A collective effort on three continents is under way to get these 15 or so remaining Tahawi horses recognized by the EAO in Egypt, and as a result, by WAHO.

Both photos are from the archives of Billy Sheets, but I have seen them before in a Khamsat magazine issue too.

The information was obtained when Yehia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi, Mohammad Saoud al-Tahawi, and myself, recently recorded a one hour video with one of the very old Tahawi horse breeders, Shaikh Tahawi Sa’eid Mejalli al-Tahawi, who was born around 1904, and is 107 years old today. He still has an amazing memory for his advanced age, and is one of the old Bedouin breeders, and a great horse expert, following his father Shaikh Sa’ied Mejalli al-Tahawi.

In this interview, he shared many exciting details about the old Tahawi horses such as “Dahman Abdullah Saoud” which he saw himself when he was young. “Dahman Abdullah Saoud” was the sire of the race horse Barakat (also a Dahman, but from another line), among others, and is today represented in modern Egyptian pedigrees through his great-grand-daughters Fulla, Futna, and Bint Barakat.

Shaikh Tahawi al-Tahawi also spoke about lady Anne Blunt and her frequent visits to the Tahawi clan, and about the horses she bought from them. These horses are referred to by Lady Anne Blunt in her writings as “The First Attempt” at putting together a stud of Arabian horses at Sheykh Obeyd Gardens.

The old Shaikh also spoke about the several Royal Agricultural Society horses that came from the Tahawi clan, and he also confirmed what is already common knowledge, which is that the vast majority of the horses at the race track were also Tahawi horses.

He spoke about the famous Tahawi race horse Soniour, who was also by “Dahman Abdallah Saoud”, and who was hence Barakat’s half-brother. Today, Soniour is represented in the pedigree of the stallion Ibn Ghalabawi. He also talked about Renard Bleu, a son of Barakat with an unmatched racing record. There is a nice photo of Renard Bleu in the book of Ali al-Barazi, a copy of which I have with me.

The surprise came later in the interview when he mentioned that he had known and seen the race horse Gamal El Din, which was owned by Ahmed Abu al-Futuh (Futuh Bey), and he provided full details about him.

It turned out that Gamal El Din was by Barakat our of a Kuhaylah Khallawiyah, and that he was bred by Shaikh Abd al-Hamid Rageh al-Tahawi, who also bred the three Tahawi mares Fulla, Futna and Bint Barakat, which were sold to Hamdan stables.  So Gamal el Din would be a close relative to the mare Futna (Ibn Barakat x Kuhalyah Khallawiyah), who was from the same strain as him, and from the same Tahawi breeder.

Gamal El Din was used by Egypt’s Royal Agricultural Society in the 1940s. He has seven offspring in the AHA Datasource, one stallion and six mares all born in 1945, of which only one mare *Saema (x Bint Dalal) bred on in modern lines.  *Saema was imported by the Queen Mother of Egypt to the USA in 1950, where she was the progenitor of a line of Egyptian horses that is increasingly successful in the show ring today.

Among her descendants is the 2001 black stallion HU Sheikh Imaan (Imaann x Niema Nile by Shaik Al Badi), a great-grandson of *Saema in the tail female, and a great-great-grand son of Gamal El Din. His lines are increasingly popular today.

Before the new information provided by Shaikh Tahawi Sa’ied Mejalli al-Tahawi surfaced, almost nothing was known about him, other than the mention on page 29 of the book “RAS History” that “Gamal El Din was a good racehorse, and was owned by Abu El-Fotouh Bey”. Now, thanks to the testimony of the old Tahawi Shaikh, we know the strain of Gamal El Din (K. Khallawi), his sire Barakat (for which we have a hujjah, and about which we already knew a lot), and his breeder Shaikh Abd al-Hamid Rageh al-Tahawi, one of the most respected breeders of Asil Arabians in Egypt.

After an hour of talking, Shaikh Tahawi Sa’ied Mejalli al-Tahawi became tired, and we stopped the interview. He was also having some difficulty hearing all our questions. So the best thing we could do was to let him tell his own stories and not interrupt him, and this is how the information on Gamal El Din appeared.

