This horse is magnificent. He looks better and better with age and more like his paternal great grand sire, the Kuhaylan Nawwaq of ‘Iyadah al-Madi, a son of Krush Juhayyim. Photo by Severine Vesco in France. Pedigree here (couple minor errors in the back)
I think I am going to trace down the descendants of Ibn Jadran, and hint to them that they could become overnight millionaires if they copyrighted the use of their family name by thousands of people around the world each and every time the phrase “Saqlawi Jadran” is uttered. Just saying.
Looking back at more than thirty years around Arabian horses, I still remember the grand old Hamdani Simri stallion al-Aawar as one of two or three desert-bred horses I have admired the most in my life. He had this way of looking at you with a hint of disdain, as if he was the king and you were his subject. When he was led out of his stall, the third from the top at Radwan’s, he would walk slowly to the middle of the arena, then he would pause and gaze at the horizon, his head high. Every movement, every twist of his head was so dignified and majestic that you felt you were in the company of an important representative of his ‘people’. He demanded respect, and obtained it. The photo below, from 1995, captures some of that aura. I don’t think I published it before.
A new Hadban Enzahi colt by Vorrtex out of Zubaidah Assahara.
Hamad al-Jassir’s Usul al-Khayl al-Arabiyyah al-Hadithah has an interesting passage from the version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript manuscript he consulted. This passage is not in the edition of the Manuscript that was published by the King Abd al-Aziz Public Library (KAPL) based on an original that was in the family of Gulsun Sharif. That original is now in the hands of a senior member of the Saudi Royal family. The passage is from an account by Sayyid Sultan Ibn Sharaf the ruler of Turabah in the land of the tribe of al-Buqum about the origin of the Dahman Shahwan. As I had indicated elsewhere, this strain is the oldest attested of the modern strains of Arabian horses, going back to around 1280 CE. It is not yet possible to determine whether the passage which al-Jassir translated is the full account or only an except. Here it in any case: The Sharif Sultan Bin Sharaf said: “The Duhm of Shahwan that are from Kunayhir were named after their owner Shahwan, the father of ‘Arar, the brother of Rashed, and the uncle of ‘Umayr. Their mention became famous because of events in relation with them. It is said that Shahwan was…
The Abbas Pasha Manuscript is, at its core, a compilation of Bedouin accounts of the origins and ancestry of Arabian horses purchased by Abbas Pasha. Saudi historian Hamad al-Jassir, in his Usul al-Khayl al-Arabiyyah al-Haditha, listed the accounts featured in the version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript he consulted. I had already pointed to discrepancies between the accounts in this version and the accounts in the version published by the King Abd al-Aziz Public Library (KAPL) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The KAPL version is a facsimile of Gulsun Sharif’s original manuscript. I compared both lists, and there are more discrepancies that I thought. Here is, chapter by chapter and section by section, a list of the accounts that are not in the KAPL version, but which al-Jassir says are in the version he consulted: 1/ In the Dahman chapter: On Dahmat Shahwan The account of Muhammad Ibn Khalifah, Ra’i of Bahrain The account of Faysal ibn Turki, Imam of Najd (al-Jassir mentions two accounts by Faysal Ibn Turki, of which the second one is in the KAPL version The account of Sayyid Sultan Ibn Sharaf the ruler of Turabah in the land of the Buqum On Dahmat Najib: The account…
I always hoped I was born just one century earlier! My good fortune of descending from a Bedouin tribe of rich heritage in breeding Arabians was not complete to live all these traditions while they were still practiced in the daily life! I look at the long history of the Bedouin traditions and I wonder in sorrow: how for the sake of God I could escape the thousands-years long timeline of the Bedouin life only to come to life in the very last century where everything became history! Nevertheless, without any introduction or material reason, a child raised in the city was strongly inclined to the two main facets of the Arabic identity and pride (you may refer to my previous post here); the language, and the horse! Nothing can make my soul tremble like a butterfly more than hearing a piece of good Arabic poetry and being on the back of a true Arabian! I was always fascinated by the pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. Even a good piece of Arabic prose is still poetic enough to my ears. The Bedouin dialect inherited many of the musical characteristics of the classic Arabic language. Although it is barely understood by any non-Bedouin…
