109732

TH E SA IY ID S
OF H A DR A M A W T

AN I N A U G U R A L L E C T U R E

D E L I V E R E D ON 5 JUNE 1956
BY

R. B. S E R J E A N T
Professor o f Modern Arabic
in the University of London

S CHO OL OF

O R I E N T A L A N D A F R I C A N STUDIES

U N I V E R S I T Y OF L OND ON

NH 953.35 1957

/109,372
 THE SAIYIDS
OF HADRAMAWT

AN I N A U G U R A L L E C T U R E

D E L I V E R E D ON 5 JUNE 1956
BY

R . B. S E R J E A N T
Professor of Modern Arabic
in the University o j London

S C H O O L OF

O R I E N T A L A N D A F R I C A N STUDIES

U N I V E R S I T Y OF L O N D O N

1957
 Distributed by Luz ac and Co.
46 Great Russell Street, W.C. 1

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

 TH E S A IY ID S OF H A D R A M A W T

T h ere GAN BE F E W A R I S T O C R A C I E S with so long a history

as the posterity of Muhammad the Arabian Prophet, cer-
tainly no aristocracy so widely disseminated over Asia and
Africa, playing century upon century an important and con-
sistent role in the Islamic community. Nor can any branch
of the numerous Sharif and Saiyid families founded over
fourteen centuries ago claim a more varied sphere of activity,
of achievement indeed, than the ‫؛‬Alawi Saiyids of Hadra-
mawt. Little known as their country is, even to scholars,
despite its proximity to the world’s greatest trade-route, its
very isolation has preserved much of ancient Arabia, so that
to know the Saiyids is to comprehend at least something of
their great ancestor, the founder of Islam.
In the ancient inscriptions of Southern Arabia figures an
aristocratic group, the Musawwad— I give the name this
vocalization, though of course the pronunciation is not indi-
cated in the inscriptions, because, while discussing it with
my most reliable Hadrami shaikh, he stated that in Tarim
today one says ‫؛‬Musawwad’ for the_Saiyids, the Prophet’s
posterit.y, and ‫؛‬Mushaivakh’. or Mashavikh. for the noble
families which bear of right the hereditary title of Shaikh.
denoting a class distinction' and not a tribal chief The Saiyids
.and Shaikhs are. families, clans,.-i'n which special qualities,
virtues of a supernatural kind, and nobility, sharaf, are held
to reside— qualities termed by modern Arab wri'ters ‫؛‬al-sultat
al-rUhlyah’, spiritual power, a phrase which I employ for
want of a better, though being 'derived from Europe it is not
an exact conceptual term. The Musawwad of ancient Arabia
played an important part in the councils and decrees of the
pre-Islamic community, as do their descendants in the Islamic
community to this day.11
1 Jacques Ryckmans, uInstitution monarchique (Louvain, 1951),, pp. 21-23,
where in M a in they form with the king the ruling power, though this does
not seem to be so in Saba. I consider it possible for families to have held these
4 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T

Early Arabic literature frequently alludes to SaiyidSj espe-

cially poetry and biography of the Prophet* and I must also
refer here to another term of common occurrence* ‫؛‬the sharif’1
(plural ashraf), now employed as the title of the Hasani
branch of the Prophet’s offspring.2 In ancient times ‫؛‬sharif’
is applied to persons holding spiritual distinctions and was
often synonymous with Saiyid *3 and I think, after prelimi-
nary observations* that it had actually much the same sense
as Saiyid. In Hadramawt it was from early times used for
the Prophet’s posterity* and to this day a lady of a Saiyid
house is known as a ‫؛‬. r i f a h ’.
The late PCre Lammens* in his study, on the sanctuaries
of pre-Isiamic Arabia* has accumulated valuable evidence
on the Saiyid class* but has* I think, failed to perceive the
logical conclusion to his researches.. ‫؛‬Rien de plus ordinaire’,
he observes, ‫؛‬dans l’antiquite au temps de la prChistoire
islamique (aljahiliyah) que la rCunion des dignitCs de Kahin
et Saiyid’, of soothsayer and Saiyid. Some kahins were also
hakams, judge-arbitrators; some Saiyids were sadins, temple-
guardians of the goddess al-Lat. Hisham ibn M u^ irah is
described as a ‫؛‬Saiyid mit‫؛‬am’* one who entertained the
guest.. Judging by comparison with present-day Arabia,
where this type of institution is known as a ‫؛‬m a tb a h ’, he
would defray the costs from temple revenue. The term ‫'؛‬Saiyid’
in these cases is associated with functions exercised by those
endowed with ‫؛‬spiritual power’* persons forming the. next

powers continuously from very early times up to the present day, though the
role they played is naturally more durable than the families themselves.
1 For the term ‘ Sharif’ applied to a noble class in Hadramawt about the time
G f Islam cf. A. F. L. Beeston, ‘The So-called Harlots of Hadramaut’, Oriens
(Leiden, 1952), V. i. 16-22.
2 Cf. c. V. Arendonk’s excellent article ‘ Sharif’ in Encycl. Islam.
3 In quite recent times Ba Ridwan, author of al-Qawl al-Hasan (manuscript
seen in w . Aden Prot.), makes the terms ‘Saiyid’ and ‘ Sharif’ synonymous, as
indeed do other South Arabian authors.
4 ‫ﺭ‬ C\i\tt dts 1 ‫ﻻ‬١‫ \ ﻩﺀ‬Bulletin de rinstitut jVan‫ ؟‬ais d ١a٣chiologie onentale
(Cairo, 1919), xvii. 106-7, &c. The study of the use of the terms ‘Saiyid’ and
‘ Sharif’ in early Islamic literature is still to be made. I use !.ammens’s material
for convenience.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T 5

approximation to a caste sacerdotale— k existence of which,

for North Arabia at least, Lammens* denies.
The Meccan Saiyids constituted much of the opposition to
Muhammad himself. 2 Expressing amazement that Muham-
mad should claim revelation, al-W ald ibn al-Mu ٠ ٠ ah
exclaims: ‫؛‬Is revelation given to Muhammad while I a ^
left, although I am the Kablr of Q u raih and their Saiyid,
and Abu MasUd ‫؛‬Amr ibn ‫؛‬Umar a l-T a q a fi, the Saiyid
of Thaqifl is left [also], though we be the two great persons
of the two cities [Mecca and T a’if]?’3
The plain interpretation of al-Walid’s protest is that, as
the spiritual head, the Saiyid, of Quraish, and the Kabir or
temporal ruler,* he himself is the natural repository of that
virtue of spiritual power and of revelation.
On the other hand, in Madinah it was through the per-
suasion of two of their own Saiyids that the BanU ‫؛‬Abd al-
A # a l and their da‫؛‬ifs, peasants, were converted to Islam,
though the Saiyids were at first hostile.s This influence differs
in nature from that of a mere tribal chief The title Saiyid is
even applied in the Sirah6 to a Jewish notable and to one of
the Christian leaders of the Najran deputation, not the
bishop, who came to Mad!nah.7 (He seems to have exercised
1 Ibid., p. 107. O f South Arabia he says also that ‫؛‬elle appartient a une
autre Evolution r£ligieuse’. More recent l'esearch does not support this view.
Lammens, op. cit., p. 83, also quotes the interesting verse:

‫ﺣﻖ ﺑﻴﺖ ﺍﳌﺠﺪ ًﳁ ﺎ ﻭﺍ ﻟ ﺘﻨ ﺪ‬ ‫؛‬ ‫ﻭ ﺑ ﻨ ﻮ ﺩﻭﺩﺍ ﻥﳿ ﺳ ﺎ ﺩ‬

2 A Sharif is also found contradicting the Prophet (A. Guillaume, The Life
o f Muhammad (Oxford, 1955), p. 164). Idem, p. 540, cites a family of Ashraf
the members of which are assessed at a double blood-wit.
3 Ibn Hisham, Sirah, ed. F. Wustenfeld (Gottingen, 1858-60), p. 238.
4 The term ‘Kabir’ as a tribal chief is attested from the ancient inscriptions
and even in. modern South Arabia, as for instance in the SaiwUn MS. of the
Manaqib Ba ‘Abbad, the Kabir of Nahd. Abu Sufyan is described as the shaikh
Quraish wa-kabir-ha. T o him the Ashraf of Q u ra ih entrust the l'evenge of
Badr (H. Lammens, ‘La Republique' marchande de la Mecque’, Bulletin de
ITnstitut dgyptien (Cairo, 1910), V. iv. 23-54. The terms employed are all signi-
ficant.
5 A. Guillaume, op. cit., p. 200. ٥ Ibid., p. 361.
7 Sirah, ed. Wustenfeld, op. cit.,P.401. He was‘?ahibrahl-hum wa-mujtama‘-
hum’. Other significant references to Saiyids are to be found in H. Lammens,
6 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T

a priestly function, that of selecting auspicious times of

travel.) This is in no way strange, for families endowed with
nobility and supernatural virtues need have lost nothing by
conversion to Christianity or Judaism. It is significant, for
example, that on conversion one of the ،Abd al-Ahhal
Saiyids became a naqib*— the precise sense of the word is not
determined, but in medieval Southern Arabia powerful Sufi
saints had often naqibs over their adherents in more distant
villages.2 In Upper Egypt this word is still employed for the
attendant of a tomb.3
Writers in our Western plutocratic society have expressed
scepticism about Muhammad’s noble ancestry, on account

