This desert-bred mare is a representative of the rare and precious strain of Rishan. She traces to a most ancient and authenticated marbat of the Rishan strain, that of Ibn Hathmi of the ‘Abdah section of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. Her breeder Ayid al-Fnaish obtained the line from Ibn Hathmi a few decades ago. Mustafa al-Jabri is her current owner and I took this photo at his stud in 1995. She was registered in Volume 1 of the Syrian Studbook under the generic strain of Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz, reportedly because one of the members of the local registration committee was unaware of the existence of the Rishan strain. This oversight was fixed in the next Studbook iterations. She was born in 1986, and I believe her registration name is Bint al-Badiah. Her sire is al-A’war, the chestnut Hamdani (Simri) Ibn Ghurab stallion which the Shammar Bedouins were heavily using at the time, before he ended up with Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo in the 1990s. Her dam’s sire is the Saqlawi (Jadrani) Ibn ‘Amud of Muhammad al-Faris al-‘Ad al-Rahman of the ‘Assaf, the leading clan of the Tai Bedouins. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Basil Jadaan with WAHO, Volume 7 of…
I had been reading about the Tunisian government stud of Sidi Thabet in Robert Mauvy’s writings since my teenage years. I happened to be in Tunisia for work and did not want to miss the opportunity to go there and visit, so I took half a day off, bought a Kodak camera for 10 bucks and took the bus to Sidi Thabet in the rural outskirts of the capital Tunis. The stud manager was not there, only a couple grooms who showed me around. I took photos of all the stallions, except for the French ‘pseudo-Arabians’ who were very becoming increasingly popular in Tunisia and are all over the pedigrees now, and photos of the broodmares in the paddocks, but I did not take notes, and I am unable to identify any of the mares now. If the Tunisian readers could help with that, it would be great. The photo below is of one of these Tunisian mares. This dark chestnut old mare was so refined, so regal. Back then, she reminded of Moniet El Nefous and her daughters Mona and Mabrouka in the famous photo with Dr. Marsafi which Judith Forbis took at the EAO in Egypt in the 1960s.…
A rare photo of French master-breeder Robert Mauvy in his later days. Courtesy of Pierre-Henri Beillard, a disciple of Mauvy and the owner the splendid Mauvy-bred stallion Moulouki (Amri x Izarra by David). Mauvy’s little book “Le Cheval Arabe” is in my opinion, the most beautiful and passionate piece ever written in defense of the real Arabian horse of the desert. Neither Anne Blunt’s writing nor Carl Raswan’s compare to his in their intensity and inspirational power. Not even close.
I recently scanned a number of photos of Syrian Arabian horses that I took in the early 1990s, and I will be sharing them with you over the next days and weeks. It makes sense to begin this series of photos with the 1981 ‘Ubayyan Suhayli stallion Mahrous, head sire at the Jabri stud in Aleppo, Syria in the 1980s and much of the 1990s. He is consequently one of the most influential stallion in Syrian pedigrees today. I took these photos in 1992. Mahrous was a masculine and prepotent stallion, who stamped his progeny. All his sons and daughters inherited his balanced, near-faultless conformation and his good disposition. His head was criticized by some for not being a classic Arabian head with a ‘dish’ — Mahrous had a straight profile and a — but you can see from these pictures that it had all the essential characteristics of the head of a true desert-bred Arabian stallion: huge soulful eyes, short pricked ears, huge arched cheekbones, a broad forehead between the eyes, and a clean, delicately arched throat (mithbah). I have already discussed Mahrous’ very well-established pedigree in an earlier entry, to which I refer you (click here).
I think I just made a good bargain: a portable Pandigital photo scanner for 90 USD. It scans a photo in seconds, and the resolution, while not perfect, is quite decent. When I was studying in Chicago in 2001, Joe Ferriss offered me a state-of-the-art scanner which I used to scan the photos of the desert-bred Arabians that you see on this blog. Then I broke that scanner in 2004, and I have been using the same photos again and again since. Today, I scanned 76 horse photos in just a few minutes, most of them I took in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Syria, some of them from my trip to Tunisia in 2005 and the rest of France. So get ready for dozens of photos of Syrian desert-bred Arabians, and let me know when you have had enough.
