ABSTRACT
The political movement has traditionally played an important role in Arab politics. The political organisation that was established in Yemen following the Saudi-Yemeni border war of 1934 was Hai’at al-Nidal and it is regarded as original ‘founding spirit’ of the Free Yemeni Movement (FYM). It was founded by Sayyid Ahmad al-Muta’ and was a secret movement dedicated to introduction of reforms. Both Hai’at al-Nidal and Fatat al-Fulaihi were based in San‘a’ and drew most of their support from the Zaidi north of Yemen. In al-Hujariya district of Ta‘izz Province the situation was a little different. Jam‘iyat al-Islah was established in Ibb by those Free Yemenis who, in 1941, had briefly formed a cell of al-Zubairi’s pro-Brotherhood Shabab al-Amr until its members were arrested. Reluctant to involve itself in Yemeni politics while leaders of the FYM remained incarcerated in Imam Ahmad’s prisons in Hajja, the Yemeni Union concentrated on sending students on educational scholarships to Cairo for the first few years of its existence.
