ABSTRACT
Much continues to be written about the worldwide growth of political Islam since the early 1980s and in particular the development of an international Islamic fundamentalism hostile to any values but its own. Succeeding where local arbiters had earlier failed, al-Hadi Yahya was then able to establish a power base in Saada and soon dispatched his own agents to collect taxes in outlying villages. Although R. B. Serjeant reports that the revenues were small, they enabled al-Hadi at least to consolidate his position in Yemen and to establish the institution of rule by the Imams, who would govern the country more or less continuously until the 1960s. Consequences of the Imam's loss of Lahej in the 1700s also appeared at this time, most notably through the emergence of Shaykh Tariq al-Fadhli, head of the Yemeni Islamic Jihad Organization. There can be little doubt that Islamist thinking will continue in Yemen.
