YEMEN UPDATE
YEMEN
REVIEWS
- The Newest New
Arabian Studies
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- New Arabian Studies (ISBN
0 85989 645 5, ISSN 1351-4709), Vol. 5
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- Reviewed by Daniel Martin
Varisco
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- Yemen
Update 42 (2000):55-57
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- Aden (Lopo
Sôares' Fleet) 1521 (Macro, plate 30)
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- Of all the current periodicals that give
more than an occasional nod to Yemeni Studies, none is as relevant
as New Arabian Studies, currently edited by G. Rex Smith,
J. R. Smart and B. R. Pridham. The fifth volume, for 2000, has now
appeared with six of the eight articles on Yemen.
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- The first of these is by Hussein
al-Amri, Yemen's distinguished ambassador to Great Britain,
entitled 'Some Notes on Two Yemeni Contemporary Documents." The
enigmatic title refers to two major political charters: the Sacred
National Charter (1947-1948) or al-Mithâq al-Watanî
al-Muqaddas and the National Charter of 1982. The first was born
of opposition to Imâm Yahyâ Hamîd al-Dîn
"and his autocratic and backward system of government" (p. 1).
Al-Amri provides the background for the creation and dissemination
of this manifesto. This charter, notes the author, "touches on the
issues of civil liberties, stressing 'the sanctity of human life,
equality, private property, dignity of the individual, freedom of
speech and assembly'" (p. 2). Although the revolution it inspired
lasted a mere three weeks, Ambassador al-Amri views it as a
landmark for guiding Yemeni patriotism since that time. The
National Charter of 1982 is the backbone of the current
President's General Peoples Congress Party. It was the result of a
committee of more than 50 politicians and intellectuals
"representing various trends and opinions" (p. 4). The charter
lays out the principles for a democratic republican system in
Yemen.
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- William J. Donaldson, who has recently
published an informative study of agricultural sharecropping in
Yemen, provides a Latinesque selection on "Erythraen Ichthyophagi:
Arabian Fish-eaters Observed." Title obscurity aside, here is an
attempt to give a brief survey of fisheries in Arabia as recorded
by visitors since the early Greeks. The sources, though meager,
are nonetheless not entirely silent on the issue. Among the
interesting observations from the classical writers are the
observations that domesticated livestock were fed by fish and that
fishing boats were sewn together from palm fibre. Speaking of the
Mahrah coast, Ibn Hawqal (in the 10th century) wrote: "There are
no date-palms or sown crops here, and their possessions are only
camels and goats and beasts of burden [probably meaning
donkeys], which are fed with the small fish known as waraq.
Neither the people nor their animals are acquainted with bread and
they do not eat it, their food being fish, dairy products and
dates." One assumes these are then imported dates. Yemen's famous
and infamous travelers, including Ibn al-MujIawir, Marco Polo and
Ibn Battûta are also gleaned judiciously by the author for
stray comments on Arabian fisheries. Having surveyed a number of
travel accounts, including more recent ones, Donaldson lays out
seven general, and necessarily tentative, conclusions. Here then
is a start for filling a very large gap in our knowledge of
Yemen's economic history with a sea breeze.
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- After an article on "The Ibex Hunt in
the Rock Art of Oman," Professor Caesar Farah turns to "Smuggling
and International Politics in the Red Sea in the Late Ottoman
Period." With examples from historical and archival sources, the
article looks at the identity of the pirates in the Red Sea. Lo
and behold, some of them were from quite prominent shaykhly
families. Of course this was international intrigue with the
Ottoman Navy jostling with French, German and Italian incursions,
not to mention the British. Farah documents here the Ottoman
response to security threats at their back door, right up to their
demise.
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- For most interesting title in the issue,
I nominate "Wise Men Control Wasteful Women: Documents on 'Customs
and Traditions in the Kathîrî State Archive,
Say'ûn" by Ulrike Freitag and Hanne Schönig. The
article is based on study of archival documents (after A.D. 1622)
resurrected by Yemeni historian 'Abd al-Qâdir
al-Sabbân. "Taking as its point of departure one document,
which is here reproduced in facsimile as well as in translation,
the article investigates the relation of private and public in a
society based on strict gender segregtation and social
stratification, the function of cultural conservatism in the 1920s
and '30s, when Hadramawt underwent dramatic changes" (p. 68),
write the authors. Following the translation, the authors provide
a detailed and valuable "ethno-linguistic" commentary. If you have
an interest in Yemeni social customs, celebrations and fashion,
you will want to read this article and its extensive footnotes.
The 1939 document on customary habits deemed inappropriate is
fascinating and at the same times demands the kind of careful
contextualization the authors provide. Explain, if you can, why it
is forbidden for the wife's family to send meat to the husband
during the feast days... By the way, here is the kind of article
that perpetuates the detailed scholarship of R. B. Serjeant, whose
work is quoted as appropriate in this article.
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- Aden ca. 1800 by
Captain Hanchett (showing Sira) (Macro, plate
2)
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- Following an article on "The Small
Long-handled Axes of Oman," we return to Eric Macro's "Four
English Artists at Aden 1839-1847." This long article, which
features some 40 relevant plates, traces the footsteps and paint
strokes of James Sparkhale Rundle, William Prinsep, Lieutenant
Walford Thomas Bellairs, and an unamed "Army officer." But let
Macro explain his artistic interests: "As I have indicated later,
my interests lay particularly in the topographical aspects of the
paintings and the fact of finding any paintings of Aden undertaken
in the 1830s. I am particularly interested in the artist as a
draughtsman. That is why I have not concerned myself greatly with
colour, other than in exceptional circumstances. I am interested
more in the accurate portrayal of size, shape, proportion and
location. It may be that, by looking at pictures in a certain way,
I have distressed the art critics. So be it. If a charlatan is one
who, inter alia, uses artists' work to challenge or verify
topography, architecture or other such situations, then I am he. "
One of the two appendices to the article includes a reprint of an
anonymous account of Aden from 1848.
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- Prinsep: "Aden
Harbour" (Macro, plate 18)
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- The final Yemen article brings us back
to pre-Islamic sculpture. Hamid Al-Mazrou of King Saud University
gives a brief account of the "main stylistic principles of South
Arabian human statuary and their origin" (p. 183). I say brief,
because the article minus illustrations is less in length than
this review. The author's conclusion: "As regards the origins of
style, I am firmly convinced that it evolved from the memorial
funerary stelae as the photographs (Plates 1 & 2) show. Thus
we are dealing with a prototype style which in all likelihood
derives its main stylistic structure from a religious background.
Consequently, this form of art continued to retain its rigid
character in order to accord with its cultic function" (p. 186).
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- While a number of the articles dwell on
the esoteric, they are still valuable resources. Certainly there
are many more toipics to be explored. Is it not incumbant on those
of us who study Yemen to keep a steady stream of quality articles
on the desks of this journal's editors?
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- To order this book, contact
University of Exeter Press at http://www.ex.ac.uk/uep;
email: uepsales@ex.ac.uk.
