Arab, Tihami

The Tihami Arabs are the indigenous inhabitants of the Tihamah, the narrow Red Sea coastal plain running along the western edge of the Arabian Peninsula; the Arabic name 'Tihamah' means 'severe heat and lack of wind.' Most of them, well over nine in ten, live in Yemen, on the plain from the Saudi border through al-Hudaydah, Zabid and Bayt al-Faqih to Mokha and the Bab el-Mandeb; the rest live on Saudi Arabia's Jizan and Asir coast and further north. Tihami Arabs are culturally distinct from the highland peoples above them (Zaydi Yemeni tribes, the Asiri tribes) and from the urban Hijazis and the Najdi interior. The Tihama has a long history of African influence via Red Sea trade routes, reflected in music, genetic ancestry and residual folk practices. Tihami dialects use the definite article 'am-' instead of standard Arabic 'al-' and form the future with 'sha-'; some are hard for other Yemenis to follow. Yemen's Tihami dialects have no ISO code (JP and IMB file them under Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic, acq), while Glottolog classifies the Saudi Tihami dialect under Hijazi Arabic (acw), with Coastal and Valley Tihamah sub-dialects.

In Yemen the Tihama has its own history: Zabid was the capital of the Ziyadid and Najahid dynasties and a centre of Islamic learning that drew students from East Africa to Indonesia. Tihamis resisted the Zaydi imams of the highlands (the Zaraniq revolt of 1925-1926), and they have remained among the poorest and least represented people of both Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Daily life centres on farming, fishing and increasingly urban or day-labour employment. Rural Tihamis on both sides of the border live in round or rectangular huts of reed, palm and thatch (ushash), whitewashed and painted inside, distinct from highland tower houses and Hejaz courtyard houses; Zabid's brick courtyard houses with carved stucco are the classic Tihama town house. Fields in the wadis grow sorghum, millet, sesame and tropical fruit (mangoes, papaya, bananas) watered by monsoon floods, highly unusual for Arabia. Food centres on sorghum and millet flatbread from clay ovens, fish, dates, fruit and milk. Weekly markets sell grain, livestock, pottery, palm-leaf baskets and hats. Music and dance incorporate African rhythmic elements, with drum dances at weddings and saints' days, and the mizmar flute-and-drum dance in the Saudi Tihama. Hospitality, generosity and family honour are core values. The Tihama is among the least economically developed regions of both countries, with high poverty and low literacy.

Tihami Arabs are Sunni Muslims, historically of the Shafi'i school rather than the Hanbali/Wahhabi tradition of Saudi Arabia's interior or the Zaydi Shiism of the Yemeni highlands. Zabid, with more mosques than any other Yemeni town and a medieval university, made the Tihama a stronghold of Shafi'i scholarship, and Sufi practice is strong in Yemen: saints' tombs such as that of Ahmad ibn Ujayl at Bayt al-Faqih are visited, and the mawlid and saints' days are kept with chanting and drumming. Folk beliefs in jinn, the evil eye, amulets and healers persist, with spirit-possession rituals (zar) of African origin among some. In Saudi Arabia, state education and religious institutions have brought Wahhabi influence, though less than in the Najd; in Yemen, Salafi preachers oppose shrine visits, and Houthi authorities have imposed Zaydi-revivalist teaching in al-Hudaydah since 2014.

No Scripture exists in the Tihami dialects. In Yemen the nearest resources are the Ta'izzi-Adeni New Testament (2022) and the JESUS film and other films in Ta'izzi-Adeni Arabic; in Saudi Arabia, Hijazi Arabic and Standard Arabic resources. Global Recordings Network has Arabic recordings. No Christian presence is known among Tihamis in either country, and low literacy, poverty, war in Yemen and Saudi restrictions on non-Muslim worship keep them among the least reached peoples of Arabia.