This is Bint Radia (Mabrouk Manial x Radia), also from the Agriculture Museum. This photo I have seen in a book before, just don’t ask me where.
Photo of Khair (Ibn Samhan x Badaouia) also from the Agricultural Museum. Has anyone seen this one before? Is it in RAS Volume 1?
Last spring, my wife, who by now knows Cairo’s cultural gems well, took us to the Agriculture Museum, housed in the palace of Fatma, daughter of the Khedive Ismail, in the Doqqi neighborhood. You can click on the links to learn more about the museum and its treasures; here my objective is to share with you this wonderful photo of the RAS stallion Mansour (Gamil Manial x Nafaa Al Saghira), the sire of Nazeer, Sheikh el Arab, Bint Farida, Roda and others, hanging on the wall of a museum room entirely dedicated to RAS photos.I may be wrong but I don’t think this photo (my photo of the framed photo) has been ever published before. You can see the Prince Mohamed Ali blood in the photo (especially Dalal, Mansour’s grand-dam), and you can see why Nazeer and *Roda looked the way they did.
What a balanced, well-built, harmonious desert-looking mare. You can see the influence of both *Hamrah and *Haleb on her. She was by *Hamrah out of *Meleky (*Haleb x *Hadba). Does anyone know where this look can be found in today’s Davenports?
That’s a recent shot Darlene Summers took of my CSA Baroness Lady (Sab El Dine x Takelma Rosanna by Prince Charmming), a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah of overwhelmingly Egyptian lines, with 6 generations of Egyptian sires on top of the old Crabbet female line. She is in foal to Monologue CF, a stallion of Davenport lines, due in August 2015. She is one of six asil younger (17 years old and less) mares of that Ma’naqi Sbaili line in existence in North America. Her sister and a maternal cousin of hers are with Jacquie Glasscoe Choate in Texas, and three other mares, all daughters and grand-daughters of this mare, can be last traced to Janice Park’s South Springs (SS) program, which line-breeds to El Reata Juan (Julyan X Mist Aana by Hallany Mistanny), and produces mostly blacks. She will need to go to a good preservation home, to make space for the new foals coming in the summer. If you know someone who is interested, let me know.
From Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals, January 9th, 1908, at Prince Yusuf Kamal’s sale of the horses of his father, Prince Ahmad Kamal who had died the year before: “Besides my three and Ghazala, a handsome but very slight of bone Keh. Memrieh was sold to somebody Bey”. Lady Anne bought three bay mares/fillies at this sale; the Journal entry mentions that this Ghazala was a Kuhaylah Mimrihiyah bought for one of the Egyptian royals, Omar Bey Sultan, by his racing associate Jacques Valensin. No other horses were sold at this sale. The herdbook of Prince Mohammed Ali, dating from after 1912, lists the mare Donia: “Origine, Prince Ahmed, achetee par Mohamed Pasha Abou Naffi; Cadeau; rentre a Manial 10 Dec. 1912.” I wonder whether that “handsome but very slight of bone Keh. Memrieh” is Donia, and whether this “somebody Bey” is “Mohamed Pasha Abou Naffi”, then only a Bey. Here’s a hypothesis: Mohamed Pasha Abou Naffi bought this mare at the above sale, either in foal to a stallion from Prince Ahmad’s or later bred to a stallion of Prince Yusuf, his son; four years later, he gifted the mare to Prince Mohamed Ali, but retained the resulting filly known as Nafaa after him.
The seventh anniversary of this website, which coincides with the birthday anniversary of my elder daughter Samarcande, was on January 18th. Like other years before, I like to publish a photo of Samarcande on this day, and looking back at the January entries of the past seven years, you can see how much she’s grown. This year, her two year old younger sister makes her debut on the site. She too is a fan of “hossezz”.