A beautiful head shot of the 1980 asil Kuhaylan Haifi stallion Audobon (Iliad x Audacity by Lysander out of Bint Dharebah by Monsoon), bred by Charles Craver and later owned by Carol Lyons and Marge Smith in Oregon.
Since we were discussing Monsoon, here is his most influential daughter, Bint Dharebah (x Dharebah). The DAHC pedigree database credits her with 7 registered foals and a total of 74 descendants as of the 2006 update. I have heard RJ quoted to the effect that she is the modern echo of *Reshan — perhaps he will expand on that for us. Photos courtesy of Jeanne Craver.
I received the following message yesterday, as a comment to one of the entries on the Tahawi tribe horses. 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,…
The asil stallion Ghalion-6 is by Ghalion (Morafic x Lubna) out of 25 Amurath-Sahib (Amurath Sahib x 221 Kuhaylan Zaid by Kuhaylan Zaid out of 11 Siglavy Bagdady II). He traces to the mare 60-Adjuze, imported from the Arabian desert by Austro-Hungarian Empire official Fadlalla El Hedad. Adjuze was reportedly bred by the Sba’ah Bedouins, her sire being a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz and her dam a “Schecha”, the transliteration of which is “Shaykhah”. “Shaykhah” is either a mare’s name or a strain’s name, depending on the context in which it occurs. In that case, it is likely to the strain of the mare, the full strain being Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz al-Shaykhah, a lesser-known strain primarily owned by the Sba’ah and Fad’aan Bedouins.
[November 1 2010, update from Edouard: The last two otherwise Al Khamsa eligible descendents of *Bint Rajwa have died. There is no point proposing *Bint Rajwa for inclusion in the Al Khamsa Roster] I want to submit a proposal to include the mare *Rajwa and the stallion Karawane in the Al Khamsa Roster before this coming November. I have already written about *Rajwa here. She was a grey desert-bred mare of the Saqlawi “Ejrifi” (not a recognizable marbat, probably a spelling mistake) mare imported by W.R. Hearst in 1947, along with her daughter *Bint Rajwa. Her son *El Abiad was also imported to the USA at a later time. Both by the Lebanese-bred asil stallion Karawane (Ghazwane x a Ma’naqiyah). *Bint Rajwa had a daughter in the USA, Gulastra Raajiah by Gulastra. That daughter in turn had a son, Sheik Hallany by Hallany Mistanny (Zarife x Roda by Mansour). There are two horses potentially alive who closely trace to *Bint Rajwa, although not in the tail female: a 1988 mare, TCR Hallany Idol (by Sheikh Hallany x TCR Kassandra 1979, who was by Kazmeen Ibn Shiko out TCR Saantanny, also by Sheikh Hallany, so two crosses to *Bint Rajwa there); and a…
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…
The strain of al-Kray is a branch of Kuhaylan al-Krush and it originates from either the Bedouin tribe of al-‘Ajman or that of Bani Hajar.
I am really looking forward to the forthcoming publication in English of the book of King Abdallah I of Jordan, edited by his great-granddaughter Princess Alia Bint al-Hussein. The book “Jawab al-Sa’el ‘an al-khayl al-asayil” is a short treatise mainly concerned with the physical characteristics of the Arabian horse, and was already published three times in Arabic, and all three editions are now out of print.
A few days ago, Michael Bowling sent me the following photos of the 1964 Tunisian stallion Omran (Esmet Ali x Simrieh by Oukrif), from the rare tail female that goes back to the desert-bred mare Mzeirib, imported to Tunisia by the French in 1891. Omran was exported to one of Germany’s zoos, says Michael. The black and white photo was taken while the stallion was still in Tunisia, and the color one in Germany by Dr. Zimmerman of the Koln zoo, who gave both photos and others to Michael.
