Gleaned off Facebook. By the way, in case I haven’t written this before, I don’t believe these was yet such a thing as an “Arab horse breed” — the term ‘breed’ is a socio-cultural construct — at that early time, but there clearly was an oriental horse, some descendants of which eventually came to form the Arab breed. Notice the long, thick tail and the trimmed mane. The pair does look like my Jamr. Just saying.
Colin Pearson and Kees Mol’s “The Arabian Horse Families of Egypt” has this story, at once beautiful and sad, about the relationship of the Sharif of Mecca (and King of the Hijaz from 1916-1924) Hussein ibn Ali, head of the Hashemite royal family with one of his mares, Zahra. The story is buried in an endnote on page 149: On his abdication in 1924, [King Hussein of Hijaz] went to live in Cyprus and took with him two mares and two stallions. Sir Ronald Storrs, the then British High Commissioner of Cyprus, relates how Zahra “the gentlest and most graceful, would step delicately up the flight of many stairs from the garden and walk without shyness to the Salamlik, to be greeted by cries of “Ahlan”, “Ma Sha Allah”, “Allahu Akbar”, or “Qurribi, ya bint ammi” (“Draw nigh, oh daughter of my paternal uncle”). The king would call her “Qurrat al-Ain” — “cooling of the eyelids” — and offer her dates which she would eat slowly, never failing to eject the stones onto a plate.” But tragedy followed. A groom who had been dismissed took his revenge upon the horses and fatally maimed two of them, including Zahra. King Hussein…