Below are some photos of the elderly Shaikh, with my cousins Yehia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi (in the middle) and Mohammed Mohammed Saoud al-Tahawi on the right.

Best regards,

Yasser Ghanim Barakat al-Tahawi

This one is a Kuhaylah J’aithiniyah, a grand-daughter of the mare Bombolla (Rock x Masquerade by Ibn Bakhshish), of Sheykh Soliman ‘Abd al-Hamid Eliwa al-Tahawy, and tracing to the desert-bred mare “J’aithiniyah al-Kabira”, brought by the Tahawis from the ‘Anazah in the 1920s. I, Yasser, am the proud owner of this mare.

She is one of the handful mares that has been recognized as “horses of interest” by Al Khamsa at their last annual convention.

In a few days, Al Khamsa will be in a position to announce a very good news concerning the last remaining asil horses of Tahawi bloodlines.

In the meantime, I am sharing with you this 30 year old photo, which Yehia al-Tahawi, a member of Cairo’s Jockey Club and otherwise a breeder of Straight Egyptian Arabians of modern Tahawi lines (Fulla, Futna, and Bint Barakat), sent me of his father Sheykh Abd al-Sattar ‘Eliwa al-Tahawi with his asil Kuhaylah Tamriyah Ammoura (‘Darling’ in Arabic).

Ammoura traces to a desert bred K. Tamriyah mare imported to Egypt by Sheykh Quwayti’ Smayda al-Tahawi from the ‘Anazah Bedouins in the Syrian desert. Her sire is a Hamdani Simri horse called “Ibn Damas” bred by Mohammed Fergani El-Tahawy, and tracing back to a Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare imported from the Sba’ah Bedouins.

Yasir Ghanim who supplied all this information from his cousin Yehia also tells me Ammoura has an asil granddaughter that is still alive today. This news is a great ray of hope for the Arabian horse in general and for the Kuhaylan Tamri strain in particular, of which this mare would be the single remaining representative, as far as I know.

“Then, in the year 1356 H, we bought the bay ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from Ibn Samdan, when she was in foal, and she gave birth, while in our ownership, to a chestnut colt whose sire is the [Kuhaylan] Nawwaqi who was [standing at stud] with the Arabs of Sba’ah, and whose owner was Fanghash, on the first day of Rabi’ al-Awwal 1356 H [equivalent to the 12th of May, 1937]. And we solt that colt to Cairo.”

And further down:

“And on July 27, 1949, Faran Ibn Samdan came to us, and we each took our shares [in horses], and he gave up his shares in al-’Ubayyah and received from us 172 pounds. This was the bay ‘Ubayyah which came from Salih al-Misrab at the hand of Husayn Abu Hilal in 1356 H.” 

Now please tell me, how many people in 1950, just over sixty years ago, had the luxury of receiving Ibn Samdan, the breeder of the best and most authenticated marbat of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak among the Sba’ah, in his own house, to pay him his share of the ‘Ubayyat Ibn Samdan, herself the daughter of the Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq, the Bedouin herd sire owned by none other than Fanghash al-Nawwaq himself?

The Tahawy were indeed dealing with the most respected Bedouin breeders, and the most authentic strains of desert Arabia. I, who was born as late as 1978, grew around the very last of these prestigious horses; check here the story of another stallion of Fanghash al-Nawwaq (by then an old man), which was almost mine.

Ralph Suarez’s blog has an article about his sire *Faleh, here.

Here is a translation of another one of these original documents; this one is not a hujjah but rather a letter written to a member of the Tahawi tribe:

To our beloved brother Faysal Abu Abdallah [al-Tahawi] may God protect him,

Greetings and salutations, and longings to see your beautiful face, and after that, I would like to congratulate you on the advent of this holy month [of Ramadan], may God make you witness its advent again in health and well-being. You had asked us about the lineage of the colt, and in accordance to your demand, we are writing to you about the lineage of his dam and her ancestors, and that of his sire and his ancestors.

The dam of the horse is al-Dahmah al-’Amiriyah, and her sire is al-Ma’naqi of the horses of Trad al-Siml [actually al-Sbayil, owner of the Ma'naqi Sbaili marbat - EDOUARD] ; and this mare is the dam of the bay mare which you took [from us] last year, and the dam of your horse “Amer”.

