Yemen's last Zaydī Imām: the shabāb al-muʾmin, the Malāzim, and ‘ḥizb allāh’ in the thought of Ḥusayn Badr al-Dīn al-Ḥūthī

Abstract

Excerpted from the manuscript of a forthcoming book project, this article provides essential English-language source material on Ḥusayn Badr al-Dīn al-Ḥūthī and an alternative framework to that of the mainstream media for exploring what are likely the genuine causes and nature of the wars against Ṣaʿdah, Yemen, undertaken with backing and technical assistance from the United States, if not direct complicity in the name of then President George W. Bush's administration's ‘war on terror’. In addition to shedding light on the voluminous Malāzim of Ḥusayn Badr al-Dīn and providing analysis of its various influences including Khomeini and Lebanon's Ḥizb Allāh, while at the same time demonstrating a lack of evidence for direct support by either Ḥizb Allāh or Iran, the article examines the distinct Jārūdī Zaydī nature of the only contemporary Zaydī political discourse and formulation of its kind, which is distinct from Twelver Shīʿism and antithetical to the ‘wilāyat al-faqīh’ in Iran. The article examines the origins of the Lebanese group known as al-Shabāb al-Muʾmin that would later evolve into Ḥizb Allāh and the history of Yemen's Tanẓīm al-Shabāb al-Muʾmin from which al-Ḥūthī would draw his core group of supporters, and it aims to decipher the nature of the relation between al-Ḥūthī's thought and Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran as well as its grounding in the Jārūdī Zaydī sect and the Zaydīyah at large. The article includes excerpts from an interview with Ayatollah Muḥammad Ḥusayn Faḍlallah on the subject, new statements from the Office of ʿAbd al-Mālik al-Ḥūthī in Ṣaʿdah, and in-depth analysis of the Malāzim with exhaustive citations in translation – all never before published – all of which provide essential reading for understanding the objective historical conditions as well as the political, cultural, tribal, ideological, and sectarian dimensions of the wars against Ṣaʿdah.