Islam, Memory, And Morality In Yemen: Ruling Families In Transition (contemporary Anthropology Of Religion)

Islam, Memory, and Morality in Yemen tells a story of a Yemeni hereditary elite which was overthrown in the 1962 revolution in North Yemen. For over a millennium, they had enjoyed exclusive rights to the leadership of the Imamate, the religiously sanctioned state. Following the violent removal from power of King Faysal of Iraq in 1958, the overthrow of the Yemeni Imamate - the longest lasting Hashimite rule in the Middle East - confirmed the decline of Hashimite power (held by ruling generations claiming descent from the Prophet Muhammad). However, rather than concentrating on recent political history, Islam, Memory, and Morality in Yemen highlights the personal predicament of those targeted by the revolution, in which they served as the foil for the new regime's moral and political ascendancy. Focusing on the cultural politics of memory, the book explores how members of the elite remember in the process of making sense of their current lives and formulating responses to adversity. Front Matter....Pages i-xix Introduction Locating Memory: The Dialectics of Incorporation and Differentiation....Pages 1-25 Front Matter....Pages 27-27 The House of the Prophet....Pages 29-43 The Zaydi Elite during the Twentieth-Century Imamate....Pages 44-63 The Anatomy of Houses....Pages 64-85 Front Matter....Pages 87-87 Snapshots of Childhood....Pages 89-101 Performing Kinship....Pages 102-127 Front Matter....Pages 129-129 The Politics of Motherhood....Pages 131-144 Marriage in the Age of Revolution....Pages 145-162 “ ’Ulama of a Different Kind”....Pages 163-184 The Moral Economy of Taste....Pages 185-195 Front Matter....Pages 197-197 Defining through Defaming....Pages 199-215 Memory, Trauma, Self-Identification....Pages 216-236 History through the Looking Glass....Pages 237-247 Conclusion Frontiers of Memory....Pages 248-254 Back Matter....Pages 255-348 This book tells a story of a Yemeni hereditary elite that was overthrown in the 1962 revolution in North Yemen, after enjoying exclusive rights to the leadership of the Imamate, the religiously sanctioned state for over a millennium. Rather than concentrating on recent political history, this book highlights the personal predicament of those targeted by the revolution. What is their sense of "past" and "self" in a transformed political setting where in some respects the mark of distinction has become a mark of disrepute? Focusing on the cultural politics of memory, the book explores how--in making sense of their current lives and formulating responses to adversity--members of the elite remember. Vom Bruck tells the story of a Yemeni hereditary elite overthrown in the 1962 revolution. As the power of the Hashemites declined throughout the Middle East, how did the members of this elite come to view their identity & their place in the Arab world?