The Merchant Houses of Mocha: Trade and Architecture in an Indian Ocean Port

3. A Littoral Society in Yemen

48 3 A Littoral Society inYemen Maritime historians have long struggled over the question of which direction port cities face. In many studies the maritime world is sacrificed for the interior hinterland; in others the prospects of the sea far outweigh the significance of the isolated inland. In light of this conflict, the Indian Ocean historian M. N. Pearson urged that maritime scholars use the notion of a “littoral society,” which inherently “includes both land and sea.”1 A littoral society is one that is linked to the maritime world through key ports but extends into the interior territories that are also affected by the shaping forces of the sea, its travelers, and its cargos. The H ˙ ad ˙ ramawt region in eastern Yemen is a prime example of an extended littoral society. The effects of Indian Ocean trade and travel have tangibly penetrated into its heartland, not simply stopping at coastal nodes. As the anthropologist Engseng Ho described, generations of H ˙ ad ˙ ramı̄ diasporic families have retained vital connections with relatives in East Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, thereby functioning as “local cosmopolitan” residents of the key inland cities of Tarı̄m and Sayūn, far from the open sea.2 Whereas Ho and other scholars have cast the H ˙ ad ˙ ramawt in this interregional Indian Ocean framework, the broad influence of maritime economies and cultures in the landed Red Sea region has not received the same attention. In the case of western Yemen, certainly all of the lowland Tihāma coast, which includes Mocha and stretches along the Red Sea, may be considered a littoral society tied closely to the fortunes of the Red Sea basin. Yet Pear- A Littoral Society in Yemen 49 son’s concept may be extended even further to trace the influence of this littoral society as it stretched into the core of Qāsimı̄ Yemen, radiating away from Mocha’s port. Although the seat of the ruling imam was located in the interior highlands, a journey of at least ten days from the southern Red Sea coast, historians of early modern Yemen agree that the profits of the Mocha trade had a major economic effect on the entire southwestern Arabian Peninsula.3 Goods, capital, and ideas entered by sea through the port of Mocha and were brought into the interior by the traveling merchants and Qāsimı̄ administrators who frequently traversed the roads linking Mocha to the centers of activity in the Yemeni highlands. Indeed, these paths between coast and capital represent the channels of elite mobility that were central to the functional integrity of the Qāsimı̄ domain. Ashin Das Gupta stressed that the nexus of power in eighteenth-century Yemen “stretched from the quays at Mocha to the palace at Sana.”4 In this chapter I look at the administrative structure of Qāsimı̄ Yemen as that of an extended littoral society, with a focus on the governance of its major port, Mocha. The biographies and patronage histories of three of Mocha’s long-seated governors reveal the tight social and economic fabric that linked the central highlands to the coastal port society and allowed for the relative internationalization of the Qāsimı̄ dynasty, which is often cast as an inaccessible and isolated Shı̄ı̄ imamate, far from contact in the mountains of Yemen. The port’s significant profits stimulated the construction and renovation of buildings, an effect that penetrated throughout Yemen, bringing the maritime sphere into the most inaccessible mountain enclaves. Together, the administrative structure, flows of revenue, and the tangible products of architectural and cultural sponsorship provide a clear understanding of the ways in which agendas of Yemeni authority and Indian Ocean profit intersected during the era of Qāsimı̄ rule. The Imam Zaydism differs from Imāmı̄ Shı̄ı̄ Islam in its concepts of leadership and authority. Zaydı̄s, unlike Ismāı̄lı̄s and Twelvers—the largest Shı̄ı̄ subdivision —do not believe their imams are infallible, nor do they insist on an uninterrupted succession of hereditary imams. Rather, their focus is directed to the preeminence of a righteous imam. In principle, anyone may become imam who is of age, is male, is pious, and has moral and physical integrity andcourage.HemustalsobeamemberofthefamilyoftheProphet(asayyid), 50 A Littoral Society in Yemen descended through Fāt ˙ ima and Alı̄, have knowledge in religious matters, be amujtahid(someonewhoiscapableofindependentlegalreasoning),andhave the military prowess to defend...