Underground cells, teaching and authorship activities, inmates of thieves, women, scholars, and princes .. Prison Institution in Islamic History

Muhammad Ayoub Shaban

Prison is an abominable word that predicts the meanings of pain, restraint, the imprisonment of freedom, and cruelty hardly known to another; it is a system known to mankind since its earliest times, and people were cast into it with different classes and bees, many of whom were unjust and deserved of punishment, and most of them were innocent, long between its walls and its torments. These prophet Joseph, peace be upon him, who saw in prison a safe haven from sedition and abolition: (The Lord of the prison said he loved me for what they call me to him), so he stayed in it for a few years, and after that Moses came - peace be upon him - a messenger from God, saying: Pharaoh said: While you took a god other than me to make You are among the prisoners!

It seems that the prison system in ancient Egypt was the most advanced and ancient among its counterparts; even the Holy Qur’an did not mention the term “prison” and its derivatives except related to Egypt. Subsequent civilizations were affected by the inheritance of Egypt and others in the field of prisons and their conditions until they became a firm institution among all its institutions. So how were the conditions of prisons and prisoners in our Islamic history? In what way is the concept of prison, its structure and systems developed? How did people suffer in these prisons and detention camps, who wrote stories of tragedies, pain, successes and aspirations ?! What are the parameters of the vision presented by the Islamic Legislative Code to control this institution? And to what extent is the reality consistent with the example?

Embryonic institution
In their ignorance, the Arabs realized the need for prisons and transferred their system from the Persians and Romans, and the memorial had the kings of confusion in Iraq, several prisons, from which we knew the prisons of "Al-Saneen" and "Al-Thawiyah", and those who were imprisoned in Al-Sanan Uday bin Zaid Al-Tamimi, the Christian poet (d. 35 BC). The Ghassanids - the kings of Arab Al-Sham - had a prison in which Saeed bin Al-Qorashi was arrested, who "had presented the Levant in a trade ... So, the opinion of Bani Abdul Shams met to redeem Saeed bin Al-Aas, so they collected a lot of money and redeemed it," according to Ibn Hajar in his book ' injury'.

And when Islam came, the penal system in it was based on the teachings of the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet, and retribution was dependent on the type of the crime committed, however there are penalties and other crimes committed in it by the principle of “reinforcement”, which is the discipline for sins where the borders are not legalized, so the reinforcement required the presence of prisons, and these reinforcements were Ijtihad as much as the verb and the actor and the face of the verb, as mentioned by the scholar Al-Wancherisi Al-Maliki (d. 914 AH) in his book 'The Standard'.

As for imprisonment in the Islamic legal perception, it is not aimed at humiliating and restricting the prisoner, and for this reason the jurists defined judicial detention as "prison is not in a narrow place, but rather is to impede the person and prevent him from acting himself, whether in a house or a mosque", as explained by Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH) ) In 'Total Fatwas'.

We have seen this significance achieved since the time of the prophecy, as “the Messenger of God ﷺ never had a prison,” as Ibn Hazm (d. 456 AH) says in al-Mahali. But he replaced him with other places whenever the need arose. The Muslims held the leader of the Yamamah who was allied with the Quraysh and the Prophet (PBUH) linked him to the Prophet’s Mosque, and the Prophet (PBUH) of Ibn Shanaf al-Hanafi and Ibn al-Nawahh sent the Muslim messengers of the liar to him - and he had defected from Islam - in the homes of some of his companions Then divorce them. However, the idea of ​​establishing a prison dedicated to the masters of crimes emerged in the age of Omar bin al-Khattab (Z) because of the expansion of the Islamic community and the increase in criminals. He bought a house for Safwan bin Umayya in Makkah with four thousand dirhams and made it a prison.

