Ahmad Muhammad Numan

Ahmad Muhammad Numan (1909–1996) (Arabic: أحمد محمد نعمان‎‎) was an educator, propagandist and politician. He was a principal progenitor of modern Yemeni nationalism. Numan was an original founder of the Free Yemeni Movement , a propagandist in Cairo for the Yemeni Unionists and once foreign minister and twice Prime Minister of the Yemen Arab Republic.

Numan was a descendant of a family of important shaykhs in al-Hujariyya, a province in the southern highlands southeast of the department of Ta'izz. Numan's uncle, Abd al-Wahhab Numan, was the Ottoman-appointed hakim (governor of the region. The Numans were Sunni, specifically Shafi'i. Numan's father was a farmer.

Numan was educated in the traditional Islamic kuttab elementary school. He spent seven years at the Shaff'd universita Zabid. After his father's death in 1934, Numan assumed the role of head of household, in which capacity he gained the respect of fellow villagers and came into contact with local officials.

In the mid-1930s Numan met Muhammad Ahmad al-Haydara, who had studied abroad and had been exposed to subjects beyond Numan's limited Islamic education. The two began a school in Dubhan, al-Madrassa al-Ahliyya, specifically for young teenage boys. The school became famous for teaching geography, arithmetic and modern sciences. The school also soon became a local center for the discussion of current events. Much of the material came from books and newspapers sdupplied by Numan's brother Ali, who worked in Aden. The regulars who attended the discussions came to be known as Nadi a-Islah (the "Reform Group"). Unlike reform-minded intellectuals in the capital of Sana'a, the Dubhan group was made up of peasant farmers.

Numan's school attracted notice. In 1935 Ahmad al Muta, then an examination inspector for the Ministry of Education, met Numan. Al-Muta was an outspoken advocate for reform, for which he was removed from the Army and as editor of the Imam's official newspaper. After the Imam's defeat in the border war with Saudi Arabia al-Muta had formed the secret Hay'at al Nidal (the Committee of the Struggle") to resist a conservative backlash. Al-Muta tried to attach Numan's groups to that organization.

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