In the same vein as the new information pertaining to the hujjah of the mare *Jedah, I thought I’d try my luck and look up the Bedouin owner of the Davenport import *Azra in the same table of Fad’aan clan. And it worked. *Azra is a Saqlawi Ubayri from the marbat of Muharib al-Kharraz of the Makathirah section of the Fad’aan (a section similar in level to the ‘Aqaqirah). A search for the Makathirah section yielded the following: “The fourth section of the Khrisah [a large sub-tribe of the Fad’aan] is al-Makathirah, and their elder/leader is al-Mad-hun […] and their way cry is “the horse rider of al-Balha is a Kathiri” [Kathiri is singular, Makathirah is plural of the same]; and their ancestor is Sulayman also known as the Elderly (al-‘Awd) and they are the most numerous of the Khrisah sections; and Sheykh Saleh al-Mad-hun indicated that Sulayman has six offspring, and they are (i) Qutn; (ii) […] and from Qutn come Saqr and Muhammad, and from Saqr come Rabih and […]; and from Rabih come Shafe’ and Nafe’ and Falah al-Muqafe’ and they are known as al-Kharareez [plural of al-Kharraz], and the meaning of al-Kharz is the stabbing with…
Early this afternoon during lunch break I was looking at some lists of Fad’aan Bedouin clans on a ‘Anazah tribal website, and while searching for something else, I stumbled on this remarkable piece of information in relation to the hujjah (original document) of the Davenport mare *Jedah imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906. The hujjah of *Jedah, as I translated it to English for Al Khamsa Arabians III in 2005, is as follows (with minor edits in 2014): “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, [blessings and religious statements follow] After [the blessings], I declare that the entirely chestnut [ie, no white marks] mare which I sold to Ahmad al-Hafedh from the people of Aleppo that she is Hamdania to be mated, [she is] protected, [she is] purer than milk / and she came to me from the tribe of al-Jad’ah and the tribe of al-Jad’ah it came to them from the tribe of Shammar from the breed of Ibn Ghurab and I bear witness upon the owners of this breed [ie, Ibn Ghurab] that their testimony is acceptable and I bear witness to their testimony / And we only bear witness to what we know and we do not keep [information] about the unknown. [He who]…
Thank Heaven is now in the ownership of Jeannie Lieb, who took this photo of the beautiful Mlolshaan Solomon daughter as was settling in her new home. She has her sire’s withers, shoulder, and clean legs. Compare with his own photo, in extreme old age, below.
The stud of Sheykh Muhammad B. Salman Aal Khalifah in Bahrain includes representatives of an Arabian horse strain by the name of “Saidan”, of which one representative is the stallion pictured below, Saidan Gharib (photo from the 1998 WAHO Convention in Bahrain). While the strain sounds very similar to the strain of Saadan (as in Saadan Tuqan, the strain of, among others, the mare Francolin imported by the Blunts) they are not the same, and are not written in the same way in Arabic. It seems that the Bahraini “Saidan” strain gots its name from the ruling family of Oman, the Aal Said. Here is a quote from the Bahraini studbook volume 1: “The Kuheilah Sai’da strain is a family of horse peculiar to Bahrain. The oft told story of how the name came about is still repeated in gatherings when men discuss horses of old and their merits. In the early 19th century the Al-Khalifas had to repel many invaders to ascertain their supremacy in Bahrain. In the year 1816, in one of the attempts to overtake the islands by the forces of the Sultan of Muscat, Said bin Sultan, a big battle was fought on the shores of Bahrain. When…
Jenny Lees sent me these four beautiful photos of the two new Bahraini stallions standing at her stud, with her grand-daughter. She meant them as an example of the wonderful disposition and temperament of Arabian stallions in general and Bahraini horses in particular. She wrote: I was invited to take the two Bahraini stallions presented to HM the Queen to the AHS National Show at Malvern this summer. After they had done the display we all settled down in a corner of the showground for a picnic. This is my five year old granddaughter Elsie with the stallions Tuwaisaan That’atha’ta the grey and Mlolshaan Mahrous. Both stallions are in their early teens and both have covered mares. Elsie has a special relationship with the grey Tuwaisaan. To learn more about the pedigrees of both stallions, visit this link.
