Imams of Yemen

Monarch of Yemen
Monarch of Yemen
	Coat of arms of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen
Details
First monarch	al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya
Last monarch	Muhammad al-Badr
Formation	c. 897
Abolition	1 December 1970
Residence	Dar al-Hajar, Sanaa, Yemen
Pretender(s)	Ageel bin Muhammad al-Badr

The Imams of Yemen, later also titled the Kings of Yemen, were religiously consecrated leaders (imams) belonging to the Zaidiyyah branch of Shia Islam. They established a blend of religious and temporal-political rule in parts of Yemen from 897. Their imamate endured under varying circumstances until the end of the North Yemen Civil War in 1970, following the republican revolution in 1962. Zaidiyyah theology differs from Isma'ilism and Twelver Shi’ism by stressing the presence of an active and visible imam as leader. The imam was expected to be knowledgeable in religious scholarship, and to prove himself a worthy headman of the community, even in battle if this was necessary. A claimant of the imamate would proclaim a "call" (dawah), and there were not infrequently more than one claimant.^[1]

^ Jane Hathaway, A Tale of Two Factions; Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen. New York 2003, pp. 79–81.

[1] Jane Hathaway, A Tale of Two Factions; Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen. New York 2003, pp. 79–81.

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