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The Dartmouth
July 10, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Yemen talk begins lecture series

Gabrielle vom Bruck began the Ernest Gellner Memorial Lecture series yesterday afternoon with a speech that explored two different strands of Islam in Yemen, a small country at the Arabian peninsula's southern end.

The speech was the first in a four-part series that will bring scholars influenced by Gellner to the College to speak on the role of Islam in modern politics.

Gellner, a British anthropologist and philosopher who died last fall, was scheduled to be the College's Montgomery Fellow this term.

In lieu of his coming to Dartmouth, the lecture series was organized to commemorate his work.

Anthropology Professor Dale Eickelman, who introduced vom Bruck, extolled Gellner's academic virtues.

Eickelman said Gellner "was always jumping across boundaries of disciplines and ideas."

Vom Bruck, lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science, was one of Gellner's last doctoral candidates.

Drawing from her fieldwork in Yemen, her speech dealt with patterns of political interaction between Sunni and Shi'i Muslims in Yemen.

Sunni and Shi'i Islam are the two major strands of that Islam.

Vom Bruck began her talk with one of Gellner's main assumptions -- Muslim society is held together by mutual dependence of town and countryside.

The balance between the people of each area is maintained over time in balance and unity.

Within the Shi'i Sayyids and Sunni merchants show none of this togetherness, vom Bruck said.

She described the Sayyids as strongly religious and holding a strong belief in self-sacrifice, charity and scholarship. They traditionally were their society's teachers, as well as military and religious leaders.

In contrast, Sunni merchants dominated trade and commerce. They have been involved in international trade, and were said to conduct up to 80 percent of local trade in the 1980s.

Vom Bruck pointed out how the differences between the two groups have lessened recently.