. Of particular importance is their role in the political consolidation of Hadhramaut during the nineteenth century, through the emergence of two dominant Sultanates –​Qu’ayti on the coast, with Mukalla as its capital, and Kathiri, in Wadi Hadhramaut, with Say‘un as its capital. Both were established in the second half of the nineteenth century as a consequence of links between Hadhrami soldiers in Hyderabad and tribal groups at home. The two sultanates later entered into a treaty relationship with the British, granting them protection. Advisory treaties in the late 1930s bound them more tightly to British control, exercised through the government of Aden, and they became part of the territory outside the colony of Aden known as the Eastern Aden Protectorate. During this period, we see a clear involvement of leading diasporic families in the protectorate’s economic development and education.7 National independence in the various areas also affected developments, not only by cutting the links but also, certainly, by imposing stricter rules of movement than had applied during the period of colonial occupation, stricter rules about national identities, and various national policies for dealing with ‘non-​national’ populations. In Singapore, independence signalled the start of a phenomenal economic development that also transformed the fortunes of Hadhramis, particularly vis-​ à-​vis the Chinese. But Hyderabad’s merger with India on independence led to a dramatic negative change of fortune for the Hadhrami community there: from being allies of a ruling dynasty, they became citizens in a Hindu-​dominated state. Independence in Sudan caused less upheaval, as the Hadhramis in eastern Sudan were among fellow Arabs and Muslims. But in Ethiopia national political developments placed the Hadhramis in a problematic position. They were accused of being on the side of the ‘Arab forces’ in the early years of the Eritrean struggle for independence; they were accused of being ‘Somalis’ in the Ogaden crisis; and they were accused of being ‘capitalists’ during the period of socialist rule. The last decade of the twentieth century witnessed significant changes, particularly through the processes of globalisation. Liberal economic policies in a united Yemen have encouraged the return of property to the groups who lost it during the socialist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, and provided a climate 210

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for Yemenis and Hadhramis abroad to invest at home. These developments have also had repercussions in the diaspora, and the various communities have shown different responses to the new opportunities presented. The most significant trend is that Hadhramaut, the homeland, is no longer the sole focus of attention. Rather, the development of the oil economies in Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf have made more diasporic Hadhramis relate to those places, either as big traders further enlarging their wealth or as disadvantaged people seeking a livelihood in their various diasporic communities. Contemporary migration from Hadhramaut is to Saudi Arabia and to the Gulf, not to the earlier diasporic centres in the Indian Ocean, and many Hadhramis come together there without visiting the homeland. A more recent trend is that an increasing number of people, both from Hadhramaut and from the diaspora, now also migrate towards the Western countries of Australia, Canada, the United States and Europe, bringing Hadhramis into direct contact with contemporary Western developments regarding immigration, policies on employment and unemployment, and the incidence of racism. In these developments we see a change from a traditional ‘ethnic’ Hadhrami diaspora towards the Hadhramis also becoming part of a broader Muslim ‘religious’ diaspora. Rather than becoming lost in processes of classification, we should take a closer look at the underlying nature of the history of Hadhrami migration. What we see is a diaspora that takes various forms. The Hadhramis, in their various diasporic communities, do not constitute any pre-​determined community, society or group. The Hadhrami diaspora has no centre except for its point of origin, and is characterised by being highly adaptive. At certain times, movements appear organised in ways that we may term diasporic; in other periods this is not necessarily the case. This view contrasts with the alternative understanding of the Hadhrami diaspora as an ever-​present, special type of society, with predefined cultural characteristics that originate in the homeland. Our focus on the diaspora also leads us into debates about globalisation, as the Hadhramis were involved in such processes long before the concept of globalisation became fashionable. It is clear that, rather than assuming fixity, we need analyses of historical dynamics and a narrative that can show historical process –​not only in the Indian Ocean, where the Hadhramis operated, but elsewhere as well. 211

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Historicising Globalisation The notion of globalisation is generally taken to describe the rapidly developing networks of communication that characterise modern social life. These interconnections come in different forms in different historical periods. Generally, different periods of globalisation show more frequent contacts between individuals and groups, and increases in flows of goods, people, information, and so on, across borders. Terms such as ‘interconnections’, ‘networks’, ‘flows’, ‘time–​space compression’ and ‘complex connectivity’ are typical of the current period of globalisation, the implication being that, as the time taken to cover distances physically and figuratively is sharply reduced, new situations arise in which social relationships are extended. Hence, although ‘locality’ still exists, a number of things that are happening in faraway places will affect us, and people are increasingly aware of this phenomenon. The world thus presents itself to us in new ways. My argument here is that, by historicising our perspective, we will see that claims that our contemporary, globalised world is a new historical construction, radically different from earlier societies, should be modified. Clearly, there are new trends; but, even today, this process is not total. There remain differences in the distribution of these global forces, and also in the extent to which various groups of people participate in a globalised world. Using the same sort of logic, it could be said that, in earlier periods, there were already particular groups of people who were more involved in the global connections of the day. A  focus on those sectors shows that there were flows of information that crossed oceans and continents in those periods. We see a ‘space of flows’ emerging that is defined by certain technologies (technologies of travel, for example), places (trading towns, which represented the ‘global cities’ of the day), and people (such as groups of traders) operating within such spaces. We also see that, in earlier epochs of global restructuring, there were reactions that involved a restructuring of identities. Results were not uniform, but were shaped by the various ways in which people reacted:  whether in support of the developments of the time, or against them, or by indifference to them. We also see that identities emerged as a result of particular individuals playing central roles in formulating ideas about what was going on, and mobilising people in support of such ideas. Today, of course, we might say that these processes were limited, 212

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and that it is only today that the system has become truly global. But I would argue that what these earlier actors were doing must have appeared to them to be global, that they believed they knew the world, and that the dynamism of their own lives was sharply different from the primarily peasant lives of the traditional populations with whom they interacted.

Indian Ocean Migrations: Early Historical Realities The concrete diasporic communities that I  studied were established from around 1750. The four cases were Hyderabad in India, Singapore, Sudan and Southern Ethiopia, and I tried to combine fieldwork in existing diasporic communities with discussions that relied more on historical source material. By employing this combination of what might be called historical anthropology and anthropological history, I  was able to show how specific diasporic communities had been established, and to develop descriptions of how they evolved. I was also able to also discuss the various ways in which Hadhrami identities had emerged and evolved in the diaspora  –​a discussion that depended partly on contemporary realities in concrete communities, but also on people’s own notions of ‘historicity’, including the various ways in which people themselves made use of history and historical narratives to create their own identities. In this section I  want to move beyond these limits. Although the Hadhrami migrations represent a starting point for my thinking, I  shall now move from a specific focus on the Hadhramis to deal more with the general situation existing in various periods of the history of the Indian Ocean as a region. I will not limit myself to the period from 1750 to the present, but expand my perspective to address the entirety of the history of Hadhrami migration –​a period spanning between 2,000 and 3,000 years. Clearly, it is not possible here to deal with such a vast region or such a long historical period in any empirical detail. Nor do we have the source material that would allow us to pursue this task. But I do believe that it is possible to put together a general overview, and that this endeavour is worthwhile, for two main reasons. The first relates to the fact that, in the course of my work with the history of Hadhrami migration, I have been struck by the extent and persistence of links between communities –​links that go back to the very earliest periods of migration. Given this continuity, there is a history 213

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of contact to be written that shows how links between people, between communities, across oceans and continents, do not appear as haphazard occurrences, depending on the genius of a first ‘discoverer’, but must be regarded as a normal part of people’s lives, and that what has been going on in so-​called ‘local communities’ has, to a significant extent, been shaped by dynamic links to faraway places. Such a descriptive history encourages us to see the Indian Ocean less as a barrier, and more as a bridge. But the establishment of historical parameters is only part of our task. I believe the story contains conceptual challenges, and that these challenges are also relevant to contemporary sociology. This brings me to the second reason why the effort to construct an overview of the entire span of Hadhrami migration is worthwhile. The observation that people and communities in earlier historical periods were not isolated units but took part in a continuous process of movement, cultural contact and interdependence prompts an intimate engagement with current debates on contemporary globalisation –​but with the important qualification that such globalising processes are not new. Elements of ‘globalisation’ are apparent far back in time. On the conceptual level, the attempt to understand this long history certainly demonstrates the futility of understanding concepts such as ‘society’, ‘culture’ and ‘nation state’ as isolated, functionally integrated wholes. But it also shows that this discovery was not made by contemporary post-modernists alone, but has been part of a rather long history of anthropological theorising about the basic openness and interdependence of human communities, modern and pre-​modern alike. Since much of the criticism of anthropological theory seems to focus on the 1960s, perhaps the heyday of functionalism, let me offer a ‘counter-​quote’ from Alexander Lesser, who had put this into conceptual terms already in 1961: ‘we adopt as a working hypothesis that universality of human contact and influence’. We then think of ‘human societies –​prehistoric, primitive or modern –​ not as closed systems, but as open systems’, and we see them ‘as inextricably involved with other aggregates near and far, in weblike, netlike connections’.8

