Daughters of the Wind: Edouard Al-Dahdah's blog on desert arabian horses, past and present

The Tahawi family website in Arabic is a gold mine of original information on the asil horses of Egypt’s Tahawi tribe. Here’s what I found today on this website concerning the horse Barakat, who is the paternal grandsire of the three foundation mares Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat [my own annotation in between square brackets]:

“The stallion Barakat is the son of the old Dahman,  the stallion of ‘Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi which was bought from the ‘Anazah Arabs in 1322H (1898 AD), and the origin of this Dahman stallion is from the Dahmat ‘Amer mare of Jar Allah ibn Tuwayrish, and his sire is a Saqlawi Jadran [Note from Edouard: This is the same horse whose hujjah was reproduced and translated in an entry below]. As to the dam of the stallion Barakat, she is the mare of Mnazi’  ‘Amer al-Tahawi, and she is Dahmat Shahwan“.  

Further above on the website there is the mention that “the Dahman horses of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi are from the horses of Ibn Maajil of Syria.”

The information on Barakat’s dam is extremely interesting. Not only because it allows us to go one generation back in the pedigrees of the three Hamdan stables foundation mares: Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat. It’s interesting because it reveals additional linkages between the Tahawi tribe on the one hand, and the clan of Ibn Maajil on the other. The Bedouin clan of Ibn Maajil is the leading clan of the al-Ashaji’ah tribe, which was absorbed by the Ruwalah in the late nineteenth century as the latter tribe was becoming the largest and most powerful of the Bedouin tribes of the Northern Arabian desert. Those of you who read Arabic, can read a detailed interview of the current leader of the Ashaji’ah tribe, Muhammad ibn Farhan ibn Qasim al-Mi’jil (or Maajil), whose tribe is now settled in the Northern Province of Saudi Arabia. The interview is on one of the main ‘Anazah tribal websites.

The linkages between the Tahawi tribe and the Ibn Maajil clan were already known: the Ibn Maajil clan actually appears as the breeder and the original owner of the desert-bred Ma’naqiyah mare which Prince Ahmed Pasha Kamal of Egypt acquired, apparently through the Tahawis, and which is the dam of the stallion Sabbah (b. 1895), present in almost every single Egyptian pedigree today.

I am back in the USA after a monthlong break with the family, during which I managed to keep my promise to take a brake from writing. New themes and ideas are bouncing all over my head.

Thanks to all the readeers who kept checking on this blog and reading earlier entries, and a big thank you to Ambar who held the fort during my absence.

We had a brisk discussion in the comments of an earlier posting about whether the leg faults apparent in the photograph were actually characteristic of the subject. While we did touch on age and injury, I wanted to point out another way in which photos can misrepresent a horse. Herewith, two photos of a nine-year-old Davenport stallion, HF Shaton (Wotan x Chiffon CF, Hamdani Simri):

Same photographer (Anita Enander), same equipment, taken within a minute of each other. But see how a tiny change in the viewing angle stretches out the middle of the body, narrows the neck and shortens the hip? The effect can be even more exaggerated with the wide-angle lens in consumer cameras.

This is not to say that we should not discuss or judge horses from photographs, but a healthy awareness of the limitations of the medium helps. How else can we reconcile *Wadduda’s reputation as a great beauty with the rather indifferent images we have of her?

From left to right: Persephone CF (Hamdani Simri), Tapestry CF (Kuhaylan Haifi), Chiffon CF (Hamdani Simri). Photo c1986 in Las Vegas, NV.

Chiffon was at one time the mascot for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She carried the flag and was ridden around the track at football games, and in parades.

Persephone has founded a family in her own right. Chiffon breeds on only through one son, Ibn Don Carlos, but her presence makes herself felt two and three generations down. (See the photos from the 2007 Al Khamsa Fantasia for many of her descendants.)

Thanks to Jeanne Craver for providing the photo! (There are more of Chiffon at the DAHC photo archive.)

Another major piece of history I fell upon while reading through the Seoud al-Tahawi family website is this hujjah of “Dahman Abdallah Seoud”, the sire of the stallions Barakat and Soniour, and the great-grandsire of the three Tahawi mares of Hamdan Stables in Egypt: Fulla, Futna, and Bint Barakat.

