*Abeyah tail female survives with the Shammar

Lately, I have been enjoying regular evening discussions with Radwan. He is energized now that several of the mares he had lost to the IS were found and brought back. He is part of a WhatsApp group with Bedouin shaykhs and breeders in Syria to discuss desert horses and strains. Yesterday’s discussion yielded a wonderful, just wonderful surprise: the specific Ubayyan Sharrak line to the 1906 Davenport import *Abeyah still exists among the Shammar. *Abeyah, per her hujjah now on the Arabian Horse Archives, was from the marbat of Mit’ab al-Hadb, the leader of the Thabit clan of the Northern Shammar, and one of its “men of war” (rijal harb) — military commanders. In the course of the 20th century (still trying to find out when), this precious Ubayyan Sharrak marbat, which originally hailed from the Sba’ah ‘Anazah, passed from the sons of Mit’ab to their paternal cousins the sons of Shugayyif. They are now known after Shughayyif. By the 1980s, Muhammad ibn Mit’ab al-Hadb only had Saqlawiyat Jadran — and what Saqlawiyah these were! More on them another time. But their cousins the Shughayyif kept the line going. Two mares made it in the second rounds of registrations in…

Mas-huj, Ubayyan Sharrak stallion from Syria

The 1983 stallion Mas-huj stood at the farm of Basil Jadaan near Damascus for one season, when this photo was taken. Basil gave a copy of the photo to Hazaim Alwair who published it online for some time. Mas-huj was from the city of Hama, from an old lineage of Ubayyan Sharrak tracing to the Sbaa tribe. I remember Mashuj well, from seeing him in Hama year in year out during the late 1980s and early 1990s at the farm of Fuad al-Azem. His sire was a Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Zubayni from another old Hama lineage (that of the family of al-Khani). He raced in Beirut under the name of Zad al-Rakib. My father recalls seeing him — the Saqlawi — pull a cart on the streets of Beirut in the early 1980s after his racing career was over. I was in the car apparently but too young to remember.   

Zenobia, Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from Lebanon, 1991

Zenobia, born in 1977, was one of the prettiest asil mare in Lebanon, my father’s favorite horse, and a notoriously difficult producer. A ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah tracing to the marbat of Ibn Thamdan of the Sba’ah, with a regal pedigree that was linebred to Mach’al, the foundation stallion of Lebanese asil breeding. She left no asil progeny, and my father sold her in 1992 at the age of 15. Sire: Achhal, a son of Mach’al; dam: Bint Su’ad; sire of dam: Wazzal, another son of Mach’al; dam of dam: Su’ad; sire of granddam: al-Jazzar; dam of granddam: Mash’al’s sister, a daughter of Shaykh al-Arab.

Asil *Abeyah tail female survives through show lines

Some time ago, I wrote about how the 1964 mare Carila (Caravan x Akila by Akil), the last asil mare from the female line of the Davenport mare *Abeyah was lost in the 1990s despite a last minute preservation effort.. Recently, while going through Datasource, I was thrilled to find out that an asil line to *Abeyah has actually survived, through modern show ring lines and outside any preservation program. This is the line of the 1963 mare RO  Jameelah (Faaris x Ramleh, by Ghazi x Fersaba, by Ferdin x Saba), who has a line to Nureddin II through his son Ferdin, which means she is not Al Khamsa, because Al Khamsa does not accept Nureddin II. Now the case of Nureddin II (Rijm x Narguileh by Mesaoud) is a long and complex one, and a painful one at that. In my opinion, he is who the studbooks say he is, that is, the 1911 son of his two parents, the Crabbet horses Rijm and Narguileh. I have seen all the documentation available, and I don’t buy the arguments of either Carl Raswan or his disciple Jane Ott, about him being the son of an English Thoroughbred. This theory has been refuted many times by all serious researchers.…

Jalaa’, Ubayyan Sharrak stallion from Syria, at Jabri stud

This is Jalaa’, a young chestnut ‘Ubayyan Sharrak stallion at the Jabri stud farm in Aleppo. Jalaa is a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak of the marbat of Ibn Duwayhiss of the ‘Anazah. Thanks to Arnault for posting his pedigree on allbreedpedigree.com. Photo by G. Waiditschka. He is by the Shabareq-bred Ma’naghi Sbayli stallion Tadmor (Al-Aawar x Holwah) out of the Jabri-bred mare Shareefah (Ihsan x Dalahem by Mahrous out of Nawal). Al-Aawar was featured here; Holwah here; Ihsan here; Mahrous here and Nawal here, all on this blog. Here is a full shot, also by by G. Waiditschka.

