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This is the first systematic survey of the architecture of Yemen, covering the full range of vernacular building types, styles, and materials found throughout the country. It may also be the last look at this architecture in its purest, most homogeneous form as Yemen becomes increasingly susceptible to the Western influences which have already begun to alter the environments of its richer neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula. The carefully chosen photographs and line drawings make this a definitive reference book for architects, travelers, and readers interested in a remarkably varied and elaborate architectural tradition.

Part one, Space and Form, covers the environment and its control through dams, terraces, wells, and moats; the basic types of shelters from tents and caves to the remarkable "tower houses" (commonly six stories high) and the basic types of settlements from desert outgrowths and hilltop hamlets to urban centers of trade and polity; building methods and materials, including mud, plaster, stone, and brick; and architectural elements such as roofs, walls, gratings, doors, and windows (many with brilliantly colored glass).

The book's second part, Regional Surveys, notes architectural variations and distributions from the coastal strip to the midlands, highlands, and plateau, and includes a separate chapter on urban development.

Fernando Varanda is an architect who has spent a number of years in Yeman under the auspices of the United Nations and later the Art and Archaeology Research Papers of London. ... Read more

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This volume contains an important and detailed examination of the evolution of Sabaic language and culture, utilizing a number of previously unpublished pre-Islamic South Arabian inscriptions. ... Read more

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This chronicle is the fullest and best historical source fro the conquest of Yemen to the end of the 13th century. ... Read more

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An important edition to the study of Islamic history and culture
This book covers the history of Yemen under the Egyptian Ayyubids (those of Salahuddin) and Rasulids, their administration of the country and the social climate of the country.Make sure you get the 2 volumes as volume one is the Arabic edition and volume 2 the English translation (that is of course unless you speak Arabic!) ... Read more

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In 1990 the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen united to form the Republic of Yemen. The following decade was marked by the political process of unification on the one hand, and by the processes of changing institutions, social dynamics and merged economies on the other.This book focuses on the major social, legal and economic aspects of this transformation, and it is possibly the only such analysis concentrating on these aspects during a crucial period in the history of modern Yemen. The 1990s witnessed the birth of an entity significantly different from its original constituent states. In addition to the process of establishing unified institutions, the decade was marked by increased revenues from oil exports, the worsening of the water crisis affecting agriculture and hence the income base for over 70 per cent of the population, the financial, economic and social crisis brought about by the 1990-91 Gulf War in the first half of the decade, and the greater influence of foreign aid institutions in the second half of the decade, in addition to the ongoing rapid increase in the population.The book brings together work by leading Yemeni and international scholars and addresses all these important developments, directly or indirectly, so as to provide a unique analysis of key economic, social and legal issues facing Yemen at the start of the twenty-first century. ... Read more

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Dated Beyond Hope
In recent years, Yemen, a backwater for centuries, is in the news as Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland and an important battlefield in the war on terrorism, M. Rubin from the MEQ states. But don't expect this volume, assembled by researchers and lecturers at Exeter University (Mahdi and Lackner) and the Free University of Berlin (Würth), to touch these subjects as this collection of papers dates from a conference that took place in 1998. Rather, subjects covered include political economy, the legal system, environment, and social and regional issues. Left unaddressed--by the editors' own admission--are foreign relations, military affairs, and party politics.

Many articles show their age. Charles Schmitz, an associate professor at Towson University, for example, seeks to extrapolate future challenges to the Yemeni society based on economic indicators from the early 1990s. What once may have been timely becomes silly when delayed publication means, in effect, skipping over a decade of more recent statistics. Drew University professor Nora Ann Colton's section on labor migration raises eyebrows because it addresses "the Gulf crisis" without reference to the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent fall of the Saddam Hussein regime.

Such datedness is a pity. Scholarly literature on Yemen is sparse, and many of the chapters are serious. The contributors have not substituted theory for research, and the analysis of the judiciary and its machinations is useful. Updating former presidential legal advisor Hussein al-Hubaishi's chapter on commercial litigation would be especially valuable given growing U.S., European, and Chinese interest in investment in the region. Also in need of expansion are the articles on medical care and health. Given its potential, how frustrating it is that Yemen into the Twenty-First Century remains stubbornly in the twentieth.
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The Uyun al-akhbar is the most complete text by an Ismaili author on the history of the Ismaili community, from its origins up to Idris ‘Imad al-Din’s own time in the 15th century. The seventh volume, edited here for the first time, together with a summary English translation, deals in particular with the period of the three Fatimid caliphs, al-Mustansir, al-Musta’li, and al-Amir, in addition to the Tayyibi Ismaili community in Yemen.
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Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent Textbook
I have been looking for this precious book (Uyoun Al-Akhbar V.7) for long time & I am really glad that I found it. Moreover, I am still searching for V. I, II, & III of the same book since I already have now the last 4 volumes i.e. 4-7.

