I gleaned off this awesome photo of a Bedouin palanquin in the area of Tadmor/Palmyra in 1937, for what looks like a marriage or a ceremony of some sort. As is usually the case for these photos from “nostalgia influencer” social media accounts, there is no source for the photo.
I had been telling you about the strain of Ubayyan al-Khudr of the Bani Sakhr in earlier posts. I stumbled upon a reference to this strain, as I was doing a new translation of the hujjah (certificate of authenticity) of the Arabian stallion Marhum. This was a desert-bred horse born in 1890 and imported from the Middle East by Hernan Ayerza of Argentina in 1898. Until now I had been laboring under the assumption that the signatories of the hujjah of Marhum were all ‘Anazah tribesmen. This assumption was based on an earlier translation I had done for Al Khamsa Arabians III (2008). Upon taking a closer look, they turn out of to have been tribal leaders of the Bani Sakhr. Here is my new translation of the hujjah, followed by some commentary: In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, and prayers and peace upon the Prophet of the Envoys. After the Fatiha and prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad the pride of the worlds, on the side of the bay horse Abu al-Janhan [four illegible words describing the horse] with a snip on his nose [three more illegible words], on [our] honor and good fortune and…
I ordered this book on the epic of the migration of the Bani Hilal, in one of its Tunisian versions. The author interviewed one of the last oral reciters of this grand epic, an old Tunisian herder, and translated it into French. I The epic of the Bani Hilal is the Arabs’ equivalent to Homer’s Iliad. It is based off a historical event: the mass migration of the Bedouin tribe of Bani Hilal out of Arabia and into North Africa over the course of the eleventh century CE. Of course, like any epic, it consists of several cycles, each one with its heroes, vilains, love stories, betrayals, feats of courage, etc.
Nino Van Reisen of Gothenburg University has this audio recording of a section of the Epic of the Dayaghim as narrated by members of the al-Madhi leading clan of the tribe of Aal Issa in Northern Jordan. The recording features a story about Arar ibn Shahwan’s stallion Mashhur. As Arabic listeners will gather, the pedigree of Mashhur as well as his offspring are of central importance to this Northern Najdi version of the epic which Nino believes to very close to the original epic. It was recorded in 1982.
A very nice photo of Moira Walker’s Landrace Bellara (Pulcher Ibn Reshan x Jadah BelloftheBall), the youngest Kuhaylat al-Ajuz from the line of the Saudi royal mare *Nufoud.
Yemen has been on my mind a lot lately. صورة لسوق المراشي مركز مديرية خراب المراشي – الجوف (1973 – 1975م) تصوير المهندس المعماري البرتغالي فرناندو فراندا الصورة محفوظة بمتحف كالوست كولبنكيان – لشبونة – البرتغال
I was happy to find a mention of this important manuscript in Major Roger Upton’s “Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia” (London, 1881). It is a short manuscript by a member of the Jabiri family of Aleppo who lived in 19th century and listed many strains of Arabian horses known to him. Here is Upton’s mention of it: Let me repeat, moreover, that some incline to the opinion—among them Djabery Zadah MohammedAli (Effendi) — that all the families and strains given in the foregoing race are descended from Keheilet Ajuz and I must state that Djabery Zadah Mohammed Ali, who published in Arabia a short account of the Arabian horse, with a chart, gives a longer roll of names than I have shown, some of which I have not included because I had great doubt of their authenticity or correctness. I saw this manuscript, or a copy of it, in the office of the late Mustafa al-Jabiri in Aleppo around 1990-92. I don’t know what became of it. I should ask around.
