Lahij

Lahij grew where the Tuban wadi loses itself in a plain of gravel and silt, and where springs and flood channels allowed gardens to be watered in a country with almost no rain. The settlement that became the town is known as Al-Hawtah, a word used in southern Arabia for a protected place under religious sanctuary; the town's shrine of al-Salih Muzahim Ja'far still draws pilgrims in the month of Rajab. Its importance came from that water and from its position on the road between the coast and the highlands.

In the eighteenth century the Abdali chiefs of the district broke away from the rule of the Zaidi imams in the north and established their own sultanate at Al-Hawtah, holding the port of Aden and the country around it. That arrangement ended in 1839, when the British East India Company took Aden by force, and the Abdali sultans then entered into treaty relations with Britain as one of the states of the Aden Protectorate, keeping their court at Lahij while the port grew into a world coaling station beyond their control. During the First World War Ottoman forces pushed down from the north and occupied the town, which they held until the end of the war.

In 1963 the sultanate was absorbed into the Federation of South Arabia, and it was swept away in 1967 with the British withdrawal and the founding of the People's Republic of South Yemen, later the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. The sultan was expelled and the ruling family's land passed to the new state. Since unification in 1990 the town has been the capital of Lahij Governorate, and it has suffered badly in the war that began in 2015, with fighting, displacement and damage to schools, clinics and farms.

Lahij is best known across Yemen for its songs. The Lahji tradition, a style of sung poetry accompanied by the oud, was shaped in the early twentieth century by Ahmad Fadl al-Qumindan, a prince of the Abdali ruling family who was poet, musician and agricultural writer at once, and whose lyrics about the town's gardens and jasmine are still sung. Radio and recordings carried the style to Aden and beyond, and it remains one of the recognised schools of Yemeni music.

Jasmine belongs to the town's identity in the same way. The flower is grown in the gardens of the plain, sold in markets in Aden and other cities, and worn or carried at weddings, and it appears constantly in Lahji verse. Weddings are the great social occasions, with music, drumming and dancing, and they are when the old songs are most often heard.

Socially the district is more settled and agricultural than the tribal highlands to the north, and the sultanate's long connection with Aden left it more exposed to outside ideas than most of rural Yemen. Almost everyone is Sunni Muslim of the Shafi'i school. The afternoon qat session organises much of social and political life, and hospitality, long greetings and careful respect for age and standing govern how people deal with one another.

Lahij town is small — tens of thousands of people, rather than the hundreds of thousands of nearby Aden — and functions as the administrative centre of a governorate that is mostly farmland and mountain. Life runs on the land: the irrigated plain grows vegetables, fodder, dates and fruit, and livestock and dairying are widespread. The town holds the governorate's main jasmine market, where the flower is bought from growers and sent on to cities across Yemen. The proximity of Aden, about 30 kilometres away, means that the town supplies the city's markets and that many families have members working there.

The war has been hard on the district. Front lines ran across the plain, farms and irrigation channels were damaged, and many people were displaced to and from the area. The collapse of the rial in government-held areas has made fuel, seed and imported food expensive, public salaries have lost much of their value, and diesel prices directly affect the pumps that water the fields. Electricity and water supply are unreliable, and health services are thin.

The rhythm of the day follows the heat. Work in the fields and in the market is done early, the afternoon is quiet and given over to qat and rest, and the town comes back to life in the evening. Friday is the day of prayer and of family visits, and the road to Aden fills with shared taxis in both directions from early morning.

The food of Lahij is the food of southern Yemen, shaped by the farmland around the town and by the kitchens of Aden down the road. Mandi and haneeth are the dishes for guests and feast days: lamb or chicken cooked slowly in a clay tannur oven, in the first case over rice that takes up the fat and smoke, and served on a shared platter to be eaten with the right hand. Zurbian, the spiced rice with meat, potatoes and saffron that Aden made its own, appears at weddings here too.

Everyday meals are simpler. Flatbread baked against the wall of a tannur is eaten with beans, eggs, vegetables or a stew, and with sahawiq, the green sauce of coriander, chilli, garlic and tomato found on every Yemeni table. Saltah, the bubbling stew topped with whipped fenugreek called hulba, is eaten as across the country. The gardens supply tomatoes, okra, onions and greens, and dates from the palm groves are eaten plain or with coffee.

Milk, buttermilk and clarified butter matter more here than on the coast, because the plain keeps cattle and goats as well as crops. Honey is the prestige product of Yemen as a whole and is sold by the comb in the market. Tea is drunk sweet and black through the day, often with cardamom or, in the Adeni manner, with milk, and qishr, an infusion of dried coffee husks, is the other common hot drink.