Tribes, Government and History in Yemen By Paul Dresch. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Abstract

This book is complex and, at points, obscure. Yet it is also an exceptionally
rich collection of information about trihal identity and ethos in Yemen and, for
scholars with a special interest in Yemeni society, can be a valuable resource.
The author orients much of his material toward two main questions, neither of
which I formulated explicitly: How can tribal political organization and state
legal institutions co-exist, not only for brief moments but for over 1,000 years?
and How have the names and boundaries of tribal territories been preserved with
little change for such a long time?
The answer to the first question is on p. 165: " ... the hijrah [in Yemeni
Arabic: a protected space or person] provided the point around which both states
of the world turned: strong Imams fheads of state] and weak. It could do so because it meant different things to different people.” The first 150 pages of the
book, especially chapters 2 (“The Language of Honour”), 3 (“Tribes and
Collective Action”) and 4 (“Estates of Society within the Tribal Peace”), lead up
to and persuaded us to accept the conclusion that the mutual recognition by the
state and by the tribes of neutral zones and people in tribal territories facilitated
trade, tribe-state communication, and contact between literate Islamic specialists
and illiterate farmers and stock-breeders. Even when the interests of the tribes
and the state were directly opposed (for instance, in controlling roads and determining
rates of taxation), violent conflicts between tribe and state were kept
partly in check by tribal custom, just as they were when tribe clashed with tribe
(see pp. 267, 268, 379-387) ...