By Irena Knehtl in the Yemen Times
3 February 2003

BaAlawi Mosque, Al-Huraidhah

Having laid down their arms and given up political struggle, the Alawiyun became the carriers of a Sufi tariqa. The Second stage was that of the development and consolidation of alTariqa alAlawiya, the Alawi Sufi order, which lasted from the seventh century to the eleventh century A.H. (13-17^th century A.D). The tariqa was a simple one which did not have khalw (seclusion) for purposes of spiritual exercises, and did not denounce worldly activities. The third stage lasted from eleventh to the fourteen century A.H, later 17^th to 20^th century AD During this period the Alawi ulama and awlia (saints), came to be known by the title of habib. This was the period of emigration to India and Southeast Asia.

Hadrami Arab and Indian Muslim traders have been engaging in trade and missionary activities in the region for centuries and constituted an integral part of the Muslim trade diaspora which stretched from Egypt to the Malay world. Today the whole of the Hadrami hierarchical segment is still represented in Africa. At the top of the social hierarchy, the sharifs that are best known are AlSaqqaf, BaAlawi and AlAydarus. By playing on their prestige and by means of marriages contracted with ruling families, the sharifs were able to establish political bases or take possession of power structures wherever they settled. There are numerous and often significant examples of their influence in the political domain. For example that BaAlawi sultans were secured in the Comoros, Kilwa, Zanzibar, Tumbatu and at Vumbaktu.

Early reception of BaAlawi in Rangoon, Burma

Members of the BaAlawi lineage continue to exercise various degrees of religious, social and political influence in late 20^th century Kerala. Further south in the then Italian port of Mogadishu in 1891 one of the major chiefs was Sayyid Ahmed BaAlawi whose ancestor had come from Tarim seven generations earlier.

Imam Abdalla ibn Alawi AlHadad published The Book of Assistance for Moslems, born in Tarim in the hills of Hadramaut. His ancestors, the Alawi Sadda had for centuries produced generation after generation of great scholars, and Gnostics and summoners to the straight path.

Certainly no aristocracy so widely disseminated over Asia and Africa playing century upon century an important and consistent role in the Islamic community nor can any branch of the numerous Sharif and Sayyid families founded over 14 centuries ago claim a more varied sphere of activity of achievement than the Alawi Sayyids of Hadramaut.

The first focus of Sayyid emigrants eastwards from the Middle Ages was India. They settled in important commercial, cultural and political centre, like Bijapur, and Surat, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Gujerat, Delhi, Calicut, Malabar; but the greatest emigrations of all were to Java, Sumatra, Aceh and Malaya.

The Alawi Sayyids arrived there sometime before the Dutch. An Alawi from Johore settled in Maindanao, marrying the sultan's daughter.

Yemen Times Article by Irena Knehtl
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