These days, I have been enjoying reading excerpts of Hisham Ibn al-Kalbi‘s “Ansab al-khayl fi al-Jahiliyah wa-al-Islam wa-akhbaruha” in my spare time. This roughly translates as “The genealogies and accounts of horses in the era before Islam and after the rise of Islam”, and is commonly known as “Kitab al-Khayl” (the “Book of Horses”). This precious work was written more than 1,200 years ago (yes, twelve hundred years ago) by one of the most prolific and knowledgeable medieval Islamic historians and genealogists. Every one of the 140 books Ibn Al-Kalbi (757 AD -819 AD) wrote is now lost, except two books that miraculously survived: the “Book of Horses” and the more famous “Book of Idols“. A manuscript version of the “Book of Horses” was published in Arabic, first in 1946, then in 1964. If you happen to read Arabic and live in the USA, here is a list of a few libraries where you can find a copy. I xeroxed mine from the Georgetown University Library. Another manuscript version was also translated to French and published by E.J. Brill Publishers in Leyden, Germany, in 1928. The “Book of Horses” revisits the stories of the most famous horses in pre-Islamic times (before 610 AD)…
As a follow up to an earlier post on the Asil Kuhaylan al-Mimrah strain that breeds on in South Africa, this is a rare picture of the lovely Barakah (Ibn Manial x Gamalat), the mare through which the strain survives in Asil form. Photo courtesy of Albert Kaffka of the Al-Yatun Asil Stud in South Africa. By the way, if you are interested in the horses that were exported from Egypt to South Africa in the 1940s – of which Barakah was one – and their Asil descendents there, read this article, courtesy of Eugene Geyser, the President of the Asil Club of South Africa. Barakah was bred to the Asil stallion Tuwaisaan, an import from Bahrain, to produce Sahibi Bint Barakah, of which you can find a picture here (scroll down).
… Mukalla, the capital of Hadhramut, in eastern Yemen, is not quite the place where you can stroll around in a swimsuit, but is a most interesting town nonetheless. Historically, it linked Arabia with east Africa, India and Indonesia (where a diaspora of more than 4 million Hadramis thrives), and was the main port for the exportation of myrrh, frankincense, and arabic gum, and the importation of precious wood, spices and slaves. Today, it’s a diving spot, and a good place to eat lobster (although not quite like Maine 😉 Check out this blog about Hadhramut, you’ll like it.
One day in 2006, my friend Hazaim al-Wair and I, intrigued by the addition of “al-Baida” to the strain of many (not all) Kuhaylan al-Krush horses in the Syrian studbook, made a number of phone calls to inquire about the owner of the marbat of Krush al-Baida. All the roads led to one Shaykh of Shammar by the name of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba. Mayzar was a prominent and respected member of the Syrian parliament in the 1940s, where he was known to defend the interests and the causes of all Bedouin tribes, at a time when the lifestyle and economic conditions of the Bedouins were changing rapidly. Mayzar and his son Antar al-Mayzar were associated with nearly every one of the older horses from the Krush al-Baida strain that we could find in Volume I of the Syrian Studbook. We thought we’d start locating Mayzar’s descendants, and eventually located and telephoned a grandson of his, Faysal (ibn Sattam ibn Mayzar ibn ‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba). Faysal told us that his branch of the family owned two separate marabit (pl. of marbat) of Kuhaylan al-Krush: an older marbat from the time of al-Sharif Barakat (a ruler of Mecca back in the sixteenth century A.D., at the time all Shammar was still in Najd), and a second, more recent marbat, straight from the al-Dawish head clan of the…
A previous entry quickly went through the Kuhaylan al-Krush horses that came out of Arabia. Of these, the stallion Krush (sometimes called Krushan), imported by Lady Anne Blunt to Egyptian stud of Sheykh Obeyd in 1911, is of particular relevance for the Krush al-Baida branch of that strain. This is what the Sheykh Obeyd Studbook, quoted by Rosemary Archer in “The Crabbet Arabian Stud: its History and Influence“, has to say about Krush: A Kehilan el Krush. Grey stallion bred in 1909. Sire: Kehilan el Sueti of the Harb stock. Dam: Grey Kehilet el Krush whose dam was the mare of Ammash el Reja el Duish, known as the ‘white Krush’ famed for her speed. Purchased in the desert in 1911. As far as I know, these three lines are the only Western reference to the ‘white Krush’, “Krush al-Baida” . They are important because they give away the name of the owner of “Krush al-Baida” – a Bedouin warrior of the al-Dawish ruling clan of the Mutayr tribe, the reason for her fame – speed in tribal warfare – and an approximate date. If Krush was foaled in 1909, and “Krush al-Baida” was his granddam, then she would have been alive in the 1880s-1890s. Bedouin oral tradition remembers “Krush al-Baida” as a mare that carried her rider and…