Here is my rough translation, with a more refined translation to follow, as well a transliteration of the Arabic in latin script so that readers of Arabic can double-check the translation:

We testify by God and by his Prophet that the metallic grey horse which is five years of age, and which was bought by Sheykh Abdallah Abu Seoud al-Tahawi al-Hindawi is Dahman ‘Amer; his dam is the Dahmah ‘Amer from the horses of Jarallah Ibn Tuwayrish of the Arabs of Gomussah, and his sire is the Saqlawi Jadran from the horses of Ibn Zubaynah of the Sba’ah; and that the aforementioned horse, the Dahman, is well authenticated [mathbut], and well known [mashhur], to be mated [hadudah] with all the asil mares, there is not the shade of a doubt about him [ma fihi laww qat'iyah abadan], and he is protected [muhaffadh] at Muhammad Na’san Agha ibn Ahmad Agha al-Barazi, and for the sake of proof, this testimony was made by all the people of the marabet of the horses who were willing to do so.

28 Jumada al-Awwal 1322

Witnesses

Shaykh Beteyen Ibn Mirshid [but no seal]

[Nashwan] Ibn Sulayman Ibn Mirshid [his seal]

Hazza’ Ibn Sulayman Ibn Mirshid [his seal]

Owner: Muhammad Na’san Agha al-Barazi [his seal]

and two more currently illegible signatures and a seal

This is the first time I see the signature of Beteyen Ibn Mirshid on a hujjah: he is head of the Gomussah section of the Sba’ah tribe… and the breeder of the Blunt’s famous Queen of Sheba.. Muhammad Na’san Agha al-Barazi was the most prominent landlord in Hama, Syria, and a prime breeder of asil horses in his time.. Al-Hindawi means from the Hanadi tribe, the reference to Ibn Zubaynah as being from the Sba’ah tribe as opposed to the Fad’aan is interesting… More later on the implications of this fantastic document.

I think I just made a remarkable discovery: a scanned copy of the original hujjah (Arabic authentication document) of three horses acquired by the Tahawi Bedouins of Egypt from the Sba’ah tribe. Below is the scanned copy of the hujjah in Arabic, and my own translation of it — a rough and dirty translation for now:

In the Name of God the Most Merciful and Compassionate

To his Excelleny the Honorable Sheykh Faysal Bek al-Abdallah al-Saud [al-Tahawi]

I testify by God and his Prophet that the two grey horses, the first of which is aged two and a half years, and which is with Husayn Hilal, are [both] Duhm [plural of Dahman] al-’Amiri, of the horses of Jarallah Ibn al-Tuwayreesh from the Arabs of Sba’ah from the tribal section of Saheem, and the sire of one of them is Kuhaylan al-Kharas, and the sire of the other one is Kuhaylan al-Tamri of the horses of the Sba’ah; and I testify by God and by Muhammad the Prophet of God that they are protected [muhaffadhat] and free of impurities;

And concerning the bay ‘Ubayyah mare, which has a foal by a her side, a colt, she is ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah, the mare of Farran ibn Hamud al-Samdan, from the Arabs of Sba’ah, from the tribal section of Saheem; and I know her, she is the mare of Farran al-Samdan, then she passed to the Shaykh Salih al-Misrib, then she was purchased by Husayn Hilal, and he took her to you, with the Dahman stallions. And we also witness by God and by Muhammad the Prophet of God, that the three horses [i.e. the two Dahman stallions and the 'Ubayyah mare] which are with Husayn Hilal are protected [muhaffadhat], and from the lineages of the Sba’ah.

I am also sending you the photo of the black horse, the Saqlawi Jadran, which is three and a half years old, he is the horse of ‘Ajeel ibn Ajadban ibn [currently illegible name] from the Fad’aan, from the tribal section of al-Shumaylat, and his sire is the bay Kuhaylan al-Khdili, the one which was sent by the Shaykh Miqhim ibn Mhayd to His Highness King Ibn Saud, and that aforementioned black horse, is the brother of the chestnut Saqlawi stallion which was bought by Hayyan ibn [currently illefible name] ibn Sha’ban from Ajeel ibn Ajadban for our uncle [a mark of respect, not his actual uncle] al-Hajj Nasr.

Signed: The horse merchant of Hims, Rashid Issa

21 October 1937

I have a gazillion comments and annotation to make, but will keep these for later because I have to run. Bedtime for the kids.

I am currently working with a prominent Syrian breeder to get a desert-bred stallion or two from reputable bloodlines to the USA. I don’t mean to sound mysterious or coy but I cannot tell you more about it at this stage, since it’s still cooking..

Tzviah Idan just sent me this except from a book she found on Google Books: “Customs and Traditions of Palestine Illustrating the manners of the Ancient Hebrews” by Ermerte Pierotti, who’s presented as “former architect engineer, civil and military to his excellency Surraya Pasha of Jerusalem”. The book was published in London in 1864. Surraya Pasha was the Ottoman Wali (Governor) of Jerusalem. The except is a testimony about Bedouin horses in 19th century Palestine.

