gone crazy, and she listened only to words in which they talked of her dear sons, and she sang out these heart-rending lines here and there in public gatherings:
"Oh, who has heard the story of my two dear sons,
Who were like two precious pearls out of shells?
Oh, who knows the story of my two sons?
Who were my heart and my hearing?
Now I have been robbed of my heart!
Oh, who has heard of the state of my two sons,
Who were the narrows of my bones,
And now the bones are without marrow?
Who is aware of my lost and perplexed heart?
That heart is distressed for the loss
Of the two children who were helpless in the absence of their father.
They told me of it, but I believed them not.
They spoke of the injustice inflicted on me!
They told me that Busr cut the throats
Of my two sons with his sharp swords!
Alas! Is such a great injustice possible?'(173)
We read the following passage in the two books of al-Isti'ab and Usd al-ghabah: Busr ibn Abi Artat. in one of his savage raids, attacked the Hamdan tribe, killed their men and took their women captive. They were the first group of Muslim women who were taken captive in Islam and put up for sale in the market.(174)
We read also in the book of al-Gharat: A group of people of Ma'rib came across Busr and his soldiers on a caravan route. This inhuman creature killed them all except one man who fled from his bloody clutches and returned to his tribe, reporting this great calamity in one brief sentence: "I have brought you the news of death and massacre of our old and young men."(175)