Travel Guide Sadaa

Sadaa was before Islam a large caravan crossing on the road to Mecca. Its oldest part lies in the east of the city, under the mound supporting the Turkish fort. His prestige grew when Yehia bin Husayn bin Kasim came from Medina and referee bloody disagreements between the two major Yemeni tribal confederations: the. and the. This religious Sheikh, from Overnight, Iraq, was a disciple of Zayd ibn Ali (697-740), founder of the sa Shiite movement. Yehia bin Husayn Al-Hadi (died in 911) resolved conflicts and merged tribes in 898. He moved to Sadaa as the first sa imam, with the agreement of tribal chiefs who recognize his deep religiosity, courage, sense of justice and diplomatic skill. Sadaa was capital during the reign of the first three imams, and again, for little time, at the end of the th century, during resistance to the first Turkish occupation. Imam Yéhia appealed to the northern zaïdites tribes to fight the Ottomans during the second occupation of Yemen at the end of the th century. His son, Imam Ahmed, also supported the tribes of the north to regain power. In 1962, the imam Al-Badr, the son of Ahmed, moved from the same tribes to try to restore the monarchy, in a civil war that pitted him for ten years to Republican troops until his defeat. In 1994, the northern Yemeni zaïdites and shafi fought together against the «separatists» of the South. In addition to contributing to the strengthening of Yemen's unity, this was the occasion for a timid rapprochement between these two religious movements. However, the North and its sa religious capital, Sadaa, remain wary, if not independent, of the Republican power of Yemen. Today, Sadaa is mainly recognized in the country for the quality of qat and its various traffic with Saudi Arabia. Its old town is a little wonder, but unfortunately Islamic fanaticism is becoming more and more popular.