Hence, historians considered him the true founder of the interest of Islamic prisons. Muhammad ibn al-Faraj al-Talaei al-Qurtubi (d. 495 AH) said in his book 'Qudiyat Rasul Allah (PBUH)': “It was established from Umar ibn al-Khattab .. that he had a prison, and that he was a prison of al-Huta’i (the poet) T 57e) on satirizing, and Sbega Al-Tamimi prison. When Ali (z) assumed the caliphate, he built a prison named 'Nafi' and "was .. from a cane [P] a group of those imprisoned escaped from it", so he built another prison and called it "Al-Muhasis"; as Majd Al-Din Ibn Al-Atheer (d. 606 AH) said in his book 'Finally in a strange and modern effect'.

Sources mention the history of the Umayyads as prisons in different states. In Medina, the governor, Saeed bin Al-Umayyad (d. 59 AH), took a prison that was among his inmates the poet Hadba bin Khashram Al-Amiri because he killed Ziyada bin Zaid Al-Zebyani in a race and a competition between them; as Abu Al-Faraj Al-Isfahani (d. 356 AH) narrated In 'songs'.

Kufa prison was one of the most famous prisons, with a high degree of immunity and strength, and it had an outside square. Al-Tabari (d. 310 AH) - in his history - speaking about the deposit of the followers of Al-Hussein bin Ali, may God be pleased with them (d. 61 AH) - after his martyrdom - said in that prison: “So among the people we are locked up, as a stone fell into the prison with him a book bound, and in the book: He came out The mail orders you on such and such a day to Yazid ibn Muawiyah [in the Levant], and it is all this and such a day, and see in this and that; if you heard enlargement, be sure to kill, and if you do not hear enlargement, it is safety. ”

Al-Hajjaj bin Youssef Al-Thaqafi (d. 95 AH), and the governor of Iraq and the Islamic East, took prisons, the most famous of which was the Dimas Prison in Wasit, the capital of his state. Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH) - in the 'regular' - describes the horrors of this prison, saying that it is "a wall surrounded, with no fate (= shelter) and no shadow ..., and if the prisoners harbored to the walls, they kept them throwing them the guards with stones, and he was feeding them bread Barley is mixed with salt and ash, and the man used to keep it only a little, until it became black and became like a Negro.

And Al-Ragheb Al-Isfahani (d. 502 AH) - in "Lectures Lecturers" - states that the pilgrims "went out ... one day to the mosque and heard a great commotion, and he said: What is this ?! They said: The people of the prison are laughing at the heat !! So he said:" Hear them in it and do not speak "! ! Al-Hafiz Al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH) said in “History of Islam”: “Prisons were displayed after the pilgrims’ death, and they found thirty-three thousand in them, none of them had to be cut or crucified! ”Al-Haytham bin Uday (Al-Ta’i, historian, died 207 AH) said: The pilgrims died and eighty in prison Alpha, thirty thousand of them are women !!

And if Omar bin Al-Khattab was the first to build a prison in Islam, then the tribe of Umar bin Al-Aziz (d. 101 AH) was the first to organize prison conditions and make it a full professional institution. He devoted to her a record that regulates the names and conditions of the prisoners, and made financial salaries for them, according to what the historian Ibn Saad (d. 230 AH) narrated in the “Great Classes” from al-Waqidi (d. 207 AH): “On the authority of Abu Bakr ibn Hazm (d. 120 AH), he said: We used to come out 'Diwan The people of prisons' and they come out to give them a book by Omar bin Abdul Aziz. If Imam Abu Yusef, a student of Abu Hanifa (d. 182 AH), sees - in his book 'Al-Kharj' - that allocating salaries as an idea is to conduct a year before Caliph Ali (Z).

He was keen to implement and follow his commandments related to prisoners, which he sent to his governors and heads of his agendas; and from what he said at Abu Yusuf in 'Al-Kharj': “Now, seek advice from those in your prisons and your land so that they do not fall into a waste, and establish for them what is good for them from food and sustenance.” He wrote to all the princes of his agendas, saying: "See who is in prison who has the right, so do not confine him until you establish him on him, and whoever is formed his command, write to me in it, and trust in the people of prostitution (= immorality) .., and do not count in the punishment, and the pledge of their sick is not One has no money, and if you locked a people in debt, do not combine them with the people of prostitution, and make the women imprisonment separately, and see whoever puts you in custody of someone you trust and who does not bribe, then whoever bribes will do what was ordered.