I confess being terribly late in acquainting myself with some of foundational Arabian horse literature in English. Roger Upton’s “Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia” is one of those books I had not read, save for passages here and there. I am happy I found a searchable version of it online, and I am having fun searching for specific words in it. Below are Upton’s quotes on the “Manakhi” strain (his spelling). On the Ma’naqi strain (page 328-9): Of the Manakhi. The Manakhi appeared to us a favourite strain, for both horses and mares of this family are to be found in most tribes of Badaween; and we thought, with the exception of Keheilet Ajuz, there were more horses and mares among the Anazah, certainly among the Sabaah, of the Manakhi family than any other. Manakhi means Keheilans or Arabian horses descended from the “long-necked one.” Manakhi Hedruj is the chief variety, and although I am not sure, I think it is the parent family, and the others are not collateral, but offshoots from Manakhi Hedruj. I think Hedruj means of majestic appearance: thus Manakhi Hedruj, ” the horses of the long necks of majestic appearance.”* A family in the…
[This article is work in progress jointly between Kate McLachlan and I] Kate and I are have serious doubts about the Darley Arabian being from the Fad’aan tribe, as modern lore has it. There were no Fad’aan Anazah Bedouins in the area of the Syrian desert between Aleppo and Palmyra around 1700 CE, where the Darley Arabian is said to have been acquired from. It was not until the 1800s — at least a century later — that the Fad’aan left the vicinity of the oasis of Khaibar in the Hijaz (Central Arabia) and moved north to the Syrian desert, a thousand miles to the north. Kate tells me that the only primary source about the Darley Arabian is a letter by Thomas Darley to his brother, printed on pp. 21f. of Richard Frederick Meysey-Thompson’s 1911 The Horse: Its Origin and Development Combined with Stable Practice. The letter, reproduced below in full, makes no reference to the Fad’aan Bedouins or to the ‘Anazah for that matter, and only speaks of a horse of the “Mannicka” race (reference bolded in the letter). ALEPPO, Ye 21st December, 1703. DEAR BROTHER, Your obliging favour of the 7 Aprill came to my hands the…
صورة قديمة لحصن عزان حصن الشيخ عبدالكريم بن احمد المهشمي.. مركز رحوب مديرية برط العنان محافظة الجوف اليمنمنقول عن صفحة فهد اسماعيل الانباري
Saudi historian of the ‘Anazah tribe ‘Abdallah ibn Duhaymish Ibn ‘Abbar al-Fad’aani, whose work I generally value, found a mention of the date of the mass migration of several ‘Anazah tribes from Central Arabia to the Syrian desert (North Arabia, which covers part of Syria and Iraq and Jordan today), in a contemporary Lebanese chronicle, Tarikh al-Amir Haydar al-Shihabi, which was published in Beirut in 1933. I could not find the relevant passage in my edition of this chronicle, so I am taking Ibn ‘Abbar to his word. Says Ibn ‘Abbar, with my rough translation: The book “Lebanon in the era of the Shihab princes, by Prince Haidar Ahmad al-Shihabi, perhaps the only source for events in Bilad al-Sham in the thirteenth century [Hijri]”, mentioned under the events of the year 1230 H (1814 CE) that “great swarms of the tribes of Anazah came out of Najd, escaping drought and difficult conditions; these tribes are the Fad’aan, the Sba’ah and the ‘Amarat; they competed with the ‘Anazah tribes from Dhana Muslim [Ibn ‘Abbar added here: Dhana Muslim being the Wuld ‘Ali, the Manabihah and the Jlass] that preceded them, which led them to collide with each other.”
I have managed to trace back the strain of Ubayyan Abu Jurayss (Umm Jurayss for the females) to the ‘Utayfat (alt. spellings ‘Atayfat and ‘Otayfat), one of the main clans of the Wuld ‘Ali tribe of ‘Anazah. But I don’t know yet how they got to the Wuld ‘Ali and where from. In the below tree of the Anazah clans by Ibn ‘Abbar, the Utayfat are in red and the overall Wuld ‘Ali in green. The ‘Utayfat, whose leading clan is (I think) al-Wati, are under the Dhana Dhuri section of the Wuld ‘Ali, which is led by the family of Ibn Smeyr (alt. spelling Smeer/Sumayr/Semeyr etc). The Wuld ‘Ali at large are led by the clan of al-Tayyar. Of course, this is significant insofar as one of the main line of Egyptian Arabians, that of El Shahbaa, is from the strain of Ubayyah Umm Jurayss. Umm Jurayss means “mother of the little bell”.
Last week Kinza stepped on the leg of her newborn filly. The filly has been lame since, but the leg is no longer swollen and her situation is improving slowly, per Lyman Doyle who sent me these videos. The filly is otherwise very nice and Kinza looks really great for a four year old first-time mother.