As to his sire, he is al-Saqlawi of the horses of Ibn Zubayni, and the sire of al-Saqlawi is [Kuhaylan] al-Dunaysi of the horses of Ibn Dakhin, and the sire of al-Dunaysi is [Kuhaylan] Krush, and this is what you should know.

Please send our greetings to Husayn al-Hilal and remind him not to forget the ‘tent’ which we asked him for, because, from our side, spring is nearing. Our nephew Munzhir sends you his best, and [he sends his best] to Abu Hilal too, and I dedicate my greetings to your father, your brother and anyone who asks about us from your side.

Written by: Ibrahim al-Na’san [al-Barazi] [a seal not a signature]

We the undersigned, witness to what we know, and God is the custodian of what we say

Witnesses [signatures]:

Abd al-Karim al-Ahmad al-Barazi

Muhammad Salim al-Murad

Mukhtar al-Shaqfah

Mundhir al-Barazi

Hasan [illegible middle name] al-Shaqfah

This letter was written by the most prominent Hamawi (as in, from Hama, an ancient city in Central Syria that was a preferred market for the Sba’ah Bedouins) breeders, Ibrahim Agha al-Na’san al-Barazi, the scion and head of the aristocratic Barazi family. Ibrahim al-Na’san had an excellent marbat of Hamdani Simri and of Dahman ‘Amir too.

The witnesses read like a who’s who of Hama’s foremost horsbreeding families: the Shaqfah family owned a prestigious marbat of Kuhaylan al-Mimrah (straight from the owner of the marbat, Ibn Muwayni’ of the Sba’ah); a mare of this marbat was sold to Turkey in the 1920s, (see her hujjah here, click on “Turkish Studbook Report” on the left, then scroll down to AL MUMRUHIYE, towards the end of the page).

The letter shows the extent to which the Tahawi breeders in Egypt went to trace the pedigrees of their horses after they had acquired them from some of the most respected horse breeders in Syria, whether Bedouin or landed aristocrats.

Kuhaylan

1) Rodania, Kuhaylah Rudaniyah, imported to the UK in 1881, through descendants Bint Rissala and Bint Riyala, and bred by the Ruwalah (‘Anazah)

2) El Kahila, Kuhaylah (maybe Krush), imported to Egypt in 1927, from the House of Saud

3) Nafaa, Kuhaylah, imported to Egypt around 1945, from the House of Saud

4) Futna, Kuhaylah Khallawiyah, from a line imported to Egypt by the Tahawi from either the ‘Anazah or the Mawali ca. 1910

Saqlawi

5) Ghazieh through Bint Helwa; Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, Ghazieh imported to Egypt around 1850, bred by the Ruwalah (‘Anazah)

6) Roga El Beda, Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, from the Stud of Ali Pasha Sharif in Egypt; research on tribal connection ongoing.

7) Mabrouka, Saqlawiyah, imported to Egypt in 1945, from the House of Saud.

8 Hind, Saqlawiyah, imported to Egypt in 1945, from the House of Saud.

9) Bint Barakat, Saqlawiyah Jidraniyah, from a line imported to Egypt by the Tahawi tribe from the ‘Anazah ca. 1920

‘Ubayyan

10) El Shahbaa, ‘Ubayyah Um Jreyss, from the Stud of King Fouad in Egypt, research on tribal connection still ongoing.

Hadban

11) Venus, Hadbah Inzihiyah, imported to Egypt in 1893, research on tribal connection still ongoing (more on that later)

Dahman

12) El Dahma, Dahmah Shahwaniyah, from the Stud of Ali Pasha Sharif in Egypt in the 1880s; research on tribal connection ongoing.

13) Bint El Bahreyn, Dahmah Shahwaniyah, imported to Egypt in 1903, from the House of Khalifah of Bahrain.

 Shuwayman

14) Folla, Shuwaymat Sabbah, from a line imported to Egypt by the Tahawi from either the ‘Anazah ca. 1910

Multiple Strains Recorded:

15) El Samraa, recorded as both Kuhaylah and Saqlawiyah, from the Stud of King Fouad of Egypt, research on tribal connection still ongoing.

