Experiencing the Ḥūthī Zāmil

Yemeni poetry on the frontline: Love and conflict, 2025

The context of the poetry we present and describe in this book is conflict. That we cannot deny. But even the darkest poem within our collection is suffused with a sense of love and hope for a better world. Al-Zubayri’s poetry served as a key weapon and maker of solidarity during the overthrow of Imam Yahya in the Yemeni Revolution of 1962. He composed out of love and a sense of obligation for his country and his compatriots. And his poetry was taken up as a cry for independence once more, during the Arab Spring of 2011. Fighting conflict with love – love of the poet, love of the homeland. The traditional poetry we present from Ibb expresses different types of local tribal conflict, but is written from a sense of love for the land, the tribe, the family, and often seeks peaceful resolution. The poems from Hadramawt addressing corruption look for a solution and a better world. The poems, both initiated and response poems, dealing with the Emirati woman pilot, Myriam al-Mansoori, attack her actions, but simultaneously express a complicated blend of admiration and a love for the person. The poems from the diaspora interweave loss and sorrow with love for Yemen and Yemenis, for why else would we write? The historical contexts for our collection are the 1962 Yemeni Revolution, with Liebhaber and Atiq’s chapter on al-Zubayri, the Arab Spring of 2011 and its aftermath, when Yemen collapsed into civil war, stoked by external forces, and traditional and contemporary local conflicts involving Ibb and Hadramawt. This book emerges from the project Yemen in Conflict: Popular culture as the expression and resolution of conflict, funded by the British Academy and led by Professor Deryn Rees-Jones. Our partners for the project were the University of Liverpool, the University of Leeds, the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF), Yemeni communities in the UK, Fatima Alzawiya, Amina Atiq, Sam Liebhaber, Catherine Miller and Mohammed Shormani. The principle aim of the project was to collect and examine Yemeni poetry from different times and spaces around the notion of conflict and conflict resolution. The notion of love emerged from the poets themselves and their poetry, from the realisation that much of the poetry we include was produced in a spirit of love. Poetry addressing conflict in Yemen was collected online and in the diaspora. Many of these poems have been made available by Roberta Morano on SoundCloud in the original Arabic with English translations, descriptions and metadata. A significant part of the project involved in-person poetry workshops with members of the Yemeni community in Liverpool, Cardiff, Birmingham and Sheffield, and, during the Covid-19 period, online poetry events with participants from the UK and Yemen. The workshops are described in more detail by Taher Qassim in chapter five.

Shanlax International Journal of English

The present article examines Yemeni folk heritage history and the many cultural and historical influences on Yemeni folklore and folk poetry. It explains how folk literature is passed down from one generation to the next, how it plays a significant role in transmitting the experience of the nation, and how these genres are relevant to modern life based on studies of folk literature scholars like Walter J. Ong, William John Thoms, Hardy Campbell, Michael Zwettler, and James Wynbrandt. The two most captivating types of oral poetry are Zamil and Sung Poetry. This study introduces much-needed criteria for research on a nation’s varied legacy inherited from other cultures and countries. In order to adequately describe contemporary Yemeni folk literature, it is also helpful for readers to be acquainted with the nation’s past.

Twenty-First Century Jihad, 2015

In the quest to understand the hearts and minds of those who practise militant jihad, neglecting to interrogate the poetry that speaks to both is a fundamental oversight. This chapter explores the functions and characteristics of the Arabic poetry deployed by jihadists. First, it situates the practice of exploiting poetry for political and religious purposes in its historical continuum. Next, it interrogates the continuing relevance of such poetry today using original primary survey research and relates this specifically to the new al-Qa'ida heartland, Yemen. Finally, the chapter explores the various functions of jihadist poetry today. It concludes with observations regarding the importance of poetry as a resource, not just for cultural and literary analysis, but also for political and counter-terrorism analysis.

Research in African Literatures, 2003

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2013

CRiSSMA Working Papers, 2019

As water takes the shape of its container but maintains its own features, the Huthis of Yemen have demonstrated great adaptability to a fluid domestic and regional context, thanks also to a vague political identity. Framing the Huthi movement in the Yemeni Zaydi Shia tradition, this contribution explores the evolution of the Huthis as a political movement and militia, from the Saada wars (200410) to the civil conflict started in 2015. Viewing the Huthis as political actors within Yemen’s multiple geographies, it contends that the northern insurgents have been able to capitalize on internal and external dynamics, embodying a form of populist elitism. Pursuing the autonomy of the northern highlands, the Huthis have formally and informally penetrated the state they used to contest, transforming from local insurgents into, paradoxically, national contenders in a fractured and polycentric Yemen, despite their persistent local identity and goals.

American Ethnologist, 2012

Anthropologists and Christian missionaries have shared a long history. They travel to similar places and occupy overlapping stages of the colonial enterprise. They share hardy personalities, indefatigable spirits, and, at times, even lodging. Margaret Meade, like many anthropologists before and afterward, boarded with missionaries during her research in Samoa. In my own work in Botswana, I have often found myself within hearing

Ed Emery (ed.), MUWASHSHAH, ZAJAL, AND THE EARLY EUROPEAN LYRIC, SOAS, Wednesday 25 and Thursday 26 March 2020. ON LINE

The Jews of Yemen once preserved a well-defined system of poetry that not only comprised the very poetry itself, but also entailed its vocal and instrumental arrangement, as well as the dance performance. 1 This system, though not always in its entirety, encompassed every aspect of life among Yemenite Jewry: whether in the realm of religion which included the liturgical readings in the synagogue and during the Sabbath-day and holiday meals within private homes, or in the social realm which included events related to man's life-cycle-birth, marriage and death, as well as to other events such as the dedication of one's house (ḥanūkkath ha-bayit) or any social gathering that was not related to the above events. All of this in accordance with the rules of etiquette laid-out in a male-oriented society, which in principle women had no part in. In any case, the feminine gender had its own structured poetry system, which also incorporated an impromptu vocal and instrumental performance, as well as dance performance. This all-female social setting incorporated in its system of poetry those matters touching upon society alone, that is to say, events related to human-being life-cycle. 2 The texts used in the all-male social gathering, which were compiled in Hebrew or in Judeo-Arabic, and occasionally even in Aramaic, were penned in writing and included in the compilations of song anthologies (sing. dīwān), and in the prayer-rite books (pl. tkālīl; sing. tiklāl), or in other liturgical compositions. This can certainly be traced back to the fact that rudiments of reading and writing were the legacy of all Yemenite Jewish men, having acquired such skills during their schooling as children. In contrast, those poems chanted by women were to be found only in the Arabic tongue, and had never been put down in writing, since Yemenite Jewish women were banned from attending school, and did not acquire the rudiments of reading and writing. Another important difference between the separate male and female social settings and their arrangements of poetry was that the poetry cited by men generally expressed the national aspirations of the Jewish people and was detached in terms of its content from the poetry associated with the Muslim environment, while the folk poetry orally transmitted by women expressed the sentiments of their own gender and was, in principle, close to the poetry of Muslim women. In what follows, we shall deal only with the poetry cited by men, and in their social setting alone-excluding the religious sphere, and especially what concerns girdle poems (the muwashshaḥ).