Al-Mansur al-Qasim (November 13, 1559 – February 19, 1620), with the cognomen al-Kabir (the Great), was an Imam of Yemen, who commenced the struggle to liberate Yemen from the Ottoman occupiers. He was the founder of a Zaidi kingdom that endured, under many vicissitudes, until 1962.
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Al-Qasim bin Muhammad was a fourteenth-generation descendant of the imam ad-Da'i Yusuf (d. 1012).[1] His father supported the imam al-Mutahhar (d. 1572), who fought the encroaching Ottomans with partial success but who was finally defeated in 1569-1570. Al-Qasim was a religious teacher at the Dawud mosque in San'a at a time when the Ottoman grip on Yemen was severely felt. The Turks promoted the Sunni legal tradition of Hanafi, at the expense of the Zaydiyyah which dominated in the highlands of Yemen. One of al-Qasim's pupils suggested him to claim the Zaidi imamate, which he first declined. The suspicions of the Turks were however raised, and al-Qasim fled San'a, finally setting forth his claim (da'wah) to the imamate in Hajur in the north-west in September 1597.[2]
Although supported by the Ahnumi tribesmen, al-Qasim's first years of struggle were difficult. Strong action by the Ottoman forces reduced the imam to despair by 1604. Then, however, the emir of the important stronghold Hajjah in the western mountains chose to support al-Qasim. From this point the forces of the imamate held the initiative. In 1607 the Ottoman governor Sinan made an agreement with al-Qasim, where the latter was granted possession of the areas he had already subdued. Infighting among the Turkish administrators in 1613 left the north of the country exposed to the forces of the imam, and the important city Sa'dah fell in 1617. Two years later a new truce was concluded that confirmed the expanded realm of al-Qasim. When he died in 1620, San'a and the coastal region Tihamah were still in Ottoman hands. It was left to his son and successor al-Mu'ayyad Muhammad (r. 1620-1644) to expel them entirely. By this time the Yemenis possessed firearms which, together with the poor quality of local Ottoman soldiery and strong local discontent with taxation, ensured military successes against the occupiers. Although the Zaidi imamate is not strictly speaking hereditary, but depends on the qualifications and Sayyid ancestry of the claimant, al-Mansur al-Qasim actually founded a dynasty, known after him as the Qasimids.[3]
| Preceded by Ottoman rule, preceded by an-Nasir al-Hasan bin Ali |
Imam of Yemen 1597–1620 |
Succeeded by al-Mu'ayyad Muhammad |