The Last of the Lascars by Seddon Mohammed Siddique;

Author:Seddon, Mohammed Siddique;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kube Publishing Ltd

THE MUWALLADŪN

The earlier studies undertaken on the British Yemeni communities, particularly those of Little, Collins, Dahya and Lawless, refer to Yemeni migrants intermarrying with local women and resulting in what they generally describe as ‘half-caste’ children. This racial interpretation and ‘placing’ of second-generation Yemeni-origin children does not consider the muwallad definition from the Yemeni perspective, which is not a racist or derogatory term. Yemeni cultural identity in the context of the British Yemeni communities appears to be largely constructed upon ideas and notions of tribal belonging and, for most Yemenis I talked to, their tribe represents their primary cultural identity. Within the concept of tribal identity, the idea of belonging to a ‘place’ or a ‘people’ has a fixed or located centre, namely the tribal village or region and a common ancestor – min jadd wāḥid (‘from one forefather’). Wherever a bondsman travels and regardless of how far, tribal belonging offers a specific and fixed ‘place’ where identity and all of its human products, artefacts, customs and traditions originate. One remains a member of the tribe by the bonds of blood and ˓urf (tribal customs) passed on from generation to generation. A respondent told me emphatically:

This is your identity you can’t ignore it. You belong to your tribe; your generation is your tribe. For thousands of years we have so many kings and so many systems, they have gone, but the tribes are still there.25

Notions of cultural identity based on tribal blood ties within diaspora Yemeni communities appear to transform when crosscultural or ‘mixed race’ marriages occur. The offspring from mixed marriages have a unique status that is signified by the use of the term muwallad. Pedro Chalmeta’s article offers an interesting etymological definition of the word muwallad, stating that it belongs to the vocabulary of stockbreeding and it refers to the ‘crossing (tawlid) of two different animal breeds, thus a hybrid, of mixed blood.’26 But where does this hybrid identity of the muwalladūn place them within the notions of ‘Yemeniness’? Adnan Saif, a prominent member of the Birmingham Yemeni community, explained that:

In mixed marriages it’s a strange [situation] … we have a lot of young people whose mums are English, Irish or Moroccan, and … there are those who see it [Yemeni identity] as an interesting and novel thing and they really are, you know, they like to be associated with it but don’t necessarily understand its [tribal] implications.27

Evidence shows that many early Yemeni Muslim settlers to Manchester and other British cities married local women. Conversely, the majority of South Asian Muslim migrants did not, preferring instead to remain single or to bring their wives from their country of origin. Studies on diaspora Yemeni communities suggest that cross-cultural marriages have been a common occurrence wherever Yemeni migrants have settled. Ulrike Freitag’s study of Ḥaḍramī Yemeni migrations to India and the Far East observes that some emigrants who intermarried with their host societies integrated so completely that within two generations their descendants could no longer be considered as part of the diaspora Yemeni community.

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