Hadhramaut before the ‘Long Sixteenth Century’ The region under discussion is defined by the old trade routes around the Indian Ocean. These routes were governed by the monsoon winds, which took small ships to areas on the Indian coast, to East Africa and Southeast 214

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Asia, as well as to the islands of the Indian Ocean like the Comoros, the Maldives and Madagascar. Thus the region of the Middle East, of which Hadhramaut is a part, shows very old contacts with other regions, and evidence indicates that economic interactions across the Indian Ocean ranged over a very large area even several thousand years before the appearance of the first urban-​based states. The Anatolian settlement of Çatal Hüyük had long-​distance trade connections 7,000 or 8,000  years ago. Jericho is another famous example of a city with such early trading links. Trade was taking place between Egypt and Mesopotamia 3,000 years ago, with early connections to Syria and the Levant in goods like timber, metals, oils and luxury goods. The same goes for maritime links. Akkad maintained maritime economic connections with the Indus, known as ‘Meluha’, via ports in the Indian Ocean.9 The famous Silk Roads were matched by maritime routes through the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and also along many rivers. Links to the Indian Ocean through the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea also testify to the enormous geographical scale of these early human contacts. The trade routes were a constant source of political strife, as many ancient empires tried to bring them under their own control. With this general background in mind, we should not be surprised that our focus on the Hadhramis in the Indian Ocean also displays patterns of early contacts involving shifting spatial and temporal relationships of interdependence. These links go back to antiquity, and relate mainly to trade in luxury items like frankincense and myrrh. But information on the inhabitants is scarce. Sumerian sources mention the ‘Black land of Meluha’, then primarily as a producer of frankincense and myrrh, both of which were important in the religions of the ancient world. Links to Egypt are also fairly well established, and the first Egyptian expedition to Somalia, or the ‘Land of Punt’, was during the Fifth Dynasty.10 Our information on early commercial history across the Indian Ocean improves with the appearance of the book ‘Periplus of the Erythraean Sea’, around 50 CE.11 We also know that the Arabs had early contacts with the same areas, going back to the pre-​Christian period: Sabaea, Hadhramaut, and Oman were the residence of navigators in all ages, from the time that history begins to speak of them; and there is every reason to imagine that they were

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With Indian settlements on the island of Socotra, and the presence of Persian traders, we see an early international interest in the Land of Punt, which was known for its gold, ivory, incense, tortoiseshells, ostrich feathers, hides and skins, and live animals. Obviously, the region’s proximity to Arabia and the Red Sea made these early contacts feasible, not only for trade but for general population migrations. Significant development of these contacts took place after the rise of Islam in the region, particularly after 1000.13 Starting from the Middle East (Palestine and Syria), trade routes were developed through the Abbasid capital, Baghdad, before dividing in two directions. One route went overland through Persia, splitting once again, towards either Central Asia or India. The second route was towards the south, down the Tigris to the Persian Gulf, and eventually to the Indian Ocean. Further north, another major overland route developed linking Turkey, the Black Sea and Caspian Sea areas, Central Asia and China. Our interest here is in the southern route, along which Muslim traders and navies sailed to India, initiating the Muslim encounter with the Indic civilisation in Sind and Punjab in the west and Bengal in the east. The decline of the Mongol Empire in Central and Western Asia constrained the development of some of these formerly important routes, and made it possible for the Indian Ocean to become an central arena for travel, trade and learning. The western part of the Indian Ocean was dominated by Muslim merchants and ship-​owners operating from the Arabian coastal towns; a middle region connected the Indian coast with the Hinduised Southeast Asian regions of Sumatra and Malaya; and an eastern circuit linked Java to China, thus bringing Muslims into the realm of Buddhism and Confucianism. By the end of the thirteenth century, city-​states had appeared in Malay-​speaking Southeast Asia, spreading Islam and at the same time providing Europe with spices. Two centuries later, Islam started to penetrate the interior of Java, meeting as competitors not European traders, as it had in the coastal towns, but instead a Hindu-​ Buddhist civilisation. Similar processes brought Islam to Africa, via the trans-​Saharan trade between North and West Africa, via trade routes across the Red Sea to the 216

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Sudan, and across the Indian Ocean to the Swahili coast and the Nile Valley. After the fall of Baghdad, Cairo took over as the main Muslim city and the seat of the Mamluk dynasty. This brought about interaction between Arabs and Muslims throughout the Sudanic world, and also among the Bantu on the Swahili coast. The dynamics of these links were driven by the trade in luxury goods such as ivory, rhinoceros horn, frankincense and slaves, in return for Arabian and Indian handicrafts and spices from the east.

Understanding Historical Agency The third item on my agenda is that of historical agency. The general point I want to make here is that agency must not be reduced to a ‘Western’ conception in which it is understood as an attribute or trait inherent in individual subjects, and primarily circumscribed by external circumstances. Such circumstances are often connected with ‘tradition’, in which people’s autonomy is shaped by religion, ethnic affiliation and family relationships. Within such a framework, people are generally perceived to become more autonomous, thus increasing their capabilities of agency, through individualisation, ‘de-​traditionalisation’ and integration into ‘modernity’. Here, community, tradition and the family seem to operate as external constraints from which, when they disappear, people are ‘free’ to ‘choose’ their identities and ways of life. As an alternative, I turn to Talal Asad, and his way of linking power with historical change.14 Broadly, Asad argues that consciousness, in the everyday psychological sense of ‘awareness’, is inadequate to account for agency. Social actors inherit an ongoing ensemble of social practices, concepts and categories. It is important to consider the factors that form the structures of possible actions, allowing and precluding certain possibilities and choices. These factors include such things as habit, the objective distribution of goods, the existence of specific institutions, and relations of dominance. The notion of ‘choice’, argues Asad, should thus be read primarily as an indication of a particular form of modern subjectivity, and not as a sociological explanation of how people come to act as they do. Individual choices are subject to many influences, and the high value placed on them can in itself be seen as a result of social influences and particular historical modes of subjectivation.15 Following Asad, we can shift 217

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our definition of agency away from the capacity of autonomous individuals who ‘freely choose’, towards ‘the socio-​culturally mediated capacity to act’. Agency, therefore, should not be seen as a metaphysical capability but as constituted within what Talal Asad calls ‘historical regimes of power/​ discourse formations’: ‘“agency” is a complex term whose senses emerge within semantic and institutional networks that define and make possible particular ways of relating to people, things and oneself ’.16

Being Muslim in an Indian Ocean World I argue that, in order to understand Hadhrami historical agency in the Indian Ocean region, we should focus more on the global processes with which the Hadhramis have been involved, and which put them in contexts of what Asad calls ‘historical regimes of power/​discourse formations’. In the centuries before the European colonial powers became dominant in the Indian Ocean, the Muslim Arabs –​the Hadhramis among them –​ were themselves part of what Ellen Meiksins Wood calls an ‘Empire of Commerce’.17 Islam was the basic organisational vehicle of an empire which competed with Venice and Florence, was later superseded by other Muslim forces, including the Mughals and the Ottomans, and finally subordinated by the new imperial powers of Europe. It is these latter developments that are my concern here, particularly during the time of the British Empire –​based on the control of colonial territory –​and of the American Empire –​with few colonial territories, but wielding a dominance revolving around trade and commercial hegemony, and expressed in cultures of mass consumption. The historical periods we are dealing with also reflect processes of globalisation, represented by technological developments, political reconfigurations and cultural adaptations or upheavals. By focusing on such processes related to the spread of global capitalism, we can see that there were world-​system processes at play, of whose effects the Hadhramis and other Muslims were far from passive objects. My overall starting point is to build on an earlier argument in which I stated that it is possible to look at Islam as a ‘world system’ on its own18 –​not the Wallersteinian capitalist system that led to homo economicus,19 but rather what Richard Eaton calls a system of ideas and informal networks of scholars and saints organised around the 218

