SUMMARY
Madrasah Dar al-Hadith (Abode of the [Islamic] Tradition) was founded as a Salafi religious institute in Dammaj town in Saada governorate in northern Yemen in the early 1980s. Its founder, Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi'i, had gone to Yemen after having been arrested by Saudi authorities in connection to the 1979 seizure of the Grand Mosque of Mecca by Islamist extremists calling themselves "al-Ikhwan". Yahya Al-Hajuri took over the leadership following the death of al-Wadi'i in 2001.
The Dar al-Hadith institute was in the Zaydi heartland, and aggressively proselytized its teachings among the Zaydi tribes, even encouraging his supporters to destroy Zaydi shrines and tombs. North Yemen had been ruled as a Zaydi theocratic monarchy, under an Imam, until the 1962 republican coup. Many Zaydis, especially from the sāda elite (descendants of the prophet) that had dominated Yemeni politics prior to the coup, began flocking to a Zaydi revivalist movement that later came to be called Ansarallah (commonly known as the Houthis) after it was formed in 1992. Its primary goals was to end the perceived persecution of sāda under the republican government and end the growing influence of Sunni Islam in the Zaydi heartland, itself seen as supported by the government. Dar al-Hadith received economic and political backing by members of the regime, having ties to regime heavyweights such as Abdullah Bin Hussein Al-Ahmar, Saleh's right-hand man and founder of the Salafist Islah party, and Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar, a prominent military commander close to Saleh, who for several years commanded the fight against Ansarallah.
In the decade preceding the first Saadah war between the Yemeni government and Ansarallah in 2004, violent confrontations between Zaydis and Salafis increased. While founded as an educational institute, the Dar al-Hadith became increasingly militarized over the years, with students and supporters organized into militias capable of protecting the institute and taking the fight to Ansarallah. Fighting with Ansarallah escalated in October 2011, as the Saleh regime was collapsing in its confrontation with Arab Spring protests and military rebellions. Ansarallah had in March secured control over the rest of the governorate in clashes with the few remaining government loyalists in the region. In July, Ansarallah had expanded into the neighbouring al-Jawf governorate, fighting with Islah, who were allies of Dar al-Hadith.
In October, Dammaj and its surrounding area, which was held by Dar al-Hadith militias, was placed under siege by Ansarallah. The siege would drag on for over two years, galvanizing Salafi fighters mainly aligned with Islah to fight Ansarallah in the surrounding governorates of Hajjah, Amran and al-Jawf. During 2013 and early 2014, the government of Yemen attempted to mediate an end to the fighting. In January 2014, an agreement was reached in which Dar al-Hadith forces would be evacuated from Saadah to Hudaydah, thus securing full control of Saadah for Ansarallah. Many fighters from the Dar al-Hadith would join various factions opposing Ansarallah as heavy fighting between the government and Ansarallah resumed later in the year.
Dar al-Hadith has been involved in the non-state category of UCDP organised violence.
