ABSTRACT
Southwestern Arabia, or geographical "Yemen," has a documented history extending over three millennia. The intrusive imperial powers that-for their own purposes-drew the line separating North and South Yemen also provided the people on their respective sides of the line with sharply different political experiences, resulting ultimately in contrasting orientations between which any early compromise is difficult to conceive. Defeat in war often produces revolutionary change, and in Yemen the reaction took a religious form, perhaps, one may surmise, because the Yemenis' tribal gods, one of whose ascribed functions was to ensure the security of the community, had failed them. Little interested in the poorer districts of either North or South Yemen lacking significant taxable wealth, the Ottoman administration left many tribal areas to their own devices, save for disciplinary operations against interference with traffic on the roads. Meanwhile, the Ottomans under Salim I had defeated Qansuh al-Ghawri and incorporated Egypt in their growing empire.
