Kuhaylan al-Mimrah: a journey back in time

According to the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, Kuhaylan al-Mimrah was one of the favorite strains of Abbas Pasha, the man who ruled Egypt from 1848 to 1854.  The Manuscript contains an interesting account of the history of the strain. Unfortunately, it assumes a good deal of prior knowledge of Arabian medieval history, without which the story’s full significance cannot be grasped. Here is a summary of the account in the Manuscript: the strain is one of the most ancient Kuhaylan strains.  Its history can be traced back to the time of a certain ‘Ijl ibn Hulaytim, “from the ancient tribe of Aal Mughirah”.  The Kuhaylah of ‘Ijl was lost to the Qahtan tribe during a raid, and a mare tracing to this Kuhaylah was taken from Qahtan by al-Maryum, a Bedouin of the Suwayt ruling clan of the al-Dhafeer tribe. It became known as Kuhaylat al-Maryum after his name.  The strain then went from al-Maryum to al-Mimrah, a Bedouin of the Saba’ah tribe, and there it became known as Kuhaylat al-Mimrah. This may look like your standard story of Bedouin horses constantly changing hands, and changing strains in the process, but it isn’t. The mention of ‘Ijl ibn Hulaytim is very…

Third guest blogger: Charles C. Craver

It is a great honor for me to introduce my third guest blogger: Charles C. Craver III.  Charles is to Asil Arabian horse breeding what Franklin D. Roosevelet is to American history: someone who assumes stewardship of omething on the verge of collapse, dedicates a lifetime to restoring it to its former glory, and hands it over to the next generation when the job is done. Charles is a second father and a friend.  I am thrilled he has agreed to share his thoughts and about breeding Asil Arabians on this weblog, drawing on 50-plus years of experience and knowledge at the helm of Craver Farms.

Kuhaylan al-Mimrah: from Egypt to South Africa

The “Strain of the Week” series continues this week with the second strain featured: Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. Modern breeders and pedigree students, especially those familiar with Asil Arabian bloodlines from Egypt will remember Kuhaylan al-Mimrah as the strain of several of the older Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) horses: the stallions Mansour and Mabrouk Manial, present in almost every pedigree of Asil Arabians of Egyptian bloodlines, are both from this strain, and so are their respective maternal half-brothers, Ibn Samhan and Hadban. Mansour and Ibn Samhan trace to Donia, a bay desert-bred Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah bred by Ibn Muwayni’ of the Saba’ah Bedouin tribe, and imported to Egypt in 1880. Mabrouk Manial and Hadban trace to Freiha, another bay desert-bred Kuhalyah Mimrahiyah bred by Ibn Huraymis of the Fad’aan tribe and imported to Egypt around the same time. The line to Donia has died out a long time ago, but a thin Asil line to Freiha survives in South Africa, through the famous Barakah, which the RAS sold to this country in 1945. Other than its rarity and prestigious origin, this line is of interest because it brings in the blood of the Asil stallion Tuwaisaan, a present of the ruler of Bahrain…

Photo of the day

I took this photo of the Asil stallion Khalid (Mahrous x Khalidah) in Aleppo, Syria in the mid-1990s, at the farm of Mustapha al-Jabri.  Khalid is a half-brother to the stallion Basil, the subject of an previous post by Joe Ferriss.  Both Khalid’s sire and dam are desert breds.  Notice the excellent legs and the strong sinews on this horse. Khalid’s dam, Khalidah, is a Saglawiyah Jadraniyah from the horses of Hulu al-Hulu, the leader (Shaykh) of the ‘Adwan Bedouin tribe, and traces to the glorious marbat (tribal stud) of Ibn ‘Amud of the Shammar tribe.  His sire is a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli (a branch of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak), also from the Shammar. According to Mahrus ibn Haddal, who was Shaykh of the al-‘Amarat tribe in the 1920s, Ibn ‘Amud  obtained his original mare in a ghazu (tribal raid) against the al-Frijah section of the Ruwalah tribe.  Ibn Haddal’s testimony is given in Khairi al-‘Azzawi’s great book on the tribes of Iraq (in Arabic). Other accounts I have gathered from recent conversations with Bedouins have the Saglawiyah Jadraniyah of the marbat of Ibn ‘Amud (or Saglawiyat ‘Ibn ‘Amud for short) trace to the ‘Anazah tribe in general, of which the Ruwalah is a part of. To me Khalid is the quintessential Asil stallion: powerful but graceful, strong but…

