This book discusses the uniqueness of messianic aspirations of the nineteenth-century jews of Yemen, and displays the unprecedented role that these aspirations played in all sectors of their life. The study employs a diachronic approach; it presents the development of Jewish messianic expressions in Yemen and explains how Jewish messianic ideology and movements were receptive to eschatological notions and to messianic movements of Yemeni Muslims.
Particular attention is devoted to the messianic movements of Shukr Kuhayl I (1861-65), Shukr Kuhayl II (1868-75), and Yosef 'Abdallah (1888-93). Other themes include Yemeni Jewish apocalyptic literature, messianic motifs in rabbinic writings and messianic expressions in the Yemeni Jewish waves of migration to Palestine (1881-1914).