WARNING: DON’T READ ON UNLESS YOU ARE A PEDIGREE FREAK OR INTEND TO BECOME ONE. Of the Arabian horses bred in the three North African countries of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, the latter is the only one that did not develop its own “brand” of Arabians. Rather, Morocco relied on importations from its two North African neighbors as well as France and Egypt. Lets look at the pedigree of a typical modern Moroccan-bred Arabian horse: Fata, a chestnut stallion of the Jilfan Dhawi strain imported in utero from Morocco to France in 1976. Fata’s dam Tobiha was actually sold by the Moroccan Government stud of Meknes to French breeder jean Deleau, the founder of Haras de la Lizonne, in Western France. Fata is by El Sud El Aaly (Nazeer x Lateefa), an Asil stallion born in Egypt and gifted to the King Mohamed V of Morocco (a full brother to SF Ibn Nazeer, by the way). Fata’s dam Tobiha is by Burhan (Morafic x Mona by Sid Abouhoum x Moniet el Nefous), another Egyptian Asil, and also a present from Egypt to the Moroccan King. Fata’s maternal granddam, Mousson is by Murols, a stallion bred at the French stud of Pompadour and imported from France…
Due to increasing requests from Daughter of the Wind readers, a number of entries will be published in French from time to time. English speaking readers will be able to access them through online translation softwares, however imperfect these tools are. Somewhere down the road, I will need to rely on someone’s help to translate some posts to German, which constitutes a growing part of the readership..
Looks like my recent series of entries on Tunisian Asil Arabian horses has sparked a good discussion on Straightegyptians.com, which by the way, I am not subscribed to. I wish I had enough time to contribute to it, but there are only so many hours in a day, and besides, I am pretty certain my boss would fire me.. Still, a couple points on that discussion, if I may: the horses of the stud of La Lizonne are from Moroccan lines, not Tunisian. The stallion El Sudd El Aaly (Nazeer x Lateefa), a full brother of SF ibn Nazeer (Lateef) was sent from Egypt to the King of Morocco as a gift, and never went to Tunisia.. Also, I have promised the readers of this blog an aricle on the Denouste issue, which I hope will shed some light on the status of this horse (i.e., whether he is Asil or not, which would have many implications on the status of many French and North African Arabians). This article in under preparatin, so stay tuned.
Since it’s easier to share photos than write long articles, I thought I’d post this picture of one of my favorite Asil stallions from Syria. Shaddad (Marzouq x Asila), a Ma’naghi Zudghum (a prestigious branch of Ma’naghi Sbayli), is here pictured as a colt, with a groom and myself standing nearbyThe photo was taken at Zafir Abdul Khaliq’s stables, outside Aleppo, some fiften years ago.. Time flies.
Dynamite II is a desert-bred stallion imported to Tunisia by the French in 1920. He is recorded to be by a Hamdani out a mare by the name of Tayyara. I should have more information in my archives (including on his strain) but need to look it up. Meanwhile, here is the picture. The sireline of Dynamite II was perpetued until today through his son Ibn (Dynamite II x Gafir), a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz and famous racehorse, and Ibn’s son Koraich (Ibn x Targuia). By the way, if you read French and are curious about Tunisian racing bloodlines, checkout this article. There is also another article in English on Tunisian Arabian horse breeding in general here, which I think is informative, but difficult to follow at times – perhaps because it was translated from French.
The gorgeous Bint Nafaa was born in Egypt in 1962, and bred by Ahmed Hamza’s Hamdan Stables, yet she does not have the “Straight Egyptian” label. The Pyramid Society, who coined the “definition” of a Straight Egyptian and Egyptian breds, does not accept El Gadaa, Nafaa’s sire, as a Straight Egpytian. El Gadaa was a racehorse, who stood at Hamdan stables for a while and was bred by Miqhim ibn Mahayd, the Shaykh of the Bedouin Fad’aan tribe. Egyptian records have him as being by El Sabaa, also a racehorse, out of a Ma’naghiyah of Ibn Mhayd. Fine. But many questions remain unanswered. Did Miqhim race Arabian horses in Egypt? or did he sell the horse to a racehorse owner? did he own El Gadaa’s sire El Sabaa? where was El Gadaa bred, in Egypt, or in the desert? I know Miqhim ibn Mahayd left Syria sometimes in the 1950s (will get back to you with the exact date) after a series of problems with the Syrian regime, and moved to Saudi Arabia, where he received royal treatment from the King – himself a fellow Anazeh tribesman, who incidentally bred Bint Nafaa’s dam Nafaa, a desertbred Kuhaylah (so marbat) by a ‘Ubayyan al-Suyayfi – a strain that branched off ‘Ubayyan al-Hunaydees. I know Miqhim kept a…
The 2008 Al Khamsa Convention is taking place in Tulsa, Oklahoma from October the 23rd until the 26th. Check out the schedule here. I plan on being there.
