He had dreamt of his young wife and the newborn child.

He had dreamt of his young wife and the newborn child. He saw that the child was grown up-and in the arms of its mother, it gave a toothless smile, spreading its arms towards him as if to say: "Take me father, hug me, fondle me, kiss me, please." Faisal cried for one hour. He was a Mathematician, and a human being. During my stay of four months and two days, I never saw him go to Muhaqqiq. His ordeal seemed to be over; but the protracted confinement tortured him further. What had he done?

While lecturing on Mathematics, he at times digressed to touch the burning political issues of the Middle East, and frankly castigated the monarchy and the despotic rules of Jordan and other Arab states. He never realised that the government's secret agents and informers were everywhere. His own students reported him, and one day, the icy hand of Mukhabirat descended upon him. "You cannot imagine how much they beat me," he once told me.

"They seem to have softened down now, for the beating I see these days is not at all comparable to what I have undergone. The rain of Sonda falling upon my body turned my skin violet, then black and then violet again. I had a bloodbath" - he said. The young generation of Iraq and many other Arab states is condemned to decadence. Only those who choose to live aimlessly, whiling away their precious time in frivolity and gain less pursuits, ostensibly inclined to the prevailing rule, can survive.

A young man who thinks, has an ideology and original persuasions, is religious and a true Muslim, gives vent to his feelings and opinions, for him all roads point to the gallows. With every young intelligent Muslim Iraqi who is systematically brainwashed, wrecked, finally executed or banished, Islam incurs an irreparable loss of genius. Yahya, a student of psychology, came from Kuwait. Common to many psychologists, he had his own psychological problems.

His wife had deserted him accusing him of impotence, and it became impossible to live in Kuwait. So he came to Iraq where a job awaited him. Human behaviour was his subject, and as he discussed human traits, he cited examples from history. The Ba’thist regime found him a suspect, and pre-empted his arrest before he could discuss the present insane rulers psychologically.

He was rounded up in Kerbala, and was immediately consigned to a dark vault, which had a revolting stench of urine and human excrements.