The era of institutionalization
As for the Abbasid era (132 - 656 AH), there has been an expansion in the establishment of prisons of various types and systems, and they varied between public, private, central, and sub-branches. The Al-Mutabak prison is the first central prison in the history of the Abbasid state, and its horror is equivalent to the Umayyad prison of Dimas.

The construction of this prison ended in 146 AH during the construction of Baghdad, which was completed in 149 AH during the caliph al-Mansur (d. 158 AH), and this prison was called the 'applicable' of his immunity and darkness, as a section of it was created under the ground and was applied to the prisoners and kept them in complete darkness. And Al-Yaqoubi (d. After 292 AH) - in his book Al-Balad - mentions the railway of al-Mutbiq in Baghdad;

In that prison, some of the most dangerous prisoners were imprisoned, or those who wanted power to inflict the most severe punishment from politicians, such as the Abbasid Minister Yaqoub bin Dawood al-Farisi (d. 187 AH) who was imprisoned by the caliph al-Mahdi (d. 169 AH) because of his propensity for the Alevis. According to al-Tabari in his history, that minister tells his harsh experience underground imprisonment, saying: “I was trapped in the 'Al-Mutam’b’ and I took a well in it and I was cast in it. I was also the longest time I do not know the number of days, and I got my vision, and my hair lengthened until I continued as a body of feeling beasts! ” !

Among the most famous prisons in Baghdad: the 'Bustan Musa Prison' which was built by Caliph al-Mu'tasim (d. 227 AH) before its transfer to Samarra, and Al-Tanukhi judge (d. 384 AH) - in Al-Faraj after the Shaddah, quoting who entered it - described it as "was like a great well dug into the water Or a relative of it, then in it according to the shape of the lighthouse, a hollow is inside of it, and it has a runway inside it that has been placed in places of graduation, resting places, and in every house-like rest in which one man sits as if by his size, he is lying on his face, he cannot sit nor extend His leg. "

The care of the Abbasid caliphs in prisons reached the point that some of them supervised the development of engineering designs for them and the implementation of their construction. The Caliph al-Mutadid Allah (d. 289 AH) ordered the construction of a “prison of piers” inside the “House of Caliphate” and in its construction he took into account accuracy and immunity, and was called “piles” because they were buried under the ground All of them, they did not have a section above ground like 'Al-Mutbiq' prison. Al-Khatib Al-Baghdadi (d. 463 AH) describes the construction of the Al-Matamir prison by saying: “And he ordered the construction of the Al-Matamer Prison, whose drawing was (= Al-Mutaddad) for the makers, so it was built with a structure that was not seen in a way that was tight and narrow, and made it locked up for the enemies.”

The jurists stressed the necessity of "confinement of women to a place where there are no men and the custodian of them is a safe woman", as Ibn al-Muwaq al-Maliki (d. 897 AH) decides in the 'crown and diadem'. From an early stage in Islamic history, there were separate prisons for women, and the reasons for their imprisonment varied between families and fines and infringement of Sharia rights such as murder, theft and others. In the time of Muawiyah bin Abi Sufyan (d. 60 AH), Amna Bint Al-Sharid, wife of Amr bin Al-Hamza Al-Khuzai, one of the killers of Othman bin Affan , And statements contradict the reason for her imprisonment.

We have already mentioned the matter of Omar bin Abdul Aziz ordering the separation of female prisoners from male prisoners, and the Abbasids also allocated prisons for women, including the one known as the “Tararat Prison” (= frauds), and was mentioned by the historian Jamal Al-Din Al-Qafti (d. 646 AH) in his book 'Informing the scholars with news The Wise '. For boys, the scholar Al-Wancherisi Al-Maliki mentioned - in 'Al-Maayar' - that minors who commit wrongdoing are "imprisoned by their fathers, not in prison."