Top ten greatest Asil Arabian mares ever bred

It’s Friday afternoon, and I am in a light mood. So I have a game (again!) for you all. Give me your ultimate top ten list of the greatest Asil Arabian mares ever bred. Here are the rules of the game: 1. The mares need to be Asil. A working definition of Asil for the purposes of this game is: Al Khamsa eligible if the mares are from bloodlines imported to North America, Asil Club eligible if the mares are from bloodlines imported to Europe, and tracing exclusively to Bedouin-bred horses if the mares are in Arab countries. For a more accurate (and conceptual) definition of Asil, click here.   2. The mares don’t need to be alive now: they may have been bred as early as the late XIXth century (when photography was invented).   3. You have to provide me with at pictures of at least two mares out of ten, preferably your top 2. 4. You don’t need to justify why you have ranked them the way you did (but it would nice if you did)  5. You can be the current or former owner of all ten mares (but it would be nice if you included at least some mares owned or bred by others in…

The mare in the photo quizz..

.. is Naziha, an Asil Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz from Tunisia.  That this small North African country is home to such classic specimen of Asil Arabians as Naziha may come as a surprise to some, yet Tunisia harbors one of the best collections of Asil Arabians anywhere.  Most Tunisian Asils trace to desert-bred horses imported from Arabia by the French. The French? France occupied Tunisia in 1881, but kept the local ruling family in place.  The ruling family owned a small stud of Arabian horses in the town of Sidi-Thabet, to the southwest of the capital city of Tunis, which the French overtook and expanded.  The stud of Sidi Thabet specialized in breeding Asil Arabians using original desert stock imported from the Arabian desert.  The resulting Tunisian Asils were either raced or bred to Barbs to produce an Arab-Barb cross that was highly appreciated by the French cavalry units stationed in North Africa.      When the French finally withdrew in 1956, the newly independent Tunisian goverment took over Arabian horse breeding at Sidi-Thabet, following the French’s footsteps, but many fine horses went to France with the returning European settlers. More horses went to France in the 1960s, and 1970s. Naziha was one of those. She was raced in Tunisia before being exported to France. I took this photo of her at the farm of her owner Pierre-Henri Beillard, in 1995.…

The War Mare

Anchor Hill Serfa I thought I would share a few comments about the notion of the “War Mare”, a term used to describe mares of particular nobility and courage throughout the ages. The late Mark Mayo, who I used to refer to as the “American Bedouin Cowboy” used to tell stories of the “war mare syndrome” which he experienced personally in the deserts of Oklahoma on his 17,000 acre ranch riding his asil mares while herding cattle. He talked about that special trait of total courage and nobility and how these special mares defended him against snakes and other predators as well as many other adventures. 38 years ago when my wife bought me Homer Davenport’s book, “My Quest of the Arabian Horse”, I never forgot the wonderful stories Homer Davenport gave about riding the great war mare *Wadduda, truly a noble mare. I used to imagine that my first half-Arab mare in 1970 would grow up to be a war mare. But in fact my own personal experience with the “war mare syndrome” was a decade later when we purchased, in 1980, an older mare that we had wanted for years, Anchor Hill Serfa (Ibn Sirecho x Serida by…

More about Basil, the Asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah

Basil, the masculine grey stallion pictured in Joe’s entry below was one of the first acquisitions Syrian Government Stud as it began operating in the mid 1990s.  Basil, born in 1985 at the stud of Mustapha al-Jabri in Aleppo, was not  Bedouin-bred, but both his sire and dam were. He was by Mahrous, a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli from the Shammar, then Mustapha’s head stallion, out of Hallah, a chestnut Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah also from the Shammar. Basil’s dam Hallah, pictured below at al-Jabri’s farm in 1996, was arguably the best of Mustapha’s herd, which consisted of 100-plus mares; Mustapha owned her dam and her sister as well.  Basil joined his sire as a herd stallion for Mustpaha before he was gifted to the Government.   Abdul-Qadir Hammami, a veteran horse-merchant and one of the sharpest experts on desert horses I have come to meet, picked Hallah, her dam and her sister for Mustapha’s stud.  Next week’s “Strain of the Week” series will be about Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. It will discuss Hallah’s family, among other families belonging to this ancient strain.   