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messages of the Qur’an, building a righteous social order: in short, a system of symbolic interaction.20 According to Eaton, it is within such a ‘universalising global culture’ that Muslims around the world could, and still can, experience themselves as members of the umma. This experience has been affected by a host of developments, including political conquests as well as trade routes that provided contacts across culturally distinctive areas; by the confinement of Muslims within nation-​ states, and their vulnerability to discrimination by the state, if not outright persecution. Other factors with which Hadhramis and Muslims in general had to contend included Western and Eastern domination, secularism, and consumerism –​but also Muslim dependence on Western labour markets, modes of information, and travel. Thus, it is necessary to allow specific histories of these processes to come more clearly to the surface. Muslim lives need to be portrayed against the background of that history –​not only as lives shaped by integrated localities organised according to Islamic principles alone, but as lives lived in arenas characterised by complex historical processes that are still ongoing. What we see from this history is a dynamism that contradicts notions of Muslims as captured in a static Islamic tradition. We see how processes of cumulative societal transformation in the Indian Ocean have not led to greater homogeneity, but rather to a continuous diversification into a variety of social and cultural worlds. This variation is captured by John Voll,21 who identifies four different types of Muslim reaction to Western encroachment: a pragmatic, adaptationist style, through which Muslims were able to exploit the new opportunities and settle in unfamiliar territories; a conservative style, in which they tried to preserve earlier gains; a fundamentalist style, in which Muslims looked to the Qur’an for guidance, and emerged as political activists upsetting social stability; and a style entailing personal acceptance of the religion –​for instance, with a Sufi orientation. All of these types of reaction can be found among the Hadhramis. My more specific interest is therefore in both the evolving systems of dominance and Muslim reactions to them, particularly as they represent Hadhrami involvement. We all know the form of reaction represented by Osama bin Laden in promoting a war against the infidels –​with its clear references to an historical Muslim tradition, but also to the contemporary world, with the aim of exploiting the globalising effects of the media. But 219

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bin Laden stands in a line of earlier Hadhrami rebels. Leading Hadhramis were involved in acts of resistance against the Portuguese in Malabar in the 1570s,22 and against the British in the same area in the 1840s and 1920s.23 They were also active against the Dutch in Aceh towards the end of the eighteenth century.24 At the end of the twentieth and into the twenty-​first century, there is of course bin Laden himself. But these reactions, or instances of resistance, are not only about Hadhrami ethnic identity, but also involve religious identity. The central issue at play is about being Muslim in a context defined by the encroachment of the Western world, and Western ways of life, into the various peripheries in which Muslims live. Although Westerners have operated in the area since the sixteenth century, it was not until the eighteenth century that the effects of Western colonialism and imperialism were really felt, leading to basic changes in the region. In these periods the surviving commentaries, whether by Hadhramis or other Muslim intellectuals, are meditations on the emergence of a Western ‘modernity’ and continued Western influences through the current phase of globalisation. We hear non-​Western narratives about ‘the West’ –​narratives that oppose Western notions such as liberal secularism. Such voices have become dominant in the global discourse on Islam following the events of 11 September 2001. But there are also other Muslim voices, voices that argue for an Islamic liberalism, for a Muslim modernity in peaceful interaction with the West. While Muslim commentaries on these historical factors vary among Muslims, at the same time they also represent a distinctly Muslim type of commentary that draws on basic principles from within the Muslim tradition. It is this kind of historical agency that we need to understand more fully –​not seeing Muslims as one type of reified historical actors, defined by their religion, but as an internally varied group arguing from within many different and internally contested traditions within their religion.

Towards some Basic Perspectives The societies under discussion here have always been open, and external links have at all times played a role in local communities. Thus, the contemporary privileging of the Western world and of modernity in world 220

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history is problematic. Moreover, in addressing the problem of the tension between structure and agency, it must be recognised that individuals are neither tied down in structurally fixed positions, nor floating around in a post-modern flux. Rather, we should show the fruitfulness of empirical studies in which we can show that links between local and global dynamics are made up of a variety of factors of different scales and extensions, which vary according to historical period, and which it is our task to uncover and analyse. The past contained people encountering everyday events, shaped by their own goals and concerns, shaped by the contradictions and struggles embedded in structural forces. In such an endeavour, the word ‘history’ becomes important, not only as scholarly discipline but as epistemology. By placing our own contemporary world in perspective of comparison with earlier global formations, we can not only see how our world came into being, but also discern alternative possibilities for human development. Such a historicising of cultures may be an alternative to contemporary, reified forms of culturalism, and may guide our critical thinking on basic contemporary issues like ethnic and religious differences, questions of identity, patterns of exploitation and oppression, and issues of violence and peace. The perennial ‘structure–​agency’ problem in the social sciences concerns how to deal analytically with the fact that certain structures represent externalities within which people act  –​but at the same time, that those externalities have been shaped by people’s intentionality. In this lies also a recognition that culture and language are as important in shaping our reality as is technology. But there is no agreement on how such an analysis should be framed. Since I am an anthropologist, let me look for answers among my colleagues. Marshall Sahlins, for instance, claims that we can capture an entire indigenous order through an understanding of a cultural structure. He sees cultures coming together in ritual systems and cosmological orders that are reproduced, elaborated and transformed by people as they actively engage with historical realities. But Sahlins’s culturalist analysis has been criticised. One line of criticism concerns its lack of attention to historically situated actors. Robert Keesing and Fredrik Barth, for instance, argue that cultures are webs of mystification as well as signification, and that we need to ask who creates and who defines cultural meanings, and to what ends. This insight 221

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offers a reminder that we need to specify what analytical space should be given to individual acts in our analyses. Others, like Eric Wolf, point to the need for an explicit perspective on power relations. He has warned against the supposition that discourse is only a matter of literary form and genre. Discourse has its reasons, and it has its consequences, argues Wolf. I find all three theoretical positions valuable in my analyses of the Hadhramis, and I find it important that none of the perspectives mentioned sees culture as a series of clear-​cut continuums with clear-​cut boundaries, but rather as a phenomenon that is in constant flux. Nevertheless, the flux is not total, but is patterned through social practice, through meaning-​bearing vehicles and categorical schemes. This means that the flux originates not so much in our cultural ideas, but rather in our specific experiences. We need to show that there is some reality to cultural patterns, without assuming that everyone embraces the cultural, or reads symbols, in the same way. Thus, as I hope I have shown in this chapter, in a world of overlapping social networks with crosscutting boundaries and flows of meaning, people’s experiences in different periods are certainly touched by ‘global’ social processes –​but, at the same time, people’s interpretations of such processes vary widely, producing a variety of localised adaptations and responses. Evolving societies such as that of the Hadhramis, whether at home or in the diaspora, whether in their contemporary form or as historical realities, are characterised by their material conditions, their technological and economic organisation, and their class structures. But they are also made up of populations unified by religion, myth, symbols and language. These sets of symbols made possible meaningful communication not only within but also between societies. The case of the Hadhramis shows, then, that we need perspectives that enable an understanding of the material condition of existence, as well as inter-​subjective meanings produced between people.

Notes 1. Leif Manger, The Hadhrami Diaspora:  Community-​Building on the Indian Ocean Rim (New York, 2010). 2. Floya Anthias, ‘Evaluating “Diaspora”: Beyond Ethnicity?’, Sociology 32: 3 (1998). 3. Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (London, 1997).

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Rediscovering Hadhramaut 4. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic:  Modernity and Double Consciousness (London, 1993). 5. Roger Sanjek, ‘Rethinking Migration, Ancient to Future’, Global Networks 3: 3 (2003). 6. Manger, Hadhrami Diaspora. 7. Kazuhiro Arai, ‘Arabs Who Traversed the Indian Ocean: The History of the Al-​ ’Attas Family in Hadramawt and Southeast Asia, c. 1600–​c. 1960’, PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2004; Ulrike Freitag, ‘Hadhrami Migrants and Reform in their Homeland (c. 1800–​1967)’, Habilitation dissertation, University of Munich, 2001; and Christian Lekon, ‘The Impact of Remittances on the Economy of Hadhramaut, 1914–​1967’, in Ulrike Freitag and W. G. Clarence-​Smith (eds), Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen in the Indian Ocean, 1750s–​ 1960s (Leiden, 1997). 8. Alexander Lesser, ‘Social Fields and the Evolution of Society’, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 17 (1961), p. 42. 9. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry K. Gills (eds), The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? (London, 1993), pp. 82–​3. 10. See George Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, revised and expanded by John Carswell (Princeton, 1995); and Gregory Possehl, ‘Meluhha’, in Julian Reade (ed.), The Indian Ocean in Antiquity (London, 1996). 11. William H. Schoff, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century (New Delhi, 1807). 12. William Vincent, The Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, 2 vols (London, 1807). 13. Kirti N. Chaudhuri, Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilization of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1991). 14. Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion:  Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore, 1994). 15. Ibid., p. 15. 16. Ibid., p. 78. 17. Ellen M. Wood, Empire of Capital (London, 2003). 18. Leif Manger (ed.), Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in A Global Context (London, 1999). 19. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System, Vol. I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origin of the European World Economy in the 16th Century (San Diego, 1974). 20. Richard M. Eaton, Islamic History as Global History: Essays on Global and Comparative History (Washington, 1990); and John Voll, Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World (Syracuse, 1994). 21. Voll, Islam. 22. Engseng Ho, ‘Empire Through Diasporic Eyes: A View from the Other Boat’, Comparative Studies of Society and History 46: 2 (2004).

