Habbani Lineages and Diaspora
The major clans of the Habbani were the al Adani, Doh, Hillel, Maifa'i, Ma'tuf, Shamakh, Bah'quer and D'gurkash,. All but the last two exist in Israel today. They did not have Kohen or Levites among them. Their traditional occupations included silversmiths, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, and making household utensils, and the men particularly engaged in long-distance trading.
In the 16th century, thanks to the advice of a Habbani Jew Suleman the Wise, the Jews received a special quarter of Habban. And in the late 17th century, a severe drought hit Habban, resulting in considerable demographic changes. Habbani families came under intense pressure to reproduce to help repopulate the community, despite an acute shortage of women. But the most significant impact of the drought was an large-scale exodus of Habbani Jews across Yemen and far beyond.
The drought of the 1700s decimated the Habbani. The Bah'quer and D'gurkash clans specifically left the valley to seek sustenance for their families. They traveled all the way to India, but when they returned they found that most of their families had died from starvation. They left Yemen again to travel on the Indian Ocean, settling in India and East Africa along typical Hadhrami settlement routes, finding work as mercenaries for the Nizam, the Mughal emperors and the Al Said. Most of these tribes assimilated into local populations, adopting the surnames of their patrons. The remaining Habbani tribes in Yemen of al Adani, Doh, Hillel, Maifa'i, Ma'tuf and Shamakh, were reduced to 1-4 adult males each and their families. The entire Habbani Jewish population was estimated to be no more than 50 people at the end of the 18th century.
These population shortages could result in marriages outside of traditional family lines. Around the mid-1800s, one Habbani man from the al-Adani clan whose wife had died married a woman from al-Bedhani. The woman allegedly seduced and married a non-Jewish neighbor, and the ensuing backlash resulted in the family moving to Dathina, never to return. Although intermittent persecution did occur, the biggest threat to Habbani Jews during this time was conversion due to assimilation. During the great famine of 1724, 700 Jews voluntarily converted to Islam to receive greater food rations. Despite the lack of forced conversions, Habbani Jews also converted to Islam to improve their social status, to pursue romantic affairs, and when seeking refuge due to internal feuds.
An example of these types of feuds was an inheritance dispute in the 1930s between the daughters of a man with no sons resulted in one line of the lineage migrating to Aden and avoided conversion, and them migrated to the Palestine Mandate.
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