A strain claimed to trace to the Bani Hilal, eleventh century AD
On a very old strain, from the Arabic original of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, translation mine:
The Gmassah [a branch of the Sba’ah tribe] were asked about the [strain of] ‘Ubayyah of Ibn ‘Alyan, which marbat she is from? The elders of the Sba’ah informed that: ‘She is ‘Ubayyah Huwaynah, [belonging] to [the tribe of] Bani Sakhr; she came to them [i.e. to Bani Sakhr] in ancient times; when they [the Sba’ah elders] asked about her, they found out that she was from an ancient marbat, and is to be mated, so they started mating her; it is said that she belonged to Bani Hilal; the Qudat [a branch of the Bani Sakhr] took her in war [qila’ah] from under the Sultan Hasan [the leader of the Bani Hilal] when the Bani Hilal went westards [gharrabu, i.e. to North Africa].‘
Some context here: The tumultuous XIth century migration of the Bani Hilal and other tribes from Arabia to North Africa, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the defining moments in Egyptian and North African history. The historical events were described by XIVth century historian Ibn Khaldun. The saga of their migration was transmitted in verse by bard after bard over the centuries, in epics that added up to 1,000,000 verses, which would be recited over 100 hours (!). In the 1980s, Egyptian poet Abd al-Rahman al-Abnudi codified the epic of the Bani Hilal travelling from oasis to oasis across Egypt, Libya and Tunisia to record its variants.
If the stories the Bani Sakhr told the Sba’ah have a kernel of truth, then this strain of ‘Ubayyan Ibn ‘Alyan would be a thousand years old — making it the oldest Arabian strain by far.
By the way, Queen of Sheba was a ‘Ubayyah of Ibn ‘Alyan; and Lady Anne Blunt did point to her tracing to the horses of the Bani Hilal, if I recall correctly. I will dig that reference up.
Oh wow! That’s very interesting! Would the ‘Ubayyan then be like the Saqlawi, a strain that isn’t descended from the Kuhaylan?
Maybe. What is puzzling, thought, is that this account by the Bani Sakhr, if true, would mean that this line is older than the Ubayyan Sharrak itself, from which all Ubayyans are supposed to be derived. Sharrak is not nearly that ancient.
I confess I find this account rather “folksy”, especially the tracing the line to the mare of the Sultan Hassan, who was the leader of the Bani Hilal in the epic. I don’t know if he is an historical character or not. I will need to read up on this epic. At least, the Bani Sakhr introduced some distance by saying the strain is “said to”.
I suppose, also, there is the question of when assigning importance to the mare began, and whether we have other surviving sources from the same time period that would corroborate the notion of horses being designated to be mated or otherwise in the eleventh century.
The to be mated part of the story is recent, 19th century by the Sba’ah, but agreed, on needing to pin down when tf transmission began. We face the same puzzle with the Dahmah of Shahwan around 1270 AD. When the Beni Sakhr said “it is said that she traces to the horses of the Banu Hilal”, it may be that it’s not through the female line.
Does that mean that the concept of “to be mated” is a relatively late arrival on the scene? I presume it’s earlier than the nineteenth century, though. As for transmission through the female line, I don’t think my usual fare of European sources will be helpful for more than a terminus ante quem; that one is up to Arabic scholars!
I don’t know how old this concept is, but I know you are asking the right questions!
What is the Arabic verb used here for to be mated?
yushabbunaha = they mated her.
Perhaps this is the reason why the shammar often prefer the obayan as a stallion ?
possibly.
So if the Bani Sakher(sp) got into North Africa- all the way to the atlantic that would mean Morocco.. So dimes to dollars their horses would have been used by Berber, and other North African tribes to breed to their native horses. Which means there is a lot more basis for the belief that the so called Barbs are really Hajin or Kadeshy part bred arabians.. So much for the Hispano centric claim that their horses from Andalusia, and Estromadura were entirely native Spanish in genetic makeup. It is not disputed that the North African horses were imported into Spain in massive numbers. Anyone with a good eye can look at a modern day Andalusian phenotype- look at a draft phenotype- look at the Queen of Shebas’ phenotype and gain a deep and clear understanding of precisely what went into building the present day Spanish horses. There are certain writers for Equus magazine who buy into the racist Spanish Fascist thought that there is no Arabian in the Andalusian. When anyone with a good eye can look at Arabians, so called Barbs, and Andalusians and immediately understand the genetic elements of how the Spanish horses came to be. If that’s not enough there is the training tape of Warwick Schiller giving a clinic in Morocco of what he was told is a ,’Barb,’ stallion which looks and behaves like a Russian ,’ Arabian,’ Aswan line horse. And isn’t it true that the Cordoban Caliphate is known to have pursued trade links with the rulers of Northern Arabia, and Mecca and Medina?