A detailed discussion of the hujjah of the desert-bred mare *Abeyah

Below is a translation of the Arabic language hujjah of the mare *Abeyah, imported by Homer Davenport from the Northern Arabian (i.e., Syrian) desert to the USA in 1906. It is adapted from the translation of this hujjah which I did in 2005 for the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians III. The Al Khamsa Arabians III translation remains the one readers ought to refer to, because it is a word for word translation of the original Arabic, but the one below reads better in English: “I, o Faris al-Jarba, witness that the bay mare which has a blaze on her face and two stockings on her hindlegs is a ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of Mit’ab al-Hadb, to be mated in the dark night, purer than milk; we only witness to what we know, and don’t withhold what is unknown. Faris al-Jarba bore witness to this [seal of Faris al-Jarba follows] I testify by God that the witness referred to, Faris Pasha from the tribe of Shammar, is a just man and that his testimony is acceptable. Ahmad al-Hafez [seal of Ahmad al-Hafez follows]” I will be discussing this hujjah in detail in the comments section below, so when you…

Photo of the Day: desert bred Saqlawi Jadran stallion, Syria

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.

Dham al-Jarba, Wati al-Ghishm and the ‘Ubayyan story from Mustafa al-Jabri

Mustafa al-Jabri is a longtime Syrian breeder of desert Arabian horses from Aleppo, Syria, and a beloved family friend.  Mustafa’s stud near Aleppo, which has up to 100 mares and two dozen stallions, is one of the most highly regarded studs in Syria. Over the past decades, Mustafa spent extensive amounts of time with Bedouins and those familiar with them, and collected a large compendium of stories, some in verse, some in prose about Arabian horse strains, Bedouin feats and deeds, and the relationship of Bedouins with their horses. Mustafa’s family is now working on putting these stories in writing in Arabic, for education and awareness raising purposes. Below is one of these story from Mustafa, which I translated from the original Arabic, and which Mustafa and his family graciously agreed to share: One day Dham al-Hadi al-Jarba the Shaykh of the Shammar tribe went hunting with one of the men from his tribe, a Bedouin known as Wati al-Ghishm (as an aside: Wati means lowly and vile, and it was a Bedouin habit to give their children rough or negatively connotated first names to draw the evil eye away from them ; they would keep positively connotated first names to…

Photo of the Day: Laila, desert-bred Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from Syria

My father is here in the USA, visiting with me. We often get the chance to reminisce about the hundred or so horses he bred or owned when he was actively breeding, but also about those he was never to obtain, for one reason or another. Laila (photo below, which my father took) is one of these. Laila was a ‘Ubbayyah Sharrakiyah, bred a small ‘Anazah Bedouin clan from an area in southern Syria. Somehow, her and her dam had found their way to Damascus in the early 1980s, where their new owner was breeding them to English Thoroughbred stallions to produce part-bred Arabs for the racetrack of Beirut, Lebanon. I will always remember seeing Laila’s black son, al-Adham, and her brother, Nashwan, both partbreds with 50% English Thoroughbred blood, on Sunday afternoons at the Beirut racetrack (it was the early 1990s), their tail held high in the air as they raced toward the finish line, looking distinctivly prettier than all the other partbreds in lot.  In the picture below, she is pictured with a foal by the part-bred Arabian stallion al-Mustaqbal. In the early 1990s, as Syria joined the World Arabian Horse Organization, Laila’s owners switched to the breeding of asil Arabians, which was rapidly becoming…

Photo of the Day: Tahirah, a ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from Hama, Syria

