Month: May 2020

A younger me with Mustafa Jabri on the left and Radwan Shabareq on the right. The good years. Some 25 years ago if not more.

Dali was the brother of Radi al-Hkaysh and the paternal cousin of ‘Atallah al-Battu, who owned the Hamdani Simri stallion al-Aawar, and before him a Dahman ‘Amir of the horses of ‘Ajil al-Yawar. This Dahman ‘Amir had been given to him by his maternal uncles so he could earn a livelihood from charging stud fees. Both stallions were Shammar herdsires. Radi, Dali and ‘Atallah are descendants of the former black slaves of the Jarba leaders of the Shammar. The reference to their maternal uncles is a euphemistic reference to their former masters, the family of Hmaidi al-‘Ajil al-Yawar al-Jarba of the leaders of the Shammar in Iraq. It means that they are related to the Shammar shaykhs in blood, but through concubines. Dali had just returned from Damascus where he performed as a singer at wedding parties.

Faddan Salim al-‘Ufaytan and his son, from the Hdibah clan of the Northern Shammar. The ‘Ufaytan have owned the Ma’naqi Hudruji strain among the Shammar for some hundred years. They got the strain from the ‘Anazah. The strain originally belonged of the ‘Amarat tribe of the ‘Anazah. I think, but I am not sure, that Hudruj was an ‘Amarat Bedouin. Horse merchant and connoisseur ‘Abd al-Qadir Hammami once told me that he bought a Ma’naqi Hudruji colt from the ‘Ufaytan for the Beirut racetrack in 1938. The black Ma’naqi stallion of Dhahir al-‘Ufaytan (Faddan’s paternal uncle) was a major herdsire with the Shammar in the 1970s and 1980s. Most Syrian horses now trace to him. He was the sire of the Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan stallion Al-Asda’, of the Shuwaymah Sabbah mare ‘Abirah, and the Da’janiyah mare Nojomieh, among many others. It is now increasingly hard to find a Syrian horse that does not trace to any of these three horses. Here, with Raddah, a 1980 bay Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah. She, like their other horses, was registered in the second wave of the Syrian registration with WAHO in 2001-2. Raddah was my favorite mare at their place. Photo by Edouard Al-Dahdah in…

Rosemary pointed my attention to the black eyeliner mark around his eyes. It is a relatively rare feature in chestnut Arabian horses, and a mark of authenticity. I think DeWayne took the first two pictures. This Ma’anaqi Sbayli strain really produces quality, and the hybrid vigor from the concentrated Doyle blood helped.

i am enjoying the book “Review of the ‘Anizah Tribe”: “An avenger should not kill the aggressor while asleep and he usually wakes him up to remind him of his evil deed before dispatching him. He then slits the corners of his mouth up to the ears, cuts off his ears and put them in his mouth to show that it is a killing of vengeance. He who unintentionally kills a man is not subject to vengeance unless he refuses to pay the compensation.” I will keep to the horses, thank you.

I just received two books in the mail. I am super excited about them. The first one is a previously unpublished “Review of the ‘Anizah Tribe” by Gerald de Gaury, the British explorer of Arabia (photo below). Bruce Ingham, who wrote the very informative “Bedouin of Northern Arabia” about the Dhafeer tribe, discovered this manuscript by chance in a London bookshop in 1995, and edited it for publication. I also bought De Gaury’s more famous “Rulers of Mecca“. I hope it will allow me to identify which of the Sharifs of Mecca was the “al-‘Ajuz” (the elderly) after which all the Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz are named, according to a persistent Shammar tradition. This tradition was told by Ibn Sa’adi told to Hazaim and I in 2005 or 2006. Jadu’ Ibn Saadi was the ‘arifah (Bedouin horse judge) of the Shammar. His account made so much more historical and linguistic sense than the silly story of the old woman rescuing a foal.

