In the same vein as other articles on the original documentation on desert Arabians imported to the US from Saudi Arabia, this is my translation from Arabic of a hujjah about the breeding of the mare *Halwaaji of the Saud Royal Stud to the stallion Mas’ud: In the name of God the Most Merciful and Compassionate Riyadh Province of Najd Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 11 Jumadah al-Aakhar 1380 I, Mutlaq al-‘Atawi, the head of the royal horse stables of his Highness King Saud ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, declare that the following testimony is correct: On the 11th of Rabi’ al-Thani 1378, the ownership of the red Hamdaniyah mare “Halwaaji” was transferred to Sam Roach; and it was well-known that this mare was in foal to the grey Hamdani horse “Mas’ud” at the time of the transfer of her ownership; the horse “Mas’ud” bred the mare “Halwaaji” on the date of the 14th of Dhul Hujjah 1377; he bred her another time on the date of the 16th of Dhul Hujjah 1377. And I certify in front of God Most High that the mare “Halwaaji” and the horse “Mas’ud” are both from pure blood and a noble origin, tracing to horses whose…
Hujaj (plural of hujjah), the Arabic authentication certificates, come in all shapes and forms. Some consist of a few handwritten words scribbled by the breeder or owner on a piece of paper. Some are more elaborate, the work of government officials, with dates, stamps, letterahead, and formal language. Some are the words of barely literate men, some are high literature. Look at this hujjah for the 1945 grey stallion Walid El Seglawi (his photos below), the sire of the mare Jamalah El Jedrani imported to the USA by ARAMCO expatriate Fran Richards. This is my translation of it: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Testimony on the origin of a horseLet it be known that my mare, the Saqlawiyah, was bred to my horse the Saqlawi, and that this horse was born in August 1945 [implied: as a result of the mating]. My mare and my horse are from a deep-rooted origin in the steppe [badiyah] with the tribe of Bani Khalid; and this horse, named Walid, was sold to Mr. Nick Lederle of al-Dhahran. Hasan son of Mansur the Saihati The document is straightforward, but there is more than meets the eye. A few observations on both text and context: First,…
I have been reading a passage in the Arabic original version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript on the testimony of an elderly man of the Ruwalah Bedouins about a certain Kuhaylah mare. Here is my translation into English: “Some say that she is Kuhaylah, and other people say that she is ‘Ubayyah, and we don’t know which stud [marbat] she is from, and it slipped our mind; after some years of breeding the mare, she produced a bay filly, which turned into a beautiful [zaynah], nadhir, and speedy [sabuq] mare… these are the stories we know about her, other than this we don’t know“. [He] was asked about the sire of the mare; [he] reported: “It has slipped our mind, O ‘Ali; however, at that time, they [i.e., the Ruwalah] mated the Saqlawi Jadran and Kuhaylan Tamri of the horses of Ibn ‘Abhul; these were the dearest of the stallions we used to mate; but we don’t know who her sire is, and we haven’t pinned down which horses her sire is from“; [he] was asked about the mare’s dam: did she happen to beget anything else [other than the bay filly] or not? [He] reported: “By God, O ‘Ali,…
The authentication document — in Arabic, hujjah — of the Blunt desert-bred import Meshura is not done yielding more information. One year after having published its translation and commentary into English in the book The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha, I keep learning new things about it. As background, Meshura great-grand-dam, “The Mare of Daghir”, a Saqlawiyah Ubayriyah of the Marighi strain, was imported to Egypt by Abbas Pasha. The episode of the sale of this mare is narrated in the hujjah, as follows: “This mare was bought by Abbas Pacha from the house of Dirri and the sale transaction took place in the house of Jad’aan in the presence of Mujayhim ibn Dari and her price was 4000 ghazis [two illegible words] Muhammad Ali Sharif with Ali Bek and he was our guest in [three illegible words, including one place name] before the uprising of Aleppo ([illegible word] (the verification of the date of the year needs to be done)“; I was unable to unlock the meaning of that “uprising of Aleppo” (in the Arabic text of the hujjah qawmat Halab), nor to date it precisely — until now. While browsing a selection of Ottoman archives online, I came across…
Arnault Decroix posted this gorgeous photo of his stallion Shueyman Fahad on social media today. The horse was bred by Jean-Claude Rajot from his Shuwayman Sabbah line, tracing to the beautiful Hamada of Robert Mauvy, and before that to the desert-bred Cherifa of the Sba’ah Bedouins. His sire Mahboob Halab and paternal grandsire Mokhtar, were both born in the desert, of Shammar lineage. So happy and proud to see that old type of horse alive in the West in 2023. My kind of horse. The real deal. Not a sea horse, not a china doll, not a gimmick, not “living art”, not “extreme”.