‘La R£publique’, op. cit., p. 35/13, where ‘Abdullah b. J ’id a n (sic) who was
Saiyid Quraish fi ’l-jahiliyah is mentioned. In his house was concluded the
agreement known as H ilf al-Fudfil, just as today, in Hadramawt, agreements
are concluded in the houses of Saiyids and Mashavikh. who preside over the
proceedings, and especially in the houses of Mansabs. A. Guillaume, op. cit.,
p. 555, gives an account of the pains to which the Prophet went after the fall of
Mec.ca to prevent a Qurashi Saiyid from committing suicide. Had the latter
been a mere political rival, would Muhammad have taken such steps? Ibn
‘Abd Rabbihi, alJIqd al-Farid (Cairo, 1940-53), iii. 363, alludes to a Saiyid
^ a r i f of Taim al-Lat, and to a Saiyid Himyar in Syria at the time of M u ‘a_
wiyah, iii. 370.
1 A. Guillaume, op. cit., p. 204. What became of the religious aristocracy of
pre-Islamic Arabia has not been investigated, but I suspect that it may early
have become the repositories and exponents of the new faith, especially in the
realm o f law. It is inappropriate to develop this theme here, but I must draw
attention to the significant tradition which has been brought back to a quite
early time by the publication o fj. David Weill, Le DjamV d’ Ibn Wahb (Le Gaire,
1939), p. 6: ‫ﺍﻟﻨﺎﺱ ﺳﺎﺩ ﻥ ﺧﻴﺎﺭﱒﰱ ﺍﳉﺎﻫﻠﻴﺔ ﺧﻴﺎﺭﱒﰱ ﺍﻻﺳﻼﻡ ﺍﺫﺍ ﻧﻘﻬﻮﺍ‬
‘ People are of (various) origins; the noblest of them in the jahiliyah are the
noblest of them in Islam if they be instructed.’ This may be interpreted also
as ‘if they have a knowledge of the law’. M a ‘adin al-‘Arab is defined as ‫ﺃﺻﻮﳍﻢ‬
‫ﰏ ﻳﻨﻨﺒ ﻮ ﻥ ﺍﻟﳱﺎ ﻭﻳﺘﻔﺎﺧﺮﻭﻥ ﲠﺎ‬
‫ ﺍﻭ‬. The saying is attributed to the Prophet as
applying to the people of his time. For the application of this phrase in South
An\>\a١ see ‫ ًﺍ ﻟ ﺔ ﻝ‬١‫ \ ﻩ‬y ‫ ؛‬k \ T ١ The Doctrine 0/ Kaja’ah . . . xjuith. a Critical Edition o j
the ^aidi M S. A l-M i ٣١at al-Mubaiyinah l i l l ‫ ؟‬ir ma h i a al-haqq Jx M as’alat al-
Kafd'ah , dissertation S.O.A.S. Library, 1955, pp. 19, 23, 24.
2 The Manaqib Ba ‫ﺀ‬Abbad (SaiwUn copy), for instance, mentions a certain
naqib Aba M d r k at Shabwah.
3 c. B. Klunzinger, upper Egypt (London, 1878), p. 394. Ibn H ila m , Sirah.
WUstenfrld, op. cit., p. 295, mentions another Saiyid Sharif who becomes a
naqib. Cf. also, op. cit., p. 301.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T 7

of his personal indigence, but not only is the nobility of his

family attested by the offices of high distinction they held at
the K a ٤bah among Quraish, a tribe described by Ibn Duraid*
as Al Allah, but in Arabia an outstanding personality born
into a family endowed with spiritual power or virtue may
well become a powerful saint, while the meanly born son of
a wealth.y trader could not aspire to such distinction. A verse
attributed to K a ٤b ibn Malik2 describes the Prophet’s uncle
Hamzah as ،a noble prince, strong in the lofty stock of
Hashim, whence come prophecy, generosity, and lordship
[Sudad]’. That is to say, the Hashimites were a Saiyid house,
and Muhammad a cadet of a noble religious family asso-
ciated with a prominent Arabian sanctuary, but if one con-
siders the historical evidence of the inscriptions, it may not
necessarily have been the most prominent sanctuary, nor his
family necessarily considered the most holy in all ‫ﺩ‬
Arabia .3
1 Ishtiqaq, ed. F. Wiistenfeld (Gottingen, 1854), p. 94. O n Q uraih, al-Jahiz
(Hayawdn (Cairo, 1938), V. 333) quotes a verse, ‘ I never saw a Qurashi red of
the veins of the eyes except he was a courageous Saiyid’.
2 A. Guillaume, op. cit., p. 419. It is a matter of little account whether the
verse be contemporary or not ‫ ﺇ‬the important issue is the conception of the house
of Hashim.
3 The pre-eminence of Q u ra ih is, of course, maintained by the Arabic sources
(A. Guillaume, op. cit., p. 686). A reiteration of the opinion held by the
Saiyids on their ancestry is to be found in ‘Alawi b. Tahir al-Haddad, al-Qawl
al-Faslfi-ma li-BaniHashim wa-Quraii mitiFadl (Buqur, 1344 H.). In the Koran
itself the conception of a family or family group endowed with spiritual power
is quite explicit. The Prophets were in all cases the lineal descendants of former
Prophets. Kor. lvii. 26: ‘We formerly sent Noah and Abraham and appointed
the Prophetic office and Book to be in their Posterity‫ ؛‬among them is an
(occasional) one who lets himself be guided, but many of them are reprobate.’
The Jews at an earlier period had lost their spiritual virtue, and one would infer
that the Arab families connected with, the shrine and opposing Muhammad
were in the process of losing their virtue too. Kor. X. 83: ‘There only believe
in Moses a posterity of his people on account of fear of Pharaoh and their
council (mala’) lest they should persecute them for Pharaoh was lofty in the
land and was one of the extravagant.’ This latter phrase might well apply to
a notable enjoying and spending liberally of the temple revenues in entertain-
ment and thus satisfying the people so that they would not listen to Muhammad.
The passage obviously relates to Muhammad’s condition in Mecca. Again,
Kor. iv. 57, the family o fA b r a h a m -b y which the Prophet is probably meant—
is described as endowed with virtue (fadl) and hikmah, which ffiay be inter-
preted as the ability to arbitrate— a very important ffinction of Saiyids. T o
8 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T

By the time that Islam was three centuries oldj Muham-

mad’s descendants through his daughter Fatimah and his
cousin ‫ﺀ‬All numbered thousands. Though persecuted on the
one hand, they were respected, honoured, and had even
grown wealthy on the contributions of their adherents. De-
prived of political responsibility, they had turned to learning
and had, for example, developed the important Zaidi law
school of Kufah and perhaps Basrah. In 897/283 a Zaidi
Imam had founded a tiny state in the Yemen which, sur-
viving through many vicissitudes, has endured to this day.
A little later a certain Saiyid Ahmad ibn ‫؛‬Isa, of the 8th
generation from Fatimah through her son Husain, left Basrah
accompanied by his second son, in face of the Karmathians,!
or, as others say, the outrages of the Negro Zinj.2 They tried
unsuccessfully, because of the Karmathians, to perform the
pilgrimage until 930/318, after which they went to the
Yemen. Some authorities place their further migration to
Hadramawt about the year 952/340. For a time they lived
in al-Hajarain village, which would lie near the area oflbad l
influence. Later they settled in al-Husaiyisah, where I have
visited, the reputed3 tomb of Ahmad, known as al-Muhajir the
Emigrant, lying up the mountain-side like so many ancient
Hadrami shrines.
Saiyid writers maintain that al-Muhajir revived and spread
the teaching of the sunnah according to the ShafiCj rule, but
this can be little else than a projection oflater circumstances
into the past, for there are no historical sources near con-
temporary. Some present-day Saiyid historians have, indeed,
propounded the theory that, far from being ShafiCjs. al-
Muhajir and his son were Imamis, Shfah, and their view
Muhammad it is natural that spiritual qualities should reside exclusively in
certain families and be inherited, just as trades were hereditary in other family
groups. 1 F. WUstenfeld, Die Qujiten in Siid-Arabien (Gottingen, 1883).
2 Ahmad b. al-Hasan . . . al-Haddad, al-Fawa’id al-Saniyah, fol. ‫ﻝ‬2‫ﺓﺓ‬. Cf.
for other views ‘AidarUs b. ‘ Umar b. ‘AidarUs al-Habshl, ‫ﺀ‬Iqd al-Yawaqit al-
Jawhariyah (Cairo, 1317), i. 130 seq.
3 Al-Nabhani, Jami ‫ ﺀ‬Karamat al-Awliya) (Cairo, 1912), i. 327, reports that
some persons say that this is not really his tomb.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF H A D R A M A W T 9

is not untenable,! but it is unlikely in Hadramawt, where

Ibadi views were held, that they could very openly propagate
ShPite views, for in Basrah they must already have experi-
enced the intense hatred of Ibadis for the Shfah.12
O f the supposed struggle between the Saiyids and Ibadls
nothing factual is known. Even during the fJmaiyad period
Ibadism had flourished in the Yemen until its leader al-
gabbah ibn Shurahbll ibn Abrahah of Hamdan (a fine
galaxy of Yemenite names) was driven from the Hijaz. On
the fall of Sarfta5 the routed Ibads fled across the desert to
Hadramawt.34By the time of al-Hamdan! , 4 exactly contem-
porary with al-Muhajir’s migration, there was little Ibadism
among the Tujlb tribe in middle Hadramawt, but it was
strongest among the gadif Shibam was said to be the first
town of Himyar which, with probably also the capital,
Tarim, was under control of the BanU Fahd .5 In Shibam
Ibadism was certainly strong, for Shanbal67 8clrronicles it as
being cleared out of (their mosque’ in 1195/590. The Persian
Hudud al-'Alami compiled after 983/372, tells US that ‫؛‬they
have a custom that to any stranger who enters their townS
and makes public prayer they bring food thrice a day and
pay him great attention, unless he differs witlr them in sect
— m uhalafati kunad ba-madhhab ba ishan’. Nashwan
ibn Sa‫؛‬id ,9 writing before 1177/573, alludes in passing to