So all in all, there are 15 asil tail females of Egyptian horses today. This excludes Bint Kareema, whose asil credentials are still weak. Note the large number of lines (5 out of 15) to which we cannot ascribe a tribal origin nor an original Bedouin breeder. The research is still ongoing on this front.

Dear Edouard,

I write to you on behalf of Al-Tahawia website managed by my cousin Mohammed ‘Etman (Othman) El-Tahawi. We are glad that the photos and documents we posted on the site were valued by you and your visitors. We are also very pleased with the recent acceptance of the three Tahawi mares to the notable Al Khamsa Roster. By this decision the Tahawi mares are now fully acknowledged by all the Arabian horse organizations.

In addition to the few documents from our website that you posted here, we still have a larger number of authentic documents that we will be glad to share with you. We are in contact with Mr. Bernd Radtke who visited us in the 80s and we are aware of his work about Arabian horses. We will be glad to communicate with you and see how we can help. I will be glad to receive from you on the e-mail registered here.

Best Regards

This message illustrates the generosity and authenticity (asalah) of the Bedouin in general and the Tahawia in particular. I feel humbled by it, and Bernd Radke, to whom the credit goes, along with Joe Ferriss, for the belated recognition of the Tahawi horses by Al Khamsa, is certainly a lucky man to have lived among the Tahawia and learned from them.

While implicitly included in the Pyramid Society’s definition of a Straight Egyptian Arabian, Ibn Ghalabawi is explicitely left out of the Asil Club’s otherwise wholesale embrace of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization’s Studbook. He shares that distinction with two other stallions, Sharkasi, and Registan (Skowronek x Riz). In 1978, WAHO accepted Ibn Ghalabawi’s daughter Azeema as purebred, based on the testimony of Sayed Marei of Al Badeia Arabians.

That testimony identifies Ibn Ghalabawi as by Ghalabawi out of the mare “Bint Nabras”, by Nabras out of “Bint Soniour”. Soniour is only identified as a “desert-bred horse”.

Assuming that pedigree information is correct, further research is needed on the following four horses before the credentials of Ibn Ghalabawi can be bolstered: the three stallions “Ghalabawi”, “Nabras”, “Soniour” and the great-granddam in the tail female, about which nothing is known.

“Ghalabawi” is said to be by Balance x Bint Magboura by Ibn Rabdan, and to be bred by the RAS. I looked him up in Colin Pearson’s “The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt” but could not find him. I don’t have the EAO Studbooks, and maybe someone else can look him up there.  Nabras must be the the 1921 grey Hadban Enzahi bred the tribe of the al-Aqaydat (“El Agidad”) on the Euphrates river in Syria, and later used by the RAS.

Soniour is the one on which there is “new” information: According to Syrian author and racehorse owner Ali al-Barazi in his book on the Arabian horse, Soniour (c. 1910). was a racehorse owned by Emile Pharaon who had him race in Cairo and was a son of the Dahman ‘Amer (b. 1898 – d. 1923) of Abdallah Seoud al-Tahawi. The hujjah of that Dahman ‘Amer stallion, who was also the sire of Barakat, was first displayed here. Soniour appears to have been bred by the Tahawi and his dam to be a Tahawi mare.

I used to own a copy of that Barazi, which my father gave to me, but I lost it. Basil Jadaan still has a copy, and both Joe Achcar and Hazaim Alwair have xeroxed or scanned copies of this book.

While this information is still not enough to establish the asil credentials of Ibn Ghalabawi once and for all, it represents nonetheless a first step in this direction. The maternal great-grand-dam, the one who was bred to Soniour, remains the major unknown element so far.

Also financial interests had taken advantage of the information on the superiority of the Egyptian horses going back to Abbas Pasha and the fairy tale stories. And from the very much inhomogenous foundation stock of Egypt a certain type of Arabian emerged after not so many generations of human selection (The same thing happened in Poland or in other Western countries). Even modern genetic findings support this observation: We find more different m-DNA types in Arabians than in most other breeds so that scientists give not more than 200 years for the existence of the Arabian breed (I do not agree but this would lead to a different discussion point). In Arabia the so-called Arabian breed existed and still exists to a certain degree without the uniformity western horse breeders like to have.