More stallions at Al Basel

Another horse that I saw at Al Basel was, to me, a real charmer. His name is Shawal. He is a Shuwayman Sabbah stallion. He is handsome, very charismatic and an excellent mover. Unfortunately I did not get the chance to go inside the arena to take pictures so he was photographed from the railing and it cuts of the view of the whole horse. Nonetheless, I wanted to share his photo because even in his body language you can detect a special personality, one which is enhanced by his very dark bay color against the backdrop of bright sand. He is another prized Asil stallion at Al Basel. I don’t now about his present status. -Joe Ferriss

Kuhaylan Hayfi

I just wanted to quickly add to the wonderful blogs on the Kuhaylan Hayfi strain. I learned much by reading them. I just wanted to add that I found it comforting when I visited Syria in 1996 that the Kuyahlan Hayfi strain that came from there via *Reshan is still very much alive. When we were visiting the newly built Al Basel government stud, they  introduced a number of their stallions of various strains. One handsome young bay stallion was of the Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion. I got a snap shot of him. It is fairly descriptive and I wanted to share it here. It is not a very sharp image because he was quite far away in a very large paddock and we did not have the opportunity to get in the arena close up. So I set my camera to the max telephoto and offer the image here in web resolution. The sire of this colt was the senior stallion at the time, a handsome grey named Basil. I do not recall getting to see the dam but perhaps someone who sees this blog and is familiar with the breeding at the stud can tell us more about this…

Second Guest Blogger: Joe Ferriss

Today I am pleased to introduce my second guest blogger, Joe Ferriss.  Joe is known to most breeders and enthusiasts of Asil Arabian horses, East and West; he needs no introduction. Joe’s reputation extends to unlikely places.  In the fall of 2006, I was in the desert near the Syrian-Iraqi border with some friends.  We were gathered around a camp fire on a late afternoon, sipping coffee and talking horses.  Some Bedouins from the neighboring village had joined us, and one of them asked me where I came from. When I mentioned that I had lived in the USA for some time, the Bedouin, who was from the Tai tribe, told me of an American man he had come to meet a few years back: “Ju Faris”.  He said of Joe: “Hada Faris”, which roughly translates into: “Now that’s a horseman”. I thought it was funny that Joe’s last name translated in to the Arabic word for “horseman”.     Joe and I go back a long time. When we started corresponding in 1994, I was still living in Lebanon, and email had not been invented yet.  We did not meet in person until the year 2000, when Joe visited me at the University of Chicago, and I returned the visit to his home in Quincy, Michigan.  I am thrilled to resume our correspondence on this blog.

Whose picture is this?

When I was a child (not too long ago), I used to enjoy playing a game with my father, General Salim Al-Dahdah, where I would sit in his lap and try to guess the names of the horses in the pictures he was showing me.  My all-time favorite was Zenobia, a ‘Ubayyah mare we owned at the time, and I wanted to see Zenobia in every picture.   Lets see whether any of you recognizes where the Asil mare in this picture came from (don’t worry, I won’t go as far as asking you to guess who she actually was). Three hints: 1. This is not Zenobia (she was grey) 2. This is not Moniet El-Nefous, either. 3. This is not a Moniet descendant, nor a Moniet relative, nor an Egyptian horse for that matter, nor … ok, you should be playing, not me.   

Technical note, correction

Several readers informed me they had trouble posting comments to this blog.  It is as easy as 1,2, 3: 1. Click on the title of the entry you want to comment on (e.g., “Books: The Rwala Bedouin Today”). This will take you to this entry’s specific page. 2. Scroll down to “Leave a Reply” 3. Write your comment, enter your user name, your email address, your website (optional), and click “submit”.  That’s it. Note that you needen’t be logged in, registered or anything else. I realize I may have unintentionally misled some of you in an email in which I announced the launch of this blog, by wrongly linking a reader’s ability to post comments to his/her being registered, and to receiving an email with a password upon registering. This was an error, for which I apologize. I am still learning here, so please bear with me…

