The Houthis celebrate the arrival of “Al-Hadi” and the Yemenis are becoming more aware of the dark history of the Imamate
English - Saturday 02 September 2023 الساعة 03:25 pm
Sanaa, NewsYemen, exclusive:
Year after year, the Houthi Imam militia devotes its celebrations to sectarian events drawn from the depths of the dark history of its ancestors, the imams. These days, the militia has expanded the scope of its celebrations with the arrival of Yahya bin Al-Hussein Al-Rasi, known as Al-Hadi, promoting that he worked to unify the word of the Yemenis, reform the self among them, support them, and stand with them in overcoming challenges and situations. The difficult situation that Yemen was going through.
The group’s leaders are not ashamed to talk about Al-Hadi’s exploits and attribute to him the recovery of Yemen from “the tragic conditions it experienced before the arrival of Imam Al-Hadi, including the tyranny of the rulers, the spread of oppression and injustice, and strife and heresies” - according to the group’s media, as if the eras of the Imamate’s rule were eras of prosperity, justice, equality, and stability!
All of this sectarian propaganda and others are belied by history books and their facts, including the history written by the Hashemites themselves, whether during the era of the rule of the Imams or in the period following them during the fifty years in which Greater Yemen was freed from the grip of the Imamate between 1962 and 2014 AD.
Let us start with the book (Yemen Throughout History) by the historian Ahmed Hussein Sharaf al-Din, in which it is mentioned that Yahya bin al-Hussein came to Yemen at the invitation of (some of the people of Yemen), specifically (notable people of Saada) in the year 280 AH, but he returned to Medina because he did not find enough Among his supporters, then (some) notables returned to him again in the year 284 AH (898 AD) and committed themselves to providing support and advocacy for him, so he came and took Saada as the capital of his rule, which did not expand beyond it until decades later.
Sharaf Al-Din says that most of the imams who ruled Yemen with this dynastic system were the sons of Yahya bin Al-Hussein, nicknamed Al-Hadi, and they numbered 59 imams, in addition to five others attributed to Al-Hassan bin Zaid bin Ali bin Abi Talib, and two whose lineage goes back to Al-Hussein bin Ali.
He adds that the rule of the Hashemite imams remained confined to northern Yemen until the eleventh century AH (due to the opposition of other Yemeni countries to them and their sultans’ opposition to their rule).
As for the situation of North Yemen under their rule, it was not better than it was before the coming of Al-Hadi. Sharaf al-Din says that as soon as an imam died, two or more imams would appear, and each one of them saw that he was more deserving of the imamate than the other Hashemites. As for the Yemenis, they were completely marginalized from power because the imams or those calling for it believed that only the family of the Prophet was fit to rule the country. According to the historian Sharaf al-Din, the Imams’ struggles over power brought woes to the country (clashes and divisions that cannot be mentioned except in huge volumes).
History books are filled with many details of the bloody conflict between the Hashemites over power and how they used the lineage of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, to Bani Hashem as a tool to oppress the Yemenis and condescend to them by affiliating to Ali bin Abi Talib and restricting the title (Al-Bayt) to those descended from Ali’s descendants. This is what the Houthi militia is now stating.
Investing in the status of Imam Ali
History books also indicate that after the Banu Hashim failed to establish influence in Yemen by capitalizing on the visit of Ali bin Abi Talib to the country during the life of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, who had not been able to establish a political project based on lineage during his lifetime, they tried again after the death of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace. The Prophet and once again they did not succeed because of the Umayyads’ tight grip on the Caliphate. In the era of the Abbasid state, specifically during the era of Al-Ma’mun ibn Harun Al-Rashid, Al-Ma’mun entrusted the governorship of Yemen to Ishaq bin Musa bin Isa Al-Hashimi, whose lineage goes back to Abdullah bin Al-Abbas.This appointment coincided with Ibn Tabataba’s rebellion in Kufa against the Abbasid state in the year 199 AH. Ibn Isa al-Hashimi entrusted the governorship of Yemen to his cousin Al-Qasim bin Ismail and marched towards Hijaz, which Ibn Tabataba had seized through a group of Talibans in the year 200 AH. In the same year, Al-Hussein bin Al-Hasan Al-Talibi, known as Al-Aftas, sent Ibrahim bin Musa Al-Kadhim Ibn Jaafar Al-Talibi as governor of Yemen, known as Al-Jazzar because of his many orders to kill all Yemenis who opposed him. The first decade of the third century AH witnessed fierce battles between the Taliban and Abbasid governors. During this period, governors from outside the Hashemite family assumed power in the mountainous regions.Such as Hisn bin Al-Manhal, Al-Muzaffar bin Yahya Al-Kindi, and Abbad Al-Shihabi, until Al-Ma’mun appointed one of his cousins called Ishaq bin Al-Abbas in the year 209 AH. This governor continued to kill people, and historians mention that he was the governor who most ordered the obliteration and destruction of ancient Yemeni antiquities, especially the antiquities of the Himyarite state, the last stable Yemeni kingdoms before Islam.
