Sayyids, Tribal Kinship, and the Imamate in Zaydi Yemen under Imam Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 965/1558)

Kate Pukhovaia

doi:10.1163/15700674-12340173

Sayyids, Tribal Kinship, and the Imamate in Zaydi Yemen under Imam Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 965/1558)

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Abstract

Studies of Zaydi Yemen tend to underline the divisions, rather than connections, between sayyids, descendants of the Prophet, and tribal groups in the political sphere. This paper answers the question what value family connections to tribes had for ambitious sayyids in early modern Yemen who wanted to become Zaydi imams. To this end, the article examines a section of Imam Yahyā Sharaf al-Dīn’s (d. 965/1558) unpublished biography, containing the genealogy of his second wife, Tāj al-Bahā bint al-shaykh Sharaf al-Dīn. The paper argues that the imam and his circle valued the connections that the marriage to a daughter of a shaykh brought to the imamate, and that it is due to its symbolic value for the legitimacy of the imamate that her genealogy was included in the biography.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	442-463
Number of pages	22
Journal	Medieval Encounters
Volume	29
Issue number	5-6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340173
Publication status	Published - 16 Nov 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Brill Academic Publishers. All rights reserved.

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101023803.

Keywords

Yemen
Zaydi imamate
genealogy
sayyids
tribes

Access to Document

10.1163/15700674-12340173Licence: CC BY

me-article-p442_4Final published version, 2.16 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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Sayyids, Tribal Kinship, and the Imamate in Zaydi Yemen under Imam Yaḥyā Sharaf al-Dīn (d. 965/1558)

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

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Early Modern State Development in Yemen

The Lords of Kawkabān and the Transformation of the State in Early Modern Yemen (15th–17th Centuries)

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