Empire, Islam, and Politics of Difference The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage Politics, Society and Economy Edited by Suraiya Faroqhi, Halil İnalcık and Boğaç Ergene Advisory Board fikret adanir – antonis anastasopoulos – idris bostan palmira brummett – amnon cohen – jane hathaway klaus kreiser – hans georg majer – ahmet yaşar ocak abdeljelil temimi – gilles veinstein VOLUME 48 Empire, Islam, and Politics of Difference Ottoman Rule in Yemen, 1849–1919 By Thomas Kuehn LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011 Cover illustration: Ottoman Ḥamīdīye troops in “native” uniforms, Ṣanʿāʾ, 2 Nisan 1296/14 April 1880. Reproduced with kind permission of the library of the Research Centre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture (IRCICA), Istanbul. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kuehn, Thomas. Empire, Islam, and politics of difference : Ottoman rule in Yemen, 1849–1919 / by Thomas Kuehn. p. cm. — (The Ottoman Empire and its heritage : politics, society and economy, ISSN 1380-6076 ; v. 48) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-21131-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Yemen (Republic)—History—19th century. 2. Yemen (Republic)—History—20th century. 3. Yemen (Republic)—Colonization. 4. Turks—Yemen (Republic)—History—19th century. 5. Turks—Yemen (Republic)— History—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. DS247.Y47K84 2011 953.304—dc23 2011028675 ISSN 1380-6076 ISBN 978 90 04 21131 5 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. 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To my mother, Hannelore Kuehn, and to the memory of my father, Gerd Kuehn (1930–2009) with love and gratitude CONTENTS Acknowledgements ............................................................................ ix Note on Transliteration and Date Conversion ............................. xv Abbreviations ..................................................................................... xvii Maps ..................................................................................................... xix 1. Introduction .................................................................................. 1 2. The ‘Return of the Turks’: The Campaigns of 1871–73 and the Context of Tanẓīmāt Imperialism ...................................... 31 3. Imperial Visions: Knowledge Production, Empire, and the Creation of Difference, 1849–75 ................................................ 53 4. ‘According to Their Customs and Dispositions’: Elaborating Politics of Difference in Ottoman Yemen, 1874–91 .............. 91 5. Struggling for a Righteous Order: The Rise of the Zaydī imāms and the Reconfiguration of Difference, 1890–1908 .... 147 6. An Imperial Borderland as Colony? The Daʿʿān Agreement and the Reaffirmation of Colonial Ottomanism, 1905–19 .... 201 Conclusion .......................................................................................... 247 Bibliography ........................................................................................ 253 Index .................................................................................................... 271 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is one of the distinct pleasures that come with writing a book to acknowledge the help of individuals and institutions that made such a piece of work possible in the first place. This book grew out of a doctoral dissertation that I completed under the auspices of New York University’s Joint Ph.D. program in History and Middle Eastern Studies. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my mentors at NYU, Michael Gilsenan, Bernard Haykel (now at Princeton), and Zachary Lockman. With their intellectual rigor, creativity, and gener- osity they had the most profound influence on my own development as a scholar. I was extremely fortunate with my dissertation committee. Bernard Haykel was a fabulous senior supervisor. He guided me through this project with his incisive comments that pushed me to sharpen my focus and hone my argument, with his amazing knowledge of Yemeni history, and his insistence that often less is more. I am greatly indebted to Zachary Lockman for his advice and ample feedback that were cru- cial in helping me think through the research questions that informed the original dissertation and, later, the book. I would also like to thank the other committee members, Katherine Fleming, Hasan Kayalı, and Brinkley Messick for their guidance and support. Among my teachers at NYU Frederick Cooper deserves a special note of thanks. While not a member of my committee he read the entire dissertation and provided me with comments and suggestions that were invaluable for the process of revising it into a book. I am also grateful to Khaled Fahmy and Huricihan İslamoğlu (now in Istanbul) for asking tough questions and for encouraging me to put my research into a larger world historical context. This project would never have been completed without the support of many friends, colleagues, and teachers who gave generously of their time to read and comment on various portions of my work at different stages of its completion. Many thanks to Sabri Ateş, Laura Bier, Isa Blumi, Koray Çalışkan, Paul Dresch, Howard Eissenstat, Jens Hanssen, Christoph Herzog, Huricihan İslamoğlu, Dina Khoury, Wilson Jacob, Christoph K. Neumann, Eugene Rogan, Ariel Salzmann, Emma Sin- clair-Webb, Abed al-Tayyara, Mark Wagner, John Willis, and Carole x acknowledgements Woodall. I would also like to thank Isa and John for sharing their vast knowledge of nineteenth and twentieth-century Yemen and the Otto- man Empire and for always making time for discussing our research. John also kindly made both his doctoral dissertation and portions of his forthcoming book available to me. In Istanbul, Sinan Kuneralp offered advice, hospitality, and access to his private collection of Ottoman documents on Yemen. Christoph K. Neumann and Kathrin Neumann listened patiently, challenged my arguments, and provided me with a home away from home. Claus Schönig, Günter Seufert, and the staff of the Orient-Institut hosted me for two years as a guest researcher and always made me welcome. In Ṣanʿāʾ, Franck Mermier and the staff of the Centre Français d’Études Yéménites (now the Centre Français d’Archéologie et de Sciences Sociales de Sanaa) as well as Laila al-Zwaini, François Burgat, and Iris Glosemeyer provided contacts, support, and good company. I am grateful to all of them. At the History Department of Simon Fraser University, my new colleagues provided me with a friendly and intellectually stimulating environment. I thank the department chairs Jack Little, John Craig, and Mark Leier, as well the late William Cleveland, Derryl MacLean, and my faculty mentor John Stubbs for advice and assistance that helped me navigate the transition from graduate student to faculty. Alec Dawson, Jacob Eyferth (now at Chicago), Andrea Geiger, Paola Iovene (now at Chicago), Dimitris Krallis, and Janice Matsumura offered encouragement, opportunities for debate, and cheerful cama- raderie. Felicitas Becker (now at Cambridge), Jeremy Brown, Rod Day, Andrea Geiger, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick (now in Minne- apolis, MN), Paul Sedra, Jennifer Spear, and Ilya Vinkovetsky read the entire book manuscript or portions thereof and offered comments that were extremely helpful. On numerous occasions, Ruth Anderson, Judi Fraser, Anne Klein, Sheilagh MacDonald, Heather Skibeneckyj, Julie Sloan, Malcolm Toms, and Tessa Wright came to the rescue with administrative and IT support. Willeen Keough did her part of keep- ing me on track by greeting me in the hallway of the department for months with the words: “Have you finally sent off that manuscript!?” I would like to thank my editors at Brill, Kathy van Vliet-Leigh and Franca de Kort, for the professionalism and good humor with which they saw this project to its completion. I also thank the two anony- mous reviewers chosen by Brill for their thorough and constructive feedback. Valerie J. Turner, my copy-editor, saved me from many acknowledgements xi embarrassing errors and—gently but firmly—knocked the book man- uscript into shape. Needless to say, the responsibility for interpreta- tions and mistakes is entirely mine. I would also like to thank New York University’s Graduate School of Arts and Science, the International Dissertation Research Fellow- ship program of the Social Science Research Council, the American Research Institute in Turkey, the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch- dienst (DAAD), the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, and the Skiliter Centre for Ottoman Studies at the University of Cambridge for funding my dissertation research. The Orient-Institut in Istanbul provided further support with a graduate assistantship, for which I am extremely grateful. NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Science greatly facilitated the writing of the dissertation with a Dean’s Dis- sertation Fellowship. A President’s Research Grant from Simon