Faras Mattori

The desert-bred ‘Ubayyah Suhayliyah mare Reem al-‘Ud, bred by the Shammar tribe in northeastern Syria, also known as “the mare of Mattori” from one of her past Bedouin owners, was featured several times on this blog. Here is yet another photo of her in extreme old age, which shows well the black skin around her eyes. Her last owner was Sh. Mayzar al-‘Ajil al-‘Abd al-Karim al-Muhammad al-‘Abd al-Karim al-Jarba, a descendant of the great Shammar hero ‘Abd al-Karim al-Jarba known as “Abu Khudah”.

Jackson’s stallion

I have always admired the bright bay horse pictured on Jackson Hensley’s Bedouin Arabians website (one photo below, with Jackson’s daughter), without knowing who the horse was. Jackson, as an artist, emphasizes the essence of the Arabian horse more than it’s official identity, and this is perhaps why he does not mention the names of his horses on his website.  I always thought this stallion was a nice combination of masculinity and sweetness, like a stag, or a male gazelle.. I just found out from a comment Jackson left below, that the horse is actually mine, one I own jointly with Darlene Summers, Monologue CF. I confess I felt a little out of touch.. but then again, I only saw Monologue twice, once at Pamela Klein’s and once at Craver Farms, where he is currently stationed.

Rahim Regency WAF, 1999 asil Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion

Kathy Busch and Crista Couch kindly took a day trip to see the stallion Rahim Regency WAF (Regency CF x Dakhala Sahra) near Kansas City, MO, of which here is a video (click on rahim). Sired by Regency CF (Ibn Alamein x Bint Antan by El Alamein) and looking very much like his sire, Rahim is the son (and otherwise the only offspring — so far) of my new acquisition, the 26 year old Ma’naqiyah Sbailiyah Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir). He is some 88% Davenport, with a tail female to Miss Ott’s Sirrula, all the way back to Major Upton’s Naomi. His owner Joseph Walters, has been breeding him to Polish mares, and was not aware of his Al Khamsa, asil status.

Babolna’s Mikhail el-Hadad travels to Iraq in 1901/2

The book from these pictures were taken was published in the Hungarian language in 1904. It was translated  into Arabic language in 2004 by Mr. Tha’er Saleh with the support of the Hungarian Translation Fund. The original photos are at the Museum of Hungarian Agriculture in Budapest. The book is about the travels of Austro-Hungarian government envoy Fadlallah Mikhail el-Haddad to the Arabian desert, a few years before the trip of Homer Davenport. The purpose of the trip of Mikhail el-Haddad to Ottoman Iraq (Mesopotamia) was apparently to access alternative sources of desert blood to the ‘Anazah blooflines, which the Austro-Hungarians already had access to. His trip first followed the Damascus-Palmyra-Deir-ez-Zor axis, then the Euphrates valley to down to Fallujah  and Baghdad. From there, Haddad went along a large circular route south of Bagdad, which included Najaf, Kerbala, the ‘Amarat Bedouin (a branch of the ‘Anazah) pastures and then crossed the Euphrates river eastwards until he reached the Tigris river. From top to bottom, and left to right: Photo 1: In Tell Kalakh, which is west of the city of Homs in Syria, with Abdallah Agha al-Dandashi from whom the stallion O’Bajan was bought in 1885; photo 2: with some…

Salome, 1935 asil Shuaymah Sabbah from Algeria

Voici une photo inédite prise sur le vif en 1949: la grande Salomé née à Tiaret en Algérie, fille de Bango DB et Maâna par Safita DB au soufflage! La scène se passe au haras de Sidi Bou Hadid en Tunisie, près de Bizerte. L’homme au béret n’est autre que l’amiral Anatole Cordonnier, c’est la seule photo de lui qui existe.

