Abstract
The subject of my research is the relationship between tribal structures and regional divisions in North Yemen. The research is organized into three parts: (a) the current situation of tribes and rural administrative divisions; (b) the history of traditional regional divisions in medieval times; and (c) the evolution of traditional regional divisions to the rural administrative divisions of North Yemen in the modern era. This article draws on (b).
The terms mikhlaf and cuzlah are the indigenous titles of the Yemeni regional divisions. However it is not clear what they comprise since there has been insufficient research on Yemeni regional divisions. References to the mikhlaf and cuzlah in three classic texts, al-Hamdani's Sifah Jazirah al-cArab, Yaqut's Mucjam al-Buldan and al-Hajari's Majmuc Buldan al-Yamaniyyah wa Qaba'il-ha, clearly indicate that the mikhlaf is the term used to describe the regional division in the southern highlands of North Yemen during the medieval period, while the cuzlahs are sub-divisions of the mikhlaf.
Next, I study the tribal genealogies (al-Hamdani's Kitab al-Iklil and the above Yaqut's text) to trace the ancestry of the component tribes of the mikhlafs. This indicates that the tribes of Himyar al-Humaysac were the most influential, especially those tribes descending from Jusham in the genealogies. Thus, it can be said that the mikhlaf and cuzlah are historically the indigenous structure of regional divisions in the southern highlands of North Yemen, in which the component tribes of those are the Jusham tribes.