This fascinating article (in Arabic) reveals that King Abd al-Aziz Aal Saud, upon founding the Kingdom of Najd, Hijaz and its dependencies (which in 1932 became the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) entrusted the responsibility of representing his Kingdom before other Arab countries to members of the Agheylat corporation (see below about them). This makes a lot of sense since the Agheylat had developed deep commercial ties with many of these countries, including Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon, where they maintained trading offices. Sheykh Fawzan al-Sabiq, the King’s first ambassador to Egypt (in 1926), appears as the most famous of these early Agheylat diplomats, according to the article. His brother Abd al-Aziz was indeed a horse merchant established in Egypt. Other early Saudi diplomats from the Agheylat include Mansur al-Rumayh, Hamoud al-Barrak, al-Rabdi and al-‘Usaymi. The most pleasant surprise, and one that will enable us to shed further light on the history of several desert-bred Arabians imported to the USA, is the inclusion of the name of Muhammad Eid al-Rawwaf among these diplomats hailing from Agheylat families. He appears as the governor of Jeddah in the 1930s, before being appointed as the Saudi representative to Baghdad. He belonged to an influential family of Agheylat from Buraydah.…
Unpublished excerpts from Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals for the early part of the year 1889, obtained from the Wentworth Bequest at the British Library courtesy of Bill Cooke at the International Museum of the Horse include several references to a “Fahad Abdallah, the Agheyleh Sheykh”; he is identified as a merchant who supplied Prince Ahmad Pasha Kamal, Ahmed Bey Sennari and others with desert-bred Arabian horses, on at least one occasion, in 1889, when Lady Anne saw and liked some of these horses. Fahad is also the one who obtained the stallion Koheilan El Mossen for Sennari, perhaps as part of that same batch of horses in 1889. A Journal entry from that period mentions Fahad Abdallah as being from the Qassim town of Buraydah, the center of the Agheylat caravan trade network. The Agheylat were a corporation of camel, horse, sheep, ghee, cloth and food staples merchants from Central Arabia, who operated a dense and active network of caravan trading spanning Central Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, Iraq and Egypt, with hubs in Baghdad, Damascus, Kuwait, and even Bombay. They were from settled families from the Central Arabian area of Qassim, most of them being from either Buraydah or ‘Unayzah, and many tracing their roots to…
I enjoy going back to old article from Arabian Visions which Michael Bowling and RJ Cadranell wrote in the 1990s. Here is such an article by RJ Cadranell on a look back at Richard Pritzlaff’s Rancho San Ignacio program of Egyptian Arabians.
If you are interested in weaving and textiles, as well as in Bedouins, then this is apparently the definite book on the subject. I just bought a copy.
Happy holidays to all the friends and readers of Daughters of the Wind around the world. May the new year bring you good health, happiness and peace of mind.
I mentioned earlier that Shahwan of Dahman Shahwan fame was an historical character. I am now happy to report that I found a solid, dated historical reference to this Shahwan in a book by Mamluk-era chronicler Abu al-Mahasin Taj al-Din Abd al-Baqi ibn Abd al-Majid al-Yamani (born in Mecca in 1281 AD — died in Damascus in 1343 AD). The book is called “Bajhat al-Zaman fi Tarikh al-Yaman“, in short, “History of Yemen”. It is a chronicle of historical events in Yemen before and during the time of the author, who appears to have lived at the same time as Shahwan. The mention of Shahwan of ‘Abidah (of Qahtan) occurs in page 95 of the book, under the events of the year 678 Hijri (1279 AD), under the title of “Account of Muzaffar’s takeover of Dhofar, Hadramaut and the city of Shibam“. This Muzaffar is King al-Muzaffar Abu al-Mansur Shams al-Din Yusuf, second king of the Rasulid dynasty of Yemen. Muzaffar ruled Yemen and its dependencies from 1249 to 1295 AD. The account is as follows (my translation from Arabic): “Account of Muzaffar’s takeover of Dhofar, Hadramaut and the city of Shibam: the cause for this was that the warships of Salem son of Idris al-Habudhi…
During her February 1881 visit to the Tarabin Bedouins of the Sinai and Negev/Naqab deserts on the North Western fringes of Arabia, on her way from Cairo to Jerusalem, Lady Anne Blunt reported this very interesting Bedouin tale: ” Story of the horse that came out of the sea. Its son from a Dahmeh Kehileh mare Meshur belonged to Arar and from him 5 mares, the originals of the strains of (1) Kebeyshan, (2) Seglawi, (3) Makludi [?], (4) Jaythani (Jeytani) (5) Tueyfi. Dahman Shahwan is better than Em Amr of Ranat el Awaj he spoke as of awaj el araqib (crooked hooks) whence ‘Om Argub’ — he never heard of Doheymeh Nejib. […] Maneqy and Jilfan are by themselves.” The account is partial and confused, either because Lady Anne did not understand all what she was being told, or because she did not write down the entire story in her Journals. It is also possible these are only excerpts of a longer journal entry that was not published in full. Be it what it may, it is possible, with some effort, to disentangle the various elements of that story from each other, and try to make sense of each one. There are…
Basil Jadaan recently postly this beautiful photo of Mokhtar, the desert bred Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion from Syria, which Basil owned for several years before sending him to France.
Anyone knows how much it costs to export horses from America to Europe by plane?
This stallion, Treff Haven Sabeel is, in my opinion, a ray of hope for US-based Egyptian breeding. I was saying on Facebook that such strong couplings, short backs, high, prominent withers and exceptionally strong shoulders have all but disappeared from New Egyptian horses. That’s because the halter shows for which most of these horses or their recent ancestors were bred do not take these primary qualities into consideration. That these qualities should still be found in Sabeel is reassuring. He happens to have no lines to Nazeer. Not that Nazeer was a bad horse, on the contrary; it’s just that the use that was made of Nazeer sons, grandsons and great-grandsons was not conducive to the perpetuation of the above-mentioned qualities. Just look at the Serenity horses. There is plenty of Nazeer in there, but the horses were bred differently and used for different purposes. Photo by owner Kate from Van Alma Arabians.