Book is in Arabic - only summary is in English
The book includes an 80 page summary in English of the book, which is in Arabic. While Amazon.com description states that the summary is in English, it does not state that the bulk of the book is in Arabic.

While the Introduction and Summary are interesting, the English summary is mainly about personalities and very little about doctrines of the Yamani successors of the Fatimids.

I give it 5 stars for the translation but cannot rate the book overall. Because rating is required, I give it a 3. ... Read more

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This book discusses the uniqueness of messianic aspirations of thenineteenth-century jews of Yemen, and displays the unprecedented role thatthese aspirations played in all sectors of their life. The study employs adiachronic approach; it presents the development of Jewish messianicexpressions in Yemen and explains how Jewish messianic ideology and movementswere receptive to eschatological notions and to messianic movements of YemeniMuslims.Particular attention is devoted to the messianic movements of Shukr Kuhayl I(1861-65), Shukr Kuhayl II (1868-75), and Yosef `Abdallah (1888-93). Otherthemes include Yemeni Jewish apocalyptic literature, messianic motifs inrabbinic writings and messianic expressions in the Yemeni Jewish waves ofmigration to Palestine (1881-1914). ... Read more

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Reevaluates the foundation myths of two rival factions in Egypt during the Ottoman era. ... Read more

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In a groundbreaking study of contemporary Arab political poetry, Flagg Miller provides a wide range of insights into the ways that modern media aesthetics are shaped by language and culture. Investigating a vibrant audio-recording industry in southern Yemen, The Moral Resonance of Arab Media shows how new forms of political activism emerge through sensory engagements with Arabic poetry and song. From the 1940s onward, a new cadre of political activists has used audio-recording technologies, especially the audiocassette, to redefine traditional Muslim authorship.

Cassette producers address conflicted views about the resurgence of tribalism by showing Yemenis how to adapt traditional mores toward more progressive and pluralistic aims. Skilled bards continue to perform orally marked tribal verse. As Miller demonstrates through an analysis of several centuries of changing media ecology, however, oral performance is anything but static. Much of the power of orality stems from its relation to writing, print, and audiovisual media that link tribal ideals with metropolitan and national discourses. Through an examination of the lives and works of individual poets, singers, and audiences, Moral Resonance shows how tribalism becomes a resource for critical reform when expressed in tropes of community, place, person, and history. Yemenis' use of audiocassettes turns such tropes into cultural resources for morally evaluating political liberalism.

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Exhibitions at the British Museum are always accompanied by catalogues, which are often worthwhile books in their own right; this one is no exception and would serve very well as an introduction to the subject. There are twelve chapters on Sheba in western popular culture and legend, what exactly is known about Saba' and the Sabaeans (the kingdom in southern Arabia associated with Sheba), the incense trade, agriculture, arts, architecture, languages and writing, religion and death and funerary practices. Over 300 items are described and illustrated with colour photographs and the production is beautiful throughout. ... Read more

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Since the rise of Islam, Jews have been living in the Yemen as the onlynon-Muslim minority. Their status, never enviable, deteriorated in thetwentieth century as the Imam Yahya sought to maintain the full force ofIslamic law and local custom. The attempts to create a Jewish National Home inPalestine, Arab propaganda, new economic realities and local resentments hadthe effect of further undermining their position. While battling to maintaintheir rights, the Yemenite Jews started trying to emigrate. Britishimmigration policies in Palestine, the Imam's efforts to prevent them fromleaving, and British regulations in Aden often frustrated their efforts. Thismovement of people was to culminate in 1948-50 in what was then the largesthuman airlift the world had ever seen - Operation Magic Carpet - when theYemenites were taken `on wings of eagles' to Israel. ... Read more

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Brilliant
With the rise of Islam, the powerful Jewish communities of Arabia were destroyed or subjugated and merged into the Arab Islamic population. Mohammed accused the three Jewish tribes of Medina (Banu I-Nadir, Banu Qurayza and Banu Qaynuqa) of corrupting the message he had revealed to them, and they were executed or expelled.

