Yemen How the Houthis Became “Shi‘a” | Middle East Research and Information Project
▻http://www.merip.org/mero/mero012718
by Anna Gordon , Sarah E. Parkinson | published January 27, 2018
On December 4, 2017, Houthi rebels in Yemen killed ‘Ali ‘Abdallah Salih, their erstwhile ally and the country’s former president. It was a dramatic reversal: Parts of the national army loyal to Salih had fought alongside the Houthis for nearly three years in Yemen’s ongoing civil war. But shortly before his death Salih turned against the Houthis, making overtures to their opponents, the Yemeni administration-in-exile led by President ‘Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and its backers in the wealthy Gulf Arab monarchies, primarily Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In remarks broadcast on Saudi-funded satellite channels on December 3, Salih accused the Houthis of intolerable “recklessness.” If the Saudis and Emiratis were to lift their blockade on Yemen, he continued, then “we will turn the page.” The next day, Salih was killed.
The Houthis’ history with Salih is far more complex than this concluding episode would imply. Until Salih’s ouster from the presidency in late 2011, it was his regime that had confronted Houthi rebellions, in six rounds of combat beginning in 2004. But another legacy of the wars of the 2000s is particularly salient for its influence upon global understanding of the current, catastrophic Yemen conflict—the Salih regime’s invention of the claim that the Houthis are “Iranian-backed Shi‘a.”
False Coding
The first problem with calling the Houthis “Shi‘a” is that, technically, they are not Shi‘a, at least not in the way that most people understand contemporary Shi‘ism. Shi‘ism is distinguished from Sunnism, the other main branch of Islam, primarily by the Shi‘i belief that Muhammad’s rightful heirs as religio-political leaders, or Imams, of the Muslim community are the Prophet’s son-in-law ‘Ali and his progeny. Most Houthis are Zaydis, that is, members of a Shi‘i denomination that split off from the main body in the eighth century because of a dispute over recognition of the Fifth Imam. Zaydis do not believe, as most Shi‘a do, that the imamate must be handed down through a particular line of ‘Ali’s descendants. Today about 85 percent of Shi‘a worldwide, including the vast majority of Iranian and Iraqi Shi‘a, and the Shi‘a of Lebanon, follow what is called Twelver Shi‘ism: They believe that the Twelfth Imam was the last legitimate successor to Muhammad and ‘Ali, and that one day he will return from occultation, or hiding, to restore just rule and battle evil. Erasing the distinction between Zaydis and Twelvers—something akin to calling the Copts Roman Catholics—may not seem terribly consequential. But it has profound political consequences for the war in Yemen, given evolving alliance structures and the ambitions of regional powers, particularly the Saudis.