Mlolshaan (Bahrain Studbook spelling) is an Arabian horse strain now only found in Bahrain, but which was also present in Najd in the past, as evidenced by its mention in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript page 251, under Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish. I was always curious about the origin of the word Mulawlish, which is uncommon in Arabic today. It is obviously a Bedouin Arabic word, which means it can be traced to Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur’an and of pre-Islamic Bedouin Arabia. The Bahrain Royal Stud website offers this interpretation of the meaning of the strain: “The name Mlolesh is believed to derivate from the word “Mlolash” the trilling high-pitched sound the Arab women make at weddings and other happy or exciting occasions. The original Mlolesh mare must have had a beautiful neigh!”. So a Mlolesh is a trill, so to speak, and its usage, originally associated with women, was extended to mares. It is a common pattern with horse strain names, as is the case with the Kuhaylah. Still, I thought I’d look up the word in another way, through a dictionary. The first step to find the origin of an any Arabic word is to take it back…
The magnificent HH Tantalus Krush, a 2009 Arabian stallion of the Kuhaylan Krush strain, Davenport lines, out of Quantum LD x Kashmir Krush LD. Thanks to owner Kim Davis for sharing this beautiful video of a superior stallion, true heir to his sire.
Taken at Sue Moss in Pennsylvania, shortly after she arrived there. This mare is top crossed with 6 generation of Straight Egyptian sires on a Crabbet tail female of Milanne/Ferida. I believe she is in foal to Monologue CF.
From 2007, but it now seems like it was ages ago, from the good old days of tracking old Bedouins in Syria with Hazaim Al Wair and asking them about their horses and all sorts of other things. I re-read it now, fascinated by the wealth of information — like a Abbas Pasha Manuscript entry, and am grieving over what is lost. —————————————————————————————– Conversation with Abdallah Abu Sayfayn, Bedouin horse breeder (03.31.07) Revised after a visit by my friend Kamal Abd al-Khaliq to Abdallah Abu Sayfayn on April 5, 2007 1) The man: ‘Abdallah, son ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, said he was 55 years old. He is the owner [sahib] of a marbat of the Maanagi Sbaili known after his family. 2) His clan: He said his family is from the Shumaylat [a section of the Fad’aan], and that there were four Fad’aan sections that are “brothers” [i.e., very closely related to each other]: al-Mhayd, al-Shumaylat, al-Sari, and al-Rus. He mentioned that the Mhayd were the senior section, and implied that the other three sections, including his, acknowledged the authority of the Mhayd. He also asked me to check with Thamir ibn Mhayd [who seemed to be current Shaykh of the…
The visit of Judi Forbis to Bahrain adds another piece of extra information not otherwise mentioned in Bahraini studbooks, with regards to the mare Dahmah Al Tawilah, the dam of Dahman II (Dahman Al Thaani): “…then came an interesting contrast between two elderly Dahmah matrons, both chestnuts, both very distinctive but of a very different type and sire line. One was half sister to the old Dahman stallion [Dahman I or Al Awwal], but sired by a Krush, and far more refined than he.” The caption of a photograph of a chestnut mare in the same article reinforces this identification: “Dahma, a chestnut mare at Sakhir. Dam of Dahman II and IV, who are breeding stallions used by Sheikh Isa, she is also a sister to old Dahman I. Pictured in her 20s. Forbis photo.” From this we learn that the sire of Dahmah Al Tawilah is a Krush (in the Bahrain studbook this horse appears as OA Original Arab with no strain mention). This Krush may be “Krushan Bay” (aka Krush Al Asday, meaning the Bay Krush) who is the sire of the Jallabiyah dam of Jellabi II (Jellabi Sakhir), a mare contemporary to Dahmah Al Tawilah.