Baba Sa’d, Kuhaylan Sa’dan Tuqan, founder of the Turkish Arabian horse program

Teymur sent this picture of the other foundation sire of the Turkish Arabian breeding program, the 1928 bay stallion Sa’d (Kuheylan Cietni x Kuheyletul Sade Tukan), also known as Baba Saad, a Kuhaylan Sa’dan al-Tuqan, by a Kuhaylan Ju’aytni. He was Turkey’s most famous racehorse.

al-Abjar, asil Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Zubayni in Syria

While digging through old pictures, I came across this headshot of the asil Saqlawi stallion al-Abjar, which I took in the mid 1990s, at the studfarm of the late Hajj Amin Yakan near al-Bab, not far from Aleppo. He was a tall stallion of tremedous style, carriage and presence. My father is the man in the picture. I have already written about al-Abjar here. He was a Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Zubayni, from the marbat of al-Dali’ (like his relative *Mirage), later in the marbat of the Mudariss family. There is still a thin tail female line running through his sister, in Damascus.  

A plea

Today, preservation breeders of asil Arabians in the USA breed on a small scale. They are fewer breeders than before and they are far between. Many of these breeders don’t always have the stallions their mares need, whether in their barns of just around the corner. Some breeders have the stallions but not the mares. Some have stallions who are sons and brothers of their mares, and don’t want to inbreed. There needs to be a good supply of (non-Egyptian) Al Khamsa stallions registered to ship semen from. When I wanted to breed Jadiba to a Davenport stallion this past summer, the only ones I could find who were ready to ship were Triermain CF in Illinois, Vice Regent CF in Georgia, and Pal-Ara Sensation and Mandarin in Oregon. Mandarin died last year, and Triermain is getting old. I opted for Vice Regent but now I have more mares and I wish there are other stallions to choose from. There is no shortage of outstanding Davenport and BLUE STAR and other asil stallions, who ought to be registered to ship. I wish Davenport stallions like Regatta CF, Daedalus LD, Porte CF, Silverton CF, Indie Star, Eldar HD, Shiraz CF, Clarion…

On Sa’dan Tuqan as Kuhaylan

The Abbas Pasha Manuscript [1993, edited by J. Forbis and G. Sherif], which is essentially the transcription by Abbas Pasha’s envoys of Bedouins’ testimonies about their horses, is the foremost primary source on the Bedouin-bred Arabian horse available today. Its hundreds of testimonies is the precious remnant of an oral culture, now long gone. No wonder modern Saudi families and clans who have nothing to do with horses anymore are relying on it as a bargaining chip to ask for favors from the Saudi royal family, or to ascertain their social status (things along the lines of: “Your Highness, my ancestor gave your ancestor a precious mare, they were close, it is written in the horse book, so now I need… from you in return”).   However great the legacy of Judith Forbis as a breeder of Arabian horses of the show type has been, her most enduring legacy, IMO, is to have made this book available to Western audiences. Page after page, the information in the Manuscript debunks many Western misconceptions about Bedouin horse breeding. Really, the only thing missing from the book is an index of the individual horses, strains and Bedouins mentioned. Check out this quote, page 439 [notes between brackets are mine]: “The Sheikhs of Subayah [actually, Subay’, a Bedouin tribe…

On hujaj as bona fide documents

The thread below contains very interesting and valuable observation by Joe Ferriss on Western need for a systematic classification of Bedouin strains, and by Lisa on the value of written versus oral information in Bedouin culture. Let me add the following general principles: The Bedouins’ culture was an oral one; information was transmitted orally between people of the same generation and from generation to generation. They did not need anything in written when dealing with each other. The truthfulness and probity (‘adl in Arabic, a value depending on honor) of the man ensured the trustworthiness of the information, and it was confirmed by other men who acted as witnesses. When dealing with outsiders, whether non-Bedouin Arabs like the town people or Aleppo, the Cairo-based missaries of Abbas Pasha, as well as Westerners, there arose the need to have this information put in writing, for two reasons :first, the system of values that bound Bedouins to each other did not apply to outsiders. Conversely, the outsiders did not trust information that was not put in writing. So, as far as Arabian horses were concerned, the hujjah was the transcription in writing of information that was originally shared and transmitted orally. I am not sure it was designed for Westerners first. Rather I think…