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora 23. Steven. F. Dale, Islamic Society on the South Asian Frontier: The Mappilas of Malabar 1498–​1922 (Oxford, 1980); and Steven F. Dale, ‘The Hadhrami Diaspora in Southwestern India: The Role of the Sayyids of the Malabar Coast’, in Freitag and Clarence-​Smith, Hadhrami Traders, Scholars and Statesmen. 24. Andrew Reid, ‘Nineteenth Century Pan-​Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia’, Journal of Asian Studies 26: 2 (1967).

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Conclusion: Research Issues Concerning Hadhramaut Abdalla Bujra

The chapters in this book mostly concern the effects of migration in the diaspora, and not Hadhramaut itself. The research literature in Hadhramaut is equally dominated by studies of migration and the diaspora. It is self-​evident that it is much easier, especially for non-​Yemeni scholars, to get access to diaspora communities than to Hadhramaut itself. In this Conclusion, I argue for a change of focus –​to enable more research on Hadhramaut while also examining those aspects of the diaspora that have been neglected previously. The Hadhramaut Research Centre (HRC) has been established for precisely these purposes. We need to establish how much research has been –​and is being –​carried out, published mostly in Arabic, both by scholars at Hadhramaut’s universities and those working independently. The HRC can play an important role in bringing recent and current scholarship to the attention of international scholars, and in facilitating future research by both Hadhrami and foreign scholars. Migration from Hadhramaut has been proceeding literally for centuries, and has deeply and extensively affected not only the homeland’s political, economic and cultural development, but also the very mind-​set and character of the Hadhrami people. Its effects are thus apparent in the language, social behaviour and even physical features of Hadhramis. It 225

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contributes to what Thanos Petouris terms ‘Hadhrami exceptionalism’. We need to examine the nature of these developments in the past, the present and potentially the future by studying how they affect society as a whole. I would suggest that the HRC start with the following three areas: • The traditional social system  –​stratification  –​which I  examined in Hurayda in the 1960s. It has clearly been affected by events since then, as several chapters in this book illustrate. We need to study the changes in greater detail, and assess the influence of stratification in Hadhramaut today. • The nature of migration. In the past, young migrants travelled to Africa, India and Southeast Asia, where, as mostly scholars and traders, they integrated quite slowly. How do they compare with the young, educated, middle-​class migrants of recent years in nearby Arab countries, where they often work as employees in the public and private sectors, remain largely unintegrated, and tend to see themselves –​and be seen –​ as temporary migrants? What future do they have in these other Arab countries? Will they return to Hadhramaut? Will they seek to migrate elsewhere –​Latin America, Northern America or Europe? • Can Hadhrami exceptionalism be more rigorously defined? Can Hadhramaut retain its exceptionalism? Hadhramaut has always been considered an important centre of scholarship. Traditionally, most of the Hadhrami elite were religious intellectuals from the sada (who claimed descent from the Prophet) and mashayikh (a  pre-​existing religious aristocracy), and played three important roles. First, they taught the younger generation, passing on to them their learning from their own research, as well as the substance of their religious and genealogical traditions. Second, they acted as arbitrators in disputes, playing a key role in conflict resolution. Third, they were instrumental in the spread of Islam (in particular, the Shafi’i school of Sunni Islam) in all the areas where Hadhramis had migrated. In these areas they established schools, and were teachers, qadis and advisers to ordinary people, and sometimes to local leaders. Education and research –​especially in religious studies, the Arabic language, and genealogies of notable or important families –​have always been 226

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central to educational institutions, such as those in Tarim, and to particular families as well as to Hadhrami culture as a whole. Given this background, the establishment of the HRC as an educational institution has been welcomed. The aims of the new HRC, which uses English as its first language, include: • focusing its training on governance, community development, and so on –​that is, secular subjects; • training and encouraging local research on different areas of Hadhrami society, including history; • hosting researchers from the Arab region and the rest of the world. The focus of the HRC is not so much to ‘rediscover’ Hadhramaut as to expand the traditional focus of education and research beyond religious studies, Arabic and genealogy.

Critical Research Issues Historical The bibliography at the end of this book illustrates the comparative richness of research on certain aspects of Hadhramaut. However, there is relatively little information, particularly in Arabic, on important aspects of its early history. The publication of Werner Daum’s Three Thousand Years of Yemeni Civilization (1998), and the British Museum’s Queen of Sheba (2002), along with many other specialist texts, indicates that, with the help of archaeologists and other experts in the early history of Hadhramaut, it has been the subject of energetic research for some years –​although few of the products of that research have been translated into Arabic. The ancient Kingdom of Hadhramaut, with its capital at Shabwa, had achieved a position of wealth by the first century CE, and was at its peak in the third century CE, before the Himyaritic ruler put an end to its separate existence. But there are many important issues that have not been adequately explored: How did Hadhramaut acquire its name? Who drew its boundaries? How did it become a region or country separate from other Yemeni communities? How different –​culturally, and even genetically –​are the Hadhramis from the rest of Yemenis? 227

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Hadhramis were living on the East African coast before the tenth century CE. From the ninth and tenth centuries onward, they played important political, economic and cultural roles in the city-​states of this region. Yet very little research has been done on the important role that Hadhramis are thought to have played at the height of the Swahili Islamic civilisation. Most historical research on Hadhrami migrants in East Africa starts around the eighteenth century CE. More recently, there has been research in Kenya on the post–​ World War II generation of Hadhramis, but little on Ethiopia or Eritrea. The same lack of serious historical research before the eighteenth century CE characterises inquiry into migration to India and the Far East. On India, for example, Zuhair Huawei and P. K. M. Abdul Jaleel have written: The history of Islam, especially in the whole Indian Ocean littoral, and the entire Islamization process of the eastern frontiers for at least one Millennium, is inseparably mixed with the Arabs from Hadhramawt of Yemen. Hadhrami Arabs –​sada, scholars, Sufis, traders, commoners –​created a trans-​cultural space of Islamic acumen as they traversed and settled in the trans-​ oceanic world that stretched from Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa to Timor at the limit of the Malay Archipelago. In fact, they played the major role in the spread and evolution of Islamic culture, religious ethos and social formation in all these regions. Consequently, studies on Hadhrami Arabs, patterns of their migration, the depth and breadth of their influence across the Indian Ocean littoral has nowadays become a major sub-​ section of Indian Ocean studies, and there have been a number of rigorous academic works on Hadhramis and Hadhrami Diaspora in various Indian Ocean regions.1

However, despite being part of this Indian Ocean world, the presence, spread and contribution of Hadhrami Arabs on the southern coasts of India  –​especially Malabar in Kerala, where Hadhrami notables enjoyed immense influence –​have received scant attention in global studies of the Hadhrami diaspora. Rich primary sources are available in hagiographies, chronologies, genealogies and mawlids, but no methodologically sound attempts have been made to analyse and explore them. I call on scholars to look at the role of Hadhrami Arabs, especially of sayyid families, in the Islamic life and Muslim culture of Kerala. 228

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There are many other aspects of the earlier history of Hadhramaut that require further research. I hope that the HRC will help inspire scholars –​ both Hadhramis and non-​Hadhramis –​to rise to the challenge.

Migration and Destination Most of the published research on Hadhramaut, especially that by non-​ Hadhramis, has dealt with the causes of emigration, with a focus on its economic drivers. But it does not explain, for example, why today’s better-​off middle-​class professionals continue to migrate. Why do migrants choose to move to one part of the world and not another –​in the past, for example, to India as opposed to East Africa, Indonesia or Malaysia? Historical patterns of emigration were disrupted by the emergent nation state after World War II. Emigration to India ceased after it became independent, and a substantial number of Hadhramis, especially from Hyderabad, returned to Hadhramaut. The growth of nationalism in the Far East in the 1950s resulted in some Hadhramis returning to their homeland. When these countries became independent, their governments introduced controls that ended the free movement previously granted to Hadhrami migrants. Since the 1950s, most migrants have moved to Arab countries, notably Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, stimulated by the oil booms that created the demand for imported labour. More recently, Saudi Arabia and other GCC states have placed restrictions on the number of people entering their countries, including Hadhramis and other Yemenis. Their governments favour individuals who can play specific economic roles as defined by the state, and their length of stay is determined by their economic role or status. In the traditional destination countries, integration took place over generations, and Hadhramis successfully integrated in these non-​Arab and sometimes non-​Islamic societies. In the Arab region no such process of integration is accommodated. A decision to grant a person nationality is a political decision taken by the state. It is used very selectively, and citizenship is won by only a few. We need to understand more about the process and extent of integration in the traditional destinations. Research should cover the status and 229

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role of those generations already integrated. How integrated are their children –​culturally, economically and politically? Does each generation see its future in the country of its birth rather than in Hadhramaut? What role do these communities play in the social, economic and political sectors of their respective countries? In the Arab region such research is even more important, since the Hadhramis in these countries are generally younger people who understand the temporary nature of their situation and the need to maintain stronger ties with the homeland; their future is likely to be in the homeland rather than in the Arab host countries. This has social, economic and political implications for Hadhramaut itself.

