Word: mahmud
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...humid, red-roofed Resht, an Iranian city of 120,000 near the shores of the Caspian Sea, death last week had an appointment with Mahmud Faqizadeh, 31. A burly, handsome young man who worked in the Imperial Forestry Service, black-browed Mahmud had quarreled with an eminent Reshtian businessman, brooded over the affair in the company of a bottle of vodka and then, while drunk, sought out the man and shot him to death...
...Mahmud knew that he must pay for his crime. He rose in his prison cell at 3:30 on the morning of the day he was to be hanged. He made his religious ablutions by washing his arms, face and the insteps of his feet, prayed with the prison mullah, and sipped tea with relatives and friends. When one of his sisters broke into tears, Mahmud told her not to worry, said soothingly that "death comes to everyone in this world." Driving in a police car to Naserieh Square, where the public execution was to be held, Mahmud sang contentedly...
...enormous crowd in the square was held back from the gallows by police and 200 soldiers. Latecomers were arriving by taxi, and villagers streamed in on foot from the surrounding countryside. Mahmud was hailed by the thunderous cry of "Salavat" (Felicity to Mohammed and his descendants). Before his hands were bound, Mahmud handed a ring to the executioner, an ancient custom intended to ensure a speedy death for a condemned man. The noose was slipped about his neck, and the hangman and his assistants hauled smartly on the rope. Mahmud shot six feet off the ground-then the rope broke...
Getting dazedly to his feet, Mahmud gestured toward the hangman, grinned and shouted to the crowd: "He wants another ring!" He twisted his bound hands sufficiently to draw out a second ring from his pocket. The crowd broke into ululations of "Salavat!" Someone shouted for Mahmud to sing a song, and he obliged. A peasant stepped forward, cried: "I am from Kuchesfahan. I don't know this man and don't know why they are hanging him. Let them hang me in his stead." Others cried: "He is young-have pity!" and "Let him live...
...Mahmud thanked his well-wishers and reassured them: "Just now, I did not feel the touch of death. I am filled with calmness. I am traveling to eternity in peace." He submitted once more to the noose. This time the rope held, and Mahmud went to death dancing on air. Again the crowd intoned "Salavat!", and many onlookers threw silver coins at the gallows to cleanse themselves of contamination. The body dangled in Naserieh Square until evening, when it was taken down and buried in the municipal cemetery. Nothing in Mahmud's life so became him as the leaving...