In 1931 Bogdan Zientarski, accompanied by Carl Raswan went to the desert to buy Arabian horses for Prince Roman Sanguszko of the Gumniska stud in Poland. Here’s an account of Zientarski’s encounter with the stallion Koheilan Haifi, near the desert oasis of al-Jauf: “Finally I hear a neigh, they guide the stallions… they lead the bay Kuhailan Haifi. My legs buckled under me, it is just the horse I am looking for. Not large, dry, on splendid legs without any trace of cow hocks. A long neck, a noble head, although not very small, with distended, thin and moveable nostrils; a splendid high carried tail. I feel, the first time in my life, that during the purchase of a horse I am fainting…” Have any of you experience that near-fainting feeling when coming across a unique Arabian horse for the first time? I have. Twice. I should consider myself lucky. I will tell you about these two electrifying encounters.
Siglavy Bagdady VI, born in 1949, was the last Asil stallion of 100% old Babolna lines (i.e., no Egyptian Arabian lines in his pedigree). His strain was Kuhaylan Abu ‘Arqub, tracing in tail female to the mare Semrie, imported from the desert by Michael Fadlallah El Heddad. Siglavy Bagdady VI left one Asil son, Wahhabit, a 1977 stallion out of the Kuhaylat al-Krush mare Delicate Air. Delicate Air was bred by Craver Farms and traces to the mare *Werdi, imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. Pity there are so few of these Babolna Asil Arabians. They are of such a different type than anything else we see nowadays. They remind me of the last Lebanese Asil I used to see in my childhood. They also are a genetic treasure: each one of them traces to dozens of horses imported from the desert by the kings of the Austria, not found in any other current Asil bloodlines (except in the one remaning German Weil line). If you want to know more about the remaining Asil Arabians of Babolna, you can check out this post (dated May 2 2007, 10.44 pm) in the online forum Straightegyptians.com. This photo of Siglavy Bagdady VI is from the…
A desertbred stallion imported to a North African country in the first half of the twentieth centuty. Photo counrtesy of Pierre-Henri Beillard, of Le Sureau, France. No further information on the horse.
In 1997, Jens Sannek and Bernd Loewenherz published what is perhaps the most interesting book to be written in recent times by Western travelers looking for Arabian horses in their original homeland. Traveling with a party of about 14 people which included French preservation breeders Jean-Claude Rajot, Louis Bauduin and Benoit Mauvy, as well as several young children, and joined by Syrian guides and friends, Jens and Bernd visited the Syrian cities of Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, as well the Syrian desert, from Palmyra to Der el Zor (map here), for about two weeks. They described and photographed many of the older Syrian desertbred horses I grew up around (such as Mahrous, Mashuj, both now deceased and Mokhtar, still alive and now in France with Chantal Chekroun). They even met with some of Syria’s last truly nomadic Bedouin clans, the ‘Affat al-Dbayss – a clan from the Fad’aan tribe that owns a good marbat of Ma’naghi Sbayli in the general vicity of Der el Zor. Their book, written in German with an English summary at the end, is full of insights and anecdotes, as well as factual information, and gives one an excellent overview of the state of Syrian Arabian horse breeding in the late 1990s. Unlike other contemporary accounts I have come across, the authors’ description of the…
A rare picture of the magnificent black Asil stallion Fabo (Fabah x Misimma by Fa Serr). Fabo, a 1962 Saqlawi Jadran, and the head sire at the late Walter Schimanski’s Masada Arabians. Photo from the collection of the late William J. Sheets (Billy). Check out another gorgeous picture of Fabo here.
I just realized that a good deal of the content on the “Daughter of the Wind” blog has been “hijacked” by another blogger who has posted it on his blog, “Banu Sanhadja Arabs” (here). I have chosen to take it as an additional proof to the success of “Daughter of the Wind”, six months into its launch, and will wish the “hijacker” good luck with his endeavor. Just wanted to let the readers of “Daughter of Wind” know that I am not associated in any way with the author of this other blog, who writes under the pseudonym of Abu Uwais al-Maghribi, even if my name appears on it. [Sept 2 Update: The posts “borrowed” from “Daughter of the Wind” have been removed from the blog “Banu Sanhadja Arabs”. Thank you, Abu Uwais]
Check out what is perhaps the most comprehensive article written about the Hungarian Stud of Babolna, its history, and its Asil Arabian horses, in the past and the present. Thanks to Tzviah Idan for allowing me to reproduce it here! Pictures of Babolna Asil Arabians taken by Tzviah are coming soon..