I finally have the answer to a lingering question about the leadership of the Shammar Bedouins in North Arabia. Some twenty years ago, when asking about the ownership of a number of lines of desert bred Arabians, I was confused by references to at least four contemporary “Sheykhs of the Shammar” within the leading Jarba family. The Kuhaylan Krush were the horses of Mayzar Abd al-Mushin al-Jarba, Sheykh of the Shammar; the Shuwayman Sabbah were the horses of Mashaal Pasha son of Faris al-Jarba, also Sheykh of the Shammar; and the Hadban Enzahi were the horses of Dham al-Hadi, also Sheykh of the Shammar; the Saqlawi Jadran adn the Dahman Amer were the horses of Ajil al-Yawir al-Jarba, also Sheykh of the Shammar. All four had lived around the same time. What was going on? Later I came to understand that this had to do with political splits within the leading family, which were caused or at least encouraged by the Ottoman Turks, then the British and the French, but I never had the full picture. Here it is now, in the clarity of intelligence report such as this one published by the French army in 1943: “Autrefois, lors de leur unite, les Chammar ont beaucoup…
Jackson Hensley sent my this recent photo of his 2002 Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion (Davenport lines) Pulcher Ibn Reshan (Triermain CF x Aniq el Bedu by Iliad). There is something of the look of a wild desert animal in his eyes, that same look you see in old photos of desert birds, gazelles and young camels.
Bill Biel just sent me these two older photos of his Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, which I thought I’d share with you.
I am happy to report that Chris and Kara Yost of Bar Lazy Y Ranch are the new owners of my DA Ginger Moon’s young black colt by Serr Serabaar. The colt, who will be named “Twin Turbo” will be entered in endurance racing, and you will hopefully see him competing in the Tevis Cup in the coming years. Chris is a three times Tevis Cup finisher with three different horses, including on the colt’s full sister, DA Ebony Moon. By the way, his dam DA Ginger Moon is in foal to Mlolshaan Hager Solomon for a mid 2015 colt.
gleaned today from L’Orientaliste library in Cairo, all foundational French ethnographic studies from the 1930s: — Victor Muller’s “En Syrie avec les Bedouins: les tribus du desert” (1931) — Albert de Boucheman’s “Une petite cite caravaniere: Sukhne” (a little gem) — Albert de Boucheman’s “Materiel de la vie Bedouine recueilli chez les Arabes Seba’a” — and the sweetest surprise of all (because they could not find it in their vaults last time dropped by): Robert Montagne’s “Contes poetiques Bedouins recueillis chez les Shammar de Gezire”. This one is a lucky find. I feel so blessed.
One of the most interesting passages of Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence is her visit to the Bedouin Tarabin tribe of the Sinai peninsula and the Negev desert, during her and Wilfrid Blunt’s crossing from Cairo to Jerusalem in February 1881, and her account of their camel and horse-related traditions; here is on the camels, to set the stage for what will be more than one blog entry, and I will have to say more on the horses and legends associated to them: “A delul [female camel] or hajin [male camel] becomes asil like the English thoroughbred. Five generations of a thoroughbred sire are considered sufficient among Ayeydeh, Shuaga, Terabin, Naazeh [in reality Maazeh] and perhaps Howeytat, though as the last touch on the confines of [Arabian Peninsula Bedouin tribes of] Harb and Sherarat they ma others notions”. [February 11th, 1881] A lot of the tribes mentioned above appear in this map of the area in 1908: The Tarabin today number around half a million, spread across Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan. In Egypt, they are mostly present in the Sinai, of which they are the largest Bedouin group, but also the Suez Canal cities and the…
During the Blunt’s visit to Jeddah around Christmas of 1880, “Wilfrid has met a man who came from Sana and told him that at some distance from Sana in the interior there are the Beni Husayn, Mohammed Bedouins who catch wild horses. They live in the district called Jofr [correction: it’s actually Jof] el Yemen and are very ‘adroit’ in riding….” [Lady Anne Blunt Journals and Correspondence, December 24, 1880] I am in Sana (San’aa) the capital of Yemen for two weeks, and although I am locked up in my work’s office and adjoining guest house for security reasons, it is the occasion for me too tell you about these Bedouins of Yemen: As Lady Anne wrote, these are the Dhu Husayn, an offshoot of the Dhu Mohammed, who hail from the large Yemeni tribal confederation of Bakil. Their tribal area is in Jawf/Jof el Yaman (the reference to Yemen is to differentiate it from the other Jawf/Jof of North, which is in Northern Saudi Arabia, just to the South of Jordan), to the north east of Sana. My colleague (a Senior Water Specialist at the World Bank office in Sana), Naif Abu Luhoum, is the from the chieftain family of the Dhu…
From Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals, December 15th, 1880, during her trip to Jeddah: “In the afternoon we called first on Omar Nasif. The chestnut mare still stands outside the little yard near the house…” Here are modern images of the Naseef house, one of the very few buildings still standing from the old down-town of Jeddah, which has all been razed to the ground, to give way to modern building in the 1960s (yet another beautiful Arab city destroyed…) For an inside tour of the Naseef house, and a view of the yard where that mare in Lady Anne’s Journals, see this blog entry here. The house as in other old Jeddah houses in apparently made of coral (yes, the stuff in the reefs) and of wood imported from what is today Indonesia, a legacy of the glorious (and little known) history of Jeddah as a cross-roads of trade between Egypt, East Africa and South East Asia (like Mukalla in Yemen, like Mocha, like Aden after that).
