I read about how they were tortured.
Years ago before I had any interest of moving to Tareem or learning even basic Arabic, I had read books and articles written largely by non-Muslim researches about Hadhramout and its people living in foreign lands.
In probably the most known work in recent times, is a book which was originally a PhD dissertation written by Dr. Ho Eng Seng called Graves of Tarim.
In it he describes not in great but sufficient detail an act of public torture and trauma that I’ve heard about mentioned by elders before I came across the book.
The scholars of Islam, especially those of Prophetic Lineage, would be driven around the valley. Except they won’t be sitting in the pickup truck, a very common vehicle there by the army and civilians.
There would be a rope tied from the frame of the pickup truck. The other end of the rope would be tied to their legs.
In the incident described in Graves of Tarim, this truck was located at the tail end of the presidential motorcade of the Communist Socialist Leader when they drove past UNESCO town Shibam to meet and greet its people.
The locals came out as instructed to the main road to greet the motorcade. It was said that when the locals realized why the tail end of the motorcade generated an unusual about of sand debris, some of them vomitted for days.
The man in the picture with the green turban, his name is Habib Ahmad bin Soleh al Haddad.
His legs was on the back of one such pickup truck.