The Impact on Hadhrami Society As I  have noted, most of the published sources on Hadhramaut address the migration process and the diaspora. There are very few publications on Hadhrami society itself, with a few notable exceptions. Hence, this is an area that needs more serious analytical research, particularly on the following issues: • the economic impact of emigration on the country as a whole and such key sectors as agriculture, fishing, trade, construction and energy; • the cultural impact on social customs, institutions, language, and even physical features and the like; • effects on population structure: most migrants are young. What are the impacts on the economy, the family and other sectors of society? There is also the insecurity of the migrants in their countries of residence and work –​caused, for example, by the dramatic expulsion by the Saudis and other GCC states of up to a million Yemenis, in reaction to Yemen’s actions in the United Nations over the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990. • Could similar events happen in the future? • Will a possible decline in the economies of the GCC states, combined with a greater willingness of their own populations to take up work now done by migrants, reduce demand for Hadhrami labour? 230

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• What planning is being done by Hadhramis (and the Yemeni government) to cope with such contingencies? And what impact would the return of migrants have on national, regional and family budgets? • What kind of general development is taking place in Hadhramaut? Are migrants investing in housing and real estate, rather than in infrastructure such as roads, hospitals and educational institutions? • Is Hadhrami society fundamentally different from other Yemeni and Arab communities in the region? If so, what is unique about the Hadhramis?

Hadhramaut’s Relations with North and South Yemen Little work has been done on the economic, cultural and political relations between Hadhramaut and the rest of Yemen –​that is, with the PDRY (1967–​90) and the YAR before unification. Much more research is also needed on Hadhramaut’s relations with the government of the Republic of Yemen from 1990 –​a period when Hadhramis felt marginalised, and saw an influx of north Yemenis into Hadhramaut. What has been the impact of the political crisis that started in 2011 and led to the Huthi movement, in alliance with former President Saleh, taking control of most of north Yemen in 2015 –​then driving into south Yemen, but not Hadhramaut? What has been the impact of the war launched by a Saudi-​led coalition in support of the regime of President Hadi? These events (see Chapter 1) have opened up new divisions in Yemen between south and north, and between Sunni and Zaydi Shia. How has Hadhramaut been affected by the war –​and by AQAP taking control of parts of Hadhramaut? At the time of writing, it is too early to speculate on the likely outcomes of the war, or on how Hadhramaut might be affected. However, it is clear that Hadhramaut is likely to seek a different relationship with whatever government takes over in Sana‘a –​or even in Aden, if south Yemen demands an end to unity. Hadhramis will want an end to the way in which previous regimes have marginalised them. Internally, Hadhramaut might see the emergence of a vibrant political system with a strong nationalist movement calling for Hadhrami independence, or even seeking to join Saudi Arabia or the Gulf states. 231

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There seems to be an immediate need for detailed and in-​depth research on the way the various groups in Hadhramaut and in the diaspora –​particularly within the GCC  –​feel about the future of their homeland. For example, will wealthy Hadhramis in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the GCC play a role in influencing the two sides to end the war and negotiate for peace  –​and then contribute to the restoration and development of the homeland?

Note 1. Zubair Hudawi and P. K. M. Abdul Jaleel, ‘Hadrami Diaspora in Indian Ocean Territories, with Special Reference to Malabar’, paper presented at the Shihab Tangal International Seminar, held in Calicut on 9 July 2011. Available at twocircles.net/​2011jul12/​hadrami_​diaspora_​indian_​ocean_​territories_​special_​ reference_​malabar.html#.V5uNyPkrKM8 (accessed 7 August 2016).

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Hadhramaut and its Diaspora Sanjek, Roger, ‘Rethinking Migration, Ancient to Future’, in Global Networks 3: 3 (2003), pp. 315–​36. Al-​Saqqaf, Seyyid Abdul Rahman bin Abdalla, Adham al-​Qut fi Dhikr Buldan Hadhramaut (Sana‘a, 2002). Savage-​Landor, A. Henry, The Gems of the East:  16,000 Miles of Research Travel among Wild and Tame Tribes of Enchanting Islands (London, 1904). Schatkowski Schilcher, Linda, Families in Politics: Damascene Factions and Estates of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Stuttgart, 1985). Schoff, Wilfred H., The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea:  Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century (New Delhi, 1807). Serjeant, Robert Bertram, ‘The Saiyids of Hadramawt:  An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on 5 June 1956’, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1957. —​—​—​‘Haram and Hawtah: The Sacred Enclave in Arabia’, in Abd al-​Rahman Badawi (ed.), Mélanges Taha Husain offerts par les Amis et ses Disciples à l’Occasion de son 70iéme Anniversaire (Cairo, 1962). —​—​—​‘Social Stratification in Arabia’, in R. B. Serjeant (ed.), The Islamic City (Paris, 1980). Shanbal, Ahmad bin Abd Allah, Tarikh Hadhramaut al-​Ma‘ruf bi-​Tarikh Shanbal (n.p., 1994). Al-​Shilli, Muhammad bin Abu Bakr, Aqd al-​Jawahir wa-​al-​Durar fi Akhbar al-​Qarn al-​Hadi Ashar (Sana‘a, 2003). Shipman, John G. T., ‘The Hadhramaut’, Asian Affairs 15: 2 (1984), pp. 154–​62. Skulte-​Ouaiss, Jennifer, ‘Home Is Where the Heart Is; Citizenship Is Where It Is Safe:  Dual Citizenship and Europe’, Identities:  Global Studies in Culture and Power 20: 2 (2013), pp 133–​48. Snouck Hurgronje, Christiaan, ‘Een Arabische bondgenoot der Nederlandsch-​ Indische regeering’, in Arent Jan Wensinck (ed.), Verspreide Geschriften van C. Snouck Hurgronje (Bonn/​Leipzig, 1924). Stark, Freya, A Winter in Arabia (London, 1940). Al-​Suroury, Abd al-​Wakil Isma’il, Qirah mujazah fi tarikh mustashfa al-​jumhuriat al-​ta’limi wa waqi tattawwur muhnat al-​tamridh fi al-​Yaman khilal al-​fatrat 1958–​2000 (Aden, 2001). —​—​— Nashat jami’at adan wa tatawuruha: thlathyn aman min al-​tahdith wa al-​ata wa al-​tanwir (Aden, 2006). Suvorov, M. N., and M. A. Rodionov (eds), Cultural Anthropology of Southern Arabia: Hadhramaut Revisited (St Petersburg, 1999). Temple, Richard, Journals Kept in Hyderabad, Kashmir, Sikkim, and Nepal (London, 1887). Thesiger, Wilfred, Arabian Sands (London, 1959).

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24

Index al-​Abidin, Sharif Ali bin Zayn 126 Abu Dhabi 105 al-​Affifi, Brigadier Al-​Mundai 153 agriculture 1, 4, 67–​83 Al-​Ahgaff University (Jami’at al-​Ahqaf) 102–​3 ahl al-​bayt (family and descendants of Prophet Muhammad) 47 Ahmad, Shaykh Mustafa bin 128, 131–​2 al-​Ahmar, Abdullah 24, 26 al-​Ahmadi, Salah 53 akhdam 68–​70 Akkad 215 Akkush, Muhammad Salem 155 Al Qaeda 13, 27–​8, 155–​6 Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula 28–​9, 33–​4, 38, 80, 83, 102–​3, 231 Alatas, Abdurahman bin Syech bin Salim 106–​7 Alatas, Ahmad Muhammad 105 al-​Alawi, Sayyid Uthman ibn Abd Allah ibn Aqil ibn Yahya 87–​99 Ali, Abdullah bin 108, 151, 158 Aljufri, Sholeh 113 Alkhatib, Omar bin Abdullah 107 Alkhatib, Yahya 107 Alkisah (magazine, Jakarta) 110 Almas, Ghalib bin 151

Almusawa, Munzir 113 Amiri Guard (Kuwait) 155 anadil 69 Ansar Allah (pol. party, Yemen) 32 anthropology 213 anti-​colonial movements 42, 44–​5, 53, 57, 61, 130 Aola, Sharif Abdallah 131 Aqil, Sharif 131 Arab Association for Reform and Guidance (Jam’iyyah al-​ Islah wa al-​Irshad al-​Arabiyyah) 49 Arabian Peninsula 2, 9, 22, 41, 43, 56, 72, 82, 89, 115, 193, 199 Arabian Sea 1, 215 Asad, Talal 217–​18 asakir 145, 147, 150, 151, 157 Ashin, Ahmad Muhammad Salih Ba 196 Aslanian, Sebouh 189 Atlas Arabi (Sayyid Uthman) 87, 94 al-​Attas, Abd Allah bin Muhsin 108 al-Attas, Ahmad 170 al-​Attas, Ali bin Hasan 109 al-​Attas, Faysal 21, 59, 61 al-​Attas, Haydar Abu Bakr 22, 25, 29, 75 al-​Attas, Ratib 109 al-​Attas, Umar bin Abd al-​Rahman 108 Aulaqi 44, 151, 161 Australia 211 Awad, Mustafa 192–​3

