limiting quotas by the British government for ‘Arab and Coloured’ sailors on British vessels along with the compulsory registration within seven days of docking, at local police stations.
1932
Aden is taken from the control of the Government of Bombay and formed into a Chief Commissionership under the central Government of India.
1934
Shaykh Abdullah Ali al-Hakimi receives permission (ijāzah) from his Algerian Sufi shaykh, Aḥmad ibn Muṡṭafā al-˓Alawī, to establish zawāyā (Sufi lodges) among the Yemeni communities settled in British ports.
1936
Under the spiritual leadership of Shaykh Abdullah Ali al-Hakimi, the South Shields Yemeni community purchases The Hilda Arms, a former public house, and establishes the ‘Zaoia Allaoia Islamia Mosque’.
1937
Aden becomes a Crown Colony and is finally ruled independently of India.
1941
Nur al-Islam Mosque, Cardiff, is bombed by a German aeroplane during the war. Miraculously, the praying congregation are all unharmed, but the mosque is destroyed.
1943
The official reopening of the Nur al-Islam Mosque after it was reconstructed with a government grant of £7000 courtesy of the India Office.
1945
‘Second wave’ migration of Yemenis to Britain occurs into the industrial cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield, as a result of post-World War Two single-male, Commonwealth and colonial economic migration to the UK.
1948
The Zaydī Imām, Hamid al-Din, is assassinated by revolutionary antiImāmate forces in north Yemen. Shaykh al-Hakimi launches the publication of Al-Salam, his anti-Zaydī Imām newsletter, which is Britain’s first Arabic language periodical.
1953
Shaykh al-Hakimi leaves Britain permanently for Aden after he is ousted by his former deputy, Shaykh Hassan Ismail and the pro-Zaydī Imām Shamīrī tribesmen from amongst the British Yemeni community.
1956
After almost 30 years of faithful service to the Yemeni community, Shaykh Hassan Ismail returns home to Yemen after his ḥajj to Makkah. His adopted British Yemeni son, Shaykh Said Ismail, becomes replacement imām, aged just 25.
1962
The Zaydī Imām, Ahmad, dies and is succeeded by his son, Muhammad al-Badr, who flees Yemen after just one week of ruling when an assassination attempt fails during a successful coup d’état by revolutionary forces. In Britain, the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962 becomes law, which requires migrant Commonwealth and colonial workers to acquire either a visa or work permit before entering the UK. As a result, large numbers of family dependants join them in Britain.
1970–80
Yemeni wives and children begin to join their ‘second wave’ migrant husbands in the industrial cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield.
1980
Large numbers of Yemenis migrate from Britain as a result of economic depression and mass unemployment to work in the prosperous Arabian Gulf.
1991
North and South Yemen are reunified under the initiative of the North Yemen President, Ali Abdullah Salih.
1991–92
The First Gulf War. President Saddam Hussein of Iraq orders the invasion of Kuwait and the newly-reunified Yemen abstains in a UN Security Council vote to condemn Iraq’s aggression. As a result, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states evict around one million Yemeni workers with immediate effect.
1995–2002
‘Prince’ Naseem Hamid, Sheffield-born British Yemeni boxer, becomes the featherweight boxing champion and defends a series of world champion titles until he retires, undefeated, in 2002. In the process, he puts Yemen ‘on the map’ and imbues young British Yemenis with a sense of pride and belonging.
2001
The 9/11 terror attacks using hijacked planes to fly into the Twin Towers, New York, and the Pentagon, Washington, kill thousands and precipitate the War on Terror. Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda Muslim terror group claim responsibility with a number of Yemeni-origin Arabs connected with both to the attacks and the organization.
2005
The 7/7 terror attacks on the London transport system kills over 50 people. The British government increases its security and surveillance of the British Muslim community with a particular focus on British Arab (including Yemeni) communities.
2010
The pro-democracy movement inspires the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ across the Arab-Islamic region.
2011
The revolutionary pro-democracy movement in Yemen eventually forces President Ali Abdullah Salih from office after hundreds of civilians are killed by his forces and he survives an assassination attempt. In Britain, Shaykh Said Ismail Hassan passes away after a long illness, ending his 55 years of service as imām to the Cardiff Yemeni community at the South Wales Islamic Centre.
2012
The Yemeni community in Cardiff revives street parades originally organized by Shaykh al-Hakimi and continued by Shaykh Hassan Ismail and Shaykh Said Hassan. Their reinstitution by the ˓Alawī ṭarīqah is done in honour of the recent passing of Shaykh Said Hassan Ismail.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| Frontispiece | Map of modern Yemen |
| 0.1 | Saeed Hassan (‘al-Hubabi’) and wife. |
| 0.2 | Muhammad al-Hubabi and car. |
| 0.3 | Gadri Salih and his Children |
| 1.1 | British stamp from the Aden Protectorate. |
| 1.2 | Bab al-Yaman. |
| 1.3 | Water tanks at al-Tawāhī. |
| 2.1 | Colonial Aden. |
| 2.2 | Seamen’s registration certificate. |
| 2.3 | British Port Authority building at Steamer Point. |
| 2.4 | Seamen’s record book and certificate of discharge. |
| 2.5 | Mohammad Sayaddi. |
| 2.6 | Seamen’s registration certificate. |
| 3.1 | An Arab fireman. |
| 3.2 | The 1919 Mill Dam Riots, South Shields. |
| 3.3 | Retired ‘stoker’, Obeya. |
| 3.4 | One of the last of the lascars, Abdul Rahman |
| 4.1 | Shaykh Aḥmad Muṡṭafā al-˓Alawī. |
| 4.2 | Shaykh Abdullah Ali al-Hakimi. |
| 4.3 | Prince Hussein, the son of the Zaydī Imām, Yahya. |
| 4.4 | Cardiff Mosque Trustees. |
| 5.1 | A British Yemeni muwalladah. |
| 5.2 | A maqṡūrah. |
| 5.3 | Shaykh Hassan Ismail officiating a wedding. |
| 5.4 | Shaykh Hassan Ismail’s farewell. |
| 6.1 | A
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