For me there is no difference between asil horses from Egypt or Arabia, but there are still some missing links we cannot fill yet. An not to forget that we have even less information for horses of Saudi “origin” than for many Egyptian horses. It has always been my intention as a breeder of Straight Egyptians to know the origin of my horses with the Bedouins, i.e. the tribes and breeders of the root horses. Because of missing information I refrain from certain lines within the Egyptians, until that gap is filled.
And if I understand all the information of this blog and the books I have read, there has always been such an immense exchange of horses inbetween the tribes not only in one area but all over Arabia that we cannot exclude one section of asil horses from the rest. Facing some genetic deseases and also some infertility in some lines today we need all sources of Asil breeding for the future. Let´s work together and not against each other for the sake of the breed!  The Egyptians horses have always been connected with Arabia and have never been disconnected except maybe in the thoughts of a few.

Below is Masr El Dahman (Madkour x Maymoonah), bred by Matthias’ family.

The greatest risk – and there are many – facing the asil Arabian horse today is the “decoupling” of the “Straight Egpytian” Arabian from the rest of the asil Arabian community. The “Straight Egyptian” brand/label is so strong, so prevalent, so well-marketed that your average Arabian horse breeder – including an ever increasing number of Middle Eastern breeders, completely disconnected from their ancestors’ breeding legacies and traditions – now believes that the only asil Arabian horses left in the world are the ”Straight Egyptians”.

The implications of this disconnect are several, and they play themselves out on many levels: at the financial level, where the gap between the prices of some “Straight Egyptian” horses and those of other asil horses is ever widening; at the genetic level, where the gene pool of the “Straight Egyptian” horse is ever narrowing; finally, and perhaps most significantly, at the cultural level, where the “Straight Egyptian” horse is being experienced, branded and understood as more “Egyptian” and less “Arabian” (less “Arabian” as in less from Arabia, the land, not the equine breed).

From a historical documentation perspective, the ties binding the “Straight Egyptian” horse to its “Arabian” geographic, tribal, societal and folkloric heritage are loose: recorded information on the desert-bred antecedents of many of the original foundation horses of Egyptian breeing is still missing: for instance, the two most important tail female lines in Egyptian Arabian breeding, the Dahman Shahwan line of Bukra and the Saqlawi Jadran line of Moniet El Nefous respectively trace to two foundation mares from Ali Pasha Sharif, El Dahma and Roga El Beida, neither of whom are desert-bred or trace to specific desert-bred individuals. Most of the horses of Ali Pasha Sharif are in the same boat. Of course, it’s got nothing to do with the horses themselves, only with how little we know about them, and the asil status of these Egyptian-born mares and others who like them trace to unidentified desert-bred ancestors is not in doubt, far from it. What is threatened, however, is today’s breeders’ general awareness of the specific past and present connections of these “Straight Egyptian” horses to their ”Arabian” (ie, from Arabia, the land) desert heritage.

Granted, the monumental and inexhaustible “Abbas Pasha Manuscript” is there to make these very specific connection come to life. The Manuscript is a detailed, lively investigation record of the horses bought by Abbas Pasha, and their desert background. But few, if any, of today’s breeders are capable of understanding the implications of the stories told in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript on the horses they own. Besides, as far as I could tell, only one Egyptian foundation horse with modern descendents is explicitely mentioned in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript: the mare Hajlah, “the Dahmeh Nejiba of Ibn Aweyde” (She is the dam of the stallion Jerboa, who is the sire of the Shueymah mare who is dam of the stallion Shueyman, who is the sire of the mare Helwa among others, herself dam of the Blunt mare Bint Helwa, dam of Ghazala, dam of Radia, dam of Bint Radia, dam of Shahloul, sire of Bukra and Moniet El Nefous, etc, etc.).  Today it is not yet possible to link foundation mares like El Dahma and Roga El Beida to specific individual ancestors mentioned in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript.