Each of the eleven chapters of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript in its Arabic version starts with a table. The table lists the titles of the accounts on every marbat and the page number where the account begins. Sometimes the title includes information not present in the body of the account. There are six sections under the general title “Chapter Three on the Saqlawiyaat”. Section One is on the Saqlawi Simni, section Two is on the Saqlawi Sudani, and so on. The last section, “Section Six on stand-alone Saqlawiyaat” is where the author of the Manuscript grouped those Saqlawiyaat not falling under the previous five sections. This sixth section includes the following title entry: “Accounts of the parti-coloured (rabshah) Najmat al-Subh, the mare of Hussayn al-‘Awwadi, page 129“. Here is my translation of the account on page 129: Accounts of the parti-coloured (rabshah) Saqlawiyah, the mare of Hussayn al-‘Awwadi of al-Ghubayn, her sire is al-Mahyubi. Saddah ibn Jadran informed that: “This mare belonged to a Ruwalah man [who was] in al-Jazirah, beholden (qasir) to Farhan al-Jarba. The Ghubayn [clan] had unhorsed him [in a raid] and taken her. She is Saqlawiyah of al-Njaymaat. Her dam had passed to the Ruwalah from…
The Arabic culture and identity had always been best manifested in two glorious forms; the poetic Arabic language, and the noble Arabian horse! The image of a Faress (horseman) and Sha’er (poet) was the ultimate form of nobility in the Arabic perception! I consider the two the facets and flip side of the coin of the pride of the Arab people! Nothing is more related to the identity and characteristics of the Arabic personality than these two. Even the message of Islam, which was primarily carried by the Arabs along with their vast prosperous empire from Spain to China do not relate as such to the Arabic identity. The Islamic civilization had many benefactors and contributors from different ethnic backgrounds and it declared itself from the very beginning as a universal message. This is exactly what caused the Arab control over the empire to fade out and finally collapse in a few centuries in favor of the Kurds, Turks and Persians. Both, the language and the horse, remained gold-pure in the daily practice of the Arab people protected by strong cultural, religious and ecological parameters. They were so when the Arabs were virtually isolated in their peninsula, and they remained…
DA Ginger Moon delivered a beautiful, strong chestnut filly by Subanet Jabbar this morning. This one is for Bev.
I have been aware of the existence of another version of usul al-khayl, a.k.a the Abbas Pasha Manuscript for some time now. Hamad al-Jassir, in the introduction of his book usul al-khayl al-arabiyah al-khadithah (“Origins of the modern Arab horses”), wrote that he accessed a copy then with his friend Khair al-Din al-Zarkali (photo below) during a visit to his house in Beirut. Zarkali, a Syrian by birth, was a leading Arab intellectual, a diplomat, and Saudi Arabia’s envoy to League of Arab States. For a long time, I thought Zarkali’s manuscript was identical to the one Gulsun Sherif had inherited from her family, translated into English, and beautifully published with Judith Forbis, under the title The Abbas Pasha Manuscript: And Horses and Horsemen of Arabia and Egypt During the Time of Abbas Pasha, 1800-1860. Hamad al-Jassir’s Arabic book quoted liberally from the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. I never paid much attention to these, always preferring to go back to the original text. Recently, after rereading the original manuscript cover to cover, I realized that it did not include several accounts of strains that Hamad al-Jassir had attributed to the text of the Manuscript. One of these accounts is that of…
From the Arabian Horse Archives comes this beautiful picture of the Stud of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Aal Sa’ud at al-Kharj, the dream of many a horse breeder. From the collection of Comar Arabians. It is not available in better resolution anymore.
