'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Haddad

Unlike his father, 'Ali b. Naji, al-Shawkani's transplanted student Salih al-'Ansi, and others of the previous generations in Ibb, who were witnesses to the dissipated patrimonial authority of the Zaidi imamate, 'Abd al-Rahman al-Haddad grew up in a district that identified itself as part of the far-flung Ottoman Empire.^[28] His dates (1876–1922) nearly coincided with those of the Ottoman Province of Yemen (1872–1918). Trained, as his biography states, on such manuals as al-Nawawi's Minhaj , al-Haddad was a distinguished representative of turn-of-the-century Shafi'i scholarship. By 1904 he had succeeded his father as the Ibb mufti, a judicial post requiring the highest level of scholarly achievement. During the protracted but unsuccessful siege of that year (ensuing from the accession of Yahya Hamid al-Din to the imamate), al-Haddad was a town leader, responding at one point to a Zaidi commander's surrender demand with a well-remembered defiant riposte: an envelope containing five bullets and a satirical poem.

Figure 5.
Ibb governor Isma'il Basalama with two sons, after meeting Imam Yahya in San'a', ca. 1920.

Three years later, he was among forty prominent Yemenis sent on a delegation to Istanbul to meet the Ottoman sultan. He was returned to a judgeship and a political position as vice-governor of Ta'izz (which then included the Ibb district). With the outbreak of World War I and the attack on the British near Aden, he headed a Lower Yemen contingent of mujahidin attached to the regular Ottoman forces under the overall command of Sa'id Pasha. A photo taken at the time shows al-Haddad, with deep-set eyes and in turban and engulfing robes, seated next to Sa'id in his officer's tunic, high boots, and tarbush. (See fig. 4.) Following the collapse of Ottoman authority in 1918, as Imam Yahya prepared to assume control of the southern highlands, an emissary was sent to reconcile the powerful men of Lower Yemen, including al-Haddad and the governor of Ibb, his father-in-law, Isma'il Basalama (al-Akwa' 1987). This descendant of Hadrami merchants who had settled in Ibb by the early 1800s was also the town's leading merchant in the valuable caravan trade to Aden. (See fig. 5.) Both men and a handful of other regional dignitaries traveled north to offer their allegiance to the imam. Like Basalama, who was reappointed to

his post in Ibb, al-Haddad was continued in his political position in Ta'izz and was also made presiding judge of the southern branch of the appeal court.

This Yemeni Shafi'i biography—bullets and a poem, military command and muftiship, political and judicial posts—is one that joins assertive leadership qualities and important state charges with distinguished scholarly credentials. In a manner reminiscent of an ideal Zaidi imam, al-Haddad combined an aptitude for statecraft (siyasa ) with shari'a knowledge: he "had a great capacity for siyasa ," his biographer writes, and "when he finished his work issuing juristic opinions and his responsibilities in conducting the administrative affairs of state, he would turn to study the works of al-Suyuti and others like him in the sciences of shari'a interpretation (ijtihad )." A more rarely instanced combination of power and knowledge, this alternative Sunni leadership ideal was modeled on the simple modesty of Abu Bakr (the first caliph) rather than, as was the Shi'i ideal, on the charisma of 'Ali (the fourth caliph) and the legitimacy of his issue. "Despite his unusual opportunity," the biographer remarks of al-Haddad, "he accumulated nothing in the way of worldly possessions, not even a house for his children." Al-Haddad was an urbane exemplar of a type of Yemeni "great man" accomplished in both the spoken and the written word. In stories told about him, al-Haddad is said to have expressed himself extemporaneously with audacious self-assurance, whether confronting the Ottoman sultan or the ruling Zaidi imam. In addition to his scholarly and administrative status, he was an adib , a man of letters: "Attributed to him are writings and dialogues, in verse and in prose, characterized by the most eloquent style and verbal facility."^[29]

Among al-Haddad's last works was a versification of Imam Yahya's recently issued ikhtiyarat , his personal shari'a interpretations.^[30] This commentary by a leading Shafi'i jurist on the opinions of the pivotal Zaidi interpreter is but one instance of an intellectual dialogue that has gone on in the highlands for many centuries. Aside from those aspects of their schools that set them apart—represented by their respective manuals, such as the Minhaj of al-Nawawi, the Mukhtasar of Abu Shuja', and the Azhar of Imam al-Murtada—in many other respects the Shafi'is and Zaidis of Yemen shared a common intellectual tradition. Beyond a convergence in the Quran itself, highland scholars of both schools held in equivalent esteem a number of fundamental works in such disciplines as hadith, Quran exegesis, grammar, and so on.^[31] A revitalizing synthesis of the combined tradition was the great accom-

plishment of Muhammad al-Shawkani, who is counted as an intellectual ancestor by virtually all Yemeni shari'a scholars.