1 A controversy on this subject took place between the SaiwUn historians

and ‘Alawi b. Tahir ofjohore. 2 Cf. al-jahiz, Hayawan, op. cit. iii. 9, 22.
3 Ibn Miskawaih, ٤A l-‘UyUn Wa-’l-Hada’iq’j in Fragmenta Historicorum
Arabicorum, ed. de Goeje (Leiden, 1869), i. 171 seq. I think two accounts have
been dovetailed here, for another leader is mentioned, Abrahah b. Shurahbll
b. Sabbah al-Himyari, the names being almost identical but in reverse order.
The Hadrami IbadI leader was ‘Abdullah b. M a‘bad, reminiscent of the Ba
Ma.bad Mashavikh who gave their name to ‘Ain Ba M a‘bad.
4 Sifat Jazirat alJArab, ed. D. H. Muller (Leiden, 188491), i. 87-88.
5 According to manuscript fragments of Tarikh Ba Sharahil which I saw in
SaiwUn recently.
.٥ See m y ‘Materials’ in B .S.O .A.S (London, 1950), XIII. ii. 291.
7 Trans. V . Minorsky (London, 1937), p. 147.
8 By ‘ their town’ Tarim may be meant. The Hudud is tantalizi'ngly vague.
‫ ﻭ‬Al-Hur al-iJn (Cairo, 1948), p. 203. The actual name of the section of
Hamdan is B sh q, whi,ch I have not succeeded in tracing in othei. sources.
10 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T

a group of Ibadis of the Hamdan tribe as still existing in

Hadramawt.
‘The Imam’, says Hamdaniji ‘who has the power of order-
ing and forbidding over the Ibadls, is in the town of Daw‘an .١
I deduce from the scant historical evidence that Hadramawt
was fragmented into a diversity of petty tribal states, and the
Imam perhaps as much a religious as a temporal chief over
scattered Ibadi groups, but it was in western Hadramawt
that his headquarters lay— where the Saiyids have still made
relatively little headway. In conversation Saiyids have main-
tained to me that there are still traces of Ibadism, quoting
anti-‘Al!-id expressions said to belong to the common par-
Jance of the country, but I have not heard these myself
At the close of the twelfth century, the BanU Ba?rl and
Jadld branches having left no male issue, the BanU ‘Alawl
who remained gave their name to the Saiyid cla n -th e
‘Alawl Saiyids.2 So closely is this name linked with them that
a folk-verse says,

‫ﺳﺲ ﺍﻻﺳﺎﺱ ﻳﻠﺤﻖ ﺍﻷ ﺅﺍﻟﻨﻨﺾ‬

‫ﺀ ﻕ‬ ‫ﺀﴽﻭ ﻱ ﱃ ﺍ ﻟ ﺬﺋ ﻔﺎ ﻭﱃ ﺍ ﻟﺴﺎ ﺩﻩ‬

Some names bring naught but ill,

‘Alwi for peasants, and ‘Awad for Saiyids.

Other names such as Husain, Hasan, Zain, associated with

Saiyids, are not used by peasants either— they have special
names peculiar to themselves.
Meanwhile, attacks had been made on their c'laim to
descent from the Prophet, so about the year Iioo/c. 500
one of the Saiyids went to Basrah and produced some sixty
respected Basrans to attest to the relationship with the Iraqi12

1 Op. cit., pp. 87-88.

2 Wiistenfeldj Die Qufiteri) op. cit., p. 4. ‘Alawl b. Tahir in ‫ﺀ‬Uqud al-Almas
(Singapore, 1949-50), ostensibly a biography of Ahmad b. Hasan al-‘Attas,
discusses the origins of the Hadrami Saiyids and th.eir connexion with the
Ba?ran families, a very technical and complex study.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A p R A M A W T II

Saiyids in presence of the Hadrami contingent at the Meccan

pilgrimage. Ever since then the ‫؛‬Alawi Saiyids have main-
tained their family registers with scrupulous care— you may
see them recorded in volumes in any Saiyid house, and even
during the reign of the late Imam Yahya Hamid al-Dln of
the Yemen they induced him to confirm their descent from
the Prophet, publishing a facsimile of his statement in Java.'!
Despite the lack of early sources, however, there is no great
reason to be suspicious of the descent of the Hadrami Saiyids,
for it is difficult in Arabia to support a spurious pedigree, the
more so, of course, when financial considerations enter.
When the Saiyids reached H dram aw t, the author of al-
Fawa'id, alSanlyah2 tells US, they found scholars in Tarim
who consoled them for parting from their native land. When
they came to Tarim from the adjacent village ofBaitJubair
in 1127/521 Hadramawt certainly had its local scholars, for
the Bodleian manuscript of Ba Hassan refers to faqihs3 who
in 1 116/510 came from Hadramawt to study in the Yemenite
city of aljanad. These scholars, to judge from numei.ous
Hadrami biographical manuscripts, belonged to the Ma-
shavikh class as distinguished from the tribesmen, townsfolk,
and peasants, enjoying the privilege and honour accorded
to the lords of spi.ritual power in Southern Arabia, and
governing the sacred enclaves known as ‫؛‬hawtah12 5.
4
3
Mashavikh families .are many, but I have at present docu-
mentary evidence covering only three in any detail, the
Al Ba ‫؛‬Abbad, the Al K a t ib , and the Al Ba Fadl. The Al
Ba ‫؛‬Abbad are associated with the shrine of the Prophet
Hud,4 the Al Khatib,5 hereditary preachers, claim descent

1 In al-Rabitat alJAlawiyah (Batav'ia, 1351 H.).

2 fol. 32 b: ‘arbab al-‘ulUm ١va-a?hab al-fuhUm ١٧a-’l-albab ma
yushghil-hum ‘an al-ahl wa-’l-watan.’
3 There they studied with Zaid b. ‘Abdullah al-Fayish‫ ؛‬aI-Ma‘afii'1, to whom
came faqihs from Lahej and Hadramawt.
4 ‘Umar b. Saqqaf in his Dashtah says that the Ba ‘Abbad go back to ‘Abd
a l . a m s . Hud, and Qahtan.
5 Al-Burd al-Nctim f i Nasab al-Ansar Khutabo.) Tarim (for which see my
‘Materials’, loc. cit., p. .305) says that ‘A bbad b. Bishr was sent to collect the
12 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T

from ‫؛‬Abbad ibn Bishr, who accompanied the first Muslim

armies to Hadramawt, and the Ba Fadl, too, claim as ancestor
a Companion of the Prophet. Ancient Arabic sources hardly
support the claim to ‫؛‬Abbad ibn Bishr as founder of the Al
K a t ib j for he died in Yamamah, but it is significant that
these families are conscious ofbeing so long settled in Hadra-
mawt as to claim an Islamic hero for their eponym— there
would be no merit in claiming a pagan. The hagiologies
allude to members of these families as Saiyids— ‫؛‬Sadat-na
wa-٩ adat-na al-٤Abbadiyah,i our Saiyids and leaders the
Ba ‫؛‬Abbad’ ; an early manuscript work by a non-Saiyid
author speaks of al-Sadah a l-K u ta b a ’ and al-Sadah Al
Fadl.2 The early 15th/gth-century history al-ShaffdJz
refers to. both al-Shaikh ‫؛‬Alawi (in fact one of the Prophet’s
posterity) and Ahmad a l-K a tlb (who was not) by the com-
mon title of the ‫؛‬Two Saiyids’— it furthermore often refers
to the Prophet’s descendants by the title of Shaikh and not
Saiyid .4
The unselfconscious testimony of many different sources in-
dicates that the prominent Mashavikh families were known,
as often as not, as Saiyids until at least the late Middle Ages.
In the first stage of their history the Hadraml perhaps re-
garded the ‫؛‬Alawl Saiyids as only one of these Mashavikh
groups— with which he was already familiar, and far from
creating an immediate impression on the country, itwas prob-
ably some time before they established their far-reaching
zakat tax from al-Lisik by Ziyad b. Labid al-Bayadh but he was killed, and
buried in a cave in Jabal al-Lisik. (It is famed for the ziyarah, like the Prophet
H ٥ d in Hadramawt.’
1 So in Manaqib al-Shaikh ‫ﺀ‬Abdullah Ba *Abbad, in a manuscript of mixed
contents belonging to Saiyid ‫؛‬Ali b. Salim of Huraidah. The shaikh in question
was born in 1219/616.
2 Al-Burd al-Na‘ im, manuscript cit. A l . a r j i , Tabaqat al-Khawass (Cairo
1903), calls certain shaikhs, ‘sadah ahl al-‘ilm’.
3 See ‘ Materials’, B.S.O.A.S. XIII. iii, 1950, p. 582. A microfilm of part ii
is now in the Library of the School. The passage is anecdote no. 473 of
vol. ii.
4 According to my friend Saiyid Salih b. ‘All al-Hamidl, Husain’s posterity
were known as Saiyids only by imitation of the usage in Mecca, before which
they were called Sharifs. All the evidence bears out his statement.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T 13

