Page 139 - Arabian Studies (V)

The Yemeni Poet Al-Zubayri 129
al-Akwa*, ‘Abdullah Mujahid al-Shammahl, Mahmud Ibrahim Zayid.
No date, place of publication or printing house are mentioned, but it was
published not later than 1969, probably in Beirut. I am informed that both
al-Sayaghi and al-Shammahl deny having had anything to do with this
book, stating that their names were added without their knowledge or
consent, and that the book was written by Qasim Ghalib and Muh. al-
Akwa* only. The fifth name was not known—it is thought he may be an
Egyptian Azhari.
124. Ahmad al-Shaml has described conditions in jail at Hajjah in
‘Yemeni literature in Hajjah prisons’, Arabian Studies, 1975, 43 ff.
125. Ed. ‘All al-Sayyid Sabah al-Madani, Cairo, 1384/1964. Cf. fn. 89
for the biographies.
126. Subulal-salam, op. cit., 6.
127. Defined in fn. 73.
128. Among his writings is Irshad al-nuqqad ila taysir al-ijtihad.
129. Diwan, 381.
130. Ibid., 332 seq., with details from the other biographies.
131. The Prophet, ‘All, Fatimah, Hasan, Husayn.
132. Biography in Nashr al'-'arf, ii, 481, (d.'l 167/1753-4).
133. Al-‘Ajami, being an Ithna‘asharl, a group to be regarded from a
Sunni viewpoint as far more extreme than the Zaydl school, could
naturally be expected to view any tendency towards Sunnism with consider­
able disfavour.
134. Al-Amlr himself complains in his Diwan, 386, of the hostility
shown him on account of his propagation of the Prophet’s Sunnah, the use
of Sunni works of Tradition, the science of Tradition, as one biographer
states, being not widely spread in the Yemen at that time..
135. Ibid., 250. He pronounces the conventional blessings on the
Prophet and al-Al al-kiram, the noble House (p.372 passim).
136. Nashr al-'arf, ii, 518-9. Al-Shaml informs me that ‘Imam Ahmad,
on leaving the Yemen for treatment in Rome, made a will that all he
possesses in the way of property, buildings, furniture and coin should go to
the Bayt Mai al-Muslimln. A number of persons bore witness to the
bequest (wasiyyah), including the QadI Muhammad al-‘AmrI who told me
that Imam Ahmad said, “Even this pen with which I am writing is (to) be
the property of the Bayt Mai al-Muslimin”. He (Ahmad) said, “As for my
books in Hajjah and Ta‘izz if my son (al-walad) al-Badr wishes to use them
he is to have them—otherwise they are to be a waqf to the Library of al-
Jami* al-Kablr in San‘a”\ He did not make a waqf of his possessions
(amlak), it being as if he wished to absolve himself in respect of what he
had taken in the way of disbursements (sarfiyyat). My friend (al-akh)
Ahmad Basha told me that some of the officers and al-Baydani found the
bequest/will and smuggled it to Cairo after the ‘Revolution’ lest people
should read it and realise the virtue and honesty (nazahah) of Imam
Ahmad, God rest him. I also know that Sayf al-Islam ‘Abdullah son of
Imam Yahya, before he was executed, made a will that all he possesses
should go to the Bayt Mai al-Muslimln in return for what he had
taken from the Chest (Sunduq) of the Bayt al-Mal when he was governor