Believe it or not, this extremely pretty and typey mare is an Asil Arabian from Tunisia. Hadia, a Kuhaylah al-‘Ajuz, by Kefil out of Rafiaa, by Bango) was bred at Sidi Thabet in 1958, and is the dam of many successful racehorses. She is one of the few greys Sidi Thabet retained for breeding. She has one (remote) line to the stallion Ibn Fayda I (Ibn Rabdan x Lady Anne Blunt’s Feyda), a gift from Prince Kemal Eddin Hussain of Egypt to the government of Tunisia.
Madani (by Souci x Sissana by Mossoul) was one of Tunisia’s best Arabian racehorses in the 1950s. This old photo was originally published here. Madani is among others the sire of the stallion Inchallah, exported to France in the late 1950s. He also has progeny in Germany.
Western Arabian horse breeders are relatively familiar with the Arabian horse strain of Kuhaylan al-Krush (also known as Kuhaylan Krushan) through a variety of sources. A specific branch of this strain, Krush al-Baida (“the white Krush”) will be the subject of the sixth part of the “Strain of the Week” series (which, by the way, is starting to look like a “Strain of the Month” in disguise). For now, I’ll start the discussion with a brief resfresher of the encounters between Arabian horse breeders and the more general Krush family (beyond Krush al-Baida). Feel free to pitch in with feedback in the comments section of this blog post if you noticed that I omitted a reference or more, or visit this site, which also offers an overview (with pictures) of the main Krush lines around the world. The early fame of Kuhaylan al-Krush was certainly associated with the quest of the Egyptian Viceroy Abbas Pasha I for Asil horses from this strain. Several sources (or perhaps one source that was quoted several times, will look that up later) tell us that Abbas’s quest eventually failed, and that Bedouin owners of Krush mares refused to sell them, or give them…
Yesterday was a painful first work day after five weeks away from Washington. It’s pouring rain outside, and a quick glance at my office window makes my PC screen – where unread emails are piling up – a pleasure to stare at. Oh well… But I am back to blogging, and boy does that feel good.
If I were to chose one picture, I think this one would top them all.. Prince Hal (Tripoli x Dharebah), an Asil Kuhaylan al-Hayf, is just magnificent, with Charles Craver holding the bridle. [August 27 update: Thanks to AAW for this photo]
Jeanne Craver tells me my Wisteria (Triermain x HB Waddaudah) is due to foal in two weeks. Fingers crossed. I am hoping for a filly, a full sister to Walladah CF (Javera Thadrian x Wisteria CF), also pictured here, but would not mind a colt either.
Tomorrow I will be taking my family to Europe for vacation, and I will be back in the USA on August 26th. I will also be going to Yemen from August 6 to 15th, for work. I plan to see horses there too. I took the decision not to blog while on vacation. I don’t know if I’ll stick to it. This stuff is addictive! Enjoy your summer.
Some of you have emailed me privately with questions about French and North African Asil Arabians of the past and the present. Thank you for your messages. It is nice to see that there is interest in these horses. I reread the posts I have been writing on French Asil horses to refresh my memory. Most are “gloom and doom”, with words like “lost” and “last” all over the entries’ titles. The sad reality is that this grim assessment is true, and that French Asil are on the brink of extinction, despite the enormous number of desert horses imported to France and to its former North African possessions over the last two centuries. Arabian horse in France were – and are still – bred by two categories of breeders: the Government and private breeders. Since Napoleon’s time and until WWII, the French government has been importing and maintaining desert Arabian stallions in stallion depots across the country, as well as a small herd of broodmares in the stud of Pompadour. Arabian stallions and, to a lesser extent Arabian mares, were bred to English Thoroughbreds to produce Anglo-Arabs, a breed France is credited for creating and developing. A small nucleus of…
I just finished reading the first volume of “Cities of Salt”, the five-volume masterpiece of the prominent Arab novelist Abdelrahman Munif. I really recommend that you read it, if world literature is your cup of tea.. An English translation exists, by Peter Theroux, and so does a German one. There might be a French one too, published by Sindbad/Actes Sud edition, but I couldn’t find it online. Set sometimes in the 1920s or 1930s, the first volume of “Cities of Salt” tells the dramatic story of the transformation of a small village in an unnamed Arabian kindgom, following the discovery of oil by Americans. It describes the abrupt transition from tradition to modernity and its impact on the land and its inhabitants, from an Arab perscpective. Behind this thin veil of fiction, readers will no doubt recognize the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where the book was actually banned. Munif, who died in 2004, was well placed to write about this topic. He was born in Jordan, from an Iraqi mother, and Saudi father, the scion of a distinguished family of Agheyls, these merchant families whose caravans criss-crossed the Arabian peninsula, from Gaza and Damascus to Kuwait and from Hail to Bagdad.
Next on the list for the “Strain of the Week” series is Krush al-Baida. A celebrated strain, Krush al-Baida is only a small branch of the larger Kuhaylan al-Krush (or Kuhaylan Krushan) family. There is a lot to talk about.. Meanwhile, here is a picture of a desert-bred mare from this strain.