French equine librarian, collector and breeder, Philippe Deblaise just published the book “Tiaret, le reve Algerien” that will add tremendous value to the literature on Arabian horses, by pulling together the knowledge available about the glorious breeding program of the Arabian horse Stud of Tiaret, in Algeria. This stud was founded by the French in the 1870s, when France was the colonial power in Algeria, and relied exclusively on stallions and mares imported from desert-bred Arabians from Arabia. This stud is unique in the world as no stallion born outside desert Arabian was ever used at stud until Algerian independence in the 1960s. Click on the flyer (in French) to enlarge it.
It was in early 1928 according to French army officer Victor Muller in his book “En Syrie avec les Bedouins”. Hakim was the leader of the Fad’aan Bedouins when Davenport visited in 1906. Muller is a most reliable source since he was the military and intelligence commander of the “Bedouin country” (the part of Syria inhabited by Bedouins, from Jordan to Turkey and eastwards to Iraq) for several years. Among his feats was the peace treaty between the Fad’aan and the Shammar and the Bedouin conferences of Palmyra and Bu Kamal in the mid-1920s. Muller’s headquarters were in Deyr el-Zor.
Check it out here. By the way, the Homer Davenport collection is there too. Sample below, taken in the Cairo souk.
Today was one of those days when you receive a bottle you threw in the oceans of your memories ten years ago. Back in 2004, I made a note about a rare book I have long wanted to read or get a hold of. It’s French Army Commandant Victor Muller’s “En Syrie avec les Bedouins: les Tribus du Desert” (Paris, 1931). It’s a complete account of nomadic life in Syria in the early 30s, with references to horse-breeding, strains, and histories of battles during which horses were acquired. In my 2004 note, I was saying that only two copies of that book could be found for sale: one at a bookshop in Nice, France (which turned out to have closed); and another at L’Orientaliste bookshop in Cairo. I left it at that. Yesterday, I found this note, and this morning I entered L’Orientaliste, and asked them where they still had it. They did. I bought it and sent it for binding, as it’s in pretty bad shape. I still can’t believe I bought it, and that I will be able to read it soon (and share it with you). What a treasure.
Yesterday, Lee Oelllerich sent me these photos of the 1967 ‘Ubayyan stallion El-Haml (El Hamdan x Al Fellujah by Al Felluje) at 3 years old. What a horse, and what a combination of good horses. These BLUE STARs can surely improve any stock, Arabian or not, Al Khamsa or not. Click on the photos to enlarge them. Lee tells me El-Haml was a successful Race and Endurance horse who left for Germany in 1980, and ran his last flat race two weeks before exportation at age thirteen.
He was of course the owner of the “mare of Naqadan”, a Dahmah Shahwaniyah bred by Abdallah ibn Khalifah of Bahrain, which went to Abbas Pasha and is the tail female for ‘Azz, ‘Aziz, Sahab, Nasr (Kasida’s sire) and others. She is well documented here in the AK Roster. Together with the mare of Ibn Aweyde, she is one of the only mares mentioned in the Abbas Pascha Manuscript with modern day descendants. According to Muhammad Saud al-Hajri, Ibn Naqadan was ‘Abdallah son of Ali son of ‘Abdallah Naqadan frm the section of Aal Uthbah of the Aal Murra tribe, of which he was the leader at the time of Faysal Ibn Turki before the leadership went into another family. He was not from the ‘Ajman as Lady Anne mistakenly thought (one of her very few mistakes). On Aal Murra, everyone should read Donald Powell Cole’s: Nomads of the Nomads: The Al Murra Bedouin of the Empty Quarter.