244

Awadh, Sultan Ghalib bin 167 Awadh, Umar bin 149, 151 Ayardorus, Si 127 al-​Aydarus family 107, 127 al-​Aydarus, Abbas 59 al-​Aydrus, Husein bin Abubakar 109 Aynat 4, 104–​5 al-​Azhar 175 Aziz, King Abdul (Ibn Saud) 192 Ba Alawi Tariqa (Sufi order) 47, 109 Ba Faqih family 127 Ba Jamal, Abd-al-Qadir 26 Ba Junayd (clan) 135 Ba Junayd, Muhammad 132 Ba Khashab family 82 Ba Naja family 134, 191, 197, 198–​201 Ba Naja, Abdallah 198 Ba Ras, Khalid 4 Ba Shrahil (tribe) 167 Ba Tuq family 198 Ba Tuq, Muhammad Salim 147 Ba Wazir, Mohammad 174–​5 Ba Zar‘a family 198–​9 Babahir, Shaykh Muhammad ibn Hasan 94 Badawy, Ahmed bin Sumeit 176 Baghdad 216–​17 al-​Baghdadi, Abu Bakr 34 Bajunaid, Shaykh Omar 135 Bakhresa (clan) 167

 245

Index Bakil tribal confederation 27 Bakr, Sayyid Abu 126 Bakr, Sharif Abu 131 Balala (tribe) 167 Balala, Issa M(u) sallem 170–​1 Balala, Salim Mohammed 170 Balala, Shaykh Khalid 178 Balfaqih, Abd al-​Rahman bin Ali bin Abu Bakr 107–​8 Balfaqih/​Bilfaqih family 127 Balpaki, Alawi 127 Banten (Indonesia) 106 Barth, Fredrik 221 Basilan 131 Basra 199 Batavia 9, 49, 51, 87–​8, 94–​ 6, 98, 106 Bates Agreement 131 Battle of Manila 136 Baum, Hassan 29 Bay of Bengal 215 bayt tijari (trading house) 191 al-​Beidh, Ali Salim 20–​2, 24–​5, 29, 59, 75 Bengal 216 Biha‘i family 199, 201 Black Sea 215–​16 boko boko 174 Bombay (Mumbai) 3, 9, 14, 191, 194, 199–​201 Bombay Marine 143 Boxberger, Linda 5, 46, 149 Brazil 143 Britain 3–​4, 60, 209 British Aden Protectorate 58 British colonial rule 3–​4, 9, 11, 19–​21, 42–​6, 50–​5, 57–​60, 77, 81, 124, 134, 143–​5, 151, 166–​71, 210 British Protected Persons (BPP) 167–​72 status of 168 Brubaker, Rogers 45, 164

Buddhism 216 Bujra, Abdalla 43, 51–​1, 54, 68, 70 Bukhara 128, 131 Buqshan family 82 Cairo 14, 193–​4, 197–​201, 217 Calcutta 194, 199–​201 Camelin, Sylvaine 68 Canada 211 Cardiff 157 Caspian Sea 216 Catholicism 125, 130, 132 Chatham House 35 Chelhod, Joseph 69 Chile 134, 143 China 216 Christians 124–​5, 132, 136, 143, 177 Cidodol district (Jakarta) 104 civil war (Yemen) 13, 19, 22–​3, 25, 29–​31, 80 Clive of India 143 Cochrane, Thomas 143 Cohen, Abner 187–​9 Cohen, Robin 207 collaboration with colonialism (Philippines) 130–​2 colonialism 53, 128–​32, 209, 220 Commonwealth 169 Communists 155 Comoros 215 Confucianism 216 Cooper, Frederick 45 Curtin, Philip 187 Daarul Aitam (orphanage, Indonesia) 106 Dahlan, Ahmad bin Zayni 202 Damascus 133 Dar al-​Mustafa 102, 104, 113, 176 Daum, Werner 227 Davao (Indonesia) 132 da‘wa 105, 110–​11, 113

245

Day, Stephen 153 de Goeje, Michaël Jan 94–​5 Decree 65 (1991) 76–​7 Democratic Republic of Yemen 25 Department for Tribal Affairs (Yemen) 54 Dhofar 2 diasporas 207–​11 definition 207–​8 Hadhrami 208–​11 al-​Din I, Sultan Azim 127 al-​Din, Jamal (sultan of Sulu) 128 Djibouti 103, 148, 175 Dohry, Muhammad bin 152 Druze Islam 136 Dutch colonial rule 9–​11, 81, 88, 96–​7, 99, 112, 124, 130, 134, 220 Dutch East Indies 9–​10, 49, 87–​8, 92–​6, 111–​12 East Africa 4, 8–​9, 13, 20, 50, 56 East India Company (British)  143–​4 East Indies 49–​50, 146 Eastern Aden Protectorate 4, 19, 43, 51, 55, 61, 210 Eaton, Richard 218–​19 Egypt 50, 57, 197, 209, 215 Egyptians 20, 57, 147, 156 Elcano (gunboat) 134 emigration 5, 67, 80, 82, 111, 145–​6, 229–​30 Empty Quarter 2 England 209 Eritrea 8, 13, 82, 152, 210, 228 Ethiopia 8, 82, 208–​10, 213, 228 al-​Fachriyah 105 Fadhli 20 al-​Fadhli, Tariq Nasr 155 al-​Fadl trading house 199–​201

246

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora Far East 228–​9 farmers 75–​6 Faroughy, Ahmed 148 Federation of South Arabia 4, 44, 58 fellahin (sing.: fellah) 75, 79–​80 Filipinos 132 France 209 Front for the Liberation of South Yemen 58 futa 174 Fuwa 73 Gavin, R. J. 152 General People’s Congress 23–​26, 29, 80 general truce (1937) see Ingrams Peace Germany 178 Ghanem, Faraj bin 26–​7 Ghassanids 143 Ghayl Ba Wazir 57, 74 ghee 193 ghurba (sing.: ghurab) 150 al-​Ghurfa 51 Gilroy, Paul 207 Ginad, Shaykh Mohammed 132 globalisation 15, 187, 207, 210–​14, 218, 220 Goa 202 graduates 49–​50, 56 Greater Syria see Syria 128 Greece 143 Greif, Avner 189 Gresik (Indonesia) 105 Guantánamo Bay (Cuba) 156 Guillet, Amedeo 148 Gulf Cooperation Council 13, 21, 23, 30–​3, 39, 82, 112, 154, 229–​30, 232 Gulf states 13, 22, 229, 231 Gurkhas 143 al-​Habshi, Ali Muhammad 176 al-​Habshi, Hussein 170 al-​Habshi, Shaykhan 58

hadar 68 al-​Haddad, Abd Allah bin Alawi 109 Hadhramaut Research Centre (HRC) 15, 225–​7, 229 Hadhrami Awakening (al-​ Nahda al-​Hadhramiyya) 42, 49–​50, 56 Hadhrami Bedouin Legion (HBL) 4, 20, 55, 145, 158 Hadhrami exceptionalism 41–​61 Hadhramy League of East Africa 170 Hadi, Abd Rabbuh Mansour 13, 30, 32, 231 Hadi, Ali Shaya 155 Hadhrami identity 45–​53 Hadhrami isolationism 44 Hadrami, Adel (Brigadier General) 154 Hafiz, Umar bin Muhammad bin 104–​9, 113 Hajjah 32 Halliday, Fred 43 al-​Hamid, Alawi bin Abu Bakr 108 al-Hamid, Muhsin Idrus 105 Hanafi school 128 al-​Haramayn (publisher, Indonesia) 108 harthan 68, 70 Hasan, Sharif 126 Hashemite period 195–​6 Hashid Tribal Confederation 23–​4, 27 Hashim, Muhammad bin 53 Hashim, Sharif 126 Hausa diaspora 188 hawl 104–​5, 107–​10 hawtat 47 Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) 104, 135, 191–​6, 201

246

Hinduism 216 Hindus 150, 159, 210 Hindustani 128 Al-​Hirak (Southern Movement) 27, 28–​30, 36–​7 Hodeida 192–​4 Holland 92, 209 homo economicus (Wallerstein) 218 Hong Kong 134 Horn of Africa 146, 148 Huawei, Zuhair 228 Hud (prophet) 110, 176 Hujariyyah 152 Humum (tribe) 34 Hurayda 4, 50–​2, 68, 71, 75, 226 Husainun, Salih Abu- Bakr bin 157, 159 Hutchison, Clark 144, 158 al-​Huthi, Hussein Badr al-​Din 28 Huthis 27–​34, 83 Hyderabad 3, 8–​9, 12, 53, 147, 149–​55, 158–​9, 189, 208–​10, 213, 229 Ibn Abdat family 51 ijaza 106 immigration 101, 136, 168, 171, 211 Imperial British East Africa Company 143 Incense Route 143 independence (Hadhramaut) 8, 31, 37, 60, 74, 148, 231 independence South Yemen 36 Yemen 2, 22, 112–​13, 135, 168–​72 India 3, 8, 13, 39, 69, 142–​3, 152, 201, 210, 213, 216, 226, 228–​9 Indian Mutiny 144 Indian Ocean 1, 8, 11, 14, 38, 41, 43–​4, 46, 50, 53, 56, 60, 101, 112, 114–​15, 166, 177, 188, 190–​1,