Flags of the guests
The phenomenon of prisons extended in the eastern and western parts of the Islamic world, and included the owners of crimes and those convicted of various penalties in accordance with the rulings of the judges and their deputies, some of which are unfair rulings, including those that were devoted to the executive authorities such as the Caliphate and the Sultanate and others, and oppressed opinion holders, and well-known media figures from scholars, writers and ministers.

Perhaps one of the most famous prisoners of conscience and attitude in our history is Imam Abu Hanifa al-Numan (d. 150 AH). The Abbasids accused him of being a supporter of the revolution of the Alawites - led by Muhammad al-Zaki al-Zakiya (d. 145 AH) - in Iraq and elsewhere, and imprisoned him for five years until he died in his prison, after he was "struck in Imprisonment on the head was severely beaten, and they had been instructed to do so. ”As Al-Samari Al-Hanafi (d. 436 AH) recounts in his book 'Akhbar Abu Hanifa and his Companions'. Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (d. 241 AH) also deposited a period in the 'General Prison' in Darb al-Mawsaliyah - according to al-Dhahabi in the 'Walk of the Nobles Flags' - and flogged with whips until his body was destroyed, after his refusal to say the doctrine of 'the creation of the Qur'an' which the authority then promoted.

As for the Hanafi scholar, the sun of the Imams Al-Sarakhsi (d. 483 AH), he was one of the most admired prisoners who were scholars in the history of medieval Islam. He forbade the prohibition of the marriage of one of the Kings of Ferghana (located today in Uzbekistan) from a slave who freed him and did not wait for his emancipation; An underground prison in the city of Uzund (located today in Kyrgyzstan), as mentioned by Mahmoud Al Hanafi Al Kafawi (d. 990 AH) in his book 'The Brigades of the Good News'.

Al-Sarakhsi was banned by his imprisonment - which required him for more than ten years - even from his books, pens and tools, except that his students were standing at the top of the prison well and they used to learn his knowledge, “and he was dictating to them from the dungeon” with the loudest voice of his memorization; and from that dictation came his great juristic book: ' Al-Mabsut 'with a high position in the Hanafi fiqh !! We see the effect of imprisonment and its cruelty on the same fern at the end of some sections of this book. In the explanation of the book “Worshiping”, for example, he says: “This is the last explanation of the book of worships in the clearest meanings and the most concise phrases, dictated by Mahboos on Friday and groups.”

As for Imam Ibn Taymiyyah, he was imprisoned many times in Egypt and the Levant, and he used to make his prison an opportunity to write and write scientific responses, and in his prison in which he died, he kept writing "until [the Sultan] brought out what was at [his] books, papers, papers, pen and pen, He was forbidden from books and reading, and his books were carried ... to the Bookstore of Great Adiliya ", according to Ibn Katheer (d. 774 AH) in his history. In Yemen, the Sultan and Imam al-Mahdi of Din Allah al-Zaydi (d. 840 AH) wrote his book "Flowers in the Jurisprudence of the Good Imams" in prison, after he was ousted from the ruling in 801 AH. Muhammad's authorship in prison was not confined to Sharia scholars, as the writer Abu Ishaq Al-Sabi in Baghdad (d. 384 AH) classified his book Akhbar Bani Buayh while he was in prison.

On the western side of the Islamic world, the imprisonment held great flags. Ahmed bin Muhammad bin Faraj al-Jiani, the Andalusian (d. 366 AH), was a linguist and poet, and he was thrown in Jiyan Prison for seven years for a word that appeared from him and was interpreted badly, “And the people of the request ( = Students of knowledge) enter him in prison, and read the language and other things about him. "As Ibn Bishkawal (d. 578 AH) mentions in his book Al-Silka.

