Zaidis

(also, Zaydis), the followers of a moderate Shiite sect, formed in the eighth century in the Abbasid Caliphate. The founder of the sect was Zayd ibn Ali, the grandson of the third Shiite imam Husayn. A Zaidi state existed in the ninth and tenth centuries in what is now Iran, in the regions of Gilan and Tabaristan. In the tenth century the Zaidis extended their power to part of Yemen, where the imams ruled until the revolution of Sept. 26, 1962. The Zaidis constitute a considerable part of the population of the Yemen Arab Republic. Theologically, the Zaidis follow the Mutazilites. Certain features of their way of life differentiate the Zaidis from other Shiites: they reject the doctrine of the “hidden imam,” the practice of the taqiya (the tactical dissimulation of faith), and temporary marriages.