Abdul Wahab Al-Dailami; the Yemeni Preacher and “Islahi” Leader Who Fought Racism

The Yemeni Sheikh, Dr. Abdul Wahab bin Lutf al-Dailami died on the morning of May 26, 2021 after suffering from Coronavirus in the Turkish city of Istanbul. He was considered one of the most prominent religious and academic figures in Yemen, he was the most prominent leader of the Islah Party, as he held the position of head of the party's education department, and head of the judicial department as well.

 

Fatwa Controversy

After his death, a great controversy erupted on social media, among the majority talking about the man's merits, and a minority of the leftist movement in particular, afforded him responsible for an old fatwa attributed to him when he was Minister of Justice, during the war of separation between the Yemeni army forces and southern separatists in the summer of 1994.

Yemeni newspapers at that time published a fatwa that they said “was for al-Dailami”, they were reported that he declared disbelief of the Socialist Party (the party of the rulers of the south who decided to separate), he authorized the killing of civilians who became a bulwark for the separatist forces, based on a famous fatwa of Sheikh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah.

However, Sheikh Al-Dailami repeatedly denied this fatwa, and said that it had been distorted and taken out of context, he asserted that he did not allow the killing of civilians, but there are those who work to distort this fatwa and exploit it politically and partisan, ultimately, he invited them to Mubahala (an invocation to God to inflict a curse on those who lie).

According to observers, the media institutions of the leftist parties, which are a traditional enemy of the Islah party, worked to distort and publish this fatwa.

 The security departments of the regime of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh also worked to distort and publish this fatwa, in order to divert attention from Saleh's personal responsibility for the war in the south, and pitting against the man and the Islah party opposed to that regime.

Likewise, the Imamis (who confine the Imamate to them) and from whom Sheikh Al-Dailami took a sharp position, because of their racist ideas, had a role in trying to tarnish the reputation of the Sheikh and pitting against him all the time.

Childhood and Education

His name is Abdul Wahab bin Lutf Zaid al-Dailami, he was born in Dhamar Governorate in 1938, to a family known for science and fiqh, his father Sheikh Lutf Al-Dailami, was one of the most prominent religious figures and authorities of the Zaidi sect (in relation to the founder of the sect, Zaid bin Ali).

Sheikh Al-Dailami grew up an orphan in the city of Dhamar, his mother passed away before he completed two years, he studied a number of legal sciences in al-Katatib, so he memorized the Qur’an at a young age, he studied the fundamentals, hadith, fiqh, grammar, rhetoric of science and other sciences.

Then he went to Sana'a and joined the House of Science, it was the only House in which the sons of the elite studied, especially from the sons of the Zaidi sect, which was the sect of the ruling imam at the time, Yahya Hamid al-Din, and after him, Ahmed Hamid al-Din, he studied at the House until the outbreak of the Yemeni revolution in 1962.

After the outbreak of the revolution and the opening of Yemen to other countries, Sheikh Al-Dailami traveled to Egypt as part of a scholarship to study high school at the Islamic Missions Institute at the expense of Al-Azhar, then he joined the Faculty of Fundamentals of Religion at Al-Azhar University. However, he did not complete his studies there.

He moved to Saudi Arabia and there he studied at the Islamic University of Madinah and graduated from the Faculty of Sharia in 1973.

He continued his higher studies at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah al-Mukarramah, he obtained a master's degree in Sharia from 1978, then he obtained a doctorate in Interpretation from the Faculty of Fundamentals of Religion at the Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, in 1984.

He was promoted to the rank of “Associate Professor” from Sana'a University in 1994, then to the degree of “Professor” from Al-Iman University in 2000, and also promoted to the rank of “Professor” from Sana'a University in 2010.

 

The Zaydiyyah Preachers

The man had many fronts, he had a front with the ruling regime and Ali Abdullah Saleh's party, another front with the leftist currents, and the front with the Imamis.

The man had a strict position with the sons of his Hashemite class (who claim to belong to the dynasty of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him), and the sons of the Zaidi sect, he got into a fight with them because of his ideological and sectarian biases, and he criticized those they said had offended the Zaydiyyah.

The most prominent person who entered into a fight with them was his brother Ahmad, as the crisis moved to writing books, Ahmad Al-Dailami wrote a book entitled “The Zaydiyyah is between a lot of loving and a little of hating”.

He accused his brother of transferring the Sunnah to the Zaidi sect, (converting it to Sunnis), Sheikh Abdul Wahab responded to his brother with a book entitled “Felony of the Zaydiyyah preachers against the Zaydiyyah”. Al-Dailami's sharp position towards the Imamis in Yemen caused him great harassment.

This harassment increased after the arrival of the Houthi group, as a number of his sons were arrested and his property confiscated, and his dismissal from his university job as a faculty member at Sana’a University, which finally forced him to flee to Saudi Arabia and then to Turkey.

He was a fighter against the racism of social classifications that divide people and place them at inferior levels according to profession or career, the butcher, the barber, the cupping and the blacksmith.

 

Duties and Responsibilities

Sheikh Al-Dailami worked in Saudi Arabia as a teacher in a number of private schools in Makkah, while preparing for his master's degree, when his return to Yemen after obtaining his doctorate, he worked in teaching at Sana'a University, then Al-Iman University, as a professor and then as an administrator.

He held the position of Director of Al-Iman University for 14 years, he also worked as a professor at the University of Yemen and the University of Science and Technology in Sana'a.

He also held the position of member of the Shura Council for about 7 years, from 1986 to 1993, he became a member of the House of Representatives during the same period, then he was Minister of Justice from 1994 to 1997, then went on to teach.

During his tenure as Minister of Justice, his first decision was to break the monopoly of the Hashemite class by the Supreme Judicial Institute, where the Institute has been a monopoly of the Hashemite families since 1970, and the return of the Hashemites to state institutions after the 1970 agreement between the Republicans and the monarchies, it is a measure that Al-Dailami paid dearly for it with his Hashemite cousins ​​belonging to the Zaidi sect.

In addition to the positions he held, he was a member of several international boards, including membership in the Islamic Fiqh Academy in Jeddah, a member of the International Islamic Rating Agency, in addition to holding the position of chairing the Shariah Board in a number of Yemeni banks.

Al-Dailami was a preacher, writer, activist, and abundant in knowledge, he authored more than 15 books, some of which were quality books, in addition to writing dozens of manuscripts, he supervised a large number of master's and doctoral theses.

He has 13 sons, male and female, and his son Hashem was killed in Afghanistan, during the Russian-Afghan war, after organizing campaigns for “jihad in Afghanistan” at the end of the eighties.

The news of the death of his son, who was accompanying Abdullah Azzam, one of the leaders of the fighters in Afghanistan, was painful for Sheikh Al-Dailami, but he was an example of contentment.

People transmitted his well-known phrase after his son’s death: “Whoever comes to me blessed, welcome him, and whoever comes to me as a comforter, let him go back to where he came”.