Writers and politicians
Our history also recorded a large group of poets and preachers from the literary people, whose penalty was imprisonment; either for cases in which they deserved to be imprisoned, or because of their position of authority. In addition to Al-Hutaiba, who had previously been told about his imprisonment, Al-Kumait bin Zaid Al-Asadi (d. 126 AH) was imprisoned for his satire and the famous governor of Iraq, Khalid bin Abdullah Al-Qusri (d. 126 AH). Al-Hajjaj Al-Khatib Al-Mudhaf Al-Ghadhban Bin Al-Qathary also imprisoned for a long time, “Then he called him a day, and when he saw him he said: You are fat! He said: Restraint and treachery (= comfort and abundant food), and whoever is a guest of the prince with fatness”, as Al-Jahiz (d. 255 e) tells him in ' Statement and identification '.

And Dhahir al-Din al-Bayhaqi (d. 565 AH) - mentioned in the “Genealogy and Titles” section - a writer named “Abu Muhammad Al-Alawi Al-Farsi, a preacher, was a valid Alawite Hadith, and he saw Al-Mutanabbi and read some of his books on it. Jail prison.

The games of politics, conspiracies of palaces and closed rooms did not leave the states and powers of the ruling and political men not a corner in which to take care, so many of them suffered bitterness of imprisonment and restraint. Perhaps at the forefront of these Abbasid caliphs who were satisfied with God (d. 338 AH), who decided to depart from the Bohai State (d. 356 AH), get rid of it, Ibn Katheer recounts that when the Buwaites entered Baghdad, "the caliph was driven, walking to the house of Moez al-Dawla and was arrested there ..., and he was still imprisoned until his death."

If we turn to the Islamic West, we will find that the most famous prisoner of politics was the Prince of Seville, the poet Al-Mu'tamid bin Abbad (d. 488 AH), who changed his state from the emirate and the rich to prison, families and poverty in his exile in the Moroccan city of Agmat, following the destruction of the Almoravids of his emirate. Imam Ibn Hazm entered the prison in the year 412 AH, during the days of his involvement in the politics of Cordoba, during his great sedition in the early fifth century AH.

While the prisons of the Islamic world throughout its long history contained the attic of society among the great caliphs, princes, jurists, speakers, writers, military personnel, and others, most of its inmates were from the public and the marginalized, who rarely stood in the sources of political and social history with their suffering. The reasons for their imprisonment varied, so the money crimes - especially theft - and murder were at the forefront of the abuses that thrown their owners in prisons.

The Abbasid prisons were filled with "calibers", who are kind of thieves who had a high level of combat skills, which made security control of them many times difficult, and they conquered the cities loot and plunder. The authorities added to them the category of 'Makdis' who are the beggars. Al-Jahiz wanted us a description of one of them, Khalid bin Yazid, known as “Khalawi Al-Makdi,” and he transmitted his will to his son in which he enumerates his “exploits” and his past begging, so he said: “I have dressed the sultans and the needy.” And I served the caliphs and the mujdids, and mixed with hermits and deadly people, and I built prisons as I did the male councils !!

Among the walls of these prisons we also found the most famous, influential and experienced thieves, Abu Bakr al-Naqash al-Basri. Al-Tnoukhi (d. 384 AH) - in the "Lecture of the Lecture" - narrated that a man from the people of Basra had stolen his money, and he was advised to visit the Basra prison in which the debate was held, the leader of the thieves, to inquire about his money and how to recover it, in exchange for a valuable gift of food, drink and sweets, and he has The experiment paid off, as the debate showed that man his money and told him how to get it back.

