In January 2022, Rashad Muhammad al-Alimi, the Chairman of the newly formed Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council, added a fourth chapter to his book that is entitled “Traditional Methods to Resolve Conflicts in Yemen.”
Alimi wrote about settling conflicts in Yemen according to customary rules, especially in the war-torn country’s southern and eastern governorates.
Four months later, Alimi was named chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council in Yemen.
The book, written by Alimi in the early 80s, represents a study of the social history of Yemeni tribes, and methods of justice, customs, and conflict resolution in different ways.
The book had earned Alimi a master's degree from Ain Shams University in Egypt.
With his appointment as head of the new Presidential Leadership Council, which includes seven other Yemeni leaders, the question arises about Alimi’s ability to manage Yemeni contradictions in a highly overlapping and complex environment.
Alimi’s book highlights the importance of identifying the historical, social, and cultural factors that led to the prolongation of norms in resolving conflict in Yemeni society in coexistence with Islamic Sharia throughout the historical period of more than a millennium.
The book’s first three chapters were completed between 1981 and 1984, in which the Yemeni situation was based on the existence of two states: the Yemen Arab Republic, which includes the northern, western, and central governorates of Yemen, and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, which includes the southern and eastern governorates of Yemen.
In 1990, the two republics were united into one.
In the book’s newly added fourth chapter, as mentioned above, Alimi talks about the traditional means of control in the southern and eastern governorates, the customary rules for resolving disputes in Hadramawt, and basic concepts of the rules for resolving disputes in Yemen.