Below is one of the first photos I took, at age 12 in 1990 or 1991, with my father’s Nikon. The mare in the picture is Tahirah, then a 25 year old ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of the Saffaf family of Hama. Hama is an ancient city in central Syria, just west of the Syrian desert, and as such was the main marketplace for the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, which was famed for its many marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (‘Ubayyan al-‘Awbali, ‘Ubayyan al-Usayli’, Ubayyan Ibn ‘Alyan which by the way is Queen of Sheba’s marbat, ‘Ubayyan Ibn Thamdan,’Ubayyan Ibn Duwayhiss, ‘Ubayyan Labdah, etc). The Saffaf family were in close business contact with the Sba’ah Bedouins, from whom they obtained a number of desert-bred mares. One of these mares was Tahirah’s maternal grand-dam, a chestnut ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah, bred by Ku’ayran al-Amsa’, a Bedouin of the Rasalin section of the Sba’ah tribe. She was by a famous Ma’naghi Sbayli stallion, then the herd sire for the Rasalin section.  Tahirah’s sire was a Kuhaylan al-Krush, also from the Saffaf family, who owned a Krush marbat as well. Her dam’s sire was a Hamdani Simri, also from Hama. Tahirah has many of the features…

Abbas Pasha Manuscript — First page in Arabic

This document recently appeared on one of the discussion threads below. For those of you who know the Abbas Pasha Manuscript in its English edition, this is just the first page in one of the original Arabic editions.. This is a quick and dirty translation (writing from work, gotta go home soon), without the Quran verses in the reversed triangle: “Warning/advice about breeding/mating horses; I say, about stallions to be mated; the first to be mated (yushabbi) is Duhayman Shahwan from the strain (rasan) of Kunayhir, and Duhaym al-Najib;  the second is Kuhaylan al-Mimrah; then al-Saqlawi al-Jadrani and it is from three branches, the dearest of which is the strain of al-Simniyyat, then the strain of al-Sudaniyat, then the strain of al-Abd; followed by the strain of al-Saqlawi al-Ubayri and al-Marighi, which are the same strain; and following that, Hadban al-Nzahi which consists of six strains: the first (ie, the best) is Hadbat al-Munsariqah; the second is Hadbat Mushaytib; the third is Hadbat Jawlan; the fourth is Hadbat al-Fard; the fifth is Hadbat al-Mahdi; the sixth is Habdat al-Bardawil which is not to be mated; following that is Kuhaylan al-Tamri; and after that, Shuwayman al-Sabbah; and after that, Hamdani Simri al-Khalis; and…

Lost asil tail females: *Abeyah

In my opinion, *Abeyah was the best mare of the Davenport importation, and perhaps one of the best mares to come out of Arabia. She was certainly the best authenticated one. Look at my translation of her hujjah (also published in Al Khamsa Arabians III):  I, o Faris al-Jarba, witness that the bay mare which on her face has a blaze and on her two back legs has a stocking, [i.e.] she has two stockings on her hindlegs, that she is ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of Mit’ab al-Hadb, [that she] is to be mated in the dark night, [that she] is purer than milk, and we only witness to what we know and do not keep [information] about the unknown. Faris al-Jarba bore witness to this [Faris al-Jarba’s seal] A hujjah couldn’t get any better than this. Concise, to the point, and written and sealed by the supreme leader of the preeminent Bedouin horse-breeding tribe of Arabia Deserta: the Shammar al-Jazirah. In comparison, how many horses otherwise known to have been berd by the Aal Saud have Ibn Saud’s own seal on their hujjah?  How many other imported mares have Faris al-Jarba’s seal? [I know of only another one: the…

Rare photo of the stallion El Obayan (Algeria)

Another photo courtesy of Jean-Claude Rajot is of the stallion El Obayan, a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, which the Veterinary Dr. Bardot bought in 1923 from the city of Hama in Syria, for the stud of Tiaret in Algeria. El Obayan was in the stall next to El Managhi, who was featured earlier.  In Algeria, El Obayan sired the Jilfat Dhawi mare Baraka, who in turn sired the mare Gafsa by Bango. Gafsa was owned by master breeder A. Cordonnier of the Sidi Bou Hadid stud in Tunisia, and was the dam of the Cordonnier stallion Inchallah, exported to France, where he stood at the government stud of Pau. I need to scan a picture of Inchallah and share it with you.

