Looking at the notion of asil in reverse: what is a hajin horse?
One topic that keeps popping up on this blog is the culturally-rooted Arab notion of authenticity and purity in Arabian horses: the notion of an ‘asil’ Arabian. I have been trying to look at this notion from a number of different lenses, and have written about it on several occasions (click here for one such instance). I find myself continuing to grapple with this notion and my thinking about it keeps evolving.
One way to understand this notion of an asil Arabian is to look at some of conceptually related notions, in particular the notions of ‘hajin’ and ‘kadish’. This entry focuses on ‘hajin’, and leaves the altogether different notion of ‘kadish’ for a later time. Understanding what ‘hajin’ means may help to better understand the notion of asil.
So what’s a ‘hajin’ horse, according to Bedouins and other Middle Eastern Arabs involved in Arabian horse breeding? Simply put, a hajin (pronounce it hah-JEEN) is a horse of foreign, non-Arab blood, such as the English Thoroughbred, Kurdish, Turkmen or Barb horses. There is also an Arabic verb for this notion of hajin: Hajjana. ‘Hajjana al-khayl’, when speaking of a person, is the deliberate act of mixing or interbreeding one’s asil horses with horses of non-Arab blood.
The notion of tahjin (to cross one’s horses with hajeen horses) has at least three characteristics: First, the it clearly carries a negative connotation. It is indeed considered shameful for an Arab man in general, and a Bedouin in particular to cross his mares with foreign stallions. A second feature of the notion of hajin is its irreversibility. Once bred to a hajin, the descendants of an Arab horse will never be considered Arab anymore, even if bred to Arab horses for a theoretically infinite number of generations. There is no going back to asil status, once a proven crossing with a hajin has taken place. Third, a hajin horse is obviously not asil, and the two notions, while not conceptual opposites, are mutually exclusive.
Accordingly, all the modern Arab horses whose pedigrees carry at least one proven cross to a horse of non-Arabian blood would have to be considered non-Arab if Bedouin standards were to be applied to them. This includes every Arabian horse with at least one line to Skowronek (which means the wide majority of Arabians in the USA), every Arabian horse with a line to Fetysz (which means all living Polish Arabians), every Arabian horse with a line to Wan Dyck (which means all living Spanish Arabians), and every Arabian horse with a line to 30-Maria (which means most Arabian from South American lines), and so on.
This is very interesting
The mare line of Murana I. in Germany should not have the status Asil.
No one knows its not Strain, she came from Syria only.
Syria was annexed to this time in the Ottoman Empire.
Many horses came from Turkmenistan, Kurdistan, etc.
Murana may therefore have been a Kaddish mare.
maybe…
but check out what Al Khamsa has to say about Murana, I Teymur.
http://www.alkhamsa.org/openservices/pedigrees2009/M/Murana_I_(WL)00001.HTML
So that means that the CMKs’ are totally out as far as ever becoming Asil, due to the Skowronek blood? Hmm… Years ago a general list breeder told me that the then U.S. registry would classify a horse as purebred if the owner could prove 14 generations of crossing to purebred horses.. She apparently didn’t know what she was talking about.. So apparently the known to be not pure horses were Wan Dyck, Fetysz, and Skowronek. But I’m assuming lots more because of the number of Shagyas that found their way into prebred breeding, and of course of the statements of the Sanguszkos to the effect that they had no horses left which had not at one point or another been crossed to horses with native Polish blood.. This all gets interestinger and interestinger.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
The Doyle and Davenport horses are CMK horses, and Edouard considers them to be asil, correct? Thus the CMK horses are not “totally out” as far as being asil.
And no, the “14 generations” person didn’t know what she was talking about. If that were true, you could start with a registered Quarter Horse or Morgan, cross for 14 generations in the Half-Arabian registry, and then move over to the purebred registry. That was never the case.
The 30 Maria descendants are an accident of history.
Bruce, when you speak of “the number of Shagyas that found there way into purebred breeding,” how many do you know of? I know of only two: O’Bajan V-6 and Hamdani Semri I-9. How many others do you know of? And what are their names?
helo edouard i am going to iran ,i just wana know if u can tell me where to look for an arabian horse there do u have any contact wid any breedor over there please do inform me thanks haroon
Bruce, it just takes one non-Arab cross and the horse is not Arab anymore. In the case of the Polish horses, it was multiple crosses to polish native mares in addition to the English TB blood.
R J Obayan2, Obayan Srebeny, and Gazlan come to mind. But of course thats based on the allbreed pedigree index, which as we know is far from flawless..
Also i’m wondering how the Sanguszko statement that they only had partbred tail horses left should be taken. As you know Shagyas were developed by using Native Hungarian mares,some thoroughbreds, and some Spanish horses( not andalusions)top crossed initially with desertbred sires. The results were bred among themselves with DB top crosses every 3 or 4 generations. Roughly the same pattern was followed at Topolcianky, Mangalia, Radautz, and in Poland too. And as Eduoard has documented the last Polish Asils were sold off, to England I think in the mid to late 1960’s.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
The Polish are not pure-bred Arab.!!!
