Page 64 - Arabian Studies (II)

54 Arabian Studies II
they had amicable relations. They saw, or at least some of them saw,
in him, truly and sincerely, their only hope and saviour who would
deliver them from the Imam’s brothers and their children, who took
an extreme attitude and were against pardoning or even any kindness
in the treatment of the prisoners.
A certain young man, in anticipation of what was to come, wrote
several letters to some of the prisoners from outside and claims that
he received replies from them. He has collected all this in a book
bearing the title Min ward' al-aswar.9
If, in conclusion, I am to quote an example of the poetry of
Hajjah prison here is a chance to celebrate the resurrection of one my
'Maw’udat' (girl children buried alive) which QadT IsmaTl, to whom I
am indebted for his efforts, disinterred from her unknown grave, and
returned, brought to life again, to ‘her father’. In it I portrayed the
tragedy of QadT Muhammad b. Muhammad al-IryanT, who died of
tuberculosis after protracted suffering in Qahirat Hajjah in 1953
(25th RabT I, 1372). The poem was called Ma’sat shahid (The
Tragedy of a martyr):

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