The series of articles on the Ma’naghi Hadraji strain – the fourth in the “train of the Week” feature – is not over yet. There is at least one more post I want to write. Yet I feel the urge to talk about something else for a change, so I thought I’d introduce you to the strain of Kuhaylan al-Dunays. Kuhaylan al-Dunays or Kuhaylan Dunaysan is now extinct in Asil Arabians in tail female, and this has been the case for about 30 years. In the late nineteenth century, the strain belonged to the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, and stallions from that strain could be bred from [shubuw]. I don’t know where the Sba’ah got the strain from, and I don’t know who owned it within Sba’ah. All things for future research. Perhaps the most famous representative of this strain was the stallion Padishah, a chestnut Kuhaylan Dunaysan from the marbat owned by the al-Mi’rabi landlords of the northern Lebanon plain of Akkar. The al-Mir’abi were not Bedouins, but landowners of Kurdish descent, yet their stud was held in high esteem by Bedouins and townsfolk alike. The Dunaysan marbat was known as the marbat of “Dunaysat of ‘Uyun al-Ghizlan”, in reference to the village of same…
Another picture of the magnificent Tunisian Asil stallion Irmak (Aissaoui x Leila by Duc), bred by Anatole Cordonnier in Tunisia in 1959 and exported to France. I posted another picture of Irmak here. Irmak was a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz by strain. Photo courtesy of P. H. Beillard, of the stud of Le Sureau in France.
I have added a new “poll of the week” feature to this blog. This week’s poll is about your favorite horse breeding master: Lady Anne Blunt, Carl Raswan, Homer Davenport, Abbas Pacha or Faisal Ibn Turki? Scroll down to see it, and cast your votes!
Did you know that evidence of the domestication of horses by man dated back to at least 4,300 years ago? This conclusion was reached by University of Chicago archaelogists following the discovery in 1993 of a clay figurine representing a horse at an excavation site in North Eastern Syria. The site, Tell es-Sweyhat, which is located on the Euphrates in present day Syria, was apparently a trading outpost between the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia.. I wonder whether the horse is an Arabian. How interesting would that be, especially that this is the same area the horse-breeding Bedouin tribes of Anazah and Shammar roamed and later settled. Of course, these tribes came from Central Arabia some 300 years ago, and so did their Arabian horses.. The New Times article also mentions Prof. Juris Zarins, who specializes in the role horses played in Middle East history, and teaches at the South West Missouri State University in Springfield. Maybe he could be invited to speak at a future Al Khamsa convention in nearby Illinois.. I wonder what the state of the research on the cradle of the Arabian horse is..
This is one of my all-time favorite Asil Arabian mares. LD Rubic (Plantagenet x Tarrla) is unique for several reasons: 1) she is a great-grand-daughter of the mare *Nufoud, a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare from Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud born in 1925 and imported to the USA in 1931 by Albert W. Harris. You cannot get any closer to the source, and what a source! A Kuhaylah from Ibn Saud! Too bad we don’t know which Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz that is. 2) She is a daughter of the fabulous stallion Plantagenet, an Asil Kuhaylan al-Hayf of the line imported to the USA by Homer Davenport in 1906. I am a big fan of the Plantagenet progeny, of which Palisades CF is another representative. Below is a picture of Plantagenet. 3) She doesn’t have any lines to the horses imported to the UK by Lady Anne and Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Blunt horses are in the pedigrees of most Arabian horses worldwide. The late Carol Lyons called these horses “Sharp”, by opposition to “Blunt”. 4) Her line was saved from extinction by a person I have enormous respect and admiration for: the late Carol Lyons. Carol had acquired Tarrla (Tarff x Kaluga by Alcazar), Rubic’s dam, in 1979. She was the…
The Bedouin tribe of Al Murrah has been immortalized by Wilfred Thesiger‘s gripping classic “Arabian Sands” (1959). If you want to have a less romanticized account of the life of this South Arabian Bedouin tribe, then you ought to read this book, by Donald Powell Cole of the American University in Cairo. Yet Cole’s book was written in the early 1970s, and the nomadism it describes is now gone. By the way, Al Murrah was the tribe of Ibn Jallab, founder of the marbat of Kuhaylan Jallabi, now extinct in Asil form (sorry, but can’t help but rubbing it in, in light of mtDNA evidence).. [correction: the Jallabi line still exits in Asil form in Bahrain, of course]
I visited Yemen for the time in 2002 – for work. I was a panelist in a conference that brought together government officials, academics, representative of the private sector, and traditional leaders. Among the latter, I recall seeing a man surrounded by a large retinue of armed bodyguards and followers. People stepped aside when he passed by, and everyone seemed to treat him with much awe and respect. I was told his name was Naji ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Shayif, and that he was the Supreme Shaykh (tribal leader) of Bakil. Bakil is one of the two largest Yemeni tribes, with several million members (the other tribe being Hashed, to which the President of the Republic of Yemen, H.E. Ali Abdallah al-Saleh, belongs). Later in the evening, I asked whether there still were Arabian horses in Yemen, and was told that the same Naji al-Shayif owned about 20 to 30 of them, and that he’d recently given one of them to a Western ambassador as a gift. I was also told that the shaykh of the tribe of Juhannam, on the Red Sea coast of Yemen, owned some 40 to 50 Arabian horses too. That was all the information I could gather on the horses of a country that is believed…
I feel every breeder of Asil horses should read this piece, re-read it, and read it once again … then act upon it.