He was obviously the owner of the bay Dahmah Najibah which went to the Abbas Pasha stud, and was the dam of the stallion Jerboa (“Jerbou”) the sire of Shueyman, who was in turn the sire of Helwa dam of Bint Helwa, etc. etc.His bay Dahmah Najiba of the Ibn Aweyde is one of the very very few horses described int he Abbas Pasha Manuscript with modern descendants today. The information about her is well summarized here in the Al Khamsa Roster. One minor correction is in order: According to the Al Khamsa Roster, translations of lists of Abbas Pasha horses published by Prince Mohamed Aly Tewfik [p89] confirms the acquisition of a bay Dahmah al-Najib mare, “mother the mare of Sami: owner Ibn-‘Uwaytah, father Duhayman.” It seems to me, reading the relevant entry in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, that the “mare of Sami”, dam of the bay mare of Ibn Aweyde, should instead read the “mare of Shafi” and that would be her owner Shafi Ibn Shab’an, leader of the Bani Hajar of Qahtan, and the cousin of Ibn Aweyde. This mare is mentioned twice in this as “the mare of Shafi” in this entry. It looks like Prince Mohamed Aly…
One never stops learning. A read of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript section of the Saqlawi al-‘Abd strain teaches you that the strain is actually a branch of Saqlawi Jadran: It turns out that a man from the Shammar tribe was once taken prisoner by an Ibn Sha’lan (the leading clan of the Ruwalah tribe). The Shammari gave up his Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah to the Sha’lan man in exchange for his freedom. Later the Sha’lan man was somehow involved in the murder of a fellow tribesman (from the clan of al-Mani’ of the Qa’aqi’ah of the Ruwalah) and had to surrender the Saqlawiyah to this man’s family as blood money. The family’s caretaker was a slave (‘Abd in Arabic) who once rode the mare in battle against the Bani Sakhr tribe, and was unhorsed from her. From there the strain spread to the tribes, including back to the Ruwalah. In that specific case, the Bedouin traditional judges decided that the right to claim any mare of that strain under trover — that’s a Bedouin practice allowing the strain’s first owner within a certain tribe to claim any horse from that strain that enters the tribe — remained with the family of the deceased Ruwalah…
I don’t know if this stallion of excellent lines is still alive or not, but a reader asked about him. He was bred by Radwan Shabareq in Aleppo, and given to the late Mustafa al-Jabri who used him at stud. I knew him as a newborn, as a colt and as a stallion. His mother bellonged to an old Bedouin, ‘Aboud al-‘Ali al-‘Amoud of al-Uqaydat, who was extremely attached to her, and held her in the highest esteem. He refused to part with her at any cost, despite many offers. He refused to breed her, because he did not think that any stallion he knew was worthy of her in purity or othewise. Yusuf al-Rumaihi, the late Qatari consul in Syria (we are in the mid-1980s), a collector of desert-bred horses and an avid learner and fine connoisseur of desert lines, wanted her at any price, but the old Bedouin would not sell. The mare was getting up in age. He did agree to lease her, and the mare went to Damascus where she was bred to the Egyptian stallion Okaz (Wahag x Nazeemah). She foaled a filly which the Qatari consul retained. After this, the old Bedouin nagged so much…
Shafi Ibn Sha’ban, the leader of the sub-tribe of Bani Hajar of Qahtan in the mid-XIXth century, is the one who led his tribe from the valleys of Najd to the shores of Eastern Arabia (al-Ihsa) in 1248 H, which is equivalent to 1832. The Bani Hajar, separated from the bulk of their Qahtan brethen, eventually broke away, and became a separate, self-standing tribe (singular al-Hajri). Source: Mohammad Saud al-Hajri, who is a reliable historian. Shafi Ibn Sha’ban is all over the Abbas Pasha Manuscript section on Dahman Najib (also in the extracts published at the end of Lady Anne’s Journals with her annotations), and appears in connection with the Dahmah Najiba of Ibn Aweyde. Lady Anne, in her notes, wondered about his identity. It makes sense: as the head of the tribe, he did not need to be introduced. She also mentions the Bani Hajar as living in East Arabia, most of them being pearl divers.
Pauline Lagmay of Jedda, in Saudi Arabia, sent me these photos of the asil Arabian stallion, Lazam Najd, a Suwayti, who is in her care. This beautiful stallion, by Haleem out of Ghazalet Najd, was featured in a video on this blog a few years ago. That’s a strain originally from the Sharif of Mecca, by the way.
