10 Most Famous People from Yemen

Yemen-Calligraphy. This is an SVG of the word “The Yemen” in Arabic written in a calligraphic font. Photo by TheTraveller60 – Wikimedia Commons

10 Famous People from Yemen

Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in Western Asia, on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and shares maritime borders with Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia.

1. Mukesh Ambani was an organizational leader

Mukesh Ambani. vasudev kumawat at the India Economic Summit 2007. Photo by World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland – Wikimedia Commons

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate who is the Chairman, Managing Director, and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries Limited, a Fortune Global 500 company and India’s second most valuable company by market value.

He holds a 44.7 % stake in the company. He is the elder son of the late Dhirubhai Ambani and the brother of Anil Ambani. RIL deals mainly in refining, petrochemical, and oil & gas sectors. Reliance Retail Ltd., another subsidiary, is the largest retailer in India.

In 2013, he ranked “37 in the list of “The World’s Most Powerful People List – Forbes, and in “2010, he was included in Forbes’s list of “68 people who matter most”. As of 2013, he is India’s richest man and the second richest man in Asia. Ambani is listed as the 22nd richest person in the world with a personal wealth of $21.5 billion.

2. Tawakkol Karman was an award winner

Tawakkol Karman (2019). Photo by Jindřich Nosek (NoJin) – Wikimedia Commons

Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Karman is a Yemeni journalist, politician and senior member of the of Al-Islah political party, and human rights, activist. She leads the group “Women Journalists Without Chains,” which she co-founded in 2005.

 She became the international public face of the 2011 Yemeni uprising that is part of the Arab Spring uprisings. She has been called the “Iron Woman” and “Mother of the Revolution” by Yemenis. She is a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize and the youngest Nobel Peace Laureate to date.

Karman gained prominence in her country after 2005 in her roles as a Yemeni journalist and an advocate for a mobile phone news service denied a license in 2007, after which she led protests for press freedom. She organized weekly protests after May 2007 expanding the issues for reform.

3. Ali Abdullah Saleh was a politician

THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. With the President of the Republic of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Photo by Presidential Press and Information Office – Wikimedia Commons

Ali Abdullah Saleh is a Yemeni politician who was President of Yemen from 1990 to 2012. Saleh previously served as President of North Yemen from 1978 until unification with South Yemen in 1990. After more than 33 years in power, Saleh signed the Gulf Cooperation Council agreement in November 2011, paving the way for his vice president to become acting president until 21 February 2012; at that point, the vice president would be elected to the presidency.

 On 22 January 2012, the Yemeni parliament passed a law that granted Saleh immunity from being prosecuted and he left Yemen for treatment in the United States. Saleh stepped down and formally ceded power to his deputy Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi at the Presidential Palace on 27 February 2012.

4. Abu Hurairah was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad

Abd al-Rahman al-Baidhani 1962. Photo unattributed – Wikimedia Commons

Abu Hurairah was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the narrator of Hadith most quoted in the isnad by Sunnis. Abu Hurairah spent 3 years in the company of the Prophet and went on expeditions and journeys with him It is estimated that he narrated around 5,375 ahadith.

Abu Hurairah has been quoted as having a photographic memory.

5. Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi is a Yemeni major general and politician

Sitting down for a meeting, Yemen President Abd Rabuh Mansur Hadi listens as Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel welcomes him to the Pentagon on July 30, 2013. Photo by U.S Defense Department – Wikimedia Commons

Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi is a Yemeni major general and politician who has been the President of Yemen since 27 February 2012. He was previously the Vice President from 1994 to 2012.

Between 4 June and 23 September 2011, he was the acting President of Yemen while Ali Abdullah Saleh was undergoing medical treatment in Saudi Arabia following an attack on the presidential palace during the 2011 Yemeni uprising.

Then, on 23 November, Hadi became Acting President again, after Saleh moved into a non-active role pending the presidential election “in return for immunity from prosecution.” Hadi was “expected to form a national unity government and also call for early presidential elections within 90 days” while Saleh continued to serve as President in name only.

6. Keith Vaz is a British Labour Party politician

Official portrait of Keith Vaz. Photo by Chris McAndrew – Wikimedia Commons

Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz, known as Keith Vaz is a British Labour Party politician and a member of parliament for Leicester East. He is the longest-serving Asian MP and has been the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee since July 2007.

He was appointed as a member of the Privy Council in June 2006. He has been named among the most influential Asians in Britain.

7. Habib Umar bin Hafiz is a Yemeni Islamic scholar

Habib Umar bin Hafidz, Nabawi TV.  Exclusive Talkshow of Habib Umar bin Hafidz dialogue with entrepreneurs translated by Habib Jindan bin Salim bin Jindan with Ustad Abdul Somad Lc., MA. as an emcee. Photo by Nabawi TV – Wikimedia Commons

Habib Umar bin Hafiz, is a Yemeni Islamic scholar, teacher, and founder and dean of Dar al-Mustafa Seminary.

8. Ramzi bin al-Shibh is a Yemeni citizen being held by the United States

Ramzi Binalshibh. Photo by Homeland Security – Wikimedia Commons

Ramzi bin al-Shibh is a Yemeni citizen being held by the United States as an enemy combatant detainee at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He is accused of being a “key facilitator for the September 11 attacks” in 2001 in the United States.

 In the mid-1990s, bin al-Shibh moved as a student to Hamburg, Germany, where he allegedly became close friends with Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, and Marwan al-Shehhi. Together, they are suspected of forming the Hamburg cell and becoming central perpetrators of the September 11 attacks.

9. Shoshana Damari was a Yemenite–Israeli singer

Singer Shoshana Damari, 1961. Photo by Israeli GPO photographer – Wikimedia Commons

Shoshana Damari was a Yemenite–Israeli singer known as the “Queen of Hebrew Music.”

10. Abdul Majeed al-Zindani has been described by Daniel Golden of the Wall Street Journal

Wall Street Journal sign outside its building, Manhattan, NYC. Photo by PumpkinSky – Wikimedia Commons

Abdul Majeed al-Zindani has been described by Daniel Golden of the Wall Street Journal as “a charismatic Yemeni academic and politician.” and by CNN as “a provocative cleric with a flaming red beard”.

A leading militant Islamist, he is the founder and head of the Iman University in Yemen, head of the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood political movement, and founder of the Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah, based in Saudi Arabia.