This beautiful 1905 desert-bred stallion was imported from Northern Arabia to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. He is a son of the mare *Urfa, a Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd from the horses of Didhan al-‘Awaji of the Wuld Sulayman Bedouins’ ruling clan. His sire is the “Great Hamdani” Simri stallion, apparently a major sire among the Bedouin at them time, which also sired the Davenport imports *Haffia, and *Hamrah, the latter being *Euphrates more famous older full brother. None of todays’ asil Arabian horses that trace entirely to Davenport’s original imported Arabians carries the blood of *Euphrates. Indeed, a single asil horse carries *Euphrates’ blood today: an unregistered 1991 mare named Sarita bint Raj, by Rajmoniet RSI out of the Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah mare Nejd Sahra Nisan (*Faleh x Daalnisan by Daaldan), bred and still owned by Helen McClosky in California. Interestingly Sarita bint Raj also carries the single last line to the asil Hamdani Simri stallion *Al-Mashoor, of the famous marbat of Damascus’ Baroudi Pashas. She also carries one of the very last lines to the famous *Mirage, another desert-bred Saqlawi Jadran. This mare dies, and two Al Khamsa Foundation Horses go down the drain, with a third hanging by a thread.
I am writing in response to Edouard’s article on Esmet Ali. I have photos of him as a foal at his mother’s side, as well as documents about his debut at the Tunisian racetrack of Kasr Said. I can garantee you this is the same horse as the later Esmet Ali. All you have to do is take a look at his rather uncommon blaze, the shape of his leg stockings, and his relatively plainer head, which he already had from early on, etc. All the archives I am attaching below were graciously given to me by his breeder and one-time owner Mrs. Chantal De Moussac, who was at the time (mid to late 1950s) the “right arm” of Admiral Cordonnier. Esmet Ali was Cordonnier’s pride. This lady, Mrs. De Moussac was the owner of Esmet Ali’s dam Ambria (by Nasr, Original Arab), which she had bought from Tunisia’s government stud of Sidi Thabet as a foal; of Ambria’s daughter Arabelle, and of Salome (by Bango, Original Arab), bought from Algeria’s government stud of Tiaret as a foal. She had to leave Tunisia well before Admiral Cordonnier, so she gave him her mares. Mrs. De Moussac has witnessed the birth…
Check this feature out on the Bedouin Heritage Project website.
Nimr Shabareq (photo below, by Zaarour al-Barary out of Yamhad by al-A’war) is one of the desert bred stallions that were recently imported to France. He is now standing at stud with Louis Bauduin, who took this picture and gave it to Arnault Decroix, who sent it to me (Merci, Arnault). This is not your usual Arabian horse. This is a horse from hell. This is fire made horse. Both Jean-Claude Rajot and Arnault Decroix told me about their first encounter with this horse in 2008, when he was just a weanling at the stud of his breeder Radwan Shabareq: three grooms were needed to handle him as he was being shown to the stunned visitors. This is probably why Radwan called him Nimr — tiger. He hails from one of the most prestigious desert bloodlines: the Ma’naqi Sbayli marbat of Shawwakh al-Bu-Rasan, Shaykh of the Wuldah tribes of the Euphrates valley. Shawwakh had obtained the line from his neighbor and friend ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, a Fad’aan Bedouin who owns the strain now. ‘Atiyah’s great-grandfather had stolen the original mare from the Sba’ah (click here to read how), the fountain-spring of the Ma’naqi Sbayli strain. The clan of al-Bu-Rasan is…
When I was in France this summer, I got some hair samples from the desert-bred Shuwayman stallion Mahboub Halab, owned by Jean-Claude Rajot. He is from an old Shammar lineage, and traces to the war mare of Faris al-Jarba. The al-Jarba own the marbat until now. MtDNA from this line will be compared with that of the Tahawi mare Fulla, also a Shuwaymat Sabbah, and with the Shuwayman horses from Bahrain which Jenny Lees owns in the UK. A couple days ago, I received hair samples from the stallion Mokhtar, another desert Shammar stallion of the Krush al-Baida strain, owned by Chantal Chekroun of France. Chantal also sent me some nice photos of old Mokhtar, which I will post here soon. MtDNA from this line will be compared with a number of other lines recognized as Krush, such as that of Dafina in the UK, and El Kahila in Egypt, but also *Werdi in the USA. Finally, Omar Anbarji of Aleppo promised to send hair samples from his stallion Kassar, a Kuhaylan al-Wati also from a famous Shammar marbat, and that will be used for comparison with the Kuhaylan Jellabi line of Makbula (back to Jellabiet Feysul of Abbas Pasha),…
I finally found the reason for my aversion for Babson horse pedigrees (not the horses themselves): it’s got to do with the names. These all look the same to me, and I still have trouble recognizing one horse from another on a pedigree. Try figuring this out: there is a Serrou, a Serr El Rou, an El Serrou, and they are three different horses. There is a a Maarou, a Maar-Ree, a Maar-Rab and they are three different horses. There is a Serrasab, a Serasaab, a Serasabba and they are three different horses. It’s been almost eighty years since the 1932 Babson importation from Egypt, and we’re still stuck with foal names with every single possible combination of the names of some or all the original imports (*Fadl, *Maaroufa, *Bint Serra, *Bint Bint Sabbah, *Bint Saada, and *Bint Bint Durra) and some of their direct offspring. I would not be surprised if one day a horse by the name of Daal-Serr-Fad-Maar-Abbah popped out of a pedigree. Why the torture?
