The Huthi Movement in Yemen: Ideology, Ambition and Security in the Arab Gulf

The Huthi rebels in Yemen are a resistance movement going back decades. Their coup against Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in 2015 - and the subsequent Yemeni civil war and the intervention of the Arab coalition in support of Hadi - has brought absolute devastation to the country. But who are the Huthis and how can we understand the group away from armed conflict and war? What has motivated their social movement to fundamentally re-shape Yemen, and what are the group’s local and regional ambitions?

This book provides the first comprehensive critical analysis dedicated to the Huthis. Across four parts and 17 chapters, the book examines how the movement is challenging traditional religious authority, re-shaping tribal values and roles in Yemen, constructing new collective memories and identities, and infusing Yemen’s mediascape with their ideological creed. In examining the movement’s specific ways of thinking and beliefs, the book also highlights its foreign policy within a regional policy of resistance to the United States, and it points towards what its impact on both Yemen and the security of the Arab Gulf region will be. The book brings together the leading experts on Yemen from diverse disciplines to provide readers with a nuanced and multi-layered approach to understanding the Huthi movement.

Abdullah Hamidaddin is a writer and commentator on Middle Eastern societies, politics, and religion with a special focus on Saudi Arabia and Yemen. He is currently a senior associate at al-Mesbar Studies and Research Centre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and previously he chaired the Zaid bin Ali Cultural Foundation, a Yemeni NGO concerned with the preservation of the country’s Islamic heritage in the country’s private libraries. His books include Tweeted Heresies: Saudi Islam in Transformation(20190, Harmonious Being (Al-Kaynuna al-Mutanaghima) published in 2012 and Zaydism (Al-Zaydiyya) published in 2010