Lady Anne’s Journals and Correspondence, edited by Rosemary Archer and James Fleming, and published by Alexander Heriot & Co. Ltd Booksellers and Publishers in 1986, is, together with the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (Forbis and Sherif), the most important publication on the Arabian horse in recent memory. I have read it time and again, and I keep marveling at its editors’ skill and effort in transcribing hundreds of handwritten letters and journal entries, and putting them in their proper historical context. That said, neither editor is an Arabist, to my knowledge, and, in light of Lady Anne’s lifelong relationship with the Arab world and the large number of Arabic proper and common names in her Journals, this seems to have prevented them from properly transcribing many of these Arabic names; in some cases, lady Anne may have been the source of the mis-trancsription. So I have ventured to makes notes of these corrections in a separate page of this blog, and substantiate these annotations and corrections with evidence, in the hope that further editions could take them into account, or at least be aware of them. This ongoing effort will be found at daughterofthewind.org/labjournals
There appears to have been a senior stallion at the Sa’ud Royal Studs in the 1940s of the strain of Obeyan el Seifi (correct spelling Suyayfi, a strain well referenced in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript); he is the sire of several mares and one stallion sent as gifts to King Faruk of Egypt. One of these mares is Hind (b. 1942), whose family spread worldwide; another is Nafaa (b. 1941), which is frequently discussed on this blog, although she has a much smaller family. According to the Inshass Original Herd Book (IOHB), Obeyan el Seifi had two more offspring that went to Egypt but did not leave any modern day progeny: a mare, Durra (b. 1943), out of a “Sa’adaa el Debdab”, and a stallion, Mabrouk (b. 1943), out of “Sowaytia ben Kowyel”. These are grossly misspelt names of prominent Bedouin leaders, but the way they were misspelt does give us clues some about the horses origins. Here’s how: “El Debdab” is actually El Deydab (better spelling: al-Daydab), a Bedouin leader of the Suwaylimat tribe (a part of the Jlass, which is the ‘Anazah confederation headed by the Ruwalah), and early supporter of the Saudi monarchy; they are now settled…
Kina Murray kindly shared with me this rare photo of the 1946 Bahraini bay mare *Thorayyah, which was recently posted by a research group on Facebook; she was bred by Sheikh Khalifah Bin Mohamed Al Khalifah, Bahrain, then imported by to the USA John Rogers of California. She was apparently by a Hathfan out a Tuwayssah. Unfortunately, she left no asil descendants.
Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals entry for December 31, 1907 (page 327) contains this interesting mention (in relation to the Ali Pasha Sharif stallion Harkan): “I must go through the Ali Pasha Sherif Memoranda that I have with Mutlak, hhe will be able to clear up several points.” An excerpt of a much earlier Journal entry, made on March 5th, 1891, gives one example of these memoranda (in bold, below), about the stallion Amir (Aziz x Horra) the purchasing of which Lady Anne was then considering: “I copy out the memorandum Mr Flemotomo enclosed to us from the Pasha on the following day. “Grey horse Seglawi Jedran of Ibn Sudan, son of Horra, sister of Wazir, sire chestnut horse (Aziz) Dahman Shahwan son of the daughter of the daughter of the mare of Makadan. Foaled the — 1297. Price 200 (). His name Amir.” “N.B. I have inserted the name of Aziz as in other memorandum it is put in, see below. I hope we may be able to buy this horse.” Another memorandum follows in the same Journal entry, with less details: “The second shown us was a chestnut colt 5–6 years old […] he is described by Ali Pasha Sherif as…
Yesterday, I spent some time reading the story of al-Kuhaylah al-Harqah in the Abbas Pascha Manuscript (not the English version of Forbis and Sherif, but rather the large excerpts in Hamad al-Jassir’s Usul al-Khayl al-Arabiyyah al-Hadithah). The story of al-Harqah is remarkable for its simplicity (it’s not hard to follow), its conciseness (relative to other strains’ long-winded accounts in the Manuscript), its consistency (most witnesses interviewed relate the same story) and its comprehensiveness (from the originating Kuhaylat ‘Ajuz down to the mares that went to Abbas Pasha). For all these reasons it could serve as a case study of how strains changed hands and moved from tribe to tribe in Bedouin Arabia. The story is also remarkable as an account of how strains names are formed, an account of several Bedouin customs and traditions, and it can also be used to reconstruct a rough chronology. I would like to document all this at some point. Here’s a summary of how the strain got its name: A Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare was part of the ransom the Shammar (then all in the Jabal Shammar) asked the captured Sharif of Mecca to pay in return for his freedom; a descendant of this mare (still a Kuhaylat al-Ajuz with…
Now that I have read the Abbas Pasha Manuscript — the equivalent of the Bible for Arabian horses — from cover to cover a fair number of times, I have learned that all Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz horses originate from two wellsprings: the Sharif of Mecca in the Hijaz, and the major tribe of Qahtan, and more specifically the Qahtan sub-tribe of ‘Abidah in Wadi Tathlith (SW Saudi Arabia). I don’t know yet what the connections between these two sources are. The story of al-Harqah (originally a Kuhaylat ‘Ajuz) is illustrative of the horses that came out of the Sharif of Mecca.
This magnificent stallion is a gift from the King of Bahrain to the Queen of English. Photo from the Arabian Horse World Magazine.