Jewish communities in Khaybar, Fadak and Wadi I-Qura were either subjugated or forced to pay tribute. In time, all remaining Jews were executed or expelled.

In Yemen, however, Jewish tribes remained past the time of Mohammed and into the modern age. They were, according to Parfitt, totally and completely subjugated and forced to pay the annual jizya (poll tax) first implemented by Caliph Omar ibn Abd al-Khattab (634-644).

While land remained in the hands of the conquered people, they were forced to pay a kharaj, or land tax, as well as the poll tax, and thus they supported the conquering armies. In exchange for these taxes, while the laws theoretically "protected" the dhimmis and allowed them to practice their own religion, they also institutionally discriminated against them.

Dhimmis could not strike a Muslim, block his path, could not assist one another to oppose a Muslim in any respect, could not build new places of worship or repair old ones, could not ride horses or camels (only donkeys, which they must ride side-saddle and dismount for Muslims to pass), could not hold religious processions or noisy celebrations of any kind, could not proselytize, could not bear arms, could not wink, and were forced to wear distinctive dress so as to be recognizable as dhull, or debased ones.

These laws remained in effect at least until the colonial period began in the 19th century. The Jews of Yemen remained then the only minority in Arabia, and they lived for centuries under these draconian laws of conquest.

Aside from covering these origins of the Yemenite Jewish community in the opening chapter, this magnificent piece of scholarship examines in close detail their situation from the beginning of the 20th century until their mass exodus from Yemen in the 1950s. In the 1920s, for example, the difficult situation imposed by the British on Jews wishing to emigrate to mandate Palestine applied equally to the Yemenite Jews.

At the same time, the ruling Imam, or Yahya, reimposed many of the ancient Islamic customs, including the forced conversion to Islam of orphaned Jewish children. In 1923, a letter to the Jewish community in London spoke of 42 children seized by the authorities and forcibly converted to Islam. Even a 70 year old man was forced to renounce his faith because he too was an orphan. Jewish leaders who tried to rescue them were imprisoned and beaten.

The 80 orphans spirited out of Yemen to Aden in 1929 were beset by British authorities with a tax that, if they could not pay, meant their deportation back to Yemen. Finally 250 orphans escaped to British territory. Eventually, help arrived, and some emigrated to Palestine legally, while others fled there illegally.

Jews in Yemen were forced to live in a separate Jewish quarter. When they accidentally brushed against a Muslim, they were forced to pay the Muslim for soap to clean themselves. Jews were required to remove human feces from Muslim areas in Sanaa and then elsewhere. These measures were introduced at the beginning of the 19th century and reintroduced in about 1913.

Jews figure til today in Yemeni proverbs as objects of contempt.

I once knew a lovely Yemenite Muslim woman, kind and gentle, who at the height of the suicide bombing wave in Israel condemned the perpetrators and their minders as "evil." She insisted that in her country, Jews and Muslims got along very well together. I have no doubt that was her personal experience.

Overall, however, this brilliant, 285-page book belies that notion, for the most part, as myth.

--Alyssa A. Lappen ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Picture book with backbone
Peter Wald, a journalist with a long personal relation to the Near East in general as well as to the Yemen(s), gives an interesting introduction for those who never happened to stay in Yemen or those who did not get intocloser contact with the country and its people. The book focuses on culture(including the famous architecture) and art but starts with a relativelydetailed account of the history from the beginnings (800 BC) of the Kingdomof Saba until present, including information on reunification and the lastcivil war. His pages on Western explorers of Southern Arabia do not contentwith the well-known ones but also mention Joseph Halévy, Hermann Burchardt,f.i., and give a plastic account of the adventures of Wendell Philipps whowent into real trouble when trying to excavate an ancient site in Ma'rib.The choices of the tours, however, are very selective, andthe added partson travel information and on the language stay way behind the quality ofthe lonely planet of Pertti Hamalainen (now in its 4th ed.). This holdstrue for the maps, too, but it certainly was a good idea to incorporate twoof them - a topical and a historical (of Carsten Niebuhr) one - into thecover pages. The glossary seems a little short, while the recommendationsfor further reading are quite exhaustive for non-specialists. Written in anon-academic style, and with a photo on almost every page, Peter Wald'sguide of Yemen makes up for a very pleasent - while still informative -reading. ... Read more

