Al-Mansur Abdallah

Al-Mansur Abdallah (February 24, 1166 - April 21, 1217), was an imam of the Zaidi state in Yemen who held the imamate from 1187 (or 1197) to 1217.

Abdallah bin Hamzah was born in the village Ayshan in the territory of the Hamdan tribe. He belonged to the Hamzite Sharifs, a division of the dynasty of the Rassids. He was the next generation descendant of the imam al-Muhtasib al-Mujahid Hamzah who died in battle in 1066. In his youth, he took up quranic studies and was an outstanding student who acquired a good juridical knowledge. As an adult, he was described as a large and well-shaped man with a heavy beard. The Zaidi community of the northern highland had not been able to appoint a new imam after the demise of al-Mutawakkil Ahmad bin Sulayman in 1171. Abdallah made a proclamation in Jawf in 1187. Although acknowledged by several men of standing, his attempt to gain power over the Zaidi community was a failure, and he withdrew to Jawf.

By this time, the main external threat against the Zaidis was the Sunni Muslim Ayyubid Dynasty, which had invaded Yemen from its base in Egypt in 1173. The new regime quickly occupied much of the country. The important highland city San'a was, for most of the time, in the hands of the Hatimid Sultan Ali bin Hatim, whose attitude to the Ayyubids alternated between submission and resistance. When the Ayyubid ruler Tughtakin, a brother of Saladin, died in 1197, virtually all Yemen except Sa'dah, the traditional centre of the Zaydiyyah, was in Ayyubid hands. In September or October 1197, the month after Tughtakin's death, Abdallah made his second bid for the imamate, and this time he was successful. As imam, he carried the honorific (laqab) title al-Mansur Abdallah. He established his residence in Sa'dah. Al-Mansur was a man of learning, and 81 works by his hand are listed in one source. Among his writings are a treatise on the mutual conduct of children and parents, answers to questions about the first four caliphs, a diwan, a rajaz poem on the care and training of horses, and a four-volume work dealing with doctrinary questions, Ash-Shafi. He sent his da'i (messengers) to Gilan and Deylaman in Persia, so that the khutba was read in his name among the Zaidis there. He also enjoyed some influence in the Hijaz. Al-Mansur Abdallah took a strict stance on religious matters, expelling unchaste women and pouring fermented drinks on the ground. The Mutarrifiyyah sect, which was considered heretic, was mercilessly crushed and its mosque near San'a was torn down on the orders of al-Mansur.

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