Childhood
Saleh was born in the town of Bait el-Ahmar, in the Al Ahmar family of the small Sanhan tribe, a tribe whose territories lie some 20 kilometers southeast of the capital Sana'a (the Al Ahmar family of Sanhan is often falsely confounded with the same-named ruling family of the Hashid tribal confederacy, a confederacy to which the Sanhan tribe belongs). Saleh is a Zaydi Shia Muslim. He is a "non-Hashimi" Zaydi (not a direct descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad's grandfather), and would not have been eligible to rule under the Zaydi Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen that ruled the country until 1962.
Read more about this topic: Ali Abdullah Saleh
Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“The fact remains that the human being in early childhood learns to consider one or the other aspect of bodily function as evil, shameful, or unsafe. There is not a culture which does not use a combination of these devils to develop, by way of counterpoint, its own style of faith, pride, certainty, and initiative.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)
“I long for scenes where man has never trod A place where woman never smiled or wept There to abide with my Creator God And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie The grass below, above, the vaulted sky.”
—John Clare (1793–1864)
“We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)