I believe that these links between the Straight Egyptian horse and its “Arabian” heritage need to be rediscovered, restated, and reinforced. There are a lot of such connections that are not yet explicit, because of the current status of the research. This needs to change. This is why this blog will have a new series of posts, titled “Missed Connections” that will seek to shed light on the multiple ties binding the “Straight Egyptian” arabian to its past but also present desert heritage.

In every single Arabian horse related publication, I have seen the name of Abbas Pasha’s son transcribed as “El Hami” Pasha, which sort of means ‘the Protector’, but which is not a first name. I always wondered about this, since Arabic first names seldom start with the definite article El/Al, and thought it was a mistake of some sort.

Yesterday, I fell upon an Egyptian chancery document where Abbas Pasha’s son’s name is clearly written “Ilhami”, which literally means ‘My Inspiration’, and was a rather common first name within the Egyptian upper class at the time. Names with a possessive form and a romantic connotation were not uncommon within Egypt’s ruling family at the time. Another example is  Ilhami’s own father’s second name: Abbas Pasha’s middle name was Hilmi, and it means “My Dream”. It was also the middle name of Abbas Hilmi II.

By the way, if you’re into the history of Egypt around this time, check the wonderful site and photo archives “Egypt of Bygone Days”, here.

In Egypt, the 1943 mare Futna, bred by the Tahawi Arabs, and bought by Ahmad Hamza as a broodmare for his Hamdan Stables, was from that same strain. Her dam is recorded as a Kuhaylah “Halawiyah”, just another way to write Khalawiyah, depending on how you choose to pronounce the Arabic letter [?]. Futna still has a thin tail female alive in the USA and Egypt, so the Kuhaylan Khallawi strain still goes on.

According to their family website, wihch has a very rich section on horses, the Tahawi clan leaders brought all their horses from the area of Hims and Hama in Central Western Syria in the period extending between the 1880s and 1930s.  They seem to have preserved dozens of photos of the Syrian desert-breds they imported to Egypt, as well as pedigrees and hujaj (Arabic authentication documents).

In Lebanon and Syria, the Kuhaylan Khallawi strain is well known. The desert area around the city of Hama in Syria is actually the cradle of the strain. This is the precise area where the Tahawi leaders went to buy most of their horses, and the area immediately north of it is where a fraction the Hanadi, the tribe from which the Tahawi clan originates, settled and was given agricultural land, to reward it participated in the Syrian military campaign of Egyptian Viceroy Mohammad Ali the Great. The Egyptian Tahawi maintained close social and family ties with their Syria relatives, and used them in their horse purchasing ventures as agents or intermediaries of some sort. While no positive evidence has yet surfaced within the asil Arabian horse community as to how the original Kuhaylah Khallawiyah ancestor of Futna came to be owned by the Tahawi clan, there is a great likelihood that this was how things happened.

Historically, the Kuhaylan Khallawi strain was owned by the Bedouin tribe of al-Mawali, a wealthy and partly sedentarized sheep herding tribe that nomadized east of the city of Hama. The leaders of the Mawali, Aal Abu Rishah, who bore the title of Prince (‘al-Amir’) were recognized by their peers, as among the bluest-blooded of all Arab shaykhs, so blue-blooded indeed, that no price for their blood could be asked for in case one of them was killed by enemies.

The Aal Abu Rishah owned a famous, extremely covted branch of the strain known as Khallawiyat al-Niswan, “the Khallawis of the Women”. Not sure why they were called by this name, though. Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo once told me that the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II (or at least I recall it was him), when on his way from Istanbul to perform his religious pilgrimage to Mecca, was greeted by the Prince of the Mawalis near Hama, who offered him one of these Kuhaylah Khallawiyah mares as a present.

Sometime in the XIXth century, a branch of the leading clan of the Mawali, known as al-’Aabid, settled in Damascus, and became one of the cities’ leading aristocratic families. In the XXth century, this family gave Syria its first ever president, Mohammad Ali al-’Aabid. The family owned a famous marbat of Kuhaylan Khallawi, known by its name as Khallawiyat al-’Aabid. The last asil mare of that prestigious, regal marbat of Kuhaylan Khallawi, a sick, elderly 1974 bay mare of beautiful conformation died of bronchitis in my ownership in the mid 1990s. Her name was Al-Khillawieh (LSB #4).

