The Houthis in Yemen: From Saada to Bab al-Mandeb (2)

II. Zaydism: A Doctrine of the Living Imam and Revolt

A Singular Branch of Shiism

Shiism (shī‘a, “party” of Ali) regards Ali ibn Abi Talib and his descendants, the “People of the House” (Ahl al-Bayt), as the legitimate successors of the Prophet. Over the course of succession disputes, it split into several branches: the Twelvers, who form the majority in Iran, Iraq and Bahrain and are also strongly represented in Lebanon; the Ismailis; the so-called “extremist” currents (ghulāt); and the Zaydis, today concentrated in northwestern Yemen.

Zaydism takes its name from Zayd ibn Ali, grandson of Hussein, who rose up against the Umayyads and died a martyr in 740. His nephew Ja‘far al-Sadiq, who would become a major reference for the future Twelvers, refused to follow him. The split occurred precisely over this point: whether to follow the imam who takes up arms against injustice, or to wait. Zayd maintained close ties with the Mu‘tazilite Wasil ibn Ata, while Abu Hanifa, founder of one of the major Sunni schools of law, studied under him and supported his revolt. This proximity explains why Zaydism has long been described as “the most Sunni of the Shiisms.”

The Principles: Presence, Khuruj and Descent

Three ideas distinguish Zaydism from Twelver Shiism. The first is the presence of the imam: there is no hidden imam and no awaited Mahdi, but rather a living leader who must manifest himself. The second is the duty of armed revolt (khuruj) against an unjust ruler, which is itself a condition for attaining the imamate. The third is the rejection of dissimulation (taqiyya) and passive waiting (intizar), which characterize Twelver Shiism.

The imam must meet a series of conditions: piety, knowledge at the level of a mujtahid, courage, a sense of justice, generosity, asceticism, and, above all, he must have proclaimed himself and taken up arms. He must also descend from Hassan or Hussein, the two sons of Ali and Fatima. It is this last condition that underpins the central place of the Hashemites in Zaydi society.

Several Zaydisms

The tradition includes several schools. The Salihiyya and the Batriyya accept the imamate of the less meritorious despite the presence of the more meritorious, which allows them to recognize the legitimacy of the first two caliphs; in legal matters, they are close to Sunnism. The Sulaymaniyya regards those caliphates as an “error” on the part of the community without going as far as anathematizing them. The Jarudiyya, finally, which brings together the followers of Abu al-Jarud, is closer to the Twelvers: it holds that the Prophet designated Ali and judges Abu Bakr and Omar harshly.

In Yemen, it is this last interpretation that prevailed. Imam al-Hadi Yahya ibn al-Hussein, founder of the Zaydi state in 890, or 897 according to some sources, made it the official doctrine and restricted the imamate to descendants of Hassan and Hussein alone, the Hasanayn. Yemeni Zaydis thus became, in practice, Jarudis. Yet dissenting voices never ceased to challenge this monopoly of lineage.

From the Imamate to the Republic, Then to Revival

The Zaydi imamate ruled the northern highlands, with periods of Ottoman interruption, for more than a thousand years. It came to an end on September 26, 1962, when officers overthrew Imam Muhammad al-Badr and proclaimed the Yemen Arab Republic. A founding paradox followed: many of these officers were themselves Zaydis, but came from the tribes rather than the Hashemite nobility. The civil war that followed, from 1962 to 1970, pitted royalists backed by Saudi Arabia against republicans supported by Nasser’s Egypt.

For Zaydism, the fall of the imamate represented an existential threat. History indeed shows that wherever Zaydism lost its political pillar, in Iraq or in the Iranian regions of Gilan and Daylam, it eventually disappeared as a doctrine. Its strength lies more in its practical and political dimension, the imamate, enjoining good, and revolt against injustice, than in metaphysics. The major religious authority Majd al-Din al-Mu’ayyadi therefore undertook efforts to preserve the Zaydi heritage from Saada, Taif and Najran, while refusing to recognize the legitimacy of republican rule.

In 1990, faced with the rise of Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood, some Zaydi scholars took a historic step: they declared that the condition of Hashemite descent for governing belonged to the past and that leadership of the nation should be open to all citizens. Badreddine al-Houthi, second in the hierarchy of Zaydi religious authorities, rejected this revision and remained faithful to the Jarudi interpretation.

Houthi Neo-Zaydism

It is upon this refusal that the movement was built. It is a form of “political Zaydism,” or, more precisely, political Hashemism: domestic mobilization and the external alliance with Iran and Hezbollah have taken place under the banner of a Hashemite restoration. The movement has added to this borrowings from Iranian revolutionary Shiism, visible in the introduction of commemorations such as Ashura, in the sarkha slogan, and in the prominence given to Palestine.

The movement thus combines the identity of a persecuted minority, a modern organization and a hegemonic claim. Its theory of power is a mixture of traditional Zaydism, family rule in the manner of the Gulf monarchies, and elements of the Iranian revolutionary system, all under a republican façade. A symbol of this shift is that September 21, the date of the Houthi takeover of Sanaa in 2014, has replaced the September 26 celebration, which many Yemenis continue to mark by lighting up their rooftops.

Next article: From Saada to Sanaa: The Paradoxical Alliance and the Seizure of Power