Rodger’s Dahmat Shahwan mare foaled a big handsome colt with the foot turned the wrong way who had to be destroyed. But his Ubayyah mare, who is tail female to *Mahraa of Ibn Jalawi of Saudi Arabia, foaled a very special filly for Jenny last month, named Ubayyat al-Bahrain, below. I wished we had more fillies displaying as much character and true Arab features as this one.

Jenny even tells me there are plans to bring two other Saudi mares from Rodger’s to Solomon this year. Fingers crossed for that, and for more Solomon foals.

Photo by Jamie Lamborn.

Lee tells me:

“He is a winnner of numerous match races, against all comers, including English Thoroughbreds (TB). He ran 4 F. (1/2 M.) in 47.2 and beat a TB in a morning work, carrying close to 20 pounds more than the TB. He sprinted a F. (1/8 M.) in 11 seconds. He could also run a distance and beat TB’s over 1-1/2 and 2 mile match races. Many Arabians ate his dust, mostly in 1/2M. and 1M. Races. Typically they would, get a 5 to 10 length moving start, and he would break from a starting gate. He also won over his sire Mirath, by a head, in a 5 F. Race. 

The video below is one of the outputs of this rich conversation: it features the 2002 dark chestnut asil stallion Haziz (Bahri x Hulaifah by Naizahq), of the precious Bahraini Dahman Shahwan strain that is now extinct in Bahrain.

mikarrun, miffarun, muqbilun, mudbirun, ma’an // kajulmudi sakhrin hattahu al-sayllu min ‘ali

This very roughly tranlates as: “[My horse] attacks, and retreats, he runs forward and bounces backwards, all at once, like a big rock which the floods have driven down from above [the mountain]“. I will look for a more exacts translation in the orientalists’ publications.  

His blood is rare and precious because he is one of the few stallions out of Bahrain in the West. He is also rare because of his strain: Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish is only present in Bahrain today.

Ghazala’s beautiful and proud little colt is sired by AAS Theeb (AAS Al-Sakb x Bint Amiraa by Taamrud), a Hamdani Simri tracing to the marbat of the Saudi royal family. The colt was born on April 13th 2010, and is the latest addition to this small but precious family.

Jenny writes that her Hamdaany Kuwaiti was said to bred by the Anazah and had come to Bahrain through Kuwait, hence his name.

Back in the 1960s, around the time when the Sheykhdom of Kuwait became independent (in 1961), it began imlementing a policy of inviting Bedouin tribes from the Syrian desert, which was then suffering from a severe drought, to settle in Kuwait and become Kuwaiti citizens. These were mostly Anazah tribes. This movement was part of a larger pattern of reverse migration of Bedouin tribes that had moved to the north some two hundred years earlier, back to the south. Most ‘Anazah Bedouins, mostly Hssinah, Sba’ah, Ruwalah, and Amarat, and some Fad’an, headed back south, trading the increasingly burdensome policies of the Syrian and Iraqi socialist regimes for the relative wealth of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. They brought many, many horses back with them.

Most of these ‘Anazah tribes settled in Saudi Arabia’s “Northern Border” province, around ‘Ar’ar and Hafr al-Batin, in the Eastern Province, and in the al-Jahra area of Kuwait. Jenny’s Hamdaani Kuwaiti could well have been bred by one of these “northern” ‘Anazah clans, who would have just settled in independent Kuwait.

“It is with great regret that I inform you that neither of the Royal studs have any female Dhahma (Dahmeh) descendants left, my eyes well up and my chest tightens as I convey this to you.
I am so pleased at the international interest in our horses about who so little is known outside Bahrain.”

How tragic that a strain precious and ancient as that of the Dahmah would die out in its cradle. The link to the Dahman strain on the Bahrain Royal Studs website is still there. Check it out it while it lasts.

Thank God a thin line to the mare Sawannah remains in North America, as well as the Bint El Bahreyn Egyptian horses too, of course.

[Basil and Hazaim, if you are reading, this sad news makes Dahmat al-Tuwaymin all the more precious now.]

That gift was a chestnut mare, *Sawannah, born in 1948. She was later imported to the USA, and she still asil descendents in the USA and Canada. A September 1975 letter by Danah Aal Khalifa, gives some information about *Sawannah, in response to an inquiry about the mare:

“The mare Sawannah pictured above was identified by Fatis, the old studmaster of H.H. Shaikh Issa bin Salman Al Khalifa, as a Dahmah, belonging to Shaykh Khalifa bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, (chief of Police). Dahmeh was bred by Shaykh Salman, Ruler of Bahrain at the time, out of one of his mares of the Dahman strain, and sired by one of his stud stallions serving at the time.”