Different Oriental stallions(not only Arabian) were imported and mated with native mares.
the resulting foals were then described as Arab.
the mares is a mix between various oriental and native blood lines.
Unfortunately, they are of the WAHO recognized as purebred Arabians.
i’ve heard of skowronek not being pure arab, but i always disregarded the information as rumour. where is this proof? i don’t understand if there was proof why would WAHO or any organization use these horses and why would highly respected lovers and breeders of arabs (eg crabbet park) use non arab blood?
Yes and thats exactly what I mean by calling them essentially Shagyas.. The thing I was struck by was that the Shagya breeders here in the U.S. had no problem admitting that there was a substantial amount of non Arabian blood in their horses. The Foundress of the North American Shagya Society Adele furby at one time estimated the non Arab component of Shagya bloodlines to generally run from 10 to 12 percent. Judging from phenotype the shagyas I have seen would I think range from 30% to 10% non Arab blood. The thing is most of the Shagyas I have seen look more like Polish arabs than they look like Asils. So if the Shagya guys don’t mind admitting the truth then why didn’t the Poles and Russians and Spanish and Slovakian breeders? Mind you if they had they would have been spitting in face of a very lucrative market at a time when Poland, Russia, and Spain desperately needed the money American millionaires were throwing their way. So to be clear yes I do think the Polish and Russian arab import boom of the 70’s and 80’s was driven by money.
Best Wishes
Bruce Peek
As Salâm ya Edouard.
Listen please…
Baron Fechtig imported in 1816, the laraberstute Murana I (1808) by Weil. She was a dapple-gray, and according to Professor Rueff “noble, strong and built on a regular basis, had a nice, strong foundation, excellent hindquarters with excellent hocks. She died in 1825, but her line was maintained to this day. The horses of this family are available for much substance , caliber, bone strength, strong, correct foundations, combined with excellent movements and best character
Strange, date of birth of the mare is known, but not the strain.
How? If it came from Bedouins, one would know the strain.
Teymur, I suggest you email Al Khamsa about your query. info@alkhamsa.org. There are some researchers there who are pretty familiar with the Murana line.
The Murana I line (along with the rest of the ancestors of early Weil and Babolna breeding) were accepted by Al Khamsa, Inc., by vote as being in harmony with the horses that we are working to preserve. The Weil stud did not always include strains in their early days. It does not mean that the horses did not have them. It means that Weil did not record them.
Early European and Egyptian records are not as complete as we could wish, and so we had to compare them with their peers. For instance, there has been in the past great emphasis on strain and substrain in the Blunt imports, but their foundation mare Rodania does not have a sire listed.
We have strain and substrain for many horses, but not for all, by a long shot. Twentieth century Saudi horses tend to have only strain.
At any rate, the Weil and Babolna studs had an excellent record among their peers of being “all” Arabian, as opposed to including mares of native European breeding in the early days, as did many of the other studs.
By strictest Bedouin standards, virtually all Arabians that left the desert tribes would be unable to come back as asil. The social provenance of knowing the background and the people would be lacking. In the western world, we cannot do more than the best we can to keep track of horses that we feel would have reasonably fit the definition when they left the tribes.
Does that help? That is not speaking as Al Khamsa, naturally, just as me!
For me, there is no indication as to WHERE Baron von Fechtig bought this particular horse. No do we know her strain, family, breeder or former owner. All we know, she was bought from Baron von Fechtig and because he was a profound expert of Arabian horses at his time, we assume that she is of pure origin, or “asil”. But with the same right that one assumes she is of Syrian origin/Asil, one can assume that she is a Hajin-Horse/. We just don’t know.
To C. Grant, Skowronek happened along when Judy Whentworth badly needed an outcross for her herd. If you look at the breeding pattern of a lot of Crabbet breds you’ll see multiple crosses to Mesaoud. Not that he wasn’t a good horse but by the 1920’s he was through and through a lot of the Crabbet pedigrees. Skowronek was owned by one of Whentworths rivals and made quite a splash in the British show scene. So Judy Whentworth secretly hired a third party to pretend to be interested in buying Skowronek. Then she in turn obtained Skowronek from the supposedly disinterested third party, leaving Musgrave Clark high and dry. Then after she saw the generally good phenotypes Skowronek produced as a sire Lady Whentworth made up a story about how ” Skowronek was full of Abbas Pasha blood”, which as it turned out was completely untrue. As to Skowroneks pedigree it has some Arabians in the dam line and some non arabians too, something like 9 of his anscestors at the 64 line were partbred, which the White City editorial reckoned meant 6% non Arabian, just a tick more Arab blood than many Shagyas. As far as WAHO goes. It did not exist at the time- the late 1920’s. But the American Registry did and its board of directors themselves had obtained many horses from Crabbet that were Asil. So they must have reasoned Lady Whentworth was a trustworthy source. Carl Schmidt, lated to be Carl Raswan, managed a large importation of horses from crabbet with several Skowronek get to the Kellog Ranch. And he thought very highly of them. It was only later, I think after the second world war that Raswan learned about Skowronek. To his credit he did state that the truth should come out and people should know about it. The American registry and the Arabian powers that be behaved with no honesty or leadership and the whole matter was left to fester ever since. This all came back to haunt everyone when the U.S. registry refused to recognise some proposed south american imported arabians because they had partbred backgrounds causing WAHO to sue the registry. It was at about this time IIRC that WAHo came up with its famously circular logic definition of a purebred arabian is one who is listed in a WAHO approoved studbook. This is essentially no help at all.