Clue: photo is courtesy of Jeanne Craver, but the mare is not from Craver Farms..
Arabian horse strains as we know them today (i.e., family names of horses transmitted through the dam) are about 350 years old, and perhaps more, but we don’t how much more, because of the lack of written sources. The earliest mention of Arabian horses strains in Western Literature occurs in one of the several travel accounts of France’s Chevalier d’Arvieux (b. 1635 – d. 1702), “Voyage a la Palestine”. Published in Paris in 1717, it was translated into English in 1718 and published in London as “Travels in Arabia the Desart”, sixteen years after d’Arvieux death. Chapter XI, “Of the Arab Horses” has the following mention: “A Marseilles Merchant that liv’d at Rama, was Part’ner so in a Mare with an Arab whose Name was Abrahim Abou Vouasses: This Mare, whose name was Touysse, besides her Beauty, her Youngness, and her Price of Twelve hundred Crowns, was of that first noble Race. That Merchant had her whole Genealogy, with her Descent both of the Sire’s and Mother’s side, up to Five hundred Years of antiquity, all from public Records…” “Touysse”, the colloquial form of Tuwayssah, is clearly the earliest mention of any strain in Western literature. “That first noble race” refers to the “Kehhilan”, (or Kuhaylan…
In the interest of practicality and of getting things done, I suggest the following simple framework to assess the eligilbility of desert Arabian horses in any future Global Asil Horse Registry (GAHR). It consists of three levels of eligibility in the form of concentric circles [Jane Ott’also had three levels: BLUE STARS, Blue Lists, and Sublists, but mine are different]. There are specific eligibility criteria attached to each level of course, and a lot to say about who has the privelege of fixing these criteria, but lets hold on to that thought for later. Note that these criteria apply for those Arabian horses of desert bloodlines, currently living in Arabia Deserta (Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabian, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Lebanon). So, here goes: Level A: These are the purest of the pure, and include any or all of the following criteria: – the ones there is a broad consensus about in their place of origin – the ones we are fairly certain (as certain as one can be in an oral culture) can be traced back to a long time – the ones bred by the owner of the strain – the ones kept in relative isolation – the ones not…
The idea of an international registry for Asil Arabian horses has been gaining momentum over the last few years, not only within Western Asil breeeders’ circles, but among Arab breeders as well. Such a registry is long past due and would be the purists’ answer to WAHO. Several Western organizations have come close to establishing such a registry. The largest effort so far is that of the Asil Club, which in addition to bloodlines represented in Western breeding [Egyptian bloodlines, various bloodlines from the USA, the Asil remaining lines from Crabbet in the UK, Weil-Marbach in Germany and Babolna in Hungary] also includes the horses of the Royal Arabian Studs of Bahrain and those of the Saudi Arabian government stud of Dirab. In the 1970s, the Asil Club has also considered adding the Tunisian horses to its list, and is currently considering adding the Syrian horses (more on this move later, and what I think of it). Then there is Al Khamsa. While their roster is not the most inclusive (indeed, they tend to consider only those horses whose descendants came to the USA or Canada), it is without a doubt the most serious effort at researching the horses’ background and establishing their authenticity. Most recently, the Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse has been…
[This is the third in a series of four posts on the Ma’anaghi Hadraji marbat of Ibn ‘Ufaytan. Click here and here to access the first and second posts.] We reached the village of Ibn ‘Ufaytan [update July 17 2008: the village is Buthat al-Taqch] in the early afternoon, after having taken a dirt road that cut through the steppe. Faddan al-‘Ufaytan and his son, whose name I unfortuantely don’t recall, were waiting for us at the entrance of their house. Faddan, a Shammar Bedouin in his fifities, was the nephew and heir of Dahir al-‘Ufaytan, who owned the most famous and best authenticated marbat of Ma’naghi Hadraji in recent memory. Any Ma’naghi stallion coming from Dahir al-‘Ufaytan could be used as a stallion in the darkest of nights, as Bedouins would put it. Ibn ‘Ufaytan would only mate his mares to his own stallions, or to the stallions of his close relative and neighbour, Ibn Jlaidan, the owner of a famous Shammari marbat of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz, and the subject of earlier post. Back in the nineteen fourties and fifties, the horses of Ibn ‘Ufaytan made a name for themselves at Beirut racetrack as good racehorses of Asil stock, and it was said they were favorites of famous racehorse…
This picture of Hakem, the young stallion that is the subject of a previous blog entry, is long overdue. He is pictured at the growthy age of two years old, and in racing condition, so don’t expect to see a show horse, but rather look at the features that make for a good desert-bred arabian horse: big eyes, fine midbah (throat), tiny muzzle, triangular shape of the head, sculpted, inward-turning ears, well sloped shoulder, long neck, high withers, shiny skin, deep girth, short, straight back, etc. There is also the flowing action, and electrifying presence, which the picture does not render. In short, I think this horse has it all. Give him time to mature and you’ll see. These creatures are not complete before they are six or even seven years old. They mature very slowly. He reminds me a bit of the pictures of the desert bred stallions *Hamrah, imported as a young stallion to the USA in 1906 by Homer Davenport. It seems that, shorly after the visit during which I took this picture, some people from Damascus came and bought the horse. He is now being used as a stallion. Is a good horse ever going to be left in the desert?