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The importance of the text which is used as the basis of this book was first recognized in the 1950s by both Claude Cahen and R.B. Serjeant. By good fortune, their individual research efforts were brought together by a mutual friend and colleague and from the 1950s until their deaths in the 1990s they worked intermittently on the text in collaboration. Alas, at the time of their deaths, nothing of their scholarly endeavours had been published. This relatively short treatise with its description of the roles of many government officials and its lists of taxes etc., is of immense importance to scholars of the medieval Middle East in general and to those of Arabia and the Yemen in particular. It is of tremendous importance as a primary source for the economic history of the thirteenth, fourteenth and early fifteenth century Rasulid state. It is hoped that the facsimile edition which is fully annotated and contains all the necessary introductory material, as well as glossaries and indices, will enable scholars to exploit the contents of this fascinating early fifteenth century document to the full. ... Read more

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In this first full-scale ethnographic study of Yemeni tribal poetry, Steven Caton reveals an astonishingly rich folkloric system where poetry is both a creation of art and a political and social act. Almost always spoken or chanted, Yemeni tribal poetry is cast in an idiom considered colloquial and "ungrammatical," yet admired for its wit and spontaneity. In Yemeni society, the poet has power over people.By eloquence the poet can stir or, if his poetic talents are truly outstanding, motivate an audience to do his bidding. Yemeni tribesmen think, in fact, that poetry's transformative effect is too essential not to use for pressing public issues.Drawing on his three years of field research in North Yemen, Caton illustrates the significance of poetry in Yemeni society by analyzing three verse genres and their use in weddings, war mediations, and political discourse on the state. Moreover, Caton provides the first anthropology of poetics. Challenging Western cultural assumptions that political poetry can rarely rise above doggerel, Caton develops a model of poetry as cultural practice. To compose a poem is to construct oneself as a peacemaker, as a warrior, as a Muslim. Thus the poet engages in constitutive social practice.Because of its highly interdisciplinary approach, this book will interest a wide range of readers including anthropologists, linguists, folklorists, literary critics, and scholars of Middle Eastern society, language, and culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Poetry Made Me
The number of books written on Napoleon or the American Civil War exceeds the imagination.Diets, dogs, and data processing are often found on the shelves too.But then there are topics nobody ever thinks of taking up until one brave soul decides to give it a try.Over time, anthropology has moved closer to literature, using literary analysis and discourse.Steven Caton has combined research and thought on disparate, sometimes esoteric topics into a complex and fascinating book on the place of poetry in tribal Yemeni culture.I would be lying if I said it were easy to read.I imagine that the number of people who NEED to read or who WANT to read Caton's book is exceedingly small.Yemen is not even central to the thoughts of most anthropologists in the world.Thus, not only do you need to care about Yemen, but you should also have some expertise in poetry, in aesthetics, in ideas about social construction of self, and in such intellectual exercises as cultural theory and the poetic process.Though I am an anthropologist with an amateur interest in Yemen, I still came to this book lacking most of these things.I found it mighty rough going.Some academics and a few graduate students are probably the majority of Caton's readership.Too bad.

PEAKS OF YEMEN I SUMMON is an extraordinarily interesting work.It's not simply an ethnography of poetry in Yemeni society, though it could be called that; it's an attempt to tackle larger issues about ways of becoming a Yemeni man, about poetry and identity, about poetry and cultural change.Yemeni tribespeople, at least 20 years ago, used poetry as a vital weapon in life's battles---for honor, prestige, and persuasion.At weddings, they used a form called balah to fight word battles, both humorous and real, over issues of prestige, and used the same poems to indicate proper Islamic and Yemeni tribal values to the young man being married. (women live in another sphere of poetry, not accessible to male researchers)Music accompanied balah, the verses were always impromptu and orality supreme, i.e. the poems were never, ever written down.Zamil, a second type of poem, was also chanted on politically-charged occasions, typically when two quarreling groups tried to iron things out.Qasidah, a third kind of poetry, was produced by individual poets alone and could be listened to on tape (in the 1980s), much more like poetry in our own society, but it also often concerned itself with politics.Poets lived precarious lives in a politically unstable society.The central government in San'a strives for control, the tribes struggle to maintain autonomy.Caton spends a lot of time explaining how poetry is intrinsic to political maneuvering and power politics in Yemeni society."The composition of poetry", he says, "is embedded in an extremely important political process---the dispute mediation---in which power, such as it exists in this system, must be achieved through persuasion."Caton states that he wishes to demonstrate poetry's centrality to the entire sociopolitical and cultural system.He wants to show how poetry in Yemen connects intimately to cultural belief and social practice, unlike in the West.I believe he succeeds brilliantly.You need patience to wade through the detail and the intricate loops of reasoning.If you persevere you will be rewarded with a lot of interesting insights and thought-provoking views.It's a high risk/high gain book.I wonder if anyone in Washington has even heard of it ?"Arbitration of disputes among Arabs" and "values in Islamic societies" are hardly useless topics these days ! ... Read more