He will remain for ever one of my three favorite Arabian stallions. Nancy Becker is in the photo.
This is a raelly unique photo, by Carl Raswan, from the Craver photo collection. It shows the mare Szeikha, a chestnut Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz purchased in the Arabian desert in 1931 by Bogdan Zientarski and Carl Raswan on the behalf of Prince Roman Sanguszko for the Gumniska Stud. She was bred i n 1923 by “Sheikh Farhan bin Haji Barak al Rahman” of the Muntefiq. She was lost during World War II and never found again. She may or may not have been of the strain of Kuhaylat al-Ajuz al-Shaykhah, Kuhaylat al-Shaykhah for short, or Szeikha (Shaykhah) may just be her name. She is the quintessential war mare, and I am a strong advocate of breeding back to this type of Arabian mares – the upright neck aside.
The chestnut stallion Kassar (Mahrous x Dawha by K. al-Wati) was bred by Mustafa al-Jabri and purchased by Omar Anbarji of Aleppo, who sent me the picture below. Kassar’s dam Dawha hails from the ma’ruf (well-known — by the Bedouin community, that is) and mazbut (reliable, authenticated, trusted) marbat of Kuhaylan al-Wati of the sons of Hakim al-Hsayni al-Ghishm of the Shammar, now settled in North-Eastern Syria. Hakim, his sons Mohammed, Ali and Fawaz and his grandsons such as Husayn followed a policy of only breeding their Kuhaylat al-Wati mares to their Kuhaylan al-Wati stallions. They own several branches of the same horses. Kassar in particular is heavily linebred to the Kuhaylan al-Wati strain. Kassars sire Mahrous is a son of a dark grey Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion, also from Hakim’s, and so is his paternal grandsire. Kassar’s paternal grandsire and Kassar’s dam are said to be very closely related. Theirs is a relatively old marbat with the Shammar; The grey stallion “Koheilan”, imported to England in the early 1910s (I think, but maybe it was the 1920s, in any case the horse is pictured in the first pages of Al Khamsa Arabians I, 1983), where he left no progeny, was of that strain. The Kuhaylan…
Jeanne Craver scanned the photo of Monsoon (Tripoli x Ceres by Aramis) which some readers have mentioned and which I was so eager to see. She wrote: “I have it as a slide and as a page proof from an Arabian Horse World ad we did years ago. I used the ad page, so there creases in the paper. This actually makes his head look more dished than it was. It was really fairly straight in profile, but very dry and classy. Anita Westfall took the photo, another one of her jewels! She also made the halter.” I don’t know how to put it otherwise, and this is perhaps inappropriate, but he looks … ‘sexy’.
— The grey Kuhaylah Hayfiyah Wisteria CF (Triermain x HB Wadduda by Mariner) was bred back to her sire Triermain CF (Javera Thadrian x Demetria by Lysander) last week at Craver Farms. — The chestnut Javera Chelsea (Thane x HB Diandra by Mariner), also a Hayfiyah, on lease from Doris Park of Iowa, will also be bred to Triermain on the next heat cycle. — So will the chestnut Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah Dakhala Sahra (Plantagenet x Soiree by Sir), with Kathy Busch of Missouri, via AI.
I think this stallion, Monsoon (Tripoli x Ceres) is stunning. I am sorry about the poor quality of the picture. He was born at Craver Farms in 1967 and it is a shame he died young [well not so young, says Joe Ferriss, my memory is failing me] and therefore left little progeny.