Blogging as an anger management technique

I am never tired of showing this picture of the lovely mare Wadeehah, a 1970 desert-bred Asil Ma’naghiyah Sbayliyah from the marbat of ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn.  The strain is also known as Ma’naghiyat Abu Sayfayn.  I took this picture of Wadeehah in 1992 in Aleppo, Syria, where she spent the latter part of her life in the ownership of my friend Kamal ‘Abdul Khaliq.  It is a shame Kamal never managed to get a filly out of her, only colts.  She did produce the mare Sayfia, however, which is the subject of an earlier post. Sayfia is now in her early twenties and is still in the desert with ‘Abdallah Abu Sayfayn, ‘Atiyah’s son.  Sayfiah has now a filly by a Saglawi Jadran of from the tribe of al-Baqqarah. So the line goes on. Kamal had bought Wadeehah in 1982 from ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn himself.  She had a young colt by her side.  The colt, named Marzuq, was accidentally hit by a truck soon after arriving at Kamal’s, but he survived his hinquarter injury and went on to become a leading stallion for Kamal, leaving plenty of splendid colts and fillies, before dying a few months ago. The most striking thing about Marzuq was his kindness.  You…

Book: the Rwala Bedouin Today

If anyone of you is in the mood for some serious reading about Bedouin tribes in modern day Arabia, then William Lancaster’s The Rwala Bedouin Today is the book to read.  I found it a rather easy read for an academic book that delves deep into into anthropological theory.  It describes in detail how the Rwala creatively used a number of assets and options in their possession to cope with the many transformations modernity brought about to their identity and lifestyle. The chapter on the history of the tribe is informative, too.

Kuhaylan Hayfi: Early breeders

Early mentions of Kuhaylan Hafi by Western travelers to the desert link it to two Fad’aan clans (large families): al-Mahayd and al-Hubayqan. Lady Anne Blunt mentions that the strain acquired a certain reputation when Turki Ibn Jad’aan al-Mahayd, the head of the Fad’aan tribe, was killed in a raid against the Ruwalah tribe, who captured his war mare, a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah.  Turki was slain by Khalaf al-Adhn al-Sha’laan after he fell on the ground, his mare having stumbled on a jerboa – a desert rodent – hole.  The Fad’aan felt that the Ruwalah had violated the rules of desert warfare, and a long feud between the two tribes ensued.   Bedouin accounts of the story say that the mare was not captured, but that she made it back to the Fad’aan camp, where Turki’s fellow tribesmen ragingly hamstrung her for letting their leader down (yikes!).  I don’t know the exact date of this event, altghough I suspect it took place in the 1890s. The clan of al-Mahayd, which is the ruling clan of the Fad’aan, is generally acknowledged as the “owner” of the marbat of Kuhaylan Hayfi. Most hujaj (authentication certificates delivered for desert bred Arabian horses)  of Kuhaylan Hayfi horses I have seen trace the horse in the hujja…

Kuhaylan Hayfi: What’s in a name?

The previous discussion concluded (for now) that the strain of Kuhaylan Hayfi has developed sometime between 1850 and 1875.  What was it known as before that? and where did it derive its name from? Like many, but not all, Kuhaylan strains, Kuhaylan Hayfi, which by the way is also called Kuhaylan al-Hayf, branched out of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz. Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz appears to have been more than a strain — i.e., a family name for Arabian horses related through the dam line.  Rather, it seems to have been a generic name for a “pool” of horses not necessarily related to each other, but sharing something else in common, perhaps the same owner (more on that in a subsequent post).   Kuhaylan al-Ajuz typically “mutates” into a new strain when it becomes associated with a new owner (e.g., Kuhaylan Khdili), a celebrated mare with a specific characteristic (e.g., Kuhaylan al-Musinn), or an event of some importance. The later case is that of Kuhaylan Hayfi or Kuhaylan al-Hayf. Kuhaylan Hayfi “belongs” to the tribe of the Fad’aan, which means that the mare that founded the strain and became the first Kuhaylah Hayfiyah was a Kuhaylah al-‘Ajuz owned by Fad’ann Bedouins.   Al-Hayf in Arabic means the social exclusion resulting from a ban.  A rough synonymous term would be the word “ostracism”…

Kuhaylan Hayfi: How old is it?