A second branch of the Kuhaylan Khallawi strain survives in Syria today. It is owned by Juzif al-Salim, a Bedouin of the Tay tribe, but originally traces to the Fad’aan ‘Anazah Bedouins. The latter may have obtained it from the Mawali, in which case it would be the same branch as that descrived above. The mare below, owned by Mustafa al-Jabri in the 1980s and the 1990s, and later sold to Kuwait, was from that second family of Kuhaylan al-Khallawi, from the Tay Bedouins. I took that photo in the mid 1990s at Mustafa’s.

This photo of the stallion Rock (Ragie x El Charsaa by Gezeier) with proud owner Shaykh Sulayman ibn Abd al-Hamid ibn ‘Ulaywa al-Tahawi was taken from the Tahawi family website. I am so grateful to Bernd Radtke for among other things, his sharing with me the pedigree of Rock’s daughter Bombolle (Rock x Maskerade), which has allowed to reconstitute Rock’s pedigree.

Rock’s strain is Kuhaylan al-Kharass, and his tail female traces to the Kuhalyan al-Kharas marbat of the Sba’ah Bedouins. Kuhaylan al-Kharas is a flagship strain of the Sba’ah, and is the strain of the Blunt import Proximo, among other well known Arabians of Lebanon and Syria. Rock’s pedigree is heavily linebred to the two strains of Dahman ‘Amer (from the marbat of Jarallah Ibn Tuwayrish) and ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (from the marbat of Abu Jreyss).

This photo was sent by a horse merchant in Syria to one of the Tahawi clan leaders in Egypt, bto probe his interest in purchasing the horse. Here is what figures on the back of the photo:

“Photo of the Saqlawi Jadrani horse, his sire is ‘Ubayyan of the horses of Ibn Samdan and his dam a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the horses of the Sba’ah”

A couple noteworthy observations:

1. The marbat of Ibn Thamdan (mispelt Samdan on the back of the photo) is one of the most respected and authenticated marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak among the Sba’ah tribe. It survived in asil form in Lebanon until the late 1950s.

2. Notice the resemblance of the horse in the photo with the Blunt mare Basilisk, who was from the same strain and the same tribe.

This hujjah comes from the Tahawi tribe website and is very interesting, because of the place of origin of the horse: unlike most of the Tahawi hujaj I saw, this one comes from the Upper Mesopotamia area (al-Jazirah) while the others came from Western Syria. I hope the horse referenced in this hujjah document left some modern descendants, because his origin is precious. Here’s my translation of the document:

“We testify by God and his Prophet, in truth and righteousness, that the grey horse, brother of the bay horse, which [the grey] has a small star on his face, and which is five years of age, and which was purchased by Abdel Aziz Bek and Husayn al-Hilal from Adham al-Hamid, that he is Saqlawi Jadran, and that his dam is a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, and his sire a Saqlawi Jadran, from the horses of Dari Ibn Mahmud, the Shaykh of the tribe of Shammar al-Zawba’; and the horse is ‘shubuw’ [to be mated] and can be mated, and is protected [from the side of both]  his sire and his dam, and that there is no impurity in his origin; and for this reason we have prepared this testimony, and God is the best of witnesses.

August 31st 1936

The head of the tribes of Tayy

[signature of  Talal al-'Abd al-Rahman, Shaykh of Tayy] [his fingerprint] [two stamp marks of a seal of some sort]

The head of the tribe of al-Raashed

[seal of 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Hesso]

 The bottom right of the document contains an additional testimony, which I can only decipher partially at this stage, because of the low resolution of the scanned hujjah.

My own remarks on this precious document:

1. The Saqlawi Jadran strain of the marbat of Dari al-Mahmud is the most established and most highly respected branch of Saqlawi Jadran among the Shammar.

2. The Saqlawiyat marbat of Dari al-Mahmud passed to the tribe of Tayy when Dari al-Mahmud, the Shaykh of the Zawba’ branch of the Shammar,  in Iraq, took refuge with this tribe after he killed Cpt. Leachman, the head of British intelligence in the Iraqi desert, in the late 1920s.

