"كُتيّب اليمن" [ظ‎‎٣‎٥] (١٩٠/٧٥)

tribes, and south by Bekil nomads. At present they are on
had terms with the Imam, They are quite independent and
will fight for any one who pays them. Their chief Sheikh
is Sherif Salih Ibn c Ali. They are of the same stock as
the Hamdan el-Yemen (No. 61), but are too far off to be in
touch.
30.—Yam.
The \ am tribes form a powerful confederation, stretching
from the northern boundary of the Bekil in Barat up
Wadi Nejran and Wadi Habunah far to the north in the
direction of Tathlith and Wadi Dawasir.
Joseph Halevy, the only European who has visited their
country, found it in 1870 a fertile and productive region
inhabited^ by a well-to-do population. In religion they
are Isma'iliyah and are known to the rest of Yemen as
the Mutazeilah or isolated sect; but, since Wadi Nejran
was the last refuge of Christianity and has remained far
removed from external influence, it is possible that the
Isnia ih creed contains traces of the ancient worship,
Halevy was not long enough in the country to verify this
suppos^ion, but the tolerance and even favour which he
found extended to the Jews in Makhlaf were hardly in the
spirit of strict Mohammedanism. The religious chiefs
are probably more orthodox than the bulk of the inhabitants,
since they are m communication not only with the chief
he^d' 8, 0 f>men , but with the Agha Khan, their spiritual
The ruling family is that of Makrami, descended from
a famous ancestor who, in the middle of the eighteenth
century, preached his reforming Gospel from Nejran toHasa.
About the middle of the nineteenth century they developed
meas of expansion, and in I860 obtained from the Imam
TW + Emirate of Heimah, Harraz, and Menakhah.
ho y i ever ' was ^ort lived, for, in 1872, they
re defeated and banished to their own country by Mukhtar