Whether *Sawannah was a Dahmah Shahwaniyah, a Dahmat Najib, a Dahmat Kunayhir, or a Dahmat Umm Amer is not mentioned. That is where an MtDNA comparison with the lines still in Bahrain today, and maybe even with the Egyptian line of the Blunt mare *Bint el Bahreyn, would come in handy. Any sponsor volunteering?

Meanwhile, here is a video of the an unidentified descendant of *Sawannah, most probably from Edie Booth’s collection:

It is clipped from an Arabic horse magazine article, a scanned copy of which was sent to me by Pure Man. It sheds light on Arab royalty’s regular practice of sending each others horses as gifts. The letter, from King abd al-Aziz Aal Saud of Saudi Arabia, to Shaykh Hamad ibn Issa Aal Khalifa, ruler of Bahrain, mentions the former’s awareness with the latter’s loss of the treasured Dahman strain. It also mentions that the father of the King of Bahrain had once offered a Dahmah mare to the father of the Saudi King. Finally, it offers to send the daughter of that mare, by a Hamdani stallion, to the rule of Bahrain as a replacement. You can read a short account of that story here.

The letter starts with the usual blessing, “In the name of God Most Merciful and Compassionate”. To the left, there is the number of the correspondence item, and the date of the correspondence. Only the year is legible: 1356 Hijri, which is our 1936. To the right, in elaborate calligraphy, there is the mention: “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Diwan [Office] of his Majesty the King.” Then follows a one line title, of which I could only decipher the following: “Response to the letter of Shaykh Hamad ibn Issa Aal Khalifah”.  The first two and a half lines in the main body of the text relate to a matter of exchange of a number of cars between the two rulers. Then comes the part that is of interest to us:

“We have heard that the Duhm (1) are not to be found with you; and it (2) had come to us (3) from the father of all (4) the late Shaykh Issa (5) to [my] late father al- Imam Abd al-Rahman; so this is her daughter coming your way, and her sire is al-Hamdani. We hope that you will accept her, just as we hope for [your] continued health and happiness, as she reaches you, and may God keep you in his blessings.”

Follows the Saudi king’s signature. End of translation. My annotations below:

(1) “Duhm” is the plural of al-Dahmah, the strain

(2) “it” refers to a particular mare from that Dahman strain

(3) “us” refers to the Royal “us”, i.e., King Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Saud

(4) an expression of respect to elders, especially dead ones 

(5) Issa b. Ali Aal Khalifa, ruler of Bahrain from 1869 to 1925. Died in 1932. See Bahrain Royal family tree here.

According to the Bahrain Royal Stud website, the mare from King Ibn Saud was called Dahmet al-Malek, the “Dahmah of the King”. She produced a daughter, Bint Dahmet al-Malek, then was sent as a gift to the ruler of Kuwait. Bint Dahmet al-Malek is noted as the dam of the bay stallion Dahman al-Thaalith (the Third), stationed at the royal stud of Rufaa until 1989. There is no word about any female descendents, at least not in the Royal Bahraini Stud, but then again, not all the ruling family’s horses were registered in the Bahraini studbook, for a variety of reasons.

HH Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salman Aal Khalifah is the same person who provided Jenny Lees of Pearl Island with some of her Bahraini stallions and mares. He is also the same person who gave Bill Biel in Michigan his stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon (Rabdan Al-Wasmy x Mlolesh Asila) in 1988. The stud of Shaykh Muhammad has a new webiste, which is currently under construction. Check it out soon, and meanwhile read the page on Shaykh Muhammad’s horses on Jenny Lees’ Pearl Island website.

Jenny Lee’s weanling Amr, from the UK, has a different yet equally interesting pedigree. His sire is the Egyptian stallion Goudah (Gad Allah x Ramiah), and his dam Jenny’s Bahraini mare Shuwaimeh Bint Warda. 

The strain of Kuhaylan Ibn Jarshan seems to have prospered at al-’Abd, because al-Shuhaybah produced a grey daughter for him (by a Saqlawi), and that daughter in turn produced a grey daughter (also by a Saqlawi). Al-’Abd leased the latter, the grand-daughter of Ibn Jarshan’s Kuhaylah, to a third Bedouin, Ibn Jallab of the tribe of Aal Murrah.  She stayed at Ibn Jallab for six years without producing any foals, so al-’Abd took her back by force, and sold her to Ibn Khalifah of Bahrain for a ton of money, plus camels, falcons, clothes, a slave (!) and a sizeable bunch of dates, a sale that effectively turned him (al-’Abd) into a precursor of today’s Gulf millionnaires..

