Land reform was a major policy issue in the former People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). In the socially stratified system before independence from Great Britain most large agricultural holdings were owned by relatively wealthy landowners and/or rulers of mini-states. In spate (flood) irrigated areas, large landowners owned the most fertile lands. These were cultivated by poor farmers on a sharecropping or rental basis. Land-owners provided seed, fertilizer, and other agricultural inpu…

Alyce Abdalla, Population Council, New York Asma Mohamed Abdel Halim, University of Toledo, Ohio Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf, International Islamic University Malaysia Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi, Hargeisa, Somaliland Sawsan Abdulrahim, Northern Illinois University Najwa Adra, Independent Scholar Akbar Aghajanian, Fayetteville State University, North Carolina Nora Ahlberg, University of Oslo, Norway Fauzia E. Ahmed, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts Arash Alaei, NRITLD, Iran Kamiar Alaei, University of Medical Sciences, Iran Kamran Asdar Ali, University o…

Customary law is the term used for written and unwritten codes of conduct in rural tribal communities, both settled and nomadic, in the Gulf and Yemen. Urban communities in the region maintain that their legal systems are based on Sharīʿa, or Qurʾānic law, in contrast to rural systems based on custom. In reality, there has been considerable mutual borrowing between rural custom and urban law, especially in neighboring communities. Details of customary law vary with time and place, but rules alwa…

Dress Throughout Yemen, there has been a shift in the aesthetic constitution of the feminine from elaborate body decoration and variety in clothing styles to homogeneity and simplicity of form. For example, the ornate silver jewelry that was once unique to the region has given way to gold jewelry and, currently in the cities, to a preference for imported silver costume jewelry. For the most part, this is not in reaction to consumerism, as has occurred in societies with longer access to Western media. Rather, it indicates a desire to conform…

Yemen was known historically as verdant Yemen because of its highly developed agricultural tradition. Rain- and spring-fed cultivated terraces cover the southern and northern highlands. Agriculture in the large valleys (wadis) on the Tihama coastal plain and in Hadramawt is spate (flood) irrigated. In the past 30 years, artesian wells have brought new lands into cultivation or permitted cash cropping on previously rainfed lands. The total amount of land cultivated, however, has declined as a result of urban migration and a new reliance on imported grain for food. Even with rapid ur…

Lina Abirafeh, Ph.D. Candidate, London School of Economics and Independent Gender & Development Consultant Syeda Sharmin Absar, Victoria University of Wellington Nadia Abu-Zahra, St. Antony's College, Oxford Najwa Adra, Independent Scholar, Glen Cove, New York Sultana Afroz, University of the West Indies, Jamaica Rita Afsar, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies Akbar Aghajanian, Fayetteville State University, North Carolina Fauzia Ahmad, University of Bristol, UK Kristine J. Ajrouch, Eastern Michigan University Arash Alaei, National Research Institute of T…

Dono Abdurazakova, Ph.D. (history) Rula Abisaab, McGill University, Quebec Lila Abu-Lughod, Columbia University, New York Lama Abu-Odeh, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C. Madelaine Adelman, Arizona State University Najwa Adra, Independent Scholar Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Montclair State University, New Jersey Nausheen Ahmad, Shirkat Gah, Women's Resource Centre, Karachi, and South Asian Research Network on Gender, Law and Governance, Warwick, UK Jale Ahmadi, Independent Scholar Kristine Ajrouch, Eastern Michigan University Muhamad Ali, Syarif Hidayatu…