“‘Father, what are you doing with me?’
“Then I covered her up with the earth and still she cried:
“‘Father, are you going to bury me? Are you going to leave me alone and go away?’ But I went on filling in the earth till I could hear her cries no longer, and that is the only time that I felt any pity when I buried a daughter.”[257]
There were others however before Qays who did not take this attitude toward children. Sa’sa’a, the grandfather of the poet Al-Farazdac, frequently redeemed female children that were about to be buried alive. Inasmuch as he too was of the tribe of Tamim his action would indicate that Qays was not an innovator. In order to save them he was obliged to buy them off and the price he paid every time was two she-camels, big with young, and one he-camel.[258]
Boasting of this humane action on the part of his ancestor (who was the François Villon of his day) Al-Farazdac vauntingly declared one day before the Khalifs of the family of Omayya:
“I am the son of the giver of life to the dead.”
When he was reproved for this boasting he justified it by quoting the Koran:
“He who saveth a soul alive shall be as if he had saved the souls of all mankind.”[259]
The Aghani explains the practice on the ground of poverty and credits Sa’sa’a with being the first one to attempt to put an end to the practice. Thereafter this humane grandparent of a vagabond poet was known as Muhiyyu’l-Maw’udat, or “He who brings buried girls to life.” According to the Kamil he saved as many as one hundred and eighty daughters.[260]