claims to a special privileged position, claims in fact never

accepted by numbers of Hadramis to this day.1
A curious tale in al-Jawhar a lia ffa fi reveals a little of
the course of that struggle for supremacy between the
‘Alawls and the Mashayikh.3 As if in a dream, a Hadrami
faqlr describes how he saw the Day of Resurrection, with all
the people of the world in a desert land, devoid of stock and
stone. ‘There’, says he, ‘were the Mashayikh, going down.
Each shaikh had with him his faqirs, and wore a crown and
cloak adorned with precious stones. I greeted h a i h Said
ibn ‘Isa, then Shaikh Muhammad Ba ‘Abbad. “ Why are you
standing here?” he said. “ Waiting for my shaikh.” said I.
To which he replied, “ When the sheep has no shepherd it
gets eaten by the w olf” [He means that a person who fol-
lows no Sufi h a i h cannot find favour with the Almighty].’
Eventually his shaikh— the Saiyid ‘Abd al-Rahman— comes
by, with his nephew Muhammad ibn ‘Alawi, followed by
many faqirs, then the common people, and last of all the
Sultans and their men (a hit at the tribal rulers of Hadra-
mawt). When the story-teller asks the ‘Alawi Saiyids why
they wear two crowns and cloaks, he is told it is because they
are greater than the Mashayikh. ‘And’, says one of the
Saiyids, ‘was not my ancestor the Apostle of God?’ He ex-
plains that one crown and cloak are for m a h y a h a h , the
quality of being a shaikh (this probably referring to their
rank as Sufis), while the other pair is for sharaf, noble descent
from the Prophet. The Mashayikh. the Saiyid affirms, will
be swallowed up with their faqirs in his own virtue and
followers, as a great engUlfing flood sweeps all before it.
TheKhatib and Fadl Mashayikh ofTarim have now taken
second position to the Saiyids, though still honoured, and
1 For example, the Manaqib Ba ‘Abbad (Saiv^n copy) states of one of the Ba
‘Abbad shaikhs. ‘wa-kan ahl al-zawaya ya’tn-hu li-’l-tabarruk mithl Ba ‘AlawJ
wa-ahl Abi Wazir wa-Al Abl Sa‘id b. ‘Isa’.
2 Op. cit.. Anecdote no. 349.
3 There was, of course, rivalry between the Mashavikh the'mselves; the
Saiwun MS. of the Manaqib Ba ‘Abbad) for example, shows that ‘Abdullah Ba
.Abbad and Sa‘‫ ؛‬d b. ‘ Isa a!-‘AmUdi were rivals. C f a l . a r j i , op. cit., p. 70.
4‫ل‬ T H E S A IY ID S OF H A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T

they have long been linked to them by ties of affection. A Ba

Fadl historian‫ ؛‬maintains that the Ba Fadl had the power
and shaikhdom before the ‫؛‬Alawi Saiyids arrived, but divested
themselves of the taqbll— the privilege of having the hand
or knee kissed, colloquially known as shammah, and of the
title ٤habib’2— these they resigned to the ‫؛‬Alawis. The Saiyid
scholar ‫؛‬Abdullah Bal-Faqihs condemns this statement as
unhistorical, but similar privileges are the prerogative of
Mashavikh in districts where Saiyid influence is weak. I was
often impressed by their bitter hostility to the Saiyids. An
‫؛‬AmUdi shaikh in Bedouin Najaidain, in front of my Saiyid
companion, contemptuously quoted me the saying, ‫؛‬Al-
Shaikh Shaikh wa-1-’Saiyid aish min tahishah ‫ ؛‬elsewhere
tashah] 5, 4 that is, A Shaikh is a Shaikh— as we all know— but
what sort of a thing is a Saiyid? I heard this again in the
mouth of a Ba Nafi‫ ؛‬Shaikh in Y a . u m .5 But this ancient
rivalry of Saiyid and Shaikh has not stood in the way of
personal friendships nor prevented the transmission of ‫؛‬ilm,
religious knowledge, to each other, for in this matter Islam
transcends faction and all nowadays are ShafiCjs.
I have alluded already to the hawtah, the sacred enclave
which, under various names, has played so important a part
1 Al-Shaikh Muh. b. ‘Awad Ba Fadl, Silat al-Ahl bi-Tadwin Manaqib A l Abi
Fadl. This writer was no longer alive in 1953; he may have written the Silah
some thil'ty years previous to that date.
2 The terms used are ‘mashvakhah’. ‘ taqbil’, ‫ ؛ ﺀ‬imamah’, ‘al-mukhatabah
bi-lafz al-hablb’. Young Saiyids tend to disappi'ove of the hand-kissing and
make a show, at least, of withdrawing their hands when a peasant wishes to
kiss them.
3 ‘Abdullah b. Hasan Bal-Faqih, Jala.) al-Haqa’iq wa-Tamliis al-Naql hawl md
awrada-hu MvTallif Silat al-Ahl, both works being in manuscript. A l-harjJ,
op. cit., p ٠
. 36, mentions that the famous medieval saint Isma‘ 11 a l Hadrami was
honoured'with taqbil al-qadam. Today, when a tribesman agrees to a proposi-
tion he sniffs the Mansab’s hand, be he Shaikh or Saiyid, saying ‘wa-kaff-ak
al-ghali, by your dear hand’. Fie might also address a Saiyid with the phrase,
‘bi-ras Jaddak, by the head of your ancestor (Muhammad)’ .
4 The word ‘ tashah’ was quoted to me in Shibam and said to mean ‘ainah
(‘Inah), sort, species. A tahishah is said to be a species of bird unknown to you.
This saying is said to have been uttered when the first Saiyid came to the
Qibli, West Hadramawt, and the Mashavikh had never heard of Saiyids before.
5 He said, however, ‘q a lla h ’ for ‘tahishah’, explaining it as naw‘, shakl, sort,
species, or, he said, it could mean animal.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF H A D R A M A W T 15

in Arabian history. In a society where war is the norm of

existence, a neutral territory is a necessity for reasons
religious, political, and economic. The hawtah is such an
area, often situated at a natural road junction, where tribes
meet, perhaps an important market. A saint, it is often re-
corded, in his own lifetime will demarcate a hawtah with
whitewashed pillars. After death his holiness and power are
embodied in his tomb, now become a sanctuary, which his
successor, known as Man?ab,i and his posterity administer.
The essential political factor herein is that the saint induces
the tribes or sultans to contract agreements with him to
maintain the inviolability of the hawtah and define penalties
for its infringement. So greatly revered are these enclaves
that when we arrived at the boundary pillars of Hawtat al-
Faqih ‫ﺀ‬Ah in Wahidi country, the Sultans and everyone else
in our party dismounted to enter on foot. The Man?ab has
many privileges: he is brought nudhur, votive offerings, he
has freedom from customs and taxation, he is bequeathed
tithes on land. In turn he entertains the guest, intervenes- in
battles, marching out with the saint’s banner, or merely
waving a palm-branch or his ridaj ultimately he acts as
mediator. A Man?ab of personality can be a man of power
and virtually rule the tribes. The late Man?ab of Thibi near
Tarim, whom I visited in his hawtah, actually waged a pri-
vate war for several years with the whole of Tarim city and
its K ah iri Sultans.
The hawtah and the Meccan haram are institutions iden-
tical in essence, and both even bear some relation to tlie
hima, or inviolable grazing, still occasionally found in South
Arabia. Muhammad constituted Madinah a haram and his
rival Musailamah, it may be recalled, also set up a haram,2
an action parallel to the establishment of a new hawtah, the
setting up of a fresh centre of politico-religious influence.12

1 For notes on the Man?ab, cf. ‘Two Tribal Law Gases {2)),J.R]A,S. Oct. 1950,
pp. 166-8.
2 Tabari, Tarikh. ed. De Goeje cum aliis (Leiden, 1879), ii, 1932-3.
6‫ل‬ T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T

