This is meant mostly as a note to myself, on the tribe of al-Bu-Matyut, a section of the tribe of Juhaysh in the area of south of Mount Sinjar in North Western Iraq. It references a detailed and very learned blog entry on the Jazirology blog. The shaykhs of the al-Bu-Matyut are from the clan of al-Jarallah. Current Shaykh is Jarallah son of Muhammad son of Jarallah son of ‘Issa son of ‘Abdallah. The semi-nomad sheep herding tribe of al-Bu-Matyut — 250 rifles in the 1930s compared to the 6000 of the Northern Shammar — rose to fame when it defeated a coalition of the Shammar and allied tribes in 1946 at the battle of al-Khunayssi. [Edouard speculating here]: this battled is likely the context during which the Jarallah acquired the Shuwayman Sabbah strain from the Shammar. The strain then went from them to Muhammad al-Sfug al-Rahbi of the Shammar on the Syrian side of the border and from him to the sufi shaykhs of the Tfayhiyyin. The stallion of Salih al-Abd Allah al-Hasan, b. 1983, by the Hamdani Ibn Ghurab al-A’awar and the mare ‘Abeerah dam of the famous al-Khalidi come from this Tfayhiyyin branch of the strain.
Hazaim al-Wair shared with me this old photo about 15 years ago. It shows one of the Nawwaqiyat mares of Fanghash al-Nawwaq in the early 1960s. There was a drought in the desert, and Fanghash had entered into partnerships (sharaakah) with townsfolk from Homs on one of his mares. I am not sure who is pictured riding the mare. I need to ask Hazaim.
He is really built like a tank, as are his sire and dam. The neck looks a little short in this picture. Picture from Terry Doyle through Lyman.
Lyman and I were wondering the other day if anyone had dug into the records of James Henry Skene, HM’s Consul in Aleppo. He organized the first Blunt importations and Upton’s too, after all.
One advantage of these weekends on lockdown is that I could catch up on conversations I have been delaying to have. The reach that social media allows for is just incredible, triangulating information from photos and audio records almost in real time. I received many requests for scanned photos of Syrian horses from my archives. The requests in turn prompt conversations that lead to a lot more information. One such query was prompted by a Syrian breeder from the Jazirah who had read the entry on the Shuwaymah mare of the Jarbah, registered as al-Jawzaa in the Syrian studbook. He was inquiring about specific descendants. Radwan Shabareq had most of these, from an older grey daughter of al-Jawzaa, Dallah. These were lost during the Syrian civil war, except for the stallion Mahboub Halab and a mare now in France. The second round of registrations in the Syrian Studbook has, however added a previously unregistered younger bay daughter of al-Jawzaa named Waddaahah and Waddaahah’s black daughter. They were bred by Nawaf son of Turki son of Mashaal Pasha al-Jarba. This black mare, Qumayrah, has existing offspring. She is a ray of hope for this storied Shuwayman strain. I had seen Qumayrah…