Why am I starting this “Strain of the Week” series with this particular strain?   Shameless promotion.  Kuhaylan Hayfi just happens to be the strain of my Asil Arabian mare, Wisteria CF, which also gives me an excuse to display her picture. There are other reasons, too: many Asil Arabian horsebreeders are familiar with the strain, as a result of the importation of the desert-bred Kuhaylah Hayfiyah mare *Reshan to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906.  *Reshan went on to become one of the foundation mares of Arabian horse breeding in America, and left hundreds of Asil descendants in this country, most of which belong to the Davenport group, like Wisteria CF.  (For those of you who have been living on the moon for the past half-century, the term “Davenport” refers to those Asil Arabians descended exclusively from the desert-bred Asil Arabian horses imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906, and from a few others desert-breds he’d owned prior to this importation). Back to the strain itself, of which *Reshan is only the most famous desert-bred representative. First, how old is it? Youthful as strains go, Kuhaylan Hayfi ‘only’ goes back to the second half of the nineteenth century: the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, which collects Bedouin testimonies about Arabians horses up to ca. 1850, makes no mention of it. …

New “Strain of the Week” series

I may not fully realize what I am getting into. That’s 52 different strains of Arabian horses per year! The good news is that there are enough strains to keep going at this pace for at least three years. The bad news is that I will have to research the lesser known ones, and find pictures of representatives of such strains, many of which have vanished. But then, that’s the fun part in this challenge. Lets see how far this will take me…

First guest blogger: R.J. Cadranell II

I am pleased to introduce my first guest blogger: Robert J. Cadranell II  (RJ) is a friend, a dedicated breeder of Arabian horses of Davenport bloodlines, and one of the foremost Arab horse researchers of our generation.  RJ was, together with Michael Bowling, the co-editor of the Arabian Visions magazine, during the nineties, and is currently leading the effort behind the Davenport Conservancy.  RJ will be blogging about the history of Arabian horses in the West, and one couldn’t think of a better person to do so.  

Bedtime reading

Anyone interested in objective (vs. romanticized) knowledge of Bedouins in the 20th century needs to read this book.  The author, Jibrail Jabbur, a Syrian, was born at the turn of the twntieth century in a town on the fringes of the desert, near Palmyra; he studied in Princeton, NJ, and went on to become a Professor of Arabic literature at the American University of Beirut (my alma mater).

The father of two swords

When in March of 2007, I called Abdallah ibn ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn on his mobile, I knew I had a date with history.  Abdallah, 55, lives in the desert in north-eastern Syria, and is the owner [sahib] of a marbat of the strain of Maanaghi Sbayli known as Maanaghi Abu Sayfayn, after his family.  He is the son of ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, a Bedouin who reportedly lived to the age of one hundred, and was an authority on Arabian horses. ‘Atiyah was a master breeder, too and you can see for yourselves: he bred the gorgeous mare Sayfia, which is pictured here.  The Abu Sayfayn are a clan of the Shumaylat, which is one of the main branches of the Fad’aan tribe.  Other closely related Shumaylat clans include Ibn Hubayqan’s, who owns the main marbat of Kuhaylan Hayfi, and Ibn ‘Amayir’s, who owns Kuhaylan al-Musinn (more on these guys later).  If you take out the flurry of unfamiliar names of people, places, and horses that clutter the interview and may seem off-putting, you will find this conservation helpful in shedding light on a number of Bedouin practices: inbreeding, stealing horses, exchanging horses from brides, transfers of ownership, and so on. Read the full text of the conversation here, and let me know what you think. 

Related by blood

The discussion about the blood marks on the bodies of grey Arabian horses elicited the most reactions this week.  Readers shared photos of Asil Arabian horses from different breeding groups (Bahraini, Davenport, Egyptian, “modern” Syrian, and Saudi) with bloodmarks on their shoulders and bellies.  These pictures serve as reminders that regardless of the artificial breeding categories in which breeders have sought to put them, these horses are all one.  They are all Asil. Thanks to Jenny Lees for this photo of an Asil Kuhaylat al-Kraay at the Royal Studs of Bahrain with the blood mark on her shoulder.. I will be blogging more about such fun topics, showing pictures whenever possible.