The other day Hazaim told me very casually, almost in passing, that the Shaykh of the Sba’ah (‘Anazah) tribe Ma’jun Ibn Hudaib was his uncle’s best friend, and that Hazaim knew him personally. He even sent me his picture. He also told me that the Shaykh of the Gmassah (‘Anazah) tribe, Rakan Ibn Mirshid, lived in his neighborhood in Homs, and that he also knew his children. It reminded me of the time my late mother, who also grew up in Homs, mentioned in a similarly casual way that Trad al-Milhim, the Shaykh of the Hssinah (also ‘Anazah) tribe, was a frequent guest at their family home. Her father was a colonel in the police force. I assume Trad al-Milhim was coming to settle issues with the law.

Al-Khaldi’s line is the most popular line of race horses in Syria today. It is now hard to find a Syrian Arabian without a line to him. Hazaim took the these two photos in 2005 in Garhok, in the extreme North East of Syria. Yours truly is holding him, in bad need of a haircut. In the Syrian Studbook, the sire of al-Khaldi appears as the Hadban Enzahi stallion Burhan. In reality his sire was al-Asda’, the dark bay Kuhaylan ibn Jlaidan of Ali al-Basha, by the Ma’naqi Hadraji of Zahir al-‘Ufaytan, out of the Kuhaylat ibn Jlaidan of Raja al-Ghishm, herself by the chestnut Kuhaylan Ajuz of Bardan Mit’ab al-Jlaidan, a strain the Jlaidan brought from the Sharif of Mecca five human generations ago. Dam: ‘Abirah, a black Shuwaymah Sabbah from the marbat of Muhammad al-Rahbi of the Shammar, and before that from the Juhaysh clan of al-Bu Mutaiwit between Sinjar and Tall Afar, Iraq and before that from the Jarbah Shaykhs of the Shammar. I recall a really small horse, pony size, and I was certainly not impressed.

Yesterday I learned that Wisteria had died in January 2020, at 25 years of age. She was the reason for my love for Arabians of Davenport bloodlines. She was also the first horse I owned in the US, fourteen years ago. She had “wondeful eyes, very great style and beauty“, like Jauza in the words of Lady Anne Blunt. The best photos of her were never taken.

Arched neck. Fine throat-latch (mithbah). Broad jibbah. Low placed, large eye. Long fine muzzle. Deep jowls. What’s not to like? Meanwhile, some people with common sense are ringing the alarm bell. No black background here. I am not picking on a particular horse, but showing a global trend. The photos are meant for illustration purposes.

Arched neck. Fine throat-latch (mithbah). Broad jibbah. Low placed, large eye. Long fine muzzle. Deep jowls. And, soo cute! Bright golden chestnut color. What’s not to like? Who cares about legs anyway?

The filly is a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah daughter of Provance CF, the little girl is Kuhaylat al-Wair daughter of Hazaim. Both originally from Syria.

Thanks to Kate, I was able to purchase the unpublished PhD. thesis of John F. Williamson, “A political history of the Shammar Jarba tribe of al-Jazirah: 1800-1958“, Indiana University, Ph.D., 1975. Here is a quote from the thesis about the rebellion of Shammar leader ‘Abdul Karim al-Jarba against the Ottomans: ‘Abd al-Karim revolted in early August, 1871. Within a week the rebel leader at the head of some 3,000 Shammar warriors succeeded in reducing the area around Nisibin to ruins. Before effective government action could be taken, the rebellious Shammar raided over 200 villages, setting seventy of them on fire, killing a large number of persons and carrying off everything they could remove. In the meantime, ‘Abd al-Karim wrote various tribal leaders, complaining that Midhat Pasha sought to force the Shammar to settle as mere fallabin, and solicited their support. When several of these letters reached Midhat Pasha, he offered a reward of 10,000 piastres for ‘Abd al-Karim alive, and 5,000 piastres for his head. Meanwhile, ‘Abd al-Karim divided his forces into three sections and dispatched them against Dayr az-Zor, Mosul and Baghdad. This ill-conceived plan for destroying the Ottomans collapsed when the Shammar were decisively defeated at Qalat ash-Sharqat.…