Zahra, asil Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah from Syria

As I am going through the horse photos in my restored hard drive, I thought I’d share with you photos of some of the horses we have owned over time, some asil, others not. As it were, there were 25 years of continuous Aldahdah breeding in Lebanon, but there never was an Aldahdah breeding program. Mares came and went, and the turnover was high, every few years, save for a core of personal favorites. There never was a third generation of Aldahdah foals, except for the Sa’dan Tuqan lines owned in partnership with the Hindi family.

I begin with this headshot of Zahra (not her registered name), a Kuhaylat al-Nawwaq from the stud of Kamal Abd al-Khaliq in Aleppo, Syria, by the Ma’naqi Zudghum stallion Dinar son of the Hamdani Simri stallion al-A’war, out of the mare Hanadi who was by Krush Juhayyim. We bought this mare from Kamal when she was 10 days old and then sold her when I moved to the USA. She traced back to the old marbat of the Naqashbandi sufis of Deyr-el-Zor, who have had this line for some 120 years now. The line originally came from the Sba’ah Bedouins. Zahra produced two foals, a colt by the Kuhaylan Krush stallion Amoori (by al-A’war), and a filly by the Kuhaylan al-Khdili stallion Saad al-Thani (also by al-A’war), and both died at an early age.

This was the last mare we owned in Lebanon, and my father sold her to Sa’d al-Faysal of Homs, when I came to the USA in 2000.