*Werdi was one of the Davenport imports. I may have identified the owner of her dam, as mentioned in her hujjah, but I am awaiting confirmation from sources in Hamah. Here is the available information meanwhile: It can be inferred from *Werdi’s hujjah that her dam was the “grey mare of Faris Agha al-Turkmani of the people of Hamah“. This gives out the owner’s first name (Faris), his title (Agha), his ethnic origin (Turkmen), the city he was from (Hamah in central Syria, south of Aleppo), and the approximate date he lived (1893). A quick internet search with the keywords “Faris + Agha + Hamah” in Arabic yielded a Faris Agha Tayfur who fit all five criteria above. This was encouraging because I already knew that the Tayfur were one of Hamah’s most prominent families. I met several horse breeders from this family in Hamah in the late 1980s . Gertrude Bell, on page 224 of her book “The Desert and the Sown” (I downloaded a free online copy here) mentioned the Tayfur among Hamah’s four prominent families along with the Barazi, the Azem and the Kaylani (who held the position of Naqib al-Ashraaf in the city). The Tayfur are…
*Werdi was one of the mares imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906. Her hujjah (certificate of authenticity) is particular among the hujaj of the Davenport imports in that its front side is for a bay mare that is *Werdi’s close relative, most probably her sister, but not *Werdi herself. The hujjah belongs to a bay or dark brown mare without markings, purchased by a man from Aleppo. This bay mare’s sire is a Ma’naqi Sbayli, the horse of “Nawras Effendi the Naqib of Ma’arrah which is a dependency of the vilayet of Aleppo“. Her dam is the “grey mare of Faris Agha al-Turkmani of the people of Hamah“. The bay/brown mare is a Kuhaylah Krush to be mated. I did a little bit of research on Nawras Effendi. He turned out to be a prominent man in the town of Ma’arrah. Perhaps he was the most prominent person in the city. Ma’arrah is a large, ancient, historical town south-west of Aleppo. It suffered a lot in the Syrian civil war. The “Naqib”, short for “Naqib al-Ashraaf”, is the head of the congregation of the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, the Ashraaf (in the plural, the singular is…
This is the third time I come across the name of this Damascene horse owner in primary sources about horses exported to the West. He amazingly connects together three Western horse figures: Wilfrid Blunt (concerning Saladin), Homer Davenport (concerning *Simri), and Khalil Bistany (concerning *Al-Mashoor). Check this out: From Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence, October 6, 1911 “Fauzan brought to Mutlak who brought it to me the answer from his Damascus friend Said Abu Dahab about the horse (Mr. Learrmouth’s purchase then nearly two years ago). It was bred in the village of Jerud (near Damascus) and bought from [the] Juardly [ie, a man of Jerud] who bred it by Musa el Seyyid, they telling him it was Hamdani — no mention of Simri. That was what had been ascertained. A quite different story to that of the “pure as milk on a dark night” pedigree.” From the hujjah of *Al-Mashoor: And the sire of that horse is the Hamdani Semri of the well-known Musa al-Sayyid Abu Hamdi from the neighborhood of al-Midan Bab Musalla” From the hujjah of the Davenport import *Simri, purchased in Damascus: His sire is Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz, of the horses of Sa’id Agha [hard to read, most probably al-Daquri,…