The life of the cells
Criminal prisoners used to get their food from their families, and we learned how some of them were spending their days and nights among the prison walls from the biography of Ali Ibn Al Hariri, Damascene (d. 645 AH) who entered the prison because of a debt that he could not spend, and he was imprisoned in the section of the owners of the deeds. Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali (d. 1089 AH) says - in 'Gold Nuggets' - narrating this Hariri story, with its spirit of solidarity that prisons can prevail if there is someone who improves the soul policy in times of distress and inspires them to solve their crises:

"[Al-Hariri] .. is in prison without dinner, so when he became praying with the detainees in the morning prayer, and he made remembrance of them into a meekness, and he commanded everyone who had eaten something from his family to paralyze him (= stored it), so when it was noon he commanded them to extend eating food (= Table), so everyone ate in prison and preferred a lot, so he commanded them to shail it, and he prayed for them at noon and ordered them to sleep and rest, then he prayed for them and made remembrance of them to Morocco, then he prayed for them in Morocco and presented what he attended; and he remained like this. On the third day, he commanded them to look into the state of those who were imprisoned, and everyone who was imprisoned for less than a hundred must pay him one of them and satisfy his rivals and get him out, and intercourse came out , Who came out and began seeking salvation from the left, and stayed six months in prison, and Ajabua him and took him out. "

Some kings, princes, and people of goodwill have endowed endowments and friendships for spending on prisoners, such as the founder of the Tulunid state in Egypt, Ahmed Ibn Tulun (d. 270 AH), who used to “make 500 prisoners every month”, as Ibn Khaldun mentioned in his history. When the crown prince of God Al-Abbasi (d. 623 AH) the throne of the caliphate in Baghdad in the year 622 AH, “the judge gave ten thousand dinars to pay off the debts of the poor in prison”; as the historian Ibn Tigri Bardi (d. 874 AH) tells us in the 'Resource of Kindness'.

Ibn Taghry Bardi also mentioned - in 'Al-Manhal Al-Safi' - that the Mamluk Sultan apparent of Pruko (d. 801 AH) "was always slaughtered in the days of his sultanate on each day of the month of Ramadan twenty-five cows, cooked and given charity with pure white bread on ... Prisoners, everyone has a pound of meat (= 450 grams) cooked and three loaves. "Among these philanthropists is the headmaster of the Mamluk army in Aleppo Abdullah bin Mashkour Al-Halabi (d. 778 AH). Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani (d. 852 AH) - in Al-Durar Al-Kamenah - said that he “stood up [money] on those imprisoned from the Sharia (= prisoners of special truth ) They were before in the People of Crime Prison. "

However, Al-Maqrizi (d. 845 AH) describes - in 'preaching and consideration' - a scene different from this comforting of the deplorable conditions of prisoners and insulting their dignity; he says: "As for the 'walis prisons', the misfortune of their people is not described, and their command became famous that they go out with the agents in the iron even They hone (= begging) while they were screaming in the streets: hunger! What you give charity to them does not get them except for what goes into their stomachs, and all the charity that people meet for them is taken by the warden and the governor’s agents, and those who did not satisfy them exaggerated in his punishment, and they are nevertheless used in potholes and in [Building] Buildings and so on from hard work, and agents urge them. If their work is over, they will return I have to be imprisoned in their iron without feeding anything. "

Prisoners in some areas were required to pay a daily or monthly royalty even if they obtained it by begging, which is called the 'prison decision' or 'prison guarantee', which is that a person responsible for his assumption of prison administration requests a large sum to be paid to the authority, provided that he redeem it double by taxes imposed on him Prisoners must get them harshly !! Ibn Taghry Bardi says - in 'The Bright Stars' - that Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun (d. 741 AH) "was nullified ... that was not prescribed in prisons, and it is [that] for everyone who was imprisoned - even for one moment - a hundred dirhams other than what he fined. And ... she has a guarantor that is required of all prisons. " This is despite the fact that the jurists said that "the wages of the prison guard (= the warden) ... - as the wages of the judge's aides - come from the home of money", as decided by al-Hattab al-Maliki (d. 954 AH) in the Talents of Galilee.

