Ba'dan (After)

In the summer of 2013, Yemen saw national dialogues regarding what political form of governance could potentially braid the historical and colonial divisions of North and South, communist and republican, and myriad Islamic reform movements. While I was conducting fieldwork on medical practices, a story about a quarrel, a murder, and government ambivalence circulated in my family circle. The story unfolds within the central highlands of Yemen, in the villages of the Ibb province. It speaks to the failure of the absorption of Islamic law by the nation-state, the failure of the centralization of governance, and the complexity of adjudication in Islamic law. The proceeding events reflect what Asad considers the challenges of secularism and the nation-state vis-à-vis traditions such as Islam. Here he returns us to the questions of power in relation to collective representation, liberties, justice, and governance.