The Authority of the Zāmil in Yemeni Society

This article seeks to interrogate the problem of zāmil authority, given the zāmil’s role as a form of social power within the Yemeni popular imagination. It examines how the zāmil has influenced the orientation of social and political interactions and shaped perspectives on many Yemeni issues; how it functions as a reflection of collective consciousness and the values of Yemeni society—especially within tribal communities; and how it has transformed from a folk art and a vessel carrying tribal social values and expressing everyday life into an instrument of ideological mobilization and political propaganda for recruitment, the militarization of society, and its direction. It further considers how the Houthis revived the folk art of zawāmil and converted it into a functional medium for wartime mobilization, removing it from its tribal seclusion in order to steer and dominate local discourse.