Another interesting snapshot is the information Judi Forbis reports about Hamdany Riadh, a stallion at Sheykh Mohammad B. Salman (brother of the then ruling emir and uncle of the present King), during her 1970 visit to Bahrain: “Despite deep chuck holes and the rocky desert, the car succeeded in reaching Ganabia safely where Sheikh Mohamed’s farm was located a few kilometers away. An old grey Hamdaniyah mare from the Saud’s stud and a desert-bred [implied — not from Bahrain and not the Saud’s studs] grey Obeyah mare were the most attractive of some fifteen broodmares. Sheikh Mohamed had also kept a good Hamdani stallion which he received from the Saud’s as a gift, but unfortunately the horse had died recently.” A few years ago, a discussion on this blog had come to the conclusion that Hamdany Riad was in all probability the Saudi stallion Faris (Al Harqan x Al Hadbaa), #84 in the Saudi Studbook, which gifted to Bahrain in 1964 along with a number of Hamdani mares.
The set of articles on the Arabian horses of Bahrain which Judi Forbis published in the Arabian Horse World in 1971, and reprinted in her Authentic Arabian Bloodstock contains so much information that it has become one of those snapshots that help chronicle the history of Arabian horses, often complementing existing pedigree and studbook information. One example where her material add extra information not otherwise available is her description of the stallion Dahman I (1938-1970) whom she saw in extreme old age: “Of particular interest at this stud [Jezra] was old DAHMAN, well over thirty years of age. He had been used extensively and while having size and great forehand depth, he was light behind, short and somewhat rounded in croup and possessed a strangely pointed triangular head which was very large, convex, bony and coarse, though dry. It is said he is responsible for many of the plain heads on Bahrain today. Sired by a Mlolshan, he was out of a chestnut Dahmah [Dahmah Al Shaqra] who was one of the old Khalifa mares left on Qatar and eventually sent back to Bahrain as a gift from Abdul Jasim [in reality Abdallah bin Jasim] al Thani, the ruler of Qatar.” The…
Jean-Claude Rajot tells me that Robert Mauvy’s favorite desert bred Arabian horse imports to France were Dahman (a Dahman x a Rabda) from the Shammar, and Diab (a Hamdani Simri x a Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah). Diab was the sire of the mare Bad dam of Bad Afas in Poland. I am looking for a photo of him. The desert bred Nibeh, hailing from the Fad’aan was also one of his favorites.
This news from the Bahrain News Agency from August 2014 was just displayed on Philippe Paraskevas’ “Egyptian Alternative” Facebook page. I find it fascinating that more than 80 years after the importation of the first Kuhaylan Afas to Poland by Bogdan Zientarski, a stallion from same bloodline joins the Polish State Studs. Below a photo of this gorgeous stallion.
I just tried and it works for me. Not sure if you must be signed in or not.
“At Cairo we heard from sportsmen, that from time to time one or two horses ‘asil’ from the stud of the Sheikh of Bahrain came up on the race track; they always ran with great success. This stud, existing since 1785, is pure-in-the strain bred. The same was confirmed to us by the Bedouins of Damascus.”
Solomon picture taken in 2010 by Jenny Krieg. I love how much we know about his sire line, which dives deep into Arabian and Bahraini history. He is 28 years old this year. He is Mlolshaan (M118 in the Bahrain Studbook), born in 1986, bred by Sheykh Mohammed Bin Salman, brother of ruling Sheykh Isa Bin Salman (ruled 1961-1999), and uncle of current King Hamad (ruling 1999-present), out of Mlolesh Asila M105. His sire is Rabdan Al Wasmy (M19), born in 1979 (out of a Rabda M16 — M indicating a mare/horse at the stud of Sh. Mohammed), photo below His sire is Managhy Al Ahmar, born in 1971, died in 1989 (M20) His sire is Dahman II of Jesra (one of the Amiri Studs), born 1962, died accidentally in 1977 photo below from Royal Bahraini Stud website His sire is Jellabi Al Wasmiya (another Stud), born 1943, died 1973, favorite stallion of ruling Sheykh Isa Bin Salman, a.k.a Old Jellabi I, photo below His sire is Dahman I, born 1938, died in 1970, photo below His sire is Mlolshaan Al Marshoosh (speckled), born 1930, died 1968, perhaps the longest living known Arabian horse His sire is sire is Jellabi…