Her short and unproductive stay at Ibn Jallab would have been of no consequence whatsoever, weren’t it for a small detail: when al-’Abd took his Kuhaylat Ibn Jarshan back, he gave her a name, a nick name: al-Jallabiyah, after the man he had briefly leased her to. Al-’Abd did not seem to be the kind of man who holds grudges for a long time.. When Ibn Khalifah of Bahrain bought the same al-Jallabiyah from al-’Abd, she became his foundation mare, and as her descendents’ fame skytocketed, she founded a strain of her own: Kuhaylan Jellabi or Jallabi. The rest is history.

You can read the entire story here, but what I want to highlight is the following:

First: Ibn Jellab never owned a marbat of his own, never obtained any foals from the mare he leased for six short years, is the least important person in this story, yet he is world famous. Why? Because someone else name a mare after him.

Second: Kuhaylan Jallabi is just another name for Kuhaylan Ibn Jarshan, since the mare known as al-Jallabiyah was the granddaughter of Ibn Jarshan’s own mare al-Shuyhaybah [hence the somewhat provocative title of the photo below, put your mouse's pointer on it].  

Third, and most important for our purposes here: re-read the story carefully, until you get to the fifth line of the fourth paragraph: “She has relatives at Ibn Jarshan’s”. 

With this in mind, stay tuned for the next episode.

With kind permision Pauline Du Plessis, Saruk Stud, RSA

This Asil stallion was born in Australia in 1978 and was later sold to New Zealand. He was by the Asil stallion Hansan (El Hilal x Hamamaa), a stallion of Egyptian bloodlines. Nothing to write home about.. yet.

The real story concerns Azieze’s dam, Orilla, a 1960 chestnut mare. Orilla was by the legendary Oran (Riffal x Astrella), and out of the mare Rabiha, by Rheoboam out of Nuhra. Oran, a Ubayyan Sharraq of the marbat of Ibn ‘Alyan traced to the famed Blunt desert import Queen of Sheba, and was bred by Lady Yule at Hanstead Stud. Oran was the last Asil stallion used at Crabbet Park by Lady Wentworth. Rheoboam was born at Musgrave Clark’s Courthouse Stud from old Blunt bloodlines… wait, there is more:

Nuhra was a bay Asil mare (picture below) imported from Bahrain to England in 1938 by the Earl of Athlone, the brother of Queen Mary of England. Nuhra was a Wadhnat Khursan by strain, and her sire was a Kuhaylan Jallabi.

So Arabesque Azieze was a Wadhnan Khursan, the only known Asil representative of this rare strain outside the desert, on top of tracing to Oran and Rheoboam. Born in 1978 yet so close to prestigious Old Crabbet and desert stock. And a National Champion in New Zealand, too.

Tzviah Idan and Carol Monkhouse Brown had found out about Azieze in the early nineties and had tried to get his owner to send him to the University of Auckland, New Zealand to collect semen. They were not successdul. A second effort was undertaken in July 2001, when a group of breeders (including the late Carol Lyons, Tzviah and myself) started a thread in AK Horsemen dedicated to raising money to save him, only to be informed that he had been put down in November 2000. What a loss.. what if we had tried a few months earlier…

I have a dream that one day breeders of Asil Arabians worldwide will rise above specific labels, breeding groups and sub-groups, and will start breeding their horses to each other to produce the best Asil Arabians possible, the Straight Arabian.

I have a dream that one day the remaining Asil horses of Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and other Arab countries will be recognized for what they are, true authentic Arabian horses, on par with Asil Arabians bred in Egypt, Europe and the USA.

Let us work together towards that dream.

The first is the grey Maanagi Sbaili stallion Atiyah, a son of the mare Wadeehah which Edouard posted. Atiyah was presented at Basil Jadaan’s place in Syria. As you can see he is a splendid horse. His balance and harmony were impressive, forming an ideal silhouette of an Arabian, and you can see the exceptional overall leg and conformation quality he has.

the second picture is the grey Maanagi Hadruj stallion owned by Shaikh Mohamed Abdul Razak Al-Taiee. He was another magnificent horse and although our photo opportunity was more limited here, this horse left a very favorable impression on all of his for his quality, character, and noble appearance.

The third picture is of a bay Maanigieh filly owned by the Emir of Bahrain and a part of the WAHO presentation in 1996. She was lovely and all classic Arab.

Hope you enjoy these photos.