The Box of Sorrows
The suffering of the prisoners did not stop when they were constrained by feeding and spending, but rather imposing fines on them while they were imprisoned and working in hard labor. On top of that, they were indifferent to them when their numbers were accumulated. Ahmed bin Al-Mudabr, the writer (T 270 AH), narrated that he was thrown in a prison Ahmed Ibn Tulun in Egypt, and he was a very narrow prison "in which he created and others with one another, and he was locked up with us as a Bedouin and he did not find a place to sit in, so he said: O people! I was afraid of everything except that I never feared that I have no place in the ground in confinement I sit in it And there is no risk to that, so seek refuge in God from our condition.

The methods of torturing prisoners varied between beating, whipping, breaking teeth, limbs, hanging, and others. The later ages knew new and formidable types of torture of prisoners, such as nailing, as the person to be tortured was placed on a board of wood prepared in the form of a cross, and it was called sarcasm of the 'game', in which the limbs of the person were hammered with nails and often ended the life of the nailed to death !!

Ibn Manzur mentioned - in the "Lisan Al-Arab" - some torture machines in prison, and he mentioned among them a tool called "Al-Maqtara: Al-Falaqa," which is a tree in which there are breaches, every violation according to the size of the leg capacity, in which the legs of the detainees are entered. [Which] is derived from 'a train Camels' because they are trapped in one train, clumped together, their legs in woods broken up according to the size of their market.

Because of these miserable conditions, the prisoners were at many times buzzing with their pain and revolting against their miserable lives, then things developed to resist the jailer and try to escape in search of freedom. Often, these attempts were unsuccessful. Ibn Al-Jawzi recounts - in the 'regular' - that in the year 306 AH, "the people of the new prison [in Baghdad] rioted and climbed up the fence, rode it ... the police owner and fought them."

Prisoners were also taking advantage of security breakdowns inside the cities to flee and flee, as we saw in the revolution of January 25, 2011 in Egypt and elsewhere. When Cairo surrounded the year 791 AH of the princes opposing the Mamluk Sultan apparent plum, and everyone was certain that he was defeated. Himself .. He disappeared and the people remained a mob, and the prisoners cut their restrictions with a 'treasury of Shamayel' and broke the door of confinement and went out ..., and no one wanted them to turn everyone back on their own, and so did the people who kept the dailam and the people of Al-Rahba prison.

In the moments of its anger and revolution, the masses were able to defeat the local authorities, break the doors of prisons, and release the prisoners, as the people of Baghdad did in the year 309 AH when they revolted against the Abbasid minister Hamid bin Abbas al-Khorasani (d. 311 AH) "because of the high prices ..., and the Sultan fought them at the door of the line. .. after the public opened prisons. "

While people of various classes continue to suffer from the prison humiliation, its shortness, and its long days and nights, the moments of release were their highest aspirations. The reasons for the release of prisoners varied according to political, economic and religious circumstances, some of whom were released in honor of the head of the Authority and its senior officials, especially on the occasion of their elevation. Al-Dhahabi says - in 'History of Islam' - that the Umayyad caliph Suleiman bin Abd al-Malik (d. 99 AH) opened his caliphate with "fine and sealed fine, because he returned grievances to its people ..., and took out the prisoners who were in Basra."

As these princes saw in the release of prisoners a close to God, the reward and the repentance of their calamities are required in the moments of their anguish with illness and the like, for “the great illness of the king (the Ayyubid who died 624 AH) was given charity and expelled the prisoners” in Damascus, as Al Dhahabi mentioned. And when the closest Mamluks of Sultan Al-Nasir Qalawun, the prince, reached Al-Yahyaawi (d. 748 AH), recovered from the disease, “the Sultan's work to restore him a great sum (= feast) was immense in the field…, and about thirty thousand dirhams were released from the sultan’s treasury, and the prisoners were released from debt.”

Legislative vision
Because of the spread of this phenomenon and its institutional and societal consolidation, we saw a diversity in books that devoted some aspects of it to the issue of imprisonment, as in the 'abscess' of Judge Abu Yusef, and some general literature books. The book 'Anas Prisoner and the Comfort of the Prisoner' by Safi al-Din al-Halabi (d. After 625 AH) may be the first book devoted to his title and subject to imprisonment, because of the ordeals to which the closest people were subjected to imprisonment and he is his master and "servant"; as he describes it.