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Yemen is an arid and mountainous country in the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen is mostly rural, with over half the population below age 15, and more than one-fifth of its 22 million people are malnourished. One of the poorest Arab countries, Yemen's birth and population growth rates are also among the world's highest. With an annual growth rate of 3.4 %, the population could double by 2030. The country's current fertility rate is 6.2. This reflects a high birthrate, 39.2 per 1,000 population, and a declining mortality rate, 11 per 1,000 population. Yemen's infant mortality rate, however, still ranks as one of the highest in the world. This includes a mortality rate of 102 per 1,000 live births for children under 5 years old in 2003. From the late 1980s through the late 1990s, Yemen experienced a high maternal mortality ratio of 351 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Maternal deaths account for about 42% of all deaths among Yemeni women between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine. Since the unification of Yemen in 1990, several structural reforms and policy changes have been introduced to control its population growth. Although the government recognizes population growth as a major challenge to development, little progress has been made in implementing population policy and societal consensus remains elusive. Thus, the structural context of reproduction in Yemen exposes women to a large number of risks.The disadvantages of poverty and poor health among women are passed on from one generation to the next. Even during the course of reproduction, poor women face several threats to their physical and mental well being. While these disadvantages have been well chronicled in most societies, not much is known about reproductive health in many poor Arab countries. But for a few rich Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the state of reproductive health among women in poor Arab states has been hardly investigated. Although, more recently, several studies have attempted to document poor reproductive health conditions in this part of the world, a few countries go unnoticed mostly due to the lack of access to national level data. The Republic of Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, has for several reasons failed to draw the attention of social science researchers. The authors began a number of studies to learn more about Yemeni women's reproductive health under the conditions of dire social and economic disadvantages caused by extreme poverty. This book is a compilation of the authors' studies on Yemen and attempts to draw conclusions which would not have been possible with a single study.The book examines the reproductive health of women in Yemen. Women's reproductive health has emerged as an area of concern among development agencies and international agencies such as the United Nations. However, theoretical models for examining reproductive health appear to lag behind the massive amount of reproductive health rhetoric in the recent years. Even though there is no uniform definition of reproductive health, we characterize reproductive health by focusing on the three components of fertility: intercourse, conception and gestation. This method directs attention to the context of reproduction in developing countries. In addition, the book reveals the previously underappreciated role of abortion in contributing to the first stages of fertility decline. The study finds that higher economic levels and improved social conditions for women do help bring about real improvements in many dimensions of reproductive health.Women's Reproductive Health in Yemen is an important book for scholars in demography and population health. ... Read more

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Throughout the Middle East, Islamist charities and social welfare organizations play a major role in addressing the socioeconomic needs of Muslim societies, independently of the state. Through case studies of Islamic medical clinics in Egypt, the Islamic Center Charity Society in Jordan, and the Islah Women's Charitable Society in Yemen, Janine A. Clark examines the structure and dynamics of moderate Islamic institutions and their social and political impact. Questioning the widespread assumption that such organizations primarily serve the poorer classes, Clark argues that these organizations in fact are run by and for the middle class. Rather than the vertical recruitment or mobilization of the poor that they are often presumed to promote, Islamic social institutions play an important role in strengthening social networks that bind middle-class professionals, volunteers, and clients. Ties of solidarity that develop along these horizontal lines foster the development of new social networks and the diffusion of new ideas.

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This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Trübner in 1882 in 264 pages; Subjects: Egypt; History / Ancient / Egypt; History / Middle East / Egypt; Juvenile Nonfiction / History / Middle East; Travel / Middle East / Egypt; ... Read more