‘Anglo-Arabs’ and ‘English Muslims’
Is Chewing Qāt Consuming Yemen?
A Tale of Two Cities: Capacity Building
Preserving Tradition and Embracing Transformation
Epilogue
Endnotes
Glossary
Picture Credits
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ALL PRAISE IS DUE to Allah, the Almighty, the Sublime. May his Peace and Blessings be upon his beloved final Prophet and Messenger, Muhammad. I am profoundly grateful to the Yemeni community of Eccles, Greater Manchester, for opening up their homes and their hearts to me during my on-going research into British Yemenis that originally began as a doctoral study in 2001, for which I am also eternally thankful to Professor David Waines for his wise and patient supervision of the original thesis and his useful comments and advice on this subsequent publication. I would like to record my sincere gratitude to the Islamic Foundation, Professor Kurshid Ahmad, Dr Manazir Ahsan and all former colleagues for their financial, spiritual and intellectual support during my years of postgraduate study and research. My particular thanks also goes to Muckbil Ahmad, Gadri Salih, Aziz Bugati, Ali Lehji, Tariq Mahyoub, Ali Mawri and Rabiea Shaker, along with Abdulalim al-Shamiri, Adnan Saif and Imtiaz Ahmad Hussain and his family for all their gracious hospitality and tireless help. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation for the works of K. L. Little, Sydney Collins, Bahr Ud-Din Dahya, Fred Halliday, Richard Lawless and Humayun Ansari for their earlier studies on British Yemenis which have both informed and shaped this monograph. I am deeply indebted to Peter Fryer for granting permission to reproduce his wonderfully insightful photographs in this publication and to Yahya Birt and his colleagues at Kube Publishing for their support in this publication project. My parents and my sisters also need to be publicly acknowledged and personally thanked for both nurturing and tolerating my acute eccentricity and nomadic spirit. Finally, I must record my heartfelt love and eternal gratitude to my wife and children.
Mohammad Siddique Seddon
University of Chester
August 2013
CHRONOLOGY
10th to 2nd Centuries BCE
The kingdoms of Saba’, Ma˓īn and Qahtān flourished through the development of the spice and incense trade through southern Arabia.
2nd Century BCE to 6th Century CE
The Ḥimyarite dynasty asserts its ascendency over ancient Yemen until it was usurped by a period of Ethiopian rule that was ended by a Persian invasion by the sixth century CE.
7th Century
Islam is established in Yemen. Sunni Muslims of the Shāfi˓ī school settle the coastal regions while the Zaydī branch of Shia Islam dominates the highlands.
9th Century
The Rassid dynasty is founded by a Zaydī Imām who establishes rule over most of ancient Yemen.
12th Century
Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Ayyūbī’s elder brother conquers Yemen and founds a dynasty with Ta˓izz as its capital.
13th to 15th Centuries
The Rasūlid dynasty establishes its power in Yemen with its influence stretching as far as Makkah and Ḥaḍramawt.
1515
The Egyptian army is employed in Yemen to protect the port of Aden from successive Portuguese offensives.
1517
An Ottoman offensive using Egyptian forces conquers Yemen and remains in occupation on behalf of the Turks.
1529
A Turkish Pasha is installed as Governor of the Yemen by the Ottomans.
1609
John Jourdain, a representative of the British East India Company, becomes the first recorded Englishman to enter Yemen.
1728
The ˓Abdalī sultanate of Laḥīj becomes independent of the Zaydī Imām and captures Aden. Soon afterwards the Imām loses control of the ˓Awlaqī and Yāfi˓ regions of southern Yemen.
1818
Ibrahim Pasha, Ottoman Governor of Egypt expels the Wahhābīs from Yemen and occupies the main ports.
1835
Captain Haines docks at Aden and surveys the port for the British East India Company.
1836–1872
Rebellion and insurgency shifts power between Ottoman Turk and Zaydī Imām ascendency in north Yemen with the Turks finally capturing Sana’a and establishing full occupation of north Yemen.
1839
The British Protectorate is established at Aden after its capture by the British East India Company. A ‘Treaty of Friendship’ between the British and Sultan of Laḥīj, followed by similar treaties with other local rulers of territories adjacent to Aden.
1853
Aden is declared a ‘free port’ by the British East India Company, increasing its commercial revenues.
1856
The Reverend Joseph Salter establishes his Asiatic Strangers Home at London’s East India Docks, aimed at proselytizing amongst the large numbers of non-Christian lascars.
1857
Captain Luke Thomas becomes the first independent British trader to establish business at Aden. A lascar sailors’ home is established in Glasgow.
1869
The opening of the Suez Canal increases Aden’s importance as a regional trading port.
1881
A lascar sailors’ rest is established in Cardiff to cater for the large numbers of Yemeni sailors present at the port.
c.1900
Shaykh Abdullah Ali al-Hakimi, the charismatic spiritual reformer of British Yemenis, is born in a Dhubḥānī village in north Yemen.
1914–18
A convention with Turkey defines the frontier of the Aden Protectorate with the Ottoman Empire. Thousands of Yemeni lascars volunteer to serve on seconded merchant vessels in defence of Britain at the outbreak of the First World War.
1919
A riot erupts at Mill Dam, South Shield docks, when Yemeni lascars are refused work on British ships and are abused and beaten by indigenous white sailors. In the aftermath, 13 Yemenis are arrested and imprisoned and further riots involving Yemeni and English sailors occur in Liverpool, Cardiff and London docks.
1925