The 1988 grey Hamdani al-’Ifri stallion *Ta’an (Awaad x al-Efrieh by a Kuhaylan al-Wati) was born in the Jazirah area of North-Eastern Syria. His breeder, Mis’ir al-Hamad is a member of one of the small Arab nomadic tribes that settled in this area in the XXth century.

I first saw *Ta’an in 1990 as a yearling, at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud outside of Aleppo. I took pictures which I will scan and share with you. I then saw him again in 1991 and 1992. In 1993, Mustafa gifted *Ta’an to Gerald and Debra Dirks who took him to the USA, then to Jordan in 1996. At that time, the Arab Horse Association studbook did not recognize the Syrian Studbook, so *Ta’an never got registered, even though Al Khamsa, Inc accepted him on the basis of his being a Bedouin-bred horse from Syria. The two pictures below were taken at the Dirks’ farm, and are courtesy of Marie Arthur.

*Ta’an’s sire was Awaad, a grey Kuhaylan al-Krush bred by ‘Iyadah Talab al-Khalaf, of the Shammar Bedouins, from the prestigious Krush al-Baida marbat of Mayzar al-Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba of the Shammar. Awaad sired many good mares and stallions in Syria, among them the closely-bred black Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Mokhtar, who was exported to France and who was Ta’an’s paternal half brother.

*Ta’an’s dam Efrieh, which Mustafa al-Jabri acquied from her breeder with her son at her side, was also bred by the Tai Bedouins, but traced back to the ‘Amarat Bedouin tribe (part of the ‘Anazah), whose al-’Ifri clan, owned the marbat called after them. Hamdani al-’Ifri was originally Hamdani Simri of the marbat of al-’Ifri, and was widely acknowledged to be one of the most authenticaed (mazbut) marabet of all the ‘Anazah.  *Ta’an’s dam Efrieh was sired by the Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion of Diab al-Sbeih of the Shammar, a dark grey desert-bred stallion born in the mid to late 1970s, and by the al-Ghishm clan of the Shammar. This Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion was also the sire of Mustafa’s head stallion Mahrous (Kuhaylan al-Wati x ‘Adlah by the Saqlawi Marzaqani known as Abu Ketf). Mahrous and *Ta’an shared the same straight profile and large protruding black eyes, and both features most likely came from that Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion.

*Ta’an left some progeny in Syria, many of which were exported to the Gulf countries. He only left one colt in the USA, DDA Baraq (out of the Hadbat Inzihi mare DDA Latifah by Grand Pass), and this colt’s whereabouts are unknown, although Randall Harris might have some leads. Not sure whether *Ta’an himself is still alive today.

[July 31 upate: the additional photo of *Ta'an below was taken by Joe Achcar in 1992. Thanks Joe for sending it]

Back in 2001, I had put forward the hypothesis that a Saqlawi Sh’aifi stallion bred by a Bedouin of the Sb’aah tribe, and sold to Egypt by Ahmad Ibish was the same horse as Aiglon, the sire of the Egyptian mare *Exochorda (Leila II). I also wrote to Miss Ott about it. I had used information contained in the hujjah of the stallion known in Lebanon as Krush Halba (b. 1921) and in Turkey as Kuru, who was a son of this Saqlawi Sh’aifi, to formulate this hypothesis. This hujjah can be found here (scroll down to approx. the middle of the page).

I was wrong. My hypothesis was based on the common ownership of these two horses by Ahmad Ibish, but the dates don’t match, so the two horses cannot possibly be one and the same. Kuru was born in the Syrian desert in 1921, so that Saqlawi Sh’aifi must have bred his dam in 1920, in the desert too, as the analysis of the hujjah suggest. Meanwhile, in 1920/21, the stallion Aiglon was in Egypt, where he sired the mare Exchorda who was born in 1922.

I am sorry it took me so long to correct this, but I confess I had completely forgotten about this issue, until I recently fell upon some documents Miss Ott had sent me about Exochorda and her sire. Still, I thought I’d mark this correction down for the record.

This is Ibn El Iat (El Iat x Marecho by Ibn Sirecho) a 1992 Kuhaylan al-’Ajuz stallion owned by Elta Cook Ozier in Illinois. His pedigree is special because it consists of three horses only: *Fadl, Sirecho and *Turfa. There used to be many horses with that pedigree pattern a couple decades ago. Ibn El Iat is and his full sister MD Bint Marecho are the only two left, and both are 31.2% *Turfa. While I am not a fan of percentages, I tend to feel that the more *Turfa in a horse of these lines, the better the horse.

Photo from Jeanne Craver.

This interesting conference took place in March 2009, at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, which is where I did some graduate work. You won’t find the papers that were presented, but you can read the abstracts.