Till the arrival of the Saiyids the HadramI hawtahs were

in the hands of the Mashayikh, who thereby curbed the tribes
and their sultans. The history of Saiyid power in Hadra-
nrawt is in some degree that of the growth of their influence
through founding Saiyid hawtahs, parallel with the decline
of the Mashayikh hawtahs which they eclipsed. Shortly be-
fore the rise of the Al Kathir Sultans, al-Ahdal* can say that
the Bait Ba ‫؛‬Alawi is the greatest of the mansabs of Hadra-
mawt, its centre being Tarim, and that it comprises nrany
scholars, Mashayikh (perhaps in the sense of Sufis) and
commoners.
In available authorities I have so far found no record of
when a Saiyid first established a hawtah, but a late writer2
mentions a hawtah at Tarim, respected by the Sultan, be-
tween the Ba ‫؛‬Alawi, Saqqaf, and ‫؛‬AidarUs mosques. Today
there are several hawtahs in Tarim, the most recent that of
the Haddads at al-Hawi, but I am told there are many
ancient hawtahs simply become part of the city wards. In
1402/804 it is recorded that the Khatib Mashayikh trans-
ferred from their own hawtah to that of the Ba ‫؛‬Alawi out
of companionship3— implying, of course, a notable shift of
authority. Al-Nabhani. speaks of the hawtah of ‫؛‬All ibn
Muhammad Ba ‫؛‬Alawi (ob. 838 H.), about this period, a
place near Tarim, describing the ills that befell aninrals
pasturing there without permission, and the misfortune that
1 Brit. Mus. M S. Or. 1345, al-Husain b. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Ahdal (ob.
855/1451), Tuhfat al-Zaman. The following section is based on al-Janadi
(ob. 732/1331-2): He says that Bedouinism (badawah) predominates over its
inhabitants. - From it have come notable scholars who hail from the two
villages, they being Tarim and Shibam. the older of them being Tarim, for
it is the town (madinah) of Hadramawt and the dwelling-place of their kings
the Al Ra?i‘ . . . . In the town are the habitations of the Al Ba ‘Alawi, the
Husaini Ashraf.
2 Muh. b. Abi Bakr a l-h illi, al-Maskra‘ al-Rawi (Cairo, 1319), i. 140.
3 Al-Burd al-Nalim, op. cit. ‫؛‬A li b. A hm ad a l - K a t i b (ob. 804/14.01-2) trans-
fers from H aw tat a l-K h u taba’ to H a w ‫ ؛‬at H afat A l A b i ‘A law i, because of his
?uhbah and w akalah for (li) the Shaikh ‘A bdullah b. A b i Bakr al-‘A idar ٥ s ٠
T h e term ‘H afah’ might im ply that the Saiyids had a ward or quarter o f their
own.
4 Jami ‫ﺀ‬Karamat, op. cit. ii. 186.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A p R A M A W T 17

overtook a Bedouin who had only plucked a few of its sidr

leaves to use as a hair-wash, for supernatural powers are re-
garded as p.rotecting all hawtah property. Towards the end of
the I^th/8th century Sultan Rasi٤ ibn Duwais absolved the
‫؛‬Alawl Saityids from taxes,! though, of course, subsequently
other rulers made successful attempts to collect them again.
These events point to the great enlargement of S-aiyid
authority, and later Man?abs even claimed special exemp-
tions for their properties and adherents situated outside the
hawtah boundaries.
O f other hawtahs founded by Saiyids in Hadramawt one of
the most famous is that of Tnat,2 lying between Tarim and
the shrine of Hud— it has played a great part in recent Hadra-
mi history. Its founder Bu Bakr bin Salim, known as Mawla
Tnat, refused to acknowledge the Zaidi Imams of the Yemen,
and is also known for his vigorous attack on the smoking
of tobacco. His descendants became famous mediators, with
.influence over the Y a ffi3 and ‫؛‬Awlaqi tribes, and to this day
revenues, mostly in kind, of course, come to them by caravan
fromjabal Yafi‫؛‬, hundreds of miles away. On one occasion the
Lord of ٤Inat sent ‫؛‬aqirahsi— that is, cattle to be slaughtered
by way of supplication— to the Yafils, so that they would
come to fight against a K a h iri Sultan who had adopted the
Zaidi rite. But the Bu Bakr Saiyids were subjected to severe,
criticism from other gaiyid groups for adopting the ways of
the Bedouin, and bearing arms.5 Even now there is often
1 ‘A bd al-Rahm an b. ‘ U baidullah al-S aq q af’, Badcdi‫ﺀ‬al-Tabut (Aden, n.d.),
p. 14. T o d a y the H adram i Saiyids call those Saiyids or Mansabs who were
h٠ee -of taxes A l Ba T halath K a ‘al (ka‘al meaning testicles), because they have
more resources than the others'!
2 M uh. b. Hashim, Tarikh al-Dawlat al-Kathiriyah (Caii'0, 1948), p. 89, &c.
A hm ad Fadl b. ‘A li M uhsin a lA b d a li, Hadiyat al-Zaman (Cairo, 1351),
pp. 108, I I I , & c. 3 M uh. b. Hashim, op. cit., p. 91.
4 For ‘aqirah see c. V. Landberg, Gloss Dat.
5 ‫ﺀ‬Iqd al-Yawdqit, op. cit. i. 18, quotes as one of Satan’s greatest wiles that

he induces ‫ ; ﺉ ﺍ ﳉﻨﺪ ﻭﺍﻷ ﴍﺍﺭ ﺽ ﻟﺒﺲ‬٠‫ﺃ ﺑﺘﺂﺀ ﺍ ﻷ ﺧﻴﺎ ﺭﺃ ﻥ ﻳﺰ ﻕ ﳍﻢ ﺍﻟﺪﺯﻕ ﺏ‬

‫ﺕ ﺑﻘﻮﻡ ﻓﻬﻮ ﻣﳯﻢ‬ ٠ ‫ ﺓ ﺍﻭﺷﻌﺮﳁﻦ‬١‫ﺫﺑﺔ‬٠‫ ﺍﻟ ﺴ ﻼ ﺡ ﻭﻧﻘﴫ ﺍ ﻟﻴ ﺎ ﺏ ﻭ‬. 'The problem
o f the Saiyid o f noble descent who, countei' to what is expected of him, acts
‫ﻝ‬8 T H E S A I Y I D S OF H A D R A M A W T

dissension with the Tarim Saiyids, for 'Inat can stop the Hud
pilgrimage by simply having its tribes cut the road. The
posterity of Bu Bakr bin Salim is particularly numerous,
many of his descendants being found in East Africa.
The Mansabs of the Thibi hawtah of the Al ‫؛‬AidarUs are
the hereditary naqibs of the 'Alawi Saiyids.1 Elsewhere, of
course, Saiyids and Ashraf were organized under a sort of
tribal head, a naqlb, from at least the ‫؛‬Abbasid period, but
the second ‫؛‬Alawi naqib lived in the first part of the I5th/9th
century, so this is a comparatively late innovation in Hadra-
mawt.2 The Mansabs of T h ibi sit at the head of any assembly,
and at one time, it seems, the Mansab judged in cases of
Saiyid quarrels, but these are now usually referred to the
Al-Kaf.
Another famous if not ancient hawtah is at the desert
place known as al-Mahhad, near a pre-Islamic ruin-field. It
was founded by an A ttas Saiyid who settled there to bring
Islam to the Bedouin, of whom a poem in the Leiden collec-
tion of Snouck Hurgronje MSS .3 says,

‫ﻋﻞ ﺳ ﻦ ﺣﻮﻁ ﺍﻟﻘﱥﺍﺭﻭﺍﳻ ﻣﺰﺍﺭ‬

‫ﺫﻭﴱﺎﻛﺮﺍﺫﺟﻬﺄﺭ‬٠
‫ﺟﺆﻭ‬٠
‫ﺫ‬
immorally, has exercised the minds of the South Arabians. Ba Ridwan, al-
Qawl al-Hasan, quotes the verse:

‫ﳁﺎ ﺫﺍ ﺍﻭﺫﻯ 'ﻧﺬﺫﻯ ﻙ;ﺍ ﻡ ﺍ ﳌﻨﺎ ﺻ ﺐ‬ ‫ﺫﻛﻦ ﻧﻘﺲ ﺍﻟﻨﺴﳰﺐ ﻙ| ﺻﻠﻪ‬٠ ‫ﺍﺫﺍﱂ‬
‫ﲩ ﺔ ﻟ ﻠ ﺘ ﻮ ﺍﺻﱮ‬ ‫ﺑ ﺎ ﻷﺩﻭ ﺍﻵ‬ ‫ﺷ ﻞ ﺟﻌﻔﺮ‬ ‫ﻭﺍﻥ ﻋﻠ ﻮ ﻳﺄ ﱂ ﺩﻛﻦ‬
‫ﺓ ﻟﳭﻘﺎﺭﴅ‬٠‫ﻭﺍﻻ ﻓ ﺘ ﻠ ﻚ ﺍﰻ‬ ‫ﺍﺫﺍﱂ 'ﺫﻛﻦ ﻧﻔﺲ ﺍﻟ ﴩﻳﻒ ﴍﻳﻔﻪ‬
‫ ﺫ ﻟﻠﺮﻭﺍﻓﻐ ﺲ‬- ‫ﺍﻻ‬ ‫ﻭ ﻣﺎ ﺫﺍ ﻙ‬ ‫ﺍ ﻫﻠ ﻪ‬ ‫ ﻃﺮﻳﻘﻪ‬.‫ﳽ ﻭﺳﺪ ﺍﺧﻄﺎ‬
‫ﺍ ﺧﻠﻐﻮﺍ‬ ‫ﱂ ﺑﺌﺲ‬
‫ ﺍﳉﺪﻭﺩ ﻭﻟﻜﺰ‬٢٠‫ﺫﻉ‬ 1
‫ﳍ ﻢ ﺳﻠ ﻔ ﻮﺍ‬ ‫ﴽﺝ‬- ‫ﺩ ﻧ ﺘ ﺨ ﺮ ﻭ ﻥ ﺇﺍ ﺩ‬
1 There is no naqabah amongst the Saiyids, I was told; only the learned are
counted, naqibs nowadays, but I noticed that the Man?ab of al-M ah h ad styles
himself Naqib al-Ashraf.
2 Abu Bakr . . . b. Shihab, Diwan (BUqUr, 1344), p. 151. ‘Umar a l-M ih d a
b. ‘A bd al-Rahman al-Saqqaf was the first to be elected naqib of the ‘Alawl
Saiyids in Tarim. He died in 838/1434-5 and was succeeded by ‘Abdullah
b. Abl Bakr al-‘Aidarfis (ob. 865/1461).
3 Leiden Univ. MS. 2932, p. 306, ascribed to ‘All b. Hasan himself.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T 19