These details are mentioned by the historian Ibn Abdul Majeed Al-Yamani in his book (The History of Yemen, called The Joy of Time). The historian was a contemporary of the Rasulid state. Al-Yamani says that during the third century AH, Yemen witnessed sharp divisions and worsening political turmoil as a result of the instability of the Abbasid state and because of its appointment of governors who practiced injustice and tyranny against the Yemenis or governors who were loyal to the Abbasids, a policy that was resisted by the Yemenis, from whom a number of leaders emerged, the most famous of whom was Yafar ibn Abd. Al-Rahim Al-Hawali.The Yemenis continued to resist this hostile policy towards them and their monuments until the governor (Ahmed al-Muwaffaq), who was entrusted with the affairs of the state by his brother who relied on God, was forced to appoint Muhammad bin Yaafar as governor of Yemen in the year 258 AH. The state of Banu Yafar continued until 279 AH and was not spared from conspiracies and incitement by tribal leaders against it. The most prominent rebels against it were Ibrahim al-Da`am, the chief of Arhab and Hamdan, Banu Shihab and the sons of the Persians who remained in Sana’a after the expulsion of the Abyssinians from Yemen, and their loyalty was closer to the Hashemites than others.
At that time, Yahya bin Al-Hussein Al-Russi (Al-Hadi) used to frequent the mosques of northern Yemen as a preacher only, and sometimes people would turn to him to solve their issues due to political instability in the country, and this is the reason behind the story that historians mention that a group of Yemeni sheikhs... They went to Al-Rasi in Medina and asked him to take over matters of government over them. In fact, these Aqils were from the north of the north in Saada and east of Sana’a, which are the areas where Al-Russi traveled the most. In the year 280 AH, he asked them to pledge allegiance to him as their imam. A limited number of Aqils pledged allegiance to him, but he was unable to impose himself as an imam, so he returned to Hijaz, and after Four years later, he returned to Saada and claimed the imamate for himself. Unrest continued to prevail in Yemen, and the state of Bani Ziyad controlled the coastal areas of Yemen from Tihama to Hadhramaut.
According to what historians mention of the early Islamic period in Yemen, it was rare for governors to be appointed over Yemen from the Yemenis themselves from the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs until the end of the Abbasid state, and given that the Hashemites had previously set their eyes on taking over the caliphate from Yemen since the rebellion. The Taliban took control of the Abbasid state at the end of the second AH century. Yahya bin Al-Hussein Al-Rasi was able to enter Sana’a with the facilitation of the last governor of the Abbasid state over Sana’a, Abu Al-Atahiyya Ibn Al-Rawiya in the year 286 AH.The first thing Al-Russi did after entering Sana’a was to imprison the Yafar family and the Tarik family, direct his workers to the tax collectors, and order his name to be minted on the currency. Then he went out to Yahsab and Ra’in to supervise the collection and subjugate the residents of the two regions. He appointed his brother Abdullah Ibn Al-Hussein as his successor in charge of Sana’a, and when he returned to Sana’a, for reasons other than Maroufah replaced his brother with his cousin, Ali bin Suleiman, and left the city for Shibam Kawkaban. Ironically, Ibn Tabataba was the third grandfather of Al-Hadi.
Hamedan's revolt against Al-Rassi
Only a short period passed until the Hamdan tribes and the rest of the tribes in the vicinity of Sana'a gathered and headed to Shibam. The people of Sana'a revolted against the workers of Al-Rasi, overthrown their rule, and expelled the prisoners from Bani Yafar and Bani Tarik, and the same did the fighters who went to fight Al-Rasi in Shibam. Abd al-Qahir bin Abi al-Hussein bin Yaafar seized Sanaa.
These events were enough to bring Al-Hadi back to Saada. Where was the acceptance he received from the Yemenis, even in northern Yemen, where no state was established for him due to the marginalization he practiced against the leaders of the powerful Yemeni tribes and his attempt to impose a new system based on lineage and lineage?
Hamedan was not the only one that revolted against Al-Hadi. Rather, Arhab, Khawlan, Nihm, and other tribes joined it, and the revolts against the imams from Bani Hashem did not stop throughout their rule of North Yemen or during those short periods in which they controlled other regions of southern, central, eastern, and western Yemen. What stability are promoted by the Houthis that was achieved during the era of Al-Hadi’s rule, and what justice do they attribute to those they call (the leaders of guidance), who are the ones who have continued to kill the Yemenis, plunder their wealth, and exhaust their efforts in senseless, endless wars, and they control their fate in the name of Islam and in the name of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, and impose on them Loyalty to the descendants of Al-Hadi and those who want to resurrect the Imamate regime after the Yemeni people revolted against it from one end to the other and replaced it with a republican system in which there is no place for class discrimination and racial segregation!
