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“Were we to visit her, we would find her earth Fragrant, perfumed as Ambergris breathing; Well-mannered, we would tread barefoot in her villages, Beholding that in a secret Wadi were we walking…((Editor’s Introduction, Muhammad Bin Abubakar Al Shilli, 1982:8)). These are the lines from one of the most celebrated Hadrami poets of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Sayyid Abu Bakr bin Shihab about his hometown, Tarim. Tarim is a hamlet situated in the Hadhramaut Valley of south Yemen. An important center of theological and juridical learning, Tarim is also an abode to several hundred Sayyed communities from where millions of them lit the candle of Hadrami Diaspora and migrated to various parts of the globe. History of Alavi Sadath in Tarim marks a beginning by the arrival of I...