National ideologies in Yemen take elements from pre-Islamic, Islamic, Arab, and Third-World revolutionary sources and, while the country was still divided, from the strenuous efforts to unify the two parts (shaṭrayn) of the Yemeni homeland (waṭan). With a past in the ancient kingdoms of Maʿin, Saba, and Himyar, two peculiarly Yemeni objections prevail, namely to anything that comes from Saudi Arabia and, second, for ideas of the jāhiliyya (alleged period of ignorance preceding the rise of Islam). In the Yemeni national imaginary, two female rulers stand out: Qu…