In my opinion, this is one of the best up and coming Davenport stallions. He is almost perfect, and very reminiscent of 1960s Davenport stallions. He is by Dubloon CF out of Genuine Tes LD by Tesio CF.
I really enjoy the images Lee Oellerich sends me from British Columbia, Canada from time to time, and I have the highest regard for his taste in breeding, what he selects for, and what he achieves with his herd of Saudi and Bahraini-origin Arabian horses. This is an absolute favorite, the 2002 Dahman Shahwan stallion Haziz (Bahri x Haulaifah by Naizahq). Lee, if you read this, I hope all is well with you. I miss our talks.
A Kuhaylan Al Krush of Davenport breeding. In real life, did he look as good and as deserty as in this picture and others? Who is his best offspring today? What powerful shoulder he had and what short back! where do you find this today? Bred by Charles Craver.
In an earlier thread, Ahmad al-Tamimi share pictures of his wonderful, and very well built, asil Bahraini Kuhaylan Aafess stallion in Hail, Saudi Arabia. An antique horse for sure, of which he can be proud.
This is my favorite Bahraini horse outside Bahrain. He is standing at stand at Jenny Lees’ but unfortunately not available to public stud. More photos on Jenny’s website. I love the bone structure on the face.
Nuhra was a 1936 bay mare presented by the ruler of Bahrain to the British Earl of Athlone during his and wife’s visit to Bahrain in 1939. She was by a Kuhaylan Jellabi stallion out of a Wadhnah Khursaniyah mare. In light of the habit of Arab Sheykh’s of maintaining only a handful of stallions for breeding, especially at that time of pre-oil discovery when resources were scarce, I wonder whether that Kuhaylan Jellabi stallion is the same as “Old Speckled Jellabi I” presented in old age to Crown Prince Saud in 1937″, as per the table of Bahraini stallions here. Dates certainly match. Unless they maintained two Jellabi stallions at the same time, which is probable.
Images from arabianmagazineonline.com, by way of URL photo link
These were Barghi Ibn Dirri’s own words, in my translation of the certificate of his mare Meshura, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of Ibn Dirri, who was bought by Lady Anne Blunt, and who was Pharaoh’s sister, Azrek’s maternal aunt, and a close relative of Basilisk’s: “I declare that I took part in a raid with a group of fourty five horsemen from the Fid’an, their military commander being Mashi [illegible name likely al-Sahim] al-Khrisi, and the raid was on […] al-‘Issa from Ahl al-Shamal and with them Bani Sakhr […] and I was riding this Saglawia and she outraced all of them by far and I took the camels [away] and brought them back [to the camp] and the remaining horses [two illegible words, likely ‘stayed behind’] / then my son […] took part in a raid on her, with the Fid’an al-Wuld, and the Saba’ah, and he [two illegible words] / on Ibn Sha’lan and he killed [illegible first name, likely Mahbus] son of Kunay’ir ibn Sha’lan, and the horses [taking part in the raid] were more than five hundred on that day, and Jad’aan Ibn Mahayd was present and she outraced all the horses, and my son took camels [away] and…
If case you had been wondering what this spat of blog entries on Bahraini horses was all about, here is the answer: my most recent acquisition DA Ginger Moon (DB Destiny Moniet x Kumence RSI by Monietor RSI) was just checked in foal to the 28 year old Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, at Bill Biel’s in Michigan. This is such an exciting development I can’t wait for the foal already (and it’s a damn 11 months to go!) All this time I had been trying to learn more about these Bahraini horses, and wanting to share some of what I have been finding.
A relatively recent revised edition of Abdallah al-Bassam’s (Lady Anne Blunt’s acquaintance from ‘Unayzah in Qassim) book “Tuhfat al-mushtaq fi akhbar Najd wa al-Hijaz wa al-‘Iraq” (edited by Ibrahim al-Khalidi, pub. Kuwait, 2000) has this photo that claims to represent the Emir of Hail Mohammad Ibn Abdallah Ibn Rashid of Hail (Lady Anne Blunt’s host in Hail in Jabal Shammar). It is the second representation of him I have ever seen, and the first on a horse. Has anyone seen this photo before? From which book was it picked? or was it unpublished before? Look at that horse.. shouldn’t we go back to breeding like that?