Most great Saiyid houses, apart from those mentioned— the

Saqqafs, Haddads, Habshis, Al Barr, Mihdar, A ljifri, Bal-
Faqih— have hawtahs of varying importance, or spiritual
influence at least, over certain tribes.! Any might exercise the
right of shafa٤ah, intercession, and a sultan could scarcely
refuse a request prefaced by the words ‫؛‬wa-haqq jaddi, by
my ancestor’s right’. Not long ago the newspapers in fa.ct
reported a case in which the Jifri Saiyids of Lahej interceded
with the Sultan.2 The Mashavikh also had, probably still
have, these powers, for one reads often that a Shaikh had
shafa٤ah maqbulahs— intercessionary rights which the Sultan
of the day dare not .refuse.
In considering the political aspect of the growth of Saiyid
influence, their religious activities, especially in the domains
of law and Sufism, must not be overlooked. The first Saiyid
to turn to Sufism, says al-Ahdal,. was Muhammad ibn ‘All,
called al-Faqih al-Muqaddam in the early I3th/)th cen-
tury, until when the Ba ،Alawi were known only for fiqh, law,
and sharaf. It seems that Hadrami ulema at first resisted 'the
Sufi movements, for on hearing this his .teacher, Abu Marwan
٤Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Salim, with whom he had read fiqh,
broke with him. To al-Faqih al-Muqaddams is ascribed an
injunction to the Saiyids to abandon arms for the pursuit
of religious and moral aims, and from him the ‘Alawi
tariqah of which he is the qut'b has continued to the present
day. The Saiyids affirm it is the best tariqah, based on the
1 Salah al-Bakri, Tarikh Hadramawt al-Siyasi (Cairo, 1935-6), ii. 322, gives
an anti-Saiyid view of ‘spiritual influence’ and hawtahs. This could be set
against the idealized view of al-Fawa'id al-Sanlyah) fol. 2 1 . 4 , which gives a
‫ ؟‬ufistic interpretation of their function. The term ‘n^ansab’ may have originated
fl'om such phrases as ‘qa‘ada fi man?ab a l-m a h y a h a h ’ : 0 . LOfgren, Arabische
Texte zur Kenntnis der Stadt Aden (Uppsala, 1936), i. 39.
2 Cf. Hadiyat al-Zamcin, op. cit., pp. 192 seq.
3 For a case in Tnat see al-Nabhani, op. cit. i. 333. Numerous cases are to
be found in a l-h a r ji’s Jabaqat. 4 Op. cit. B.M. MS., fol. 25 ‫ﺓﻝ‬.
5 ‫ﺀ‬Iqd al-Yawaqit, op. cit. i. 127. The ‘Alawi Saiyids are only famous for
al-karamat wa-’l-taslik ‘ala ‫ ؛‬ariqat al-sufiyah since the time of al-Faqih al-
Muqaddam, after laying down their arms. Muh . . . b. Shihab, in appendixes to
the Arabic version of Lothrop Stoddart, Hadir alJ'Alam ol-Islami (Cairo, 1352),
iii. 165, gives a list of the fakhidhahs still beai.ing arms.
20 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T

Koran, the Sunnah, and the beliefs of the Pious Ancestors

(al-Aslaf).! No ‫؛‬Alawi may go counter to the way of those
Pious Ancestors, but act with humility, piety, and lofty
motive, with the Prophet for his model. The ‫؛‬Alawi ?ufi
must love obscurity, dislike manifestation, withdraw from
the madding crowd, but he must warn against neglect of
religious duties. He must show kindness to wife, children,
neighbours, relations, to the tribes, and all Muslims. A igth-
century writer advises the Saiyids not to mix with the people
of that evil age when rulers are prone to injure those of
religious rank. Silence and restraint, he says, are best‫ ؛‬if
perforce you meet evil persons, speak little and leave as soon
as possible.2 The famous blind 18th-century saint ‫؛‬Abdullah
al-Haddad avers that the Ba ‫؛‬Alawi tariqah is acknowledged
the best by the Yemenis despite their heresy (bid‫؛‬ah)5 and
the Sharlfs of Mecca despite their own honourable rank.
Arguments are adduced by 19th-century writers to show that
an ‫؛‬Alawi should join no other tariqah such as, for example,
the SanUsi.3 The ‫؛‬Alawi dhikr is not accompanied by the
practices so distasteful to contemporary Muslims in many
other countries, but hadrahs are held in the mosques, and
the Saqqaf mosque has musicians, the Servants of the Saqqaf,
who sing ‫ ؟‬ufi songs to pipe and drum .4
Saiyid character is deeply co-loured by these principles.
Polite and hospitable, the ‫؛‬Alawi is also unsurpassed in love
1 This section is based on Muh. b. Husain b. ‘Abdullah b. Shaikh al-Habshi,
aUUqudal-LuUu’iyaHJiBayanTariqat al-Sadat a l-A liv y a h (CaSio, ‫ًﺓﺍ ﻷﺍﺍ ﻷ ﻫ ﻶﺍ‬- \ ‫ ﻵ‬١٠
the author being Mufti of the Shafi‘ivah in Mecca at that time‫‘ ؛‬Abdullah
b. Husain b. Tahir Ba ‘Alawi, Majmu mushtamil ‘ala Thaldth wa-lshrin Risalah
(Cairo, 1330), which includes a ti'eatise entitled Fi Nasihat alJunUd (p. 108),
injunctions to the tribes‫ ؛‬and to a lesser extent on the Brit. Mus. M S. o f ‘Umar Ba
Shaiban. al-Tiryaq al-Shaf. of which it appears no copy is known in Hadramawt
nowadays‫ ؛‬my own manuscript of ‘Abd al-Rahman . . . al-MashhUr, Shams al-
Zahirah, and other works in ‘Materials for South Arabian History’ (ii), op. cit.‫؛‬
‘Abdullah b. Hasan Bal-Faqih, Risalatan Athriyatan min ‘ahd al-Shuyukh al-Awa’il
li-’l-Tariqat al-Tasawwufiyah bi-Hadramawt, a l'ecent work still in manuscript.
2 ‘Alawi b. Ahmad al-Saqqaf, Majmvdah Kutub Mufidah (no date or place),
p. 178, says, ‘ Suhbat al-Ashrar turith al-zann bi-’l-a h y a r ’.
3 The SanUsis also aroused the rivalry of the Sharifs of Mecca who collabo-
rated with the Turks against them.
4 Cf. my Prose and Poetry from Hadramawt (London, 1951), pp. 40 seq.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A p R A M A W T 21

of his children. Some Saiyids refuse obdurately to do with

the temporal rulers or, for that matter, with the. British. I
know of great Hadrami Saiyids, and not perhaps fanatics,
in Tarim who will never meet a non-Muslim. The market is
never entered by the Haddads of al-Hawi, for they count the
sUqis evil persons.I These partial recluses are called ‫؛‬mahjub’
or ‫؛‬mastUr’, but they might undertake without fear to warn
those in high places— there is a small literature of na?a’‫؛‬h or
admonitions.2 As a model of decent modesty a Saiyid house
was described to me where the woman water-carrier (malla-
yah) year after year hung her water-skin at the corner of the
stairs leading to the women’s part of the house, without
meeting the . r i f a h s — who removed it only after she had
left. It is easy to understand that these ?ufi Saiyids might
have little fondness for such as the political Saiyids of ‫؛‬Inat.
The reverence for the Pious Ancestors (Salaf) is so strong that
Hadramis scarcely think of the dead as departed— indeed,
the traveller entering Tarim is immediately confronted by its
cemeteries and domed tombs. The Wahhabi invasion last
century rudely disturbed this reverence, destroying tombs
and books, engendering an opposition expressed in a number
of anti-Wahhabi polemics.3
All Saiyids are united on the issue of kafa’ah, eligibility
in marriage. That is that they will never marry their
daughters to anyone but a Saiyid or Sharif though their
Zaidi cousins of the Yemen are much less strict.4 It was a
dubious pedigree, and the contesting of the legality of a mar-
riage in consequence, that split the Javan Hadramis some
fifty years ago into parties, the ‫؛‬Alawi and Irshadi, counter-12 4
3

1 M y informant Rahaiyam said that the Al Hamid and Al Haddad, Man?ab

families, used never to enter the s٥ q. The Al Bal-Faqih used also to avoid it,
but, he said, ‘Rah dhaka ’l-zaman bi-nasuh wa-ja’a ’l-zaman bi-fas-uh. That
time with its [noble] people has gone, and this (wretched) age with its pick
has come. Cf. Muh. b. Hashim, Tdrikh, op. cit., p. 128, for a similar case’.
2 Cf. p. 20, n. I, item 2.
3 As, for example, ‘Uthman b. ‘Abdullah b. ‘Aqil, rdnat al-Mustarshidin
(Batavia, 1329/1911), who describes Wahhabism as the most horrible offiraq!
4 See Jamal j . Nasir, thesis, op. cit., p. 6, n. I.
22 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A p R A M A W T