All food for thought.
best
Bruce Peek
Yes, indeed, whatever Arab element in the North African Barb came through the Bani Hilal and their brethren, the Bani Sulaym, the Bani Ma’qil, etc. There were huge tribes, in the tens of the thousands, moving with wives and children, and horses, and they arabized North Africa, a lot more deeply than during the Islamic conquests 400 years earlier.
Bruce, i kindly disagree with you on multiple things here. Barbs are established horse owners and breeders long before any muslims arrive to their territory. You say it is not disputed that there was north African influx into Spain, yet it has never been proven in the first place that such influx has happened (current shared DNA markers do not offer answers as to which way things traveled). We simply don’t know much about Barbs and their horsetrade, as it was quickly overshadowed by muslim presence in north Africa, resulting in both Arabic material that just doesnt detail “breeds” and European material that projects all of them under the racial slur of Moor, both leaving out the details that we now project onto the material as part of our Orientalist view of the Middle East, through our western concepts of breeds, superiority and segregation.
My guess is that gene flow happened in both directions; the Iberian Peninsula was one of the refugia for European horses after the Ice Age, and there has historically been a great deal of movement and association between North Africa and Spain – think, for instance, of the Carthaginians establishing colonies in the Iberian Peninsula under Hamilcar Barca, or later, the Hasding Vandals leaving Baetica/Andalusia to conquer Roman North Africa. People and their horses have moved back and forth over the Straits of Gibraltar for centuries.
You raise an interesting point about the influence/impact of Muslim presence in North Africa as well; prior to that, there had been Byzantine and Roman influence, and before that Carthaginian/Phoenician and Greek, and these four cultures have occupied most scholarship on Ancient North Africa. Until relatively recently, almost everything we knew about the people of Ancient North Africa came from Greek or Latin sources – think Sallust’s “Jugurtha”, Tacitus’ account of Tacfarinas, Syphax and Massinissa in Polybius and Livy, Herodotus’ “Histories”. (We do have St Augustine and Apuleius, but they are usually treated as Roman, rather than African, by scholarship, I believe.) So most of what westerners know about North Africa has come from outsiders for thousands of years. Archaeology is changing that, at least, for Ancient North Africa, but yeah, there’s so SO much we still don’t know.
Hylke, the direction of gene flow travel was established by the historical record both from North Africa to Spain, and from Spain back to North Africa. If we conclude that there is no Arabian in modern Andalusians then we must somehow also conclude that when people from North Africa crossed into southern Spain they left any horses they had, which had been thoroughly arabised by the Bani Hilal, behind, and walked rather than rode when the arrived.. And that when people from Spain crossed back into North Africa they in turn left their horses in Europe. I don’t buy it.
best
Bruce Peek
Bruce, nowhere in my comment I purported that there is no modern Arabian in modern Andalusions. I simply pointed out that we have no idea if the same was true some 800 years ago. added to that, there was a lot of traffic between the Iberian peninsula and north Africa long before the Bani Hilal appeared on scene. Larger empires have always sourced their horses from various places within but also outside their boundaries. and whether or not their (who exactly are we talking about? Amazigh? Aghlabids? Bafur?) horses were Arabised, is also just a guess, and fits in well with my remark about projection through own own views and values. “not buying it” isnt proof that “people crossing from North Africa to Spain” always had (and used) horses, and certainly doesn’t prove that they “must” have been “Arab” horses.
I would be willing to put money on Tribes of Arab bedouin who came from Arabia, in the above case we’re talking about the Bani Hilal, bringing Arabian horses with them. So the next question becomes were the horses of the Bani Hilal kept seperate from horses of defeated North Africans after the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Egyptian border was taken over by the Bani Hilal. The follow on question then becomes what did the Cordoban Caliphate make of this? Did they wall off all trade with their Muslim brothers in North Africa. Or, did they make common cause with them as a handy source of troops to draw upon, as they were already under pressure from Northern Spanish Christian dukedoms.
best
Bruce Peek
I keep coming back to this blog entry about this strain of Ubayyan being traced to the Bani Hilal, and I confess being very intrigued by it.