The more I am reading through the materials recently posted on the Tahawi website, the more I realize that the people within WAHO and the EAO who have denied registration to the asil Tahawi horses in the 1980s must have a lot on their conscience — nothing less than the destruction of one of the most authenticated group of horses in the Arabian breed.
In the XIXth and early XXth century, there was a famous and well-respected marbat of Dahman ‘Amer with Ibn Hemsi of the Gomussah clan of the Sba’ah Bedouins. The Blunts purchased two horses from that strain: Dahma, which they bought from “Oheynan Ibn Said” of the Gomussah (who had bought her from Ibn Hemsi), and Rataplan, which they bought from India. Ibn Hemsi’s was the only marbat of Dahman ‘Amer among the Sba’ah. The horse to which the Blunt mare Hagar was in foal when they bought her on Jan. 4, 1878, was also from the same horses, because Hagar was still owned by the Sba’ah when she was bred to him (she was taken in war from the Sba’ah by the Ruwalah in the winter 1877/78, says Lady Anne, and then purchased by a Mawali Bedouin from the Ruwalah). It is also very probable that *Wadduda’s sire, also a Dahman (no marbat mentioned), was or traced to the horses of Ibn Hemsi. The Syrian horsebreeder, Ali al-Barazi, reports in his book this old Bedouin saying about a Dahman ‘Amer stallion which stood at stud with Ibn Hemsi, who used to charge one gold pound to breed from him: ‘”al-dhahab ‘ind Ibn…