This has made it possible for us all to pursue the rivetting rainey afternoon indoor game of calculating the percentage of non Arab blood in U. S. arabians by using the all breed pedigree index.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
to C. Grant, the information on the foreign blood in Skowronek’s pedigree first came from Ursula Guttmann in 1958. I don’t have the book, personally. It is out of stock but I am sure someone who reads this blog can refer you to the Skowronek pedigree that was published there, drawing on the old Polish studbooks. Basically 9 crosses to English Thoroughbred, local Polish mares, and possibly Turkmen and Persian stallions too.
I bought the Ursula Guttmann book and it is quite thorough. It can still be found for sale online if you search long enough but it is pricey.
Let’s not forget that the term “purebred” as a livestock definition fits all WAHO Arabians, just as it would compare to other breeds in America such as the purebred Quarter horse or purebred Morgan, which were developed from mixtures of several divergent sources but then continuing for generations within its own recognized registry.
The distinction of this discussion here is not about “purebred” by livestock standards but about “asil” by specific cultural standards as established by Bedouin horse breeding tribes. Also note Jeanne Craver’s comments above about reasonable assumption.
We have the book, and have put quite a bit of wear on it! The pages are too big to scan or copy without special machines, or by multiple scans and stitching together.
ah…thanks for that run down guys. very informative. i guess as a crabbet breeder i can take stock in the fact that with all the centuries of breeding arabians there are probably few if any TRULY asil anyway. love the site btw.
Dear Bruce,
what’s the matter with Gazlan? The allbreedpedigree database gives 10 Gazlan. You mean Gazlan 1840?
László
No I’m referring to Gazlan 1864. His height is listed as 164 CMs’, which comes to about 16 hands. Also his grandam was Gidrane.
Also Gazlan 1s’ Mother was 66 Jusuf, by Jusuf, who was out of 113 Aghil Aga.
IIRC the German Shagya studbook forward from the early 80’s mentioned that the Gazalle line hadn’t been purebred arab since the late 1800’s. But I could be wrong on the dates.
Best wishes
Bruce Peek
How i know,Gazlan 1864 was a pure bred (asil)arabian horse, and his son, Gazlan I. too. I have not another informations about them. So staying in the the studbooks.
I have the shagya herdbooks, but now i can’t see them.
The fact is, the Gazlan line changed the name for Gazal at the end of the 19th century, when Gazal ( Gazlan I. x 22 O’Bajan ) was born in 1898. This Gazal was an asil stallion in my opinion, too.
Best wishes,
László
Please do not take the measurements of early European horses as correlating directly to current standards. My recollection is that they used a soft tape, and let it drape around the front of the barrel, or something like that. The measurements do not correspond, at any rate.
Dear All!
It is not the first time, when i meet with declaration or as simple allusion about the purity of the imported Arabian horses of Babolna. As argument staying the height of the withers of the horses.At the time of the last Fadlallah-importations the measuring stick was known, but in the everyday-life didn’t use it.
I remember an articel of Joe Achcar about the Babona imports on this blog from 26.sept.2008, and a comment of Joe after the article:
” As you may have noticed all the horses are tall horses for Arabians”
Let me see the measures:
Koheilan Rashid 161 cm,Farha 156 cm, Shehan Shammar 157 cm,Siglavy Bagdady 156 cm, etc. etc. etc..
Yes, they were not small horses. And we must say, Gazlan was a “capital horse” with the 164 cm, indeed.But the height of the withers was measured with measuring tape. It means, we must count mínus 6-8 (and dependent on the condition , to 10! ) cm-s.
So, how Joe Achcar wrote in that comment ? ….”Europeans missions were looking for big strong Arabians.
Luckily I breed this kind of Arabians as my stallion is 1.57cm and my mares, all of them, except one, are more than 1.55cm tall”
These horses are bigger than the Fadlallah horses- i think. Thank God, and so i will be covering my mare with one of Joe’s stallions.
Best wishes,
László
hello Laszlo,for your guidance, the stallion Hussam al Shamal,could be used by frozen semen, starting from october this year.Best regards
Wow – that is great news! I hope that European breeders will take advantage of this opportunity…
Thank you Arnault,
I see Hussam from the corner of my eyes since a long time.I will write you an e-mail.
Best wishes,
László