3. The strain is still present among the Tayy today, and has branched out in several equally respected marabet: that of al-Dandah, that of Jadou’ al-Jaz’ah, and a couple others.

4. The horse *King John, imported to the USA at the around the same time, came from the same marbat, that of Dari al-Mahmud.

5. Husayn al-Hilal was a horse merchant from Syria who was doing business with the Tahawis.

6. Talal al-’Abd al-Rahman was the Shaykh of the Tayy in the 1930s; his son Hamid al-Talal had a Saqlawi Jadran marbat too. I think Hamid al-Talal’s marbat came from that of Dari al-Mahmud but I need to revert to my notes to confirm this.

7. The clan of al-Hesso is the leading clan of the section of al-Raashed, which is one of the largest of the Tayy. Some twenty years ago their leader was Ghawwar al-Hesso. They own a really nice marbat of Kuhaylan al-’Armush, and often marry into the leading clan of the Tayy (al-’Assaf).

When in the 1850s, the Tahawi began to settle in the province of al-Sharkiyah, in the areas of Bilbeis, Abu Hammad, Geziret Saoud, Kfar Saqr, al-Ismailia, and Abu Sultan, they owned horses which they used for transportation and nomadizing; then they settled down and acquired agricultural land, and gave up their pastoral and war-like lifestyle; their Sheykhs then went on to constitute their own horse studs (marabet); around this time, the Syrian region of Hims and Hama was the homeland of the Arab horse, and was known as al-Sham, since it was home to some of the Bedouin tribes like ‘Anazah, Shammar, al-Fad’aan, and al-Sba’ah, which specialized in the breeding of Arab horse and the tracing of its bloodlines;

The Tahawi Arabs owned some land and maintained social ties with their relatives living in this area, as well as some close friends, so they started bringing brood-mares and stallions to Egypt. Some of them would travel there [to the area of Hims and Hama in Syria] and buy horses, then return [to Egypt] and wait for their horses to arrive; others would buy horses through an agent. Each horse came with a pedigree document, which included a description of the horse, its color, age, complete bloodline of its sire and dam, and the signature of the seller. The document was testified upon by the owners of the nearby studs (marabet), and the Shaykhs of the tribes in the area of Hims.

Among the horse bloodlines which the Tahawis brought and which constituted the foundations for their studs (marabet) are: al-Dahmah, al-Saqlawiyah, al-Tamriyah, al-Khallawiyah, al-Sh’aifiyah, al-Nawwaqiyah, al-Shuwaymah, al-Ma’naqiyah, al-Kharsaa, and al-Kuhaylah, and each of the lines has many sub-lines; when the Tahawi Arabs strove to buy broodmares and bring them from al-Sham (Syria), each Shaykh (of the Tahawi) took it upon himself to acquire different bloodlines/strains from those which another Shaykh had acquired, so they could use stallions of different bloodlines on each others’ mares.

Through their social and family networks in Syria, the Tahawi Shaykhs apparently received photographs and information about horses for sale. The annotated photo below is one such example, and a translation of the legend on the back of the photo reads as follows:

“Dahman, which was in Hims, and we offered his owner 300 guineas, but he refused to sell, then the horse died of a seizure; his owner was Rashid Mu’ayneh; the horse is the brother of the horse of Shaykh Bashari through the dam, and his sire is Kuhaylan al-Kharas”

My notes on the legend:

1. the architectural pattern of the door in the backgruond of the photo is typical of the city of Hims in Syria

2. the Mu’ayneh family is an old family of horse merchants in Syria; their heyday was in the 1920s, 30s and 40s; Rashid was one of the family’s most noted scions; he may even be the man in the picture;

3. Shaykh Bashari al-Tahawi was one of the tribe’s leaders;

“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 also interesting because it reveals additional linkages between the Tahawi tribe and the clan of Ibn Maajil. 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). The 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. She is the dam of the stallion Sabbah (b. 1895), present in virtually every single Egyptian pedigree today.

Here’s a short movie from YouTube, which shows the Marshalls at the Egyptian Agricultural Organization ‘s El Zahraa Stud, then in USA. I believe the white horse in the video is *Morafic (Nazeer x Mabrouka by Sid Abouhom), the star of the first Gleannlock importation.