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Ṣalāḥ b. Aḥmad al-Aḥmadī al-Yāfiʿī (d. 1954) (also Laḥmadī) was a poet of Ḥaḍramī origin. Born in the village al-ʿAnīn, al-Aḥmadī emigrated to Hyderabad (Deccan) at a young age, visiting his homeland again in 1323/1905–6. His colloquial poetry (ḥumaynī) comments on social questions concerning the Ḥaḍramī migrants in India, many serving as soldiers in the armies of the Niẓām and private landowners. He is best known for a qaṣīda in which he criticised the conclusion of an advisory treaty between the Quʿayṭī sultanate in Ḥaḍramawt and the British in Aden in August 1937. He laments the loss of honour incurred through an alliance with non-Muslim foreigners. The poem prompted a reply by a pro-British poet, most likely the respect…

Jidda is a port city on the Ḥijāzī coast of the Red Sea at 21° 29 N., 39° 11 E. The city lies near the northernmost point reachable by ocean-going sailing vessels from the Indian Ocean at the end of the northeast monsoon season, and this explains the port’s importance as a tra…

Sayyid ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Bakr b. Sālim ʿAydīd (1195–1255/1781 or 1782–1839–40) was a member of a circle of reformers in early-nineteenth-century Ḥaḍramawt, headed by Ṭāhir b. al-Ḥusayn b. Ṭāhir and his brother ʿAbdallāh, who aimed at the establishment of stable political rule. ʿAydīd, a scholar and Ṣūfī who had travelled to Aden, Yemen, the Ḥijāz, and Muscat, left his native Tarīm in an act of protest against the tyranny of its rulers. In 1243/1827–8, he was chosen as wazīr and adviser to the short-lived polity founded by the Yāfiʿī leader ʿUmar b. ʿAbdallāh al-Muqayyaṣ. This polity was supported by th…

1. Einleitung 1.1. Strukturmerkmale und ForschungsproblemeDie Spezialisierung ethnischer und religiöser Minderheiten auf bestimmte Handels-Zweige, in denen sie eine starke, mitunter dominante Stellung erlangen (engl. trade diaspora: »K«., bzw. middlemen minority: »Zwischenhändlerminderheit«), ist ein Phänomen, das sich vom MA bis in die Gegenwart beobachten lässt. So hatten jüd. Kaufleute im kontinentaleurop. und mediterranen Handel bereits im hohen MA eine wichtige Stellung inne; jüd. K. gelten häufig als archetypische K. In der Nz. umfasst…

1. Introduction 1.1. Structural features and problems of researchThe specialization of ethnic and religious minorities in particular branches of trade, within which they attained a strong and sometimes dominant position amounting to a “trade diaspora” or a “middlemen minority,” is a phenomenon observable since the Middle Ages. Jewish merchants, for instance, already had an important position in trade on the European continent and in the Mediterranean by the High Middle Ages, and the Jewish trade diaspora is often regarded as archetypal. However, the phenomeno…