In the same vein as the new information pertaining to the hujjah of the mare *Jedah, I thought I’d try my luck and look up the Bedouin owner of the Davenport import *Azra in the same table of Fad’aan clan. And it worked. *Azra is a Saqlawi Ubayri from the marbat of Muharib al-Kharraz of the Makathirah section of the Fad’aan (a section similar in level to the ‘Aqaqirah). A search for the Makathirah section yielded the following: “The fourth section of the Khrisah [a large sub-tribe of the Fad’aan] is al-Makathirah, and their elder/leader is al-Mad-hun […] and their way cry is “the horse rider of al-Balha is a Kathiri” [Kathiri is singular, Makathirah is plural of the same]; and their ancestor is Sulayman also known as the Elderly (al-‘Awd) and they are the most numerous of the Khrisah sections; and Sheykh Saleh al-Mad-hun indicated that Sulayman has six offspring, and they are (i) Qutn; (ii) […] and from Qutn come Saqr and Muhammad, and from Saqr come Rabih and […]; and from Rabih come Shafe’ and Nafe’ and Falah al-Muqafe’ and they are known as al-Kharareez [plural of al-Kharraz], and the meaning of al-Kharz is the stabbing with…
Early this afternoon during lunch break I was looking at some lists of Fad’aan Bedouin clans on a ‘Anazah tribal website, and while searching for something else, I stumbled on this remarkable piece of information in relation to the hujjah (original document) of the Davenport mare *Jedah imported by Homer Davenport to the USA in 1906. The hujjah of *Jedah, as I translated it to English for Al Khamsa Arabians III in 2005, is as follows (with minor edits in 2014): “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, [blessings and religious statements follow] After [the blessings], I declare that the entirely chestnut [ie, no white marks] mare which I sold to Ahmad al-Hafedh from the people of Aleppo that she is Hamdania to be mated, [she is] protected, [she is] purer than milk / and she came to me from the tribe of al-Jad’ah and the tribe of al-Jad’ah it came to them from the tribe of Shammar from the breed of Ibn Ghurab and I bear witness upon the owners of this breed [ie, Ibn Ghurab] that their testimony is acceptable and I bear witness to their testimony / And we only bear witness to what we know and we do not keep [information] about the unknown. [He who]…
Thank Heaven is now in the ownership of Jeannie Lieb, who took this photo of the beautiful Mlolshaan Solomon daughter as was settling in her new home. She has her sire’s withers, shoulder, and clean legs. Compare with his own photo, in extreme old age, below.
The stud of Sheykh Muhammad B. Salman Aal Khalifah in Bahrain includes representatives of an Arabian horse strain by the name of “Saidan”, of which one representative is the stallion pictured below, Saidan Gharib (photo from the 1998 WAHO Convention in Bahrain). While the strain sounds very similar to the strain of Saadan (as in Saadan Tuqan, the strain of, among others, the mare Francolin imported by the Blunts) they are not the same, and are not written in the same way in Arabic. It seems that the Bahraini “Saidan” strain gots its name from the ruling family of Oman, the Aal Said. Here is a quote from the Bahraini studbook volume 1: “The Kuheilah Sai’da strain is a family of horse peculiar to Bahrain. The oft told story of how the name came about is still repeated in gatherings when men discuss horses of old and their merits. In the early 19th century the Al-Khalifas had to repel many invaders to ascertain their supremacy in Bahrain. In the year 1816, in one of the attempts to overtake the islands by the forces of the Sultan of Muscat, Said bin Sultan, a big battle was fought on the shores of Bahrain. When…
Jenny Lees sent me these four beautiful photos of the two new Bahraini stallions standing at her stud, with her grand-daughter. She meant them as an example of the wonderful disposition and temperament of Arabian stallions in general and Bahraini horses in particular. She wrote: I was invited to take the two Bahraini stallions presented to HM the Queen to the AHS National Show at Malvern this summer. After they had done the display we all settled down in a corner of the showground for a picnic. This is my five year old granddaughter Elsie with the stallions Tuwaisaan That’atha’ta the grey and Mlolshaan Mahrous. Both stallions are in their early teens and both have covered mares. Elsie has a special relationship with the grey Tuwaisaan. To learn more about the pedigrees of both stallions, visit this link.
Mlolshaan (Bahrain Studbook spelling) is an Arabian horse strain now only found in Bahrain, but which was also present in Najd in the past, as evidenced by its mention in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript page 251, under Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish. I was always curious about the origin of the word Mulawlish, which is uncommon in Arabic today. It is obviously a Bedouin Arabic word, which means it can be traced to Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur’an and of pre-Islamic Bedouin Arabia. The Bahrain Royal Stud website offers this interpretation of the meaning of the strain: “The name Mlolesh is believed to derivate from the word “Mlolash” the trilling high-pitched sound the Arab women make at weddings and other happy or exciting occasions. The original Mlolesh mare must have had a beautiful neigh!”. So a Mlolesh is a trill, so to speak, and its usage, originally associated with women, was extended to mares. It is a common pattern with horse strain names, as is the case with the Kuhaylah. Still, I thought I’d look up the word in another way, through a dictionary. The first step to find the origin of an any Arabic word is to take it back…
The magnificent HH Tantalus Krush, a 2009 Arabian stallion of the Kuhaylan Krush strain, Davenport lines, out of Quantum LD x Kashmir Krush LD. Thanks to owner Kim Davis for sharing this beautiful video of a superior stallion, true heir to his sire.