The French “Arabian” stallion Flipper, photo below, is representative of ‘midnight breedings’, a practice which saw some (just some) greedy French breeders of the 1970s and 1980s breed their Arabian mares to English Thoroughbred or Anglo-Arab stallions, and register their offspring as Arabians. On paper, Flipper is by Gosse du Bearn out of Fleur d’Avril. In reality, only God and his breeder know who his sire was.

People who defend horses such as Flipper will tell you that French Arabians were bred with a focus on speed, not on classic Arabian type, over a ten to fifteen generations, which is why they look the way they do.  It’s true, and there was no shortage of ‘untypey’ French Arabians since the 1910s; yet, as far from classical type as they may have been, they were of authentic Arab blood. Flipper belongs to a different league: he has non-Arabian blood in his veins — and more than a trickle.

So do his sons Dunixi and Tidjani (photos below), both of whom are major progenitor of French racing lines. The status of Flipper’s line as ’purebred’ Arabian is safely guaranteed by the presence by a senior staff of the French National Haras on WAHO’s Board of Directors.

Check out this article from the New York Times archives, dated Oct. 14, 1906, on the importation of 27 horses from Arabia by Homer Davenport. You can actually go to the website of the New York Times, type “Homer Davenport” in the search box, and access a lot of really interesting articles from the archives section. Don’t forget to choose the category “All results since 1851″.

This handsome stallion, Regatta CF (MV Reflection x Frill by Adrian out of Trill by Tripoli) was bred by Craver Farms and is now owned by Mike and Cindy Pollman of Blu Skai Farms.

Jenny Krieg, of Maryland has partnered with Rodger Davis of Illinois to send two of Rodger Davis’ mares to the stallion from Bahrain, *Mlolshaan Hager Solomon (Rabdaan Alwasmy M19 x Mlolesh Asila M105 by Sharid), who is up in Michigan with Bill Biel. All of us have five pairs of fingers crossed for what should be Solomon’s second and third asil foals. We are also hoping that others will follow Jenny’s and Rodger’s lead and send more mares to this desert-bred stallion before it is too late.

One of the two mares, DB Kalila, (AAS El Hezzez x Desert Kalila by *Furtha  Dhellal), a 2002 ‘Ubayyah tracing to the mare *Mahraa of Prince Saudi Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Jalawi, Governor of Hasa, was leased by Jenny.  Her photo is below. I like the long ears and the croup.

Mustafa heard this story from ‘Anazah Bedouins, and graciously accepted to let me publish my translation of it; you can also find these stories in Arabic and soon in English, on the website: al-Khuyul al-’Arabiyah al-Asilah, on Facebook:

“Kuhaylat al-Musinnah is originally a Kuhaylah Khdiliyah, in reference to the clan of al-Khdilaat of the Fad’aan tribe of ‘Anazah; some clan members were once safely sitting in their tents, when suddenly one of their mares broke loose and started running around, knocking the ground with her foreleg; then she leaned down and put her ear on the ground, then she rose and ran up to a nearby hill; then she came down and went on to repeat the same actions all over again; the mare’s owner realized something unusual was going on across the hill, and upon checking, he and his fellow tribesmen saw enemies trying to make their way to the came and take its people by surprise; they prepared themselves for a fight and were eventually able to repell the attack thanks to the mare. The mare was henceforth known as “al-Musinnah”, because in the Bedouin dialect of Arabic the verb ‘sanna’ means ‘to listen’, and al-Musinnah means ‘she who pays attention and listens eagerly’.”

Now here’s what Charles Craver (“And Noah Begat…” in the Arabian Horse Journal, 1981) wrote about Muson (picture above, with groom Said Abdallah up), the Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906:

Of the horses in the Davenport importation, *MUSON was probably the most striking individual in that he was a “listening” horse. Davenport considered this a strain characteristic rather than an individual trait. He writes a charming story about it to the effect that a certain mare in an Arab encampment was observed by the Bedouins to be “listening” to some unknown sound. That night the camp was attacked by enemy raiders. Thereafter the mare’s decendants were called “listening horses” after her behavior.

How nice to see that the same a story that was told to Homer Davenport in 1906 would resurface more than a 100 later, almost word for word..

Triermain CF (Javera Thadrian x Demetria by Lysander), a 1988 Kuhaylan Haifi of Davenport bloodlines, with a dam line going back to the mare *Reshan of the Fad’aan Bedouins, is the sire of my mare Wisteria (Triermain x HB Wadduda by Mariner). He is in residence at Craver Farms in Illinois. The photos were sent to me by Jenny Krieg. Not sure who took them.