Another quote from the book

Another quote from the book Medieval Islamic Civilization By Josef W. Meri, Jere L. Bacharach that speak about the Tayyibi Schism

The affairs of the Da’wa occupied Arwa, Imam al-Mustansir had appointed her as the Hujja of Yemen, which was the highest rank in the region; in a letter to her in 1088 AD, he asked her to supervise the Da’wa in India. Lamak b. Malik al-Hammadi was the Da’i Balagha under her. On his death, also around 1098AD, his son Yahya took charge of the Da’wa. On Yahya’s death in 1126 AD, the scholar Dhu’ayb ibn Musa al-Wadi’I was entrusted with the affairs of the Da’wa.

In the meantime, al-Afdal, son of Badr al-Jamali and the dictator in Egypt under the Fatimid Caliph al-Mustali had sent in, in 1119, Ibn Najob al-Dawla as as administrator and Da’I of Yemen, sensing the power vacuum that prevailed after ‘Amir al-Mufaddal’s death in 1110 AD. His conflict with Queen Arwa’s Dawa and the local Amirs prompted the Queen to contrive to get him drowned in the Red Sea. However she patched up the problem by giving a member of her own Sulayhid family, ‘Ali ibn ‘Abd Allah, the title Fakhr al-Khilafah to please the Fatimid Caliph, who now was al-Amir. By now Arwa had tired of the Fatimid connection. The opportunity for independence came when, on al-Amir’s death in Egypt in 1130 AD, his minor son al-Tayyib’s right to succeed was usurped by his uncle al-Hafiz.

The Queen and her Da’wa under Dhu’ayb declared for Tayyib and severed their relationship with the last Fatimid Caliphs in 1132. Dhu’ayb al-Wadi’I was declared the first Dai of Mutlaq of the new Tayyibi Dawa of Yemen and India, and he was assisted by a valiant Sultan of Jurayb, al-Khattab ibn al-Hassan ibn Abi’l-Haffiaz al-Hamdani, a warrior and a poet.

When the enemies pointed out that a woman could not have religious leadership, al-Khattab defended Arwa’s position with the argument that her womanly form is only an outward cover. He stated that one had to look to her inner essence and he compared her to Maryam, the mother of Jesus; Khadija, the wife of the Prophet Muhammad; and Fatima, the wife of ‘Ali.

Note: I am a little bit upset that an opportunist monarch and an Ismaili propagandist like Arwa al-Sulayhi is compared to the three of the holiest women on Earth.