This evening witnessed the visit of the 2000th reader of this blog, while the number of total hits was reaching 30,000 over five months. I am encouraged by these results, as they show there is some interest in what is ultimately a tiny niche within Arabian horsebreeding. As this blog continues its journey, I will be adding new features: video, podcasts, polls, and more. In the meantime, there is a new translation feature at the bottom of the second column, which allows readers of German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Arabic to access the materials in their own language. It’s not perfect, but it’s there.
A lot of “Photos of the Day” these days.. it is easier to keep a quasi daily writing routine when posting a photo with a short comment, as opposed to posting in the “Strain of the Week” series, which requires me to access research material, old and new.. Don’t take this as a sign of laziness however, it is just that work has been keeping me busy recently, or busier than usual. Today’s photo is about La Tisa, a gift from Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud, (then Sultan of Najd and Hjaz) to Charles R. Crane, a noted Arabist and philantropist, and of the two main actors of the King-Crane Commission, which was to have such an impact on post-World War One Middle Eastern politics. La Tisa was imported to the USA in 1931. A year later, the Sultanate of Najd and Hijaz became the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Crane had helped the USA secure some of its earliest oil concessions in Saudi Arabia, so if you are feeling the heat at the gas pump and ran out of people to blame, you can just blame it on him.. Joking aside, the gift of that mare was probably a small “thank you” gesture from Ibn Saud to Crane, for brokering some of these oil deals.…
By now, five months into the life of this blog, there has been enough material for a first-time user to get confused. So if you are looking for information on a particular topic, just click the link to the topic of interest to you on the first right-hand column under “Themes”, or click on a specific keyword under “Tag”.
The mention of Nomah, the pretty grey Kuhaylat al-Mizher from Syria, in an ealier entry leads me to show you another picture of a mare from the same strain. I do not recall the name of this fleebitten mare (it starts with S…), but I took the picture at the farm of Hisham Ghurayyib in Damascus some 15 years ago. Click on the picture to enlarge it (that’s how it works now).
Here’s a headshot of the pretty desert-bred mare Nomah, a Kuhaylat al-Mizher (some say Kuhaylat Ibn Mizher) from the Bedouin tribe of Tai, in North-Eastern Syria. Nomah, which was owned by B. Jadaan, was one of the most photographed Syrian mares, but this is one of her earlier photos. I have heard several people say that Kuhaylan Ibn Mizher is only a branch of Kuhaylan al-Krush, owned by a man by that name. Still, I am left wondering why anyone would change the name of such a prestigious strain as Kuhaylan al-Krush into something else. Perhaps mtDNA analysis could help elucidate this question.
Several recent blog entries have mentioned the Arabian mare Bucolique (Besbes x Berthe by Irmak). Bucolique is arguably one of the few remaining Asil mares of French bloodlines still in breedable age. She was born in 1982, so that window of opportunity is closing fast. Bucolique is not quite representative of “Old French” bloodlines: both her sire Besbes and her maternal grandsire Irmak (a gorgeous horse of the most classic type, pictured below) were born in Tunisia (at Sidi Thabet and Sidi Bou Hadid, respectively), and her maternal granddam Bassala was born in Algeria (at Tiaret). All three were subsequently imported to the French goverment stud of Pompadour, where they conspired to produce Bucolique and her full sister Best, pictured below. Best’s picture was sent to me by her owner Rose Cambon. Best, born in 1981, was still alive in 2006, but had stopped breeding. She is pensioned at Jean Cambon’s stud in South-Western France, after having produced a string of race winners in France and the United Arab Emirates, none of them by Asil stallions (I am being polite here: saying that some of these stallions are non-Asil is a euphemism). At the time, Ms. Cambon was open to the idea of trying to breed here again, this time…
According to noted French breeder and author Nicole de Blomac, in this article (in French), France imported 230 mares and 720 stallions from the desert up to 1945. Of course this includes French imports to Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. . Where have all these horses gone?