The Abbas Pasha Manuscript (APM), in its English translation, has nineteen mentions of a Bedouin community named “the people of the north”. These mentions are often associated with names of tribes that seem to form part of this “people of the north”, such as the tribes of al-Sirhan (pages 501, 508, 511), al-Sardiyah (page 311, 449), and al-Issa (page 369). It turns out that these three tribes formed the core of the “People of the North”, a loose alliance formed around 1750 by tribes long established in the areas of al-Balqaa (northern Transjordan) and the Hauran (southern Syria), to fend off the relentless advance of the ‘Anazah tribes from Central Arabia towards the north. The alliance was first led by the Sardiyah, a small but very noble tribe that is an offshoot of the Bani Lam and which the Ottomans had put in charge of securing the pilgrimage route from Damascus to Medina. The “People of the North” alliance also included the smaller al-Issa, al-Sirhan, and al-Fuhailiyyin tribe, as well as the larger Bani Sakhr tribe, itself then a newcomer from Central Arabia but an enemy of the ‘Anazah. The alliance first succeeded in pushing the first Anazah waves, led…
Lyman sent this picture of young Shamsah (Cascade DE x SS Lady Guenevere by SS Dark Prince). She is I think nine months old, and is growing into a very solid young mare.
The stallion Dahman (b. 1900) was one of the most admired horses ever imported by the French government from the Middle East. Robert Mauvy, who knew him well, wrote beautiful pages about Dahman and his influence on both the Arabian and Anglo-Arabian breed in his book Le Cheval Arabe. Mauvy held Dahman as the archetype of the classic Arabian horse and provided a French translation of hujjah: “L’un des plus représentatifs de la race et des plus impressionnants était sans contredit l’étalon Dahman, alezan brûlé, 1, 45 m, aussi brillant dans l’attitude que dans l’action (né en Orient en 1900 dans la tribu des Chammars, importé en 1909), donc voici la traduction de la hudje: “Louange a Dieu, clément et miséricordieux, qui nous a créé des bienfaits et entre autres celui des chevaux, puisque la félicité est au-dessus des sabots des chevaux, tel qu’il l’a dit anciennement. Louange a Dieu qui nous a dotés de cela et que nous avons négligé d’en réjouir. Arbre généalogique du cheval alezan foncé ayant trois balzanes aux pieds, exception faite du pied gauche du devant, avec une pelote descendant jusqu’aux naseaux. Il est agé de cinq ans, il s’appelle Dahman, son père est Dahman,…
Kate found an interesting document the other day, which this entry reproduces and comments on. The document was published in the “Bulletin de la Societe Imperiale Zoologique D’Acclimatation“, a French scientific society founded in 1854 during the French Second Empire, under Napoleon III. Th document concerns the grey Arabian stallion “Bawab”, also known as “Aneze”, gifted in 1855 by the Viceroy of Egypt and his presumptive heir to French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps. De Lesseps, of Suez Canal fame, imported the stallion to France along with a mare and another stallion, also gifts from the Viceroy and his heir. A third stallion joined them from Syria, a gift from De Lessep’s brother Edmond, then France’s Consul General in Beirut. The Viceroy of Egypt at the time was Said, under whose tenure work on the Suez Canal begun. His presumptive heir was Prince Ahmed Rifaat Pasha, who died drowning in 1858 and was replaced by Ismail Pasha as Said’s heir. The description the bulletin gives of Bawab is unenthusiastic: Le deuxième étalon, du nom arabe Bawab dit Anézé, gris clair comme le précédent. Sa taille est de 1 mètre 48 centimètres . Il est âgé de douze ans . Ce Cheval…
Kate recently asked about how old the strain name of Ubayyan Suhayli was. In other words, when did the specific strain of Ubayyan Sharrak owned by al-Suhayli of the Shammar stopped being referred to as Ubayyan Sharrak and became known as Ubayyan Suhayli after its owners’ name. The earliest written reference to Ubayyan Suhayli I have come across is in a French Studbook entry (below): a mare born in 1892 and imported by the French to Algeria in 1896 has a dam from the strain of “El-Abie-El-Scheilie”. That dates the strain to the 1880s at least. That said, the passing of the strain to the Shammar tribe during its war with the Sharif of Mecca is definitely older than that. The war(s) of Shammar with the Sharif predate the publication of the APM (1853) and the visits of Abbas Pasha’s envoys to the tribes (which started in 1848-9), although the APM does not mention the Ubayyan Suhayli strain. One probable reason for that is that Abbas Pasha’s agents seem to have avoided some encampments of the Jarba Shammar, specifically those of Abd al-Karim and his brother Faris (the one Lady Anne Blunt met in 1878), the sons of Sfug al-Jarba.…