 247

Index 193, 197–​9, 201–​3, 208, 211, 213–​19, 228 Indian Subcontinent 56, 146 Indians 177 Indonesia 7–​11, 39, 50, 81, 87, 101–​15, 148–​9, 175, 198, 209, 229 Indonesians 10–​11, 102–​3, 106–​7, 110 Indus river 215 Ingrams Peace 50, 53, 112, 115 Ingrams, Doreen 144, 150, 157–​8 Ingrams, William Harold 3–​ 4, 51, 144, 157, 168 International Islamic University Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) 108 Iran 14, 199 Iraq 57, 155–​6 irrigation 1, 74, 76 irshadi reform movement 4, 6 Irshadi school 49–​50 Irshadi–​Alawi conflict 49, 56, 59 Irshadis 50 Isfahan 189 ISIS 33–​4, 38, 80, 156–​7 Islamic Party of Kenya 178 Islamic Reform (Philippines) 132–​3 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria​ see ISIS Islamisation 125, Islamism 155 Islamists 23, 80, 155–​7 Ismail, Muhammad (sultan of Sulu) 128 Istanbul 129, 209 Italians 147 Italy 209 Jabal al-​Gharib 156 Ja‘da (tribe) 150 Jakarta 10, 87, 89, 103–​10 Jang, Barak 151 Jang, Ghalib 151 Janissaries 143

Japan 102 Java 87, 96, 105, 107, 109–​ 10, 112, 135, 216 Jeddah 9, 13–​14, 58, 170, 188, 191–​202 Jericho 215 Jesuits 128–​9, 131–​2 Jews 153, 187, 201, al-​Jifri, Habib Ali 176 jihadis 156 Jindan, Jindan bin 105, 113 Jizan 103 Joh, Salem Hassan Ba 58 Johor 126 Joint Meeting Parties (political alliance) 27, 30 Jordan 4 Kabungsuwan, Sharif 126 al-​Kaf family 12, 51, 53, 71, 81 al-​Kaf, Sayyid Bubakr 3 kafa‘ah 47 Kasadi family 3, 43 al-​Kathir 81 Kathiri state 2, 8, 13, 20, 43–​4, 51–​2, 54–​5, 58, 79, 151, 158, 167–​8, 170–​1 Kathiris 172 Kathuda, Hasan 199 Keesing, Robert 221 Kenya 7, 13, 164–​81 Kenyan National Assembly 170 Kenyans 172, 177–​81 kerajaan 126 Kerala 143, 228 Keren 148 Khalidi, Omar 149 Khunj 199 al-​Khunji family 199–​200 al-​Khunji, Salim 200–​1 Khunjis 199 al-​Kilani, Sayyid Wajih 133 Kostiner, Joseph 58 Kuala Lumpur 108 kupanek 189 Kuwait 14, 21, 33, 230

247

Kuzbari, Shaykh Muhammad bin Munib 133 Laden bin family 82 Laden, Osama bin 13, 28, 155, 219–​20 Lahij 20, 22, 37, 76 Lamu 176–​7, 184 land reform 7, 67, 73–​6, 79 Land Reform Law (1970) 72–​3 landowners 76 Lascars 152 Lebanese 132–​3 Lebanon 133 Leiden 88, 94, 96 Lekon, Christian 51, 72 Lesser, Alexander 214 Levant, the 143, 215 literacy 12, 157 lithography 88 Lombok Island 105 London 3, 9 Luar Batang (Jakarta) 109 Luo (tribe) 177 Madagascar 215 Madrassah al-​Wusta (Intermediary School) 57 Madura (Indonesia) 87 Maguindanao (Philippines) 125–​6 Mahfoudh bin family 82 mahjar 8 Mahra 2, 4, 31, 38, 155 Mahris 155 majlis 174, 192 Malabar (Kerala) 220, 228 Malay (language) 10, 88, 95, 98, 134, 216 Malay Peninsula 126 Malaya 135, 216 Malaysia 8, 10, 81, 107–​8, 111, 198, 209, 229 Maldives 215 al-​Maliki, Muhammad bin Alawi 109 manaqibs 108, 114

248

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora Manila 131, 133–​6 mansabs 52, 108, 176 Maoism 60 Maranao (Philippines) 125–​6, 130 Maratha Empire 149 Marathas 150 Marawi (Philippines) 129 Marib 24, 26, 33, 154 Markovits, Claude 189 Marxists 6 masakin (sing.: miskin) 5, 45–​9 Masdali, Habib Muhammad 129 mashayikh (sing.: shaykh) 5–​6, 12, 46, 48–​51, 55–​6, 68, 132, 179, 195, 226 Mashhad 51 Masila 27, 35 Masila Basin 1, 26, 35 Massawa 193, 197–​8 maulidi (sing.: mawlid) 104–​6, 108, 176, 228 Mboya, Tom 178 Mecca 9, 88, 126–​7, 129, 131, 133, 194–​5 Mediterranean Sea 189, 193, 215 Menara Kudus (mosque, Jakarta) 109 Mesopotamia 215 Middle East 9, 88, 127–​8, 133, 215–​16 migrants 2–​3, 5, 8, 12–​13, 55–​ 6, 71, 81, 87, 101, 107, 110–​11, 125, 148, 173, 191, 209, 226, 228–​31 migration 7–​13, 71, 80–​3, 112–​14, 135, 154, 187, 189, 202, 211, 213–​14, 225–​6, 228, 230 Mindanao 127–​30, 132, 134–​5 Mobini-​Kesheh, Natalie 49 modernity 43, 217, 220 Mohsen, General Ali 24, 28–​9, 32 Mombasa 152, 170, 173–​5, 177–​8, 184

Mombasa Republican Council 177 Monas (National Monument) 105 Mongol Empire 216 Moros (‘Moors’) 11, 124–​5, 129–​32, 135 Moscow 21 Movement of Arab Nationalists 20, 57 Mughal Empire 209 Muhammad (Prophet) 5, 8, 46–​7, 88, 101, 104, 108–​9, 125–​7, 129, 131–​2, 143, 148, 173, 187, 195, 226 Muhammad, Ali Nasser 22, 26 Muhsen, Ghalib bin 3 Mukalla 1, 3–​4, 20, 25, 29, 31, 34, 37, 43, 52, 55, 57, 102–​3, 111–​12, 127, 145, 156, 167–​8, 170–​1, 191, 210 Mura, Habib 131 Musawa, Harun 110 Muscat 25 Muslim Brotherhood 24 Muslims 11, 124–​5, 128–​30, 132, 135–​6, 148, 210, 216–​20 Muthana, Aseel 157 Muthana, Nasser 157 Mutiara Ilmu (bookshop) 109 muwalladin (sing.: muwallad) 8, 10, 12, 13, 148–​9, 151, 155, 157, 159 Nagpur 151 Nairobi 170–​1, 178–​9 Najd 199 Najia, Sayyid Ahmad Bansia bin 134 Nasserism 20 Nassir, Abdilahi 178 National Dialogue Conference 30–​1,  36–​7

248

National Liberation Front (NLF) 4, 7, 20–​2, 58–​60, 73 nationalism, nationalists 6, 20, 23, 44, 49, 52–​3, 55, 59, 145, 152, 229 Native Courts (landraad) 94 networks, Hadhrami diaspora as 9, 14, 187–​202 New Julfa (Isfahan) 189 Nile Valley 217 Nizam of Hyderabad 3, 12, 159, 209 Nuwwah (tribe) 150 Oman, Omani 57, 103, 173, 177, 209 Ottoman Empire 49, 218 Palembang (Indonesia)  134 Palestine 216 Palestinians 133, 153 Parang (Philippines) 134 Parsees 153 Peace and National Partnership Agreement (Yemen) 32 People’s Democratic Front (Yemen) 59 People’s Democratic Republic of Hadhramaut 21, 60 People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen 2, 6–​7, 13, 19, 21–​5, 37, 44, 70, 72, 75, 77, 101, 113, 115, 153, 155, 157, 172, 210, 231 People’s Republic of South Yemen (PRSY) 21, 60 People’s Socialist Party (Yemen) 58 Persia 216 Persian Gulf 14, 146, 153, 193, 199, 211, 215–​16 Philippines 7–​8, 11, 124–​36 Port Sudan 8 Portuguese 220