The following piece appeared in Al Khamsa Arabians III (2008) as a box, and is reproduced here to answer this important question. “Certificates of origin (singular hujjah, plural hujjaj) of horses written in the Arab world follow a clear and uniform pattern that seldom varies. The first part of these certificates is always a religious invocation that includes passages from the Quran (the holy book of Islam) and quotations of the Hadith (the approved and authenticated collections of the deeds and sayings of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam). In general, the shorter the religious preamble the greater the chance that the hujjah was written by a Bedouin and the greater the probablity that the horse was Bedouin owned at the time of the sale. Conversely, the longer a hujjah gets, the greater the likelihood that the certificate is the work of a townsman. There are several reasons for this situation, and at least a few words may be said of these. First, Bedouins tend to be less pious, or at least to have a different kind of piety, than townsfolk. At the time these certificates were being written, Bedouins were still poorly acquainted with the Quran and even less with…
Arabesque Azieze is at the center of the biggest “what if” story I have recently been involved in. Scroll down this website to see a picture of him (I do respect copyrights, sometimes). This Asil stallion was born in Australia in 1978 and was later sold to New Zealand. He was by the Asil stallion Hansan (El Hilal x Hamamaa), a stallion of Egyptian bloodlines. Nothing to write home about.. yet. The real story concerns Azieze’s dam, Orilla, a 1960 chestnut mare. Orilla was by the legendary Oran (Riffal x Astrella), and out of the mare Rabiha, by Rheoboam out of Nuhra. Oran, a Ubayyan Sharraq of the marbat of Ibn ‘Alyan traced to the famed Blunt desert import Queen of Sheba, and was bred by Lady Yule at Hanstead Stud. Oran was the last Asil stallion used at Crabbet Park by Lady Wentworth. Rheoboam was born at Musgrave Clark’s Courthouse Stud from old Blunt bloodlines… wait, there is more: Nuhra was a bay Asil mare (picture below) imported from Bahrain to England in 1938 by the Earl of Athlone, the brother of Queen Mary of England. Nuhra was a Wadhnat Khursan by strain, and her sire was a Kuhaylan…
Samarcande will be five months old next week. She better become a horse freak.
to Monika Savier from (from Italy), Karsten Scherling (from Germany) and Mahmud Abbas (from Syria) who created the WAHO 2007 Conference Syria website. One could spend hours watching the thousand photos and videos. Thank you.
I am tying to get hold of the journal article of same name. “Where have the Bedouin gone” was published by anthtropologist Donald Powell Cole of the American University in Cairo in Anthropological Quarterly – Volume 76, Number 2, Spring 2003, pp. 235-267 Here’s the article’s abstract, as written by the staff of Project Muse: “The Bedouin have been exoticized as nomads and essentialized as representatives of segmentary lineage organization and tribalism. This essay shows more complex and multifaceted existences and argues that “Bedouin” has changed from denoting a way of life in the past to marking an identity today. A multi-sited perspective presents socioeconomic and sociopolitical change among Bedouin from Algeria to Saudi Arabia and includes colonial impacts, commercialization of pastoral production, occupational change, and sedentarization. Bedouin involvement in tourism and the manufacture of Bedouin heritage for sale as a commodity and as a component of (some) Arab national heritages are also discussed. The coexistence of segmentation, markets, states, and Islam is stressed, with class divisions now becoming predominant. A concern with Middle Eastern ethnography in general, largely implicit, runs throughout the text.” Good stuff…
Tonight I landed in Doha, Qatar, for a work-related conference. I will be confined in the city’s overwhelmingly luxurious Sheraton hotel for the next three days, while you ride, train feed and enjoy your horses. Thank God they have wireless internet in the conference room. I will be blogging about Asil Arabians in my little corner. If I am caught, I will say it’s for the good cause (and I will continue to hope that my boss does not read this blog). Arabian horses are a really big deal here. The majority was imported from the West. “Decorative” horses mostly. Not quite my cup of tea. Others hail directly from Egypt and Syria. A tiny minority are indigenous Asil Arabians from old Qatari bloodlines. I recall this wonderful picture of a bay Wadhnan stallion in one of the early volumes of the Qatari studbook. If only Qatar had a hundred more like him left. How many are left? Where are they? Who knows their histories? I wish I could sneak out and see some of these gems..
I just opened a Flickr account, and I put on it photos of Asil Arabian horses that I got from the web. I will be putting more photos I took myself as we go. Click here for a slideshow. Place on your cursor on the horse’s photo if you want to know his name. There is also a permanent link to these photos on the first right sidebar under “My photos”.