Photos of the day: Burgas, Taleb

“Excellent horse, but his grey color makes him unusable”. So the French government, prompted by the cavalry’s dislike of the color grey, sold the stallion Burgas to Poland in 1923, without using him.   Burgas, a Saqlawi Jadran by a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, born in 1907, was one of 20 Arabian stallions imported to France in 1914, just before World World One. Of these, ‘Adwan, Ghoumar, Madfah, Nazim, Taleb, and Burgas went to the stallion depot of Pau, in southern France. Below are pictures of the last two.  The sale of Burgas was a obviously a mistake, since he went on to sire Federacja for the Poles. She was the dam of Witez II.  Taleb, a Ma’naghi Sbayli, sired the stallion Rabat, who is the represented in the pedigree of the handsome stallion Nichem. 

Photo of the day: Nawal (b. 1976)

I thought I’d share this photo of Nawal with you, after the mention of the strain of ‘Ubayyan ibn Duwayhiss in a previous post of mine. ‘Ubayyan ibn Duwayhiss is a branch of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak owned by the Sba’ah tribe. Nawal was bred by Khairi Ajil al-Dibs, of the Aqaydat semi-nomadic sheep herding tribe, on the Euphrates valley not from the border between Syria and Iraq (lately a hotspost of military activity). Her sire was al-Ma’naqi al-Najrissi, a famous Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion, known throughout the Syrian desert for producing extremely typey and good-moving broodmares. The Aqaydat obtained the two strains of ‘Ubayyan ibn Duwayhiss and Ma’naqi Sbayli directly from the Sba’ah tribe, whose seosonal migration routes spanned Aqaydat territory.   Nawal was later acquired by Mustapha al-Jabri of Aleppo, for whom she went on to produce several good broodmares. Mustapha once told me a couple of nice stories about the pride in which Sba’ah Bedouins took in the particular strain of ‘Ubayyan ibn Duwayhiss, in the contexts of their wars against the Ruwalah tribe, but I am afraid I don’t recall any of these stories in enough detail to relate it here. Will ask him next time we speak over the phone. I took this photo at Mustapha’s in the spring of…

Shaykh al-‘Arab, forgotten king of a lost kingdom

The dark chestnut stallion Shaykh al-‘Arab is one of the foundation stallions of the (now defunct) Lebanese Asil Arabian horse breeding. Born in the desert somewhere between Hims and Palmyra, he was bred by Rakan ibn Mirshid, Shaykh of the Gomussah section of the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe in the 1930s, then sold to Beirut for racing.  His sire was a desert-bred Ma’naghi Sbayli, the stallion of ‘Awdah al-Mis’ir of Sba’ah, and his dam a ‘Ubayyat al-Usayli’, one of the best marabit (pl. of marbat, i.e., desert stud) of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak among the Sba’ah tribe. [Other equally good marabit of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak with the Sba’ah tribe ainclude ‘Ubayyan ibn Duwayhiss, ‘Ubayyan al-‘Awbali, ‘Ubayyan ibn Thamdan, and ‘Ubayyan ibn ‘Alyan, the latter being the strain of the Blunt import Queen of Sheba, then owned by Beteyen Ibn Mirshid, Rakan’s ancestor.]   In Beirut, the horse was successfully raced by Henri Pharaon under the name of Shaykh al-‘Arab (a reference to his prestigious breeder), and then given to the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture as a breeding stallion.  Shaykh al-‘Arab’s sons and daughters became good race horses, so much so that veteran Syrian racehorse owner Ali al-Barazi recalled attending race in Beirut where the top…

Zanoubia

A previous post gave me the occasion to mention Zanoubia, which is something I have been looking forward to for some time now. Zanoubia was my first mare.  Rather she was the first mare from my father’s horses in Lebanon that I considered mine.  She did not make it in my recent top ten of the best Asil mares ever bred; she would have ten years ago, before I become acquainted with the wonderful Asil Arabians bred in the USA. Dad had bought her as a yearling in 1977 0r 78. At that time, he owned some 15 mares and a couple stallions, not all of them Asil.  There were few Asil Arabians left in Lebanon, and Zanoubia was one of the them.  She was a ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the horses of the Dandashi landowners of Western Syria, who were famed for the beauty and purity of their horses.  The strain came from the Sba’ah tribe. A couple of the Dandashi horses made their way to Europe and the USA.  The Dandashi were the owners of the 1880 black Babolna stallion O-Bajan, who’s left such an imprint on Asil breeding in Europe.  They were also the breeders of the Saqlawi Jadran, sire of the Asil mare *Muha, imported by Ameen al-Rihani to the USA.  That Saqlawi Jadran was a gift from…