 249

Index poverty 1, 21, 35, 67, 71, 77, 79, 81–​2 Prestholdt, Jeremy 178 Punjab 216 qaba‘il (sing.: qabili) 5, 12, 46–​8, 68–​70 qadis 127–​9, 146, 226 qasaid (sing.: qasida) 105 qat 174 Qu’ayti sultanate 3–​4, 8, 13, 20, 43–​4, 48, 51–​2, 54–​5, 57–​8, 79, 149, 167–​8, 170–​2, 176, 210 Al-​Qunfudhah 193 al-​Rahman, Sharif Abd 129 Raidat Abd al-​Wadood 20 Ramadan 76 al-​Rashid, Harun 127 Red Sea 14, 134, 142, 146, 188, 190–​1, 193–​4, 196–​9, 201–​2, 215–​16 remittances 1, 8, 22, 34–​5, 56, 101, 111–​12 Republican Guards (Yemen) 26 Ribat Tarim 102, 106–​7 Riyadh 13 Royal Navy 143 Sa‘ada 28 sada (sing.: sayyid) 5–​7, 9–​ 10, 12–​14, 20, 46–​56, 58–​60, 68–​81, 83, 87, 101, 103, 105–​8, 110, 127, 135, 176, 181, 187–​8, 194–​5, 198, 202 al-​Saggaf family 176 Saguir, Sherif 131 Sahlins, Marshall 221 Salafis 24, 33 Salafism 7, 28, 80 Saleeby, Dr Najeeb 132 Saleh regime 2, 23–​6, 28, 36, 77, 80, 83 Saleh, Ahmed 26 Saleh, Ali Abdullah 7, 23–​7, 29–​33, 77, 83, 231 Salih, Shaykh (Panang) 134

Salim, Shaykh Abu Bakr bin 104–​5 Samal Island 132 saman see ghee Sana’a 2, 4, 19–​22, 25, 29, 31–​4, 36–​8, 75, 77, 102, 108, 156, 231 Sanhan tribe 23 Sanjek, Roger 208 al-​Saqqaf family 81, 194–​5 al-​Saqqaf, Umar 198 Sarangani Bay 134 al-​Sari, Alawi 105 Sarin, Sharif Muhammad bin 130 Saudi Arabia 153, 155–​6, 191–​3, 196, 211, 229–​32 Saudis 156, 230 Say‘un 1, 9, 20, 29, 52, 103, 171, 178, 210 Say‘ar (tribe) 150 Sayhut 1 sayyids see sada al-​Sha‘abi, Qahtan 21 Sha‘ban 176 Shabwa(h) 1, 2, 4, 24, 31, 34–​5, 38, 76, 178, 227 Shafi’i school of Islam 1, 12, 27, 43, 124, 128, 136, 226 Shamlan, Faisal bin 27 sharaf 53 shari’a 78 sharifs 128, 130, 132, 165 sharika 192 al-​Shatiri, Abd al-​Qadir bin Muhammad (‘Jilani’) 106 al-​Shatiri, Salim bin Abd Allah bin Umar  106–​7 shatrayn 24 shaykh al-​Hadarim 191–​4 shaykh al-​Sada al-​ alawiyyin (sing.: … al-​alawiyya) 193–​5 Shibam 1 Shihr 1, 43, 68 Shi‘ism 27, 33, 231

249

Shinkar, Muhammad Nur 192 Shwayb, Muhammad 133 Sikhs 150 Silk Roads 215 Sind 216 Sindi merchants 189 Singapore 81, 107, 111, 128, 130, 132–​4, 168, 176, 194, 197–​8, 208–​10, 213 siqaya 94 al-​Siyayli, Salih 22, 25 slavery 68, 72, 129, 144, 209, 217 Snouck Hurgronje, Christian 88, 96, 195 social stratification (Hadhrami) 1, 45–​8, 51–​2, 54, 56–​7, 60, 68, 75, 83 social structure (Hadhrami) 68–​70 socialism 21, 44, 61, 67, 70, 72, 74–​5, 79–​80, 82, 145, Socotra 4, 216 Solo (Indonesia) 105 Somalia 169, 209, 215 Somalis 210 South Arabia (Southern) 3–​4, 19–​21, 42, 44–​5, 52–​3, 58–​61, 112, 142, 144, 159, 170 South Arabian League 58 South China Sea 215 Southerners (Yemeni) 26, 30 Soviet Union 21, 23, 74 Spain 11, 124–​6, 129–​31, 133–​4, 136 Spanish Foreign Legion 143 Spanish–​Moro relations 124 Stark, Freya 52 students 57, 102–​5, 107, 110, 113–​15, 176 subyan 48, 68 Sudan 57, 82, 175, 208–​10, 213, 217 Suez 193

250

Hadhramaut and its Diaspora Suez Canal 92 Sufism, Sufis, Sufi 12, 21, 47, 80, 104, 109, 188, 195, 219 Sulh Injrams see Ingrams Peace Sulu (Philippines) 125–​31, 133–​5 Sumatra 134, 216 Sumayt bin family 81 Sunda Kelapa Mosque (Jakarta) 106 Sunnis 27, 32–​3, 124, 136, 226, 231 Surabaya (Indonesia) 9, 105, 107–​9 Swahili coast 148, 217 Swahilis 177, 228 Syria 128, 215–​16 Syrians 134, 136, 156, ta‘ifa 194–​5 Ta‘izz 33, 156 Taluksangkay (Indonesia) 132 Tamimi tribesmen 81 Tanzania 175 Tarim 1, 8–​11, 14, 51, 53, 55, 71, 81, 102–​4, 106–​9, 113, 115, 127, 176, 202, 227 Tarim Centre for Research and Publishing 107 Tarim Modern Bookshop (Maktabat Tarim al-​ Haditha, Indonesia) 107, 113 Tempo (Indonesia) 102 terrorism 13, 28, 135 Thesiger, Wilfred 144 Tigris river 216 Tihama coast 73 Tijani Sufism 188 trade 1, 9, 12, 14, 60, 68–​70, 81, 83, 87, 95, 107, 125, 128, 133–​4, 143, 147–​9, 157, 178, 181, 187–​204, 207–​12, 214–​19, 226, 230 Treaty of Protection (1888) 3, 43

Treaty of Taif (1934) 13 tribal groups (tribesmen, tribes) 3, 5–​7, 12, 21, 23, 26–​7, 31–​2, 34–​5, 38, 44, 46, 48, 51, 58–​60, 68–​72, 75, 77–​80, 83, 91, 111–​12, 143–​5, 149–​52, 154–​5, 158, 167, 174, 179, 210 tulud (sing.: tild) 12, 150 al-​tur‘a see Suez Canal Turkey 216 Turks 135 Tuwayriq, Badr bin Abdullah Abu 2 Twelver Shi‘ism 27 UK 102, 152, 159 ulama (sing. alim) 103, 106, 108, 114, 127–​8, 132, 136 unification of Yemen 24–​5, 28, 44–​5, 67, 74–​8, 80, 82, 101, 113, 172, 231 United Arab Emirates 33, 103, 107, 144, 153–​4, 180 United Nations 20, 30, 35, 230 UNSC Resolution 2216  32 urf 78 Uto, Datu 127 van den Berg, Lodewijk Willem Christiaan 9, 92–​4, 111, 115, 124, 133, 136 van der Meulen, Daniel 111–​12 Vietnam 148 Voll, John 219 von Wissmann, Hermann 112 Wadi Du’an 9, 81 wadis 56 Wahhabism 28 Wahidi domain 4, 158 waqf 106, 175, 193

250

Washington DC 28, 131, 136 water 1, 73–​4, 78, 81, 90, 94, 134 wazir 57, 127, 131 Western Aden Protectorate (WAP) 43, 59, 150 Western Asia 216 Wolf, Eric 222 Wood, Ellen Meiksins 218 World War I 152, 167, 199 World War II 56, 101, 112, 144, 169, 228–​9 Yafa 3, 20, 157 Yafa’is 3, 12, 48, 80, 147, 149, 155, 210 Yemen Arab Republic 7, 21, 23–​4, 231 Yemen Transition Deal 30 Yemen, unified 113–​15 Yemeni Congregation for Reform 24 Yemeni Nationality Law (1990) 178–​9 Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) 6–​7, 21–​2, 24–​5, 27–​9, 75, 77, 80 ‘Yemeni Spring’ (2011) 29 Zaman, Si Abdallah 131 Zanbal (Tarim) 113 Zanzibar 59, 82, 169, 173, 209 Zaydi Shi‘ism 33, 231 Zaqr, Abdallah bin 193 Zaqr bin family 191, 193 Zaqr, Sa‘id bin 191, 193, 197 Zaydis 28, 148, 156 Zayn, Sayyid Ibrahim bin 133–​4 Zayn, Sumayt bin 109 Al-​Zaytuna (movement) 57 ziyarat (sing.: ziyara) 47, 110 Zubeidi, Abdalla bin Said 170