Travel Accounts as a Source for Yemen during the reign of Imām al-Mutawakkil ʿalā llāh Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn (1904–1948): The Case of Carl Rathjens

During the lengthy reign of Imām Yaḥyā Ḥamīd al-Dīn, 1904 through 1948, and especially after World War 1, when Yemen had gained independence, the country was an exotic but at the same time popular and oft-frequented destination for travellers, diplomats, merchants, adventurers, and scholars representing a variety of disciplines. Several European powers competed with each other to gain a foothold in the country, resulting in friendship treaties between Yemen and Italy (1926), the Soviet Union (1928), and the Netherlands (1933). The Imām was also keen on signing a similar treaty with Germany, but this never materialized as Germany was not sufficiently interested. US American companies also dispatched personnel to Yemen, eager to get concessions from the ruler. As a result, especially during the 1920s and 1930s, there was a continuous robust presence of foreigners in Yemen’s capital, Ṣanʿāʾ, and the relations between them were largely coloured by the ongoing competition between the respective countries they belonged to or represented. In addition to the many Western and Soviet visitors to Yemen during those decades, there was also a significant number of visitors from all over the Middle East as well as India. The documentary materials they produced—travel accounts (of varying quality and with different focus), correspondence, political and economic reports, published accounts and photography—constitute an important source for the study of Yemen’s history during the first half of the twentieth century, complementing the sources produced by Yemenis themselves and in some ways substituting the largely lost archival sources of the Yemeni governmental offices during those years.
One of the most important foreign archives for the study of Yemen during the reign of Imām Yaḥyā is the archive of Carl Rathjens, which is kept in the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg. The geographer Carl Rathjens (1887–1966) visited Yemen during the winter of 1927/28 for the first time and during this visit he established a close relationship with Imām Yaḥyā, which resulted in Rathjens' appointment as principal advisor to the Imām. Rathjens returned to Yemen in 1931, 1934, and 1937 and he helped to set up Yemen’s postal services, designed passports and the country's flag, and negotiated with the German government on behalf of the Imām. The Rathjens archive, consisting of some 40 boxes, includes Rathjens' correspondence with Imām Yaḥyā, his foreign minister Muḥammad Rāghib Bey, and the German Foreign Office, and in addition several detailed reports about his sojourns and activities in Yemen in 1931, 1934 and 1937 (as well as 1952, when he returned to Yemen after the death of Imām Yaḥyā), and many other pertinent archival sources and correspondence. Those travel accounts of the 1930s, as well as the pertinent correspondence that has been used to comment and supplement the travel accounts, allow an unparallel insight into Yemen during the reign of Imām Yaḥyā. Carefully edited and commented, they will take center stage in the monograph in preparation.