Word: sana
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Imam's capital is Sana, an almost impregnable city (pop. 40,000), which had a 20-story building 19 centuries before" New York. There, in the hot morning sun, the Imam sits under the Tree of Justice before the palace gates, a soldier holding a royal umbrella over him while he dispenses direct and parsimonious judgments to his subjects. Most of them accept his word as the Koran's law but, just to be sure, the Imam keeps as hostages 4,000 sons of chieftains and bureaucrats...
...Cool of the Evening. After court the Imam rides through Sana's surprisingly wide, flowery streets in a horse-drawn coach. As the shadows lengthen in Sana men, women & children gather in the courtyards for the daily ritual and recreation-the chewing of the qat. They squat about brass spittoons (in the better homes) and tear the leaves of Catha edulis fresh from the stems. Some travelers have said that qat is an aphrodisiac, but a Yemenite philosopher has set the world straight on that point. "It brings rest to the body and ease to the mind," he wrote...