Kuhaylan al-Jalala is yet another strain that goes back to the Sharif of Mecca. A mare from this strain, Saida, was imported by Count Stroganoff and Prince Sherbatoff from the Northern Arabian desert to Russia. I had written about this strain ten years ago, here. Back then, my sources were Shammar oral histories through veteran horse merchant ‘Abd al-Qadir Hammami. They were supplemented by information French intelligence officer Victor Muller had collected from the Northern Shammar around 1922. I am now reading the account on Kuhaylan al-Jalala in the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, which is very consistent with the oral histories of the Shammar. Here is my translation of the relevant excerpt: Sultan Ibn Suwayt the Shaykh of al-Dhafeer was queried about al-Jalala: “Which of the Kahaayil is she, and what is the original source from which she spread (shiyaa’ah)?” The aforementioned reported in the gathering: “She is a Kuhaylah, to be mated. The original source from which she spread (shiyaa’ah) was the Sharif, of the first Sharifs of Mecca. She passed from the Sharif to Ibn Dayiss of the ‘Ulyan of Shammar al-Jazirah. In ancient times, at the time of Shuhayl [who was] one of our…
Bait al-Arab Kuwaiti researcher Yahya al-Kandari found a manuscript on Arabian horse strains in a private library in Jerusalem. The manuscript seems to date from 1264 Hijri, equivalent to 1848 CE. The handwriting is indeed characteristic of the mid-XIXth century Arabic script. I am eager to learn more, but for now, I will take what’s in that screenshot, which Radwan Shabareq sent me. It says: The second chapter is on the types of Arabian horses (al-khayl al-‘arabiyyaat), their names and their affiliation with their tribes. The horses of Bani Jamil: Sawafiyyah, Haraabah, al-Lulu, Sawdat al-‘Ayn, al-Juwayrah, al-Trayfiyyah; the horses of Bani Tay: al-Hawqah, al-Hajiniyyah, al-Ruhaybiyyah, al-Mar’aaniyyah, Umm ‘Amer, al-Ju’aythiniyah, al-Dahhakah, al-Da’jaaniyah, al-Ru’ayl, al-Ghazalah… Some strains I recognize, many I do not. The Bani Jamil, also known as al-Mujamma’, are a large Bedouin tribe settled in Iraq, in the province of Diyala. Their area of settlement is along the Tigris river, from Tikrit to Balad with a concentration around Samarra’. Of the horses listed under them, I recognize the strain of al-Haraabah and the much older strain of al-Trayfiyyah. The Tai mentioned in that snippet are not the segment of this tribe settled in North East Syria around al-Qamishli and Tall…
Monologue CF recently had a very showy son for Laura Fitz in Michigan, the outcome of his stay there last here. His dam is Laura’s 2014 grey mare Mi Blue Angel (DB Khrush x Thank Heaven by Mlolshaan Hager Solomon). Unfortunately, Laura’s other mare, HH Karisma Krush proved barren to him.
Shoq is another one of Basil’s mares. I had written about her earlier, here. She is the only daughter of Mahboub Halep in Syria. Her breeder had seen Mahboub at Radwan’s stud in Aleppo prior to this importation to France, and bred her dam to him. She should have foaled by now.
The past few weeks have been fairly productive, in terms of my digging into the origins of Arabian horse strains, based on the accounts in the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. I wrote about the origins of the Dahman, Saqlawi, Hamdani, Hadban, Shuwayman, Krushan, Mimrah, and Harqan strains. I also have upcoming entries on the Wadnan and Rabdan strains. I will be pulling all these together into an article or a book chapter, while trying to identify some emerging common trends. One can already see that three groups, the Sharifs of Mecca, the tribe of Bani Lam (from Tai) and the tribe of ‘Abidah (from Qahtan), play a central role in the original configuration of modern Arabian horse strains. Whatever analysis emerges will remain incomplete without accounts of other ancient strains, such as Jilfan, Trayfi, Tuwayssan, Sa’dan and Frayjan.
Last week Basil Jadaan sent me photos and videos of his mares. He is carefully rebuilding his stud after having lost all his horses during the Syrian civil war. This is his lovely 2007 Ubayyat Ibn Suhayyan mare Zamzamah. She is by a Kuhaylan Hayfi government-owned stallion Midyan al-Ghouta (Layth al-Arab x Mayyada), out of Zamzam, who was by Dinar (Al-A’war x Aseela) out of Raabi’ah (Al-A’war x Freiha al-Sughra). Freiha al-Sughra was bred by Shammar Bedouin Hamid Ibn Suhayyan, the owner of the strain. The strain is a branch of ‘Ubayyan, which the Shammar clan of Ibn Suhayyan has been breeding for close to 200 years. Before that, the strain was with al-Lumaylimi of the Wuld ‘Ali Bedouin, and before that with al-Hunaydees of al-Dhafeer. The maternal grand-dam of this mare was the full sister of the stallion Shahm that was imported to France but died soon after.
Some twelve years ago, I wrote several blog entries about the strain of Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. One of these entries, here, summarized the strain’s origin as it was reported in one account in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. This account traced this strain’s origin to a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare owned by ‘Ijl Ibn Hulaytim, a celebrated figure in the history of Najd. He was from the old tribe of Aal Mughirah. Aal Mughirah, now vanished as a single tribal unit, was one of the sections of the larger Bani Lam tribe. ‘Ijl was the ruler (amir) of a small but powerful principality in Najd centered around the town of al-Shu’araa, some 200 kilometres west of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The second map zooms in on the black box area in the first map, enlarged. Ignore the red point. According to this account, a precious, ancient line of Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz had passed in war from ‘Ijl ibn Hulaytim to the tribe of Qahtan, then from Qahtan to al-Maryum, who was from the Dhafeer tribe. From al-Maryum, it had passed to al-Mimrah, who was from the clan of al-Muwayni’ of the Sba’ah. The line has been known as Kuhaylat al-Mimrah ever since.…