The jurists and scholars of Sharia in general presented a legislative vision - with great mastery and splendor - for prisons, their conditions, the types of prisoners and their rights, the penalties imposed on them; this was evident in the chapters of the judiciary, transactions and borders, and in the works of "cataclysms" that were providing legal provisions for new issues emerging in society in every era and Egypt. And prison may be an emergency treatment for each other.

The scholars have inferred the legitimacy of the prison from the Qur’an and the actions of the Prophet (PBUH) and the rightly guided caliphs; In it, and if these places continue to expand with increasing crime and its diversity over the centuries. Imam al-Qarafi al-Maliki (d. 684 AH) - in his book 'The Differences' - emphasized that the general rule is that "it is not permissible to imprison [a person] in the right if the ruler (=) manages to fulfill it ... because in his imprisonment there is a continuation of his injustice."

In view of the high number of prisoners and the large number of prisons since the late Umayyad era and the beginnings of the Abbasid era, Caliph Harun al-Rashid (d. 193 AH) asked the judge of his time, Abu Yusef, to specify the foundations upon which the treatment of prisoners should be based, so he prepared a constitution for which advocates of benevolence to prisoners In the modern era in a thousand years, as explained in his book "The Abscess".

What was stated in this book regarding spending on prisoners - especially their poor - was saying: "He loves me to run from the money house for each of them what he strengths, for it is not permissible nor can he seek otherwise ..., and the prisoner of the captives of the polytheists must be It is fed and improved to be judged, so how can a Muslim man have sinned or sinned by starving ?!

Rather, Abu Yusuf showed the best way to spend on prisoners, by delivering money directly to them, fearing that they would fall into the hands of the prisoners, so they would not reach them and their suffering would increase. Addressing the Caliph Al-Rashid: “Pass by appreciation to them what their strengths are in their food and their blood, and this will become a dirham for them every month by paying that to them, because if you make bread on them, the prison governors go with them ... and the jalaza (= prison guards), and that is a man of good people The righteousness confirms the names of those in prison who give charity, and the names are with him and that pays them month by month.

As for his colleague, Imam Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaibani (d. 189 AH), he stated that "the prisoner should not be prevented from entering his family and brothers upon him." The fuqaha 'also prohibited physically and psychologically assaulting prisoners, and torturing them by beating or by preventing food and drink; if that happened and the prisoner died because of him, they counted this as intentional killing, which requires retribution. We benefit from Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar that there was a periodic judicial inspection of prisons. He said - in “Lifting the insistence” - that the Qaisrani Shafi’i Judge (d. 531 AH) “was empowered to consider grievances, so he clarified the conditions of the prisoners and released from them a lot of people who were despairing of salvation for the length of the covenant Leaving them in prison, he reviewed the order of the [Fatimid Caliph], and asked to release them, so he authorized him to do so.

We have seen the al-Maqrizi historian (d. 845 AH) - who is also a jurist - mourns the deterioration of prison conditions in his era, rejecting any grievances that occur in them, saying: “As for the imprisonment that is [taking place] now, it is not permissible for one of the Muslims, and that is because he collects a lot together In a situation that narrows them, they are not able to perform ablution and prayer, and some may see some 'awrah, and the free ones harm them in the summer and the cold in the winter, and someone may be locked in the Sunnah and more and not very (= financial ability) for him, and that the origin of his imprisonment is to guarantee the prison official an unjust fine.

This was a tour of history and legislation, in which we saw - from a variety of angles - the story of prisons and prisoners in our history, some of which adhered to what was established by the Sharia in treating and caring for prisoners, some of which transgressed boundaries, norms and morals, and gave innocent people of the nation scholars and sometimes in narrow cells, some of whom spent time In it, he knew his status, and some of them kept his memory forgotten; and that is a story full of scenes of pain and distress we still see in our times despite everything said about civilization and human rights!