Saiyids.1 This attack on Saiyid pretensions had repercussions

in Hadramawt, is re-echoed in the Egyptian modernist
journal al-ManaX) and caused riots in ja v a in which, strangely,
YUnus Bahrl, war-time announcer in Berlin, became in-
volved. K afa’ah, eligibility, 'as practised in Hadramawt, is
founded on pre-Islamic concepts of nobility, and in Islam
itself there is some difference as to its application. The Shah2
quotes the Prophet, to flatter the BanU Najjar, addressing
them as ٤my maternal uncles’, not ،my paternal uncles’, which
would be normal and honourable between equals.3 The latter
epithet would have implied that a Hashimite, his grandfather,
could have considered giving Muhammad’s aunt in marriage
to a tribesman-which is impossible to contemplate. I have
heard a Saiyid address tribal headmen in precisely the same
terms, implying friendship but indirectly underlining the
gulf between them. Among themselves, I am told, Saiyids
reckon it a disgrace for one of their number to marry below
his station, though for a man this is legally permissible in
their view‫ ؛‬and an insult they might use in a fit of temper is
(son of a da ٤ifah’, a peasant woman. I knew a case in Tarim
where the ‫؛‬miskin’, mother, spoke of her daughter always as
‘the sharlfah’, something apart from herself Saiyids allege
that the Y a fil rulers of Tarim last century did not respect
Saiyid women. A Yafi ٤i chief is said to have demanded a
harifah in marriage, but this was so resented that the family
decamped one night to settle in a village beyond hisjurisdic-
tion. As some of the Yafi ٤is had Wahhabi leanings this un-
welcome proposal may have had a political colour.
1 There is quite a literature on the controversy. Some has been examined by
Shrieke. The IrshadI side is well presented by Salah al-Bakrl, Tarikh Hadramawt
al-Siyasi op. cit., to which there are ‘Rudud’ circulating in MS. in Hadramawt.
The Irshadls won a measure of sympathy from the Dutch, who saw in them
a counterpoise to the more conservative ‘Alawis. The most prominent IrshadI
was in fact not a HadramI but a Sudanese ‘alim, Ahmad SUrkatl.
2 Ed. WUstenfeld, op. cit., p. 346. Muhammad, speaking to ‘Abbas, calls
Aws and Khazraj ‘my and your maternal uncles’ (Guillaume, op. cit. XV,
citing G. M£lamCde in Monde Oriental (Uppsala, 1934), xxviii. 17-58).
3 Muhammad is, however, said to have been remotely connected with them
through a female ancestor.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T 23

Wherever they go, Saiyids seek to maintain their inter-

pretation of kafa’ah. For example, at Pahang in Malaya
Ingrams‫ ؛‬says that no sharifah in the large community of
almost completely Malayanized Arabs would marry any
but a Saiyid. Ba M ahram ah,* an early i6th/ioth-century
legal authority of Aden, reports a case from Christian
Abyssinia: a certain harlfah’s hand is sought only by one
not her equal in birth, so she threatens to become a Christian
if not married to him, but she has no guardian or he is out
of reach. May the qadi lawfully marry her to this person
to stop dissension (fitnah)? Ba M ahram ah’s answer is in
the negative, dissension or no, unless she should have no
guardian at all. On the other hand, al-JarmUzF a ‫ ؟‬entury
later speaks of a Sultan s h rt of Mombasa who parried
a woman of the Ba ‫؛‬Alawl Ashraf after mixing with Muslim
traders and Ashraf of Hadramawt, and left Christianity for
Islam; but this is most unusual..
The history of the migrations of the Hadraml Saiyids
would itself fill an entire book.5 From Tarim they spread
east and west, some to the Mahrah coast, but their westward
progress has been limited, probably owing to Mashavikh
opposition, though they are established in the Upper ‫؛‬Awlaqi
Sultanate, and inhabit a special quarter of Habban.6 In
Aden they have made littl'e headway, for, as one author7 says,.
1 In a report to the Mukalla Secretariat about 1939.or 1940.
2 ‘Abdullah b. ‘ Umar Ba M ah ram ah , in a manuscript volume of his al-
Fatawi al-Kubra seen in Dathlnah in 1954. A photographic copy of the usual
epitome to be found with the qadls is now in the Library of the School.
3 Acephalous manuscript in the Sultan’s Library, Mukalla, probably al-Sirat
al-Mutawakkiliyah, p. 90, a work by al-JarmUzi. Gf. G. Levi della Vida, Elenco
. . . Biblioteca Vaticana (Rome, .1935), p. 104, no. 971, the desci'iption of which
is very similar to the Mukalla MS.
4 A marginal note to the Ba Ridwan MS., op. cit., runs: ‘In Qasam are
Sadah ofA h l al-Dawilah o fA l Aba ‘Alawi who abandoned kafa’ah and married
Mashavikh and Q ab a’il.’ I met some of these Saiyids at K O n ; they weai'
Bedouin dress.
5 The dispersion of the Saiyids may be studied in ‘Abd al-Rahman’s Shams
aUZahirah, MS. cit., and in the appendixes to Hadir al^Alam al-Islamt, op. cit.
iii. 162, 164, &c.
٥ ‘A Judeo-Arab Housedeed’, J.R .A .S. (London, 1953), p. 127.
7 Al-Ahdal, op. cit.: ‫ﲆ ﺍﻫﻠﻬﺎ ﻗﻠﺔ ﺍﻟﻌﲅ ﻻ ﳖ ﻢ ﺍﻫﻞ ﺍﻟﺘﺠﺎﺭﺓ‬
‫ﺍﻟ ﻐﺎ ﺏ ﻋ‬ .
24 T H E S A IY ID S OF H A D R A M A W T

‫؛‬Its inhabitants have little learning generally, because they are

traders.’ Here, too, class distinctions tend to dissolve before
wealth. There are some Hadrami Saiyids in the Yemen and
the connexion with Mecca has been close and continuous.
Saiyid writers say that the great emigration to Africa took
place in the I4th/8th and I^th/gth centuries, and Richard
Burton* reports a tradition that in 1430 some forty-four
Hadrami saints landed at Berberah. Saiyids entered Africa
also at Mogadisho* and points on the Kenya coast— early
Swahili poetry shows the influence of Hadrami verse-forms,
and in some cases is actually composed by Hadrami Saiyids.3
They settled in Madagascar, Zanzibar, and Komoru, where
a Saiyid house once held sway.4 With the virtual closure of
Indonesia since 1941 a new streanr of emigration to East
.Africa has commenced, and prominent Saiyids like the
Man?ab of M a . a d .tour such countries as Kenya, visiting
Hadramls there, collecting money for the maintenance of
shrines in Arabia.s
The first focus of Saiyid emigration eastwards, from the
Middle Ages, was India.6 They settled in important com-
mercial, cultural, and political ce.ntres like Bijapur and Surat,
where their descendants are still said to live, Ahmedabad,
Broach, Haidarabad, Gujerat, D e l - r o d a , Calicut, Mali-
bar, - a l . But the greatest emigrations of all were
to Java, Sumatra, Atcheh, and Malaya— and the ‫؛‬Alawi
1 First Footsteps in East Africa (London, 1894), i. 54. An al-Barr Saiyid is
named as governor of Zaila‘ (p. 24). A l al-Barr come from Daw ‘an, whence
there is much emigration to Abyssinia and East Africa.
2 Cf. I. M . Lewis, ‘Sufism in Somaliland (1)’, B.S.O.A.S. (London, 1955),
XVII. iii. 598, for the Ba ‘Alawi Sharifs at Mogadisho.
3 See Lyndon p. Harris, The Form and Content o f Traditional Swahili Literature,
Ph.D. thesis, London, 1953.
4 Hadir aUAlam al-Islami, op. cit. iii. 151, and G. Ferrand, Les Musulmanes ‫ﻕ‬
Madagascar et aux lies Comores (Paris, 1891-1902), P . I I I , ‘Migrations arabes’ .
5 The Aden newspaper al-Nahdah, no. clviii, p. 9, has an article on Somaliland
and begging-missions to the Arabs there, and no. cxlvii, p. 2, an article on the
Saiyids in Tanganyika and their works. The Times (4 June 1956) refers to a
Hadrami Saiyid al-Shatiri as Arab representative on the Legislative Council.
٥ Die ‫ ؛‬lufiten, op. cit., and Hadir al-'Alam al-Islami, op. cit. iii. 159-61. They
are said to have gone first to India in 617/1220-1.
 T H E S A IY ID S OF H A D R A M A W T 25

Saiyids arrived some time before the Dutch. They are to be

found too in Borneo, Timor, and even the far distant Philip-
pines, where, before the Spaniards, an ‘Alawi from Johore
settled in Magindanao, marrying the Sultan’s daughter.!
Their descendants were still in office at the opening of this
century. In every country in which they settled the Saiyids
have spread Shaft‘! orthodoxy— in Java concerting Islam
from a South Indian semi-pantheist mysticism to the ortho-
doxy of Mecca and Medinah, upholding shari‘ah and com-
bating ‘adah law as in their native land.2 There are tombs
of Saiyid saints, an ‘AidarUs in Jakarta and a Bal-Faqih
Saiyid in Gampong Jawa. HadramI liturgical works are
used, notably the celebrated ratib al-Haddad .3 The growth
of emigration at the close of the i6th/i0th century was not
at first approved by the ulema, but this attitude changed*
with the anarchic conditionss in Hadramawt about 150 years
ago. The Saiyids in Hadramawt were aware of the dangers
of their dependence on Java, and a writer in the early
thirties prophetically points out the effect a world war might
have on their wealth there. Saiyid half-breeds, muwalladfin,
multiplied greatly in Java; the HadramS criticize them and

