A Yemeni scholar in Istanbul: Abdulmajeed al-Zindani

It is reported that the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) said, "Faith is Yemeni, and wisdom is Yemeni." I have countless observations that make me feel the depth, aptness and subtlety of this saying whenever I meet Yemeni friends. In the character, behavior, approach to events and words of the great majority of their people, from the youngest to the oldest, you can see the traces of a maturity, a sagacity, a wisdom that has permeated them, and at the same time manifestations of an utterly heartfelt and ardent sincerity.

As a result of the great turmoil that followed the Arab Spring in Yemen, a considerable community of Yemenis was forced to come and settle in Türkiye. Their numbers are not large; in fact most prefer to go to Egypt because of the attractions it offers them, or to Saudi Arabia because it is a neighboring country. Yemenis, who immediately carry their trade, their professions, and the networks and resources behind them wherever they go, are therefore regarded as attractive by many Arab countries. Egypt offers serious incentives to draw Yemenis who are in difficulty in their country, such as very easy residency and citizenship in exchange for real estate.

In Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni population had for many years formed the backbone of the economy. Because during the war years the state applied a policy of making residency and investment difficult for Yemenis, as it did for all foreigners, a significant portion of Yemenis were forced to emigrate to other countries. Recently Saudi Arabia appears to have noticed the economic and social cost of this very well, and has begun to win back the investors it lost by making investment extremely easy, even abolishing the old requirement of a Saudi citizen sponsor.

A significant portion of the Yemenis who have come to Türkiye in the last ten years are making very important investments here, and in strong solidarity among themselves are trying to hold on without producing any serious problem. Of course they suffer from the recent rise in xenophobia, and among them there are those who, together with their investments, go especially to Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Sheikh Abdulmajeed al-Zindani, the greatest scholar of the Yemenis, whom we lost recently, had settled in Türkiye in the last 5 years of his 82-year life. Without doubt there were conditions that forced him out of the places where he was, first of all from his own country and then from Saudi Arabia, where he had resided for a long time, but the fact that these conditions carried him to Istanbul and made him settle here had a meaning beyond conditions.

I had the chance to meet him both in Yemen and in Mecca, and even there he always made one feel that Türkiye and Istanbul were at the deepest place of his mind and heart. Türkiye was in fact the center of the Caliphate for him, as it is for all Muslims who know themselves. Even though it was abolished, there are still people there ready to protect its spirit and legacy, and his entire struggle throughout his life was for all the Muslims of the world to form a political unity and to have a place and power in world politics and order.

His efforts on this path were also reflected in his scholarly life. As every scholar does, he built a world of his own by combining his specialization, which he began with chemistry and pharmacy, with the Islamic sciences, especially his work on the Qur'an. He worked on the miracles in the verses of the Qur'an that point to creation, the cosmos and many other subjects, and that we are only now able to become aware of. From there, with his accumulated knowledge of chemistry and pharmacy, he produced highly scientific work in the field of Prophetic Medicine. It is said that when the Houthis occupied Sana'a, one of their first targets was to seize and destroy the laboratory and archive in which he did his work on this subject. It was said that he had made important progress toward treating the HIV virus and many forms of cancer..

The university he founded himself was the "Iman University," as if required by the hadith that faith is Yemeni, but of course the name had a special emphasis on his mission of calling to faith through these works. This university was training students from every corner of the Islamic world, almost forming an alternative to Al-Azhar, and faculty members from every corner of the world were teaching in it. The students it has trained from all over the world have today risen to very important positions in their countries.

His contribution to the formation of the International Union of Muslim Scholars was for this. So was his wholehearted participation, with all his means, in the Palestinian cause. His efforts for Yemen to be a fully independent country and to form unions with the scholars, students and Mujahideen of other Islamic countries were always for this. Recently, Türkiye under Erdoğan's leadership gave him an altogether different excitement. I remember being ashamed of myself when I saw with what excitement, with eyes shining with tearful joy, he listened to news about Türkiye and about Erdoğan.

In our meeting during my last visit to Mecca, he told me how one of his sons, when he heard the first news on 15 July, immediately prostrated himself at the Sacred Mosque to pray, and instructed that he should be contacted for nothing other than good news. In the same meeting he told me that, among Turkish television series, he watched Diriliş Ertuğrul and Abdülhamit with great love and awaited the next episodes eagerly. His children, who also served as his secretariat, would have the dubbed or subtitled version ready by morning whenever these series aired in Türkiye.

Both during his time in Saudi Arabia and in Türkiye, one of his greatest concerns was to conduct a scholarly diplomacy with all parties in order to develop a way out of the situation his country was in. Despite the dispute with the Houthis, he was looking for ways to reestablish national consensus on the principles of the Yemeni revolution.

Al-Zindani was in special dialogue with every segment toward the formation of a common stance and understanding in the Islamic world. This path he walked throughout his life brought him, at the musalla where his funeral prayer was performed, to an almost unbelievable companion. He had met Hasan Kılıç, the leader of the İsmailağa Community, before in Mecca, and when he came to Türkiye he met and talked with him again a few months before their deaths. Zindani may not have been considered of a Sufi disposition, but this never formed a barrier between him and people from the different orientations of Islam. Here, with a temperament perhaps befitting Yemeni wisdom and with his love for Muslims, he kept his whole heart open to every voice of the ummah.

He had greatly wished to be buried in Mecca, but this blessed coincidence, as if charging him with another mission in the last chapter of his life, assigned him a place far more meaningful than he had hoped for, in the Eyüp Sultan Cemetery in Türkiye, which he loved so much.

May he sleep peacefully in that place, may his abode be paradise, and his station be exalted.