The outstanding stallion Esmet Ali (photo below) is at the center of a controversy that has been quietly brewing for several decades now in Tunisia and beyond. Since Esmet Ali is in the pedigree of almost every single Arabian horse in Tunisia today, the matter is of some importance. I do not know what position to adopt with respect to this controversy, and I will actually refrain from adopting one until more information emerges from within the country, which I am sure will be the case at some point. The original Esmet Ali was born in 1955 at the famed and well-respected Sidi Bou Hadid stud of french Navy Admiral Anatole Cordonnier, one of the savviest and most knowledgeable breeders of Arabian horses of his time (little known in the USA, unfortunately). That Esmet Ali was by Cordonnier’s stallion Hazil and out of one of Cordonnier’s best mares, Arabelle (Beyrouth x Ambria by Nasr d.b). In 1956, Tunisia became independent from France, and some troubled times followed for a brief period, during which the stud of Sidi Bou Said was looted, and many animals ran away, and others were lost or stolen. The yearling Esmet Ali was one of these. He was taken…
I am really intrigued by the Arabian horses of Turkey, for two reasons. First, as a student of Middle Eastern history, I am deeply aware that the area composed of the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and alternativelly known as Bilad al-Sham, Greater Syria, or the Levant (depending on who you talk to), was governed out of two cities during most of the last thousand years: Cairo and Istanbul. Both the Ayubid (1171- 1250) and the Mameluk Sultanates (1250-1516) ruled over this area from the city of Cairo, while the Ottoman Empire’s domination of the same area out of Istanbul lasted from 1516 until 1918. The Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt Mohammad Ali Pasha and his son Ibrahim Pasha also ruled the area from Cairo for a brief period (1832-1840), when they openly challenged the Ottomans’ authority. More recently, Syria and Egypt were also briefly united in one country from 1958 to 1961. If Cairo and Istanbul were the centers of power and prestige, then desert-bred Arabian horses, which are themselves major objects of power and prestige, must have flocked to Cairo and Istanbul in large numbers over this entire period. They were either obtained as gifts, purchases for cavalry remounts or war trophies. While most everybody knows about the fabled Arabian…
Finally, a photo of the 24 year old desert-bred Bahraini stallion *Mlolshaan Hager Solomon at his owner Bill Biel in Michigan. Jenny Krieg went up there and took this picture, from which Jeanne Craver removed the tack. Jenny has leased a mare of Saudi Arabian lines from Rodger Vance Davis to breed to him, and Rodger also sent in another mare too. If all goes well, there will be two foals from him next year, and I am keeping all my fingers and toes crossed. 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.
Ezzina (Chaabane x Wilaya by Ragheb), proudly owned by Walid Maazaoui, is one of the last asil mares in Tunisia. Ten years ago, Tunisia was still one of the last reservoirs of asil blood in the “East”, but that is quickly changing, and today there are only a few dozen asil mares and stallions left. The country has traditionally bred Arabians for the racetrack, and it continues to have a very dynamic racing scene. When I was there last, in 2006, I took some pictures of the unbelievable stallion Akermi (Dynamite III x Ichara by Koraish) at the government stud of Sidi Thabet. 46 starts, 40 wins, 5 seconds, 1 third, can you believe it? Several of Akermi’s stablemates were “Arabian” stallions imported from France, all of dubious racing bloodlines. They’re just about as much “Arabian” as I am Chinese. The groom who was walking me through the stables told me that there was a lot of enthusiasm among Tunisian breeders about these French horses, and that most breeders were using them. There is a growing market for these French-Tunisian crosses in the Gulf countries too, and prices are on the rise. Today, nobody, save a few purists and oldtimes, cares about preserving the Tunisian asil Arabian anymore. Walid…
I was sorry to hear about the passing of Majd, the bay Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion whose picture i recently posted. While visiting the Al Basel government stud in Syria, Majd’s sire was introduced. He is an imposing grey of good size, and his name is Basil [Mahrous x Halah]. He is of the Kuhaylan Mimrah strain and is bred by Mustapha Al Jabri. He is a horse of great quality and has a wonderful nobility which reminds me of that sense of quiet, confident, but strong diginity akin to a great war horse. The Blue Star stallion Muhairon (Sirecho x *Muhaira) was very much like this. [askterisks are used to denote imported to North America.] I wish I had more photos of Basil but the one here is descriptive of his quality which shows great proportions, leg quality and wonderfully shaped ears, a true Bedu charger to be proud of. -Joe Ferriss