1 N. N. Saleeby, Studies in Moro History, Law and Religion (Dept, of the

Interior. Ethnological Survey Publications, iv. I) (Manila, 1905), pp.
23, 36).
2 G. Snouck Hurgronje, 'The Achehnese, trans. by A. w. s. O ’Sullivan
(Leyden, 1905), i. 35, 1 5 4 9 , 165. A short bibliography of Dutch works in
which material on the Hadrami Saiyids in Indonesia may be found is contained
in L. de Vries’s list in w . H. 'Ingrams, Report on . . . Hadramaut, Colonial 123
(London, 1937), p. 176. D. van der Meulen’s works on Hadramawt itself may
also be consulted. Typical of the position held by Hadrami emigrants to the
East Indies or their descendants is that of the Habib ‘ Umar al-Saqqaf, minister
to the king of Siac, F. w. Stapel, Corpus Diplomaticum {175319) (’S. Graven-
hage, 1956), p. 509.
3 O f ‘Abdullah al-Haddad. Snouck Hurgronje, op. cit. i. 187, refers to the
Hikayat Habib Hadat and (p. 181) the Kisah Abdolah Hadat, in Atcheh.
4 Abu Bakr . . . b. Shihab. Diwan, op. cit., p. 176, indited verses addressed to
the h a r i f of Mecca complaining of the treatment of the Saiyids by the tribes
in Hadramawt. Cf. B. Hashim, Tarikh. op. cit., p. IOI. The anonymous author
dates the change of attitude from the appearance of Saiyid Ahmad b. ‘Umar
b. Sumait.
5 Al-Rdhitat al-iAlawiyah (Batavia, 134 78 ), II. vii. 252-75.
26 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A p R A M A W T

their Arab fathers for omitting to maintain family registers,

and succumbing to the temptations of wealth.
To present a united front against the anti-Saiyid Irshadis
the Saiyids formed a society entitled al-Rabitat al-‫؛‬Alawiyah,i
and other societies later sprang up in both Indonesia and
Singapore. Their programmes contain provisions for the
opening of schools and strengthening the ties ofbrotherhood,
to which in Hadramawt— for these societies operated there
to o -th e y added missions to the Bedouin. Their reports claim
that the Bedouin still live under tribal law called taghut and
follow many grossly un-Islamic practices— some of which,
they say, it is more seemly not to mention!
I knew well a number of members of the Society of
Brotherhood and Co-operation2 to which many young men
in Singapore and Tarim belonged, and formed the impression
that they genuinely wished to improve conditions in Hadra-
mawt‫ ؛‬but an anti-Saiyid acquaintance of mine affirmed that
this society had a secret agreement, containing a proviso
that the children of dalfs, peasants, were to be instructed
only up to a certain standard, with other clauses intended
to perpetuate Saiyid hegemony. Such statements are con-
stantly on the lips of anti-Saiyid HadramS, but I have no
means ofjudging of their substance.3
The age o fjava is now past and the cutting offofjavanese
remittances has reduced some Saiyid families to poverty, and
in 1947 I heard that the young Hadam I MuwaltadUn of
1 Its general aims and purposes are set forth in Al-Rabitat alJAlawiyah,
Maqasid-ha wa-Amal-hd (Weltevreden, n.d., 1927 ‫ﺀ‬٠). Gf. Qdrnn al-Rabitat al-
‘Alawiyah al-Dakhili (Batavia, 1348/1929), 2nd ed., 1349 H.
2 In Arabic, Jam'iyat al-Ukhuwwah Wa-’ 1-M u ‘awanah. Cf. al-Nahdah
(Aden, 11 Jan. 1951), II, no. lviii, p. 2. The head of the society was Muhammad
b. Ahmad al-Shatiri. whose Diwan appeared in 1952— one of the leading legists
amongst the younger men in Tarim.
3 A well-known opponent of the Saiyids, at least in his earlier days, is the
playwright ‘Ali Ba Kathir, of the Ba Kathir Mashavikh of SaiwUn. In his
first play, Humam aw f i ،Asimat al-Ahqaj‫ ﺫ‬among other accusations, he attacks
them with having brought heresies and nonsense (khurafat) into Hadramawt.
An anti-Saiyid phrase I heard in Hadramawt runs: ‘Law kan lahmi ba yakfin
nafa‘ li’l-Sadah al-‘Alawiyin la-baraitah (syn. qatabtah). If my flesh were to
be of any advantage to the ‘Alawi Saiyids I would cut it off.’
 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A p R A M A W T 27

Java had elected to be Indonesians first and cared little for

the land of their fathers.!
The effect of all these emigrations on the Saiyids has been
to mix their blood with that of Malays, Indians, Chinese,
and, within Hadramawt anyway, more rarely with Africans.
It is reckoned an ‫؛‬aib, or disgrace, for women to emigrate, so
a Saiyid marries into the country ofhis adoption. I even know
of one in Tarim wi'th freckled skin and red hair, a Nordic
European type— his mother was Dutch, but he is a true
Hadrami Saiyid in all but features.
The most prominent Saiyid family today is the Al Kaf, sub-
sisting on a capital of £25 million, invested in ^ ٠
powerful 'enough before the war to mint a coinage ofits own,
though today the family is grown so large that the income is
terribly subdivided. The outstanding member of Al K a f is
Saiyid Sir Bu Bakr ibn S h a . a political genius whose
majlis to this day is crowded with those come to seek his
mediation or' redress of injustices fancied and real. The Al
K afwere influential in bringing the British into Hadramawt
to end the perpetual insecurity, but this move was not en-
tirely popular in religious circles. ‫؛‬The Wahhabis’, they say
to the Al Kaf, ‫؛‬brought you, and you brought the British!’
For they regard both events as calamitous, and of course
both Saiyids and Shaikhs have declined in influence since
then‫ ؛‬the hawtahs have lost much of their jurisdiction and
exemption from such vexations as customs duties.3 Apart
1 Since the Second World War the Bin M arta‘ family, originally of Hainin,
has become powerful in Java, hut before the war the Arab member on the
Volksraad was a Saiyid, ‘ U ^ m an al-Jifri.
2 Ingrams (manuscipt report, c f p. 23, n. I) puts the number of Arabs in
Singapore at 500, but I imagine this must be too low. Hadrami newspapers
produced there could hardly be meant to serve so small a community.
3 M y friend ‘Ali b. ‘Aqil A l Yahya, in a somewhat controversial book pub-
lished in Syria some years ago, puts foiward the following not uninteresting
view of the situation. ‘The two governments of Hadramawt [i.e. Q u ‘aid and
Ka^iriJ, following on English interference in Hadramawt, have begun on
their part to send to these headships (i.e. Shaikhs and ‘Alawi Man?abs of
hawtahs) governors to subjugate and rule themj it will be seen that the two
governments herein have not followed a wire policy in dealing with these
headships.’ He accuses these governments of following a policy of spite against
28 T H E S A IY ID S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T

from other aspects of Westernization the increase of the

power of the secular state cannot have pleased the religious.
Saiyid privilege too is being attacked in various ways as not
truly sanctioned by Islam. An ‫؛‬Awlaqi told me that tribesmen
used to fear the Saiyids who, were they to disobey them,
might send the Jinn to punish them, but now they no longer
fear Saiyids nor Mashavikh. and so their power has become
little. I can only touch upon contemporary controversies on
matters of history between the Saiyids and their opponents,
in which the Y a fil §alah al-Bakrft of Cairo, the Mufti of
Johore,* the Saiyid historians ofTarim and Saiwftn,3 and the
Ba Wazir Mashavikh of the coast have been involved. These
have a strong political complexion, pro- and anti-Saiyid,
but owing to their better scholarship the Saiyids have, in
my opinion, had the best of it so far.
The very present peril threatening Hadramawt and its
Saiyids is the tremendous migration— especially to the Hijaz
— where Arabian Nights fortunes are made by Hadramls.
The w ad i Hadramawt is losing its male population, and
unless oil be found in Mahrah country .circumstances will
force most of them to go elsewhere.
While conservative, the Hadrami Saiyid cannot be called
fanatical, he is not unadaptable but keenly aware of the
advantages of education,, and often a natural leader, strong

them, and of raising hatred and revolution against them which, he asserts,
the colonialist policy desires. In fact, of coui.se, the hawtah presented an
awkward administrative problem to the British, who have made it their policy
to support the temporal rather than the spiritual rulers of the country.
1 Tarikh Hadramawt al-Siyasi, op. cit.; inaccurate in detail but nevertheless
a useful source.
2 ‘Alawi b. Tahir, Jany al-Shamarikh (Aden, 1369 H.), &c.
3 ‘Abdullah b. Hasan Balfaqih, various risalahs in manuscript, and Risalatan
(Jakarta, n.d., composed in 1363 H .); Istidrakat wa-Taharriyat ‘ala Tarikh
Hadramawt f i Shakhsiyat (Aden, 1956), against a history-book for use in schools
by Sa‘id Ba Wazir. A critical history by Saiyid Salih b. ‘Ali al-Hamidi of
SaiwUn is also nearly ready for publication.
4 For example, before the First World War the Saiyids had sent educational
missions to Constantinople, and about 1939 Ingrams’s report mentions that the
‘Alawi Society in the Far East had sent five students to ‘Iraq and fourteen to
Egypt. In 1947 ‘All b. ‘Aqil headed a mission to Syria.
 T H E S A I Y I D S OF ‫ ؟‬A ‫ ؟‬R A M A W T 29

in the consciousness ofhis birthright. Even his enemies admit

his ability. Whatever changes the future may bring— and
these are likely to be very considerable— I have no doubt
that the Saiyids will continue an influential element in
Muslim society.
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