Did you know about this book? Published in 1998.
I am in Beirut, Lebanon, visiting family for a week. I opened my email with 24 hours delay and found this wonderful piece of news from Kim Davis, who told me that the Kuhaylat al-Krush Cynnabar Myst (ASF David x Mystalla) foaled a filly yesterday at 4.15 pm. Sire is the grand Clarion CF. Pics coming later. I am indebted to Kim for having taking this mare when heavy in foal and foaled her in the best of conditions. Thank you, Kim, you are the best.
Did you know that what is currently considered as Volume I of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization studbook, the one published in English in 1948 (I think) was only the English translation of a previous volume published in Arabic in 1942 by Dr. Abdel Halim Ashoub? Well, I didn’t, until Yasser Ghanem al-Tahawi pointed me to it recently. Yasser was looking for explicit evidence of use by the RAS of Tahawi stallions in the early years, so he bought a recent reprint of this 1942 book from the EAO library. I look forward to acquiring one, too.
Does anyone has a valid email address for Pam Baker of Myrtle Beach, SC? I had a valid email address but when I tried writing last week, it bounced back.
I have now relocated to Cairo, Egypt for three years. If you want to write to me, please use this address: Edouard Aldahdah CAIWB 3301 Pennsy Drive Landover MD 20785 USA Mail (and books, magazines, etc, but not horses) to this address will be forwarded to my work address in Cairo via diplomatic pouch twice a week.
A “new” photo of *Exochorda, the best of her so far, has recently surfaced on Facebook. Here it is below, with filly Suleika at her side. It shows a well built mare of good Arabian type, reminiscent of some of the asil bloodlines from the Syrian desert such as the early Davenport Arabians, and the Hamidie horses. The croup was obviously passed on to her son Sirecho. Click on the photo to enlarge it. From the recent research, there is no doubt anymore about *Exochorda having been bred in Egypt, of two desert bred parents. Aiglon, owned by Ahmed Effendi Ibish, a Syrian race horse owner in Cairo and a native of Damascus, appears to have been bred in the Syria desert. All of Ibish’s horses came from there.
This is the text of Jane Ott’s obituary by Edie Booth on the Blue Arabian Horse Catalogue Facebook page: “On Wednesday, April 24th, 2013, at 1:50 AM, Miss Jane Llewellyn Ott slipped peacefully away. Miss Ott is a major historic figure and prime mover in recognizing the loss of the original desertbred horses among American breeders. Her primary research work is The Blue Arabian Horse Catalog. The Catalog listed all the horses Miss Ott could find, frequently with the help of Carl Raswan, that were authenticated as the original horses of the Bedouin tribes of Arabia. These horses were jotted down in a notebook with a blue cover, and the additional grouping of a star/asterisk was added for the horses that were without the Managhi strain of horses anywhere in their pedigree. This separation was due to unknown background on some of the Managhi horses, and as Miss Ott might say, the separation may not matter at all, but if it does matter and all the horses have been mixed, there is no way back. My introduction to Miss Ott was in 1986 after reading an interesting full page ad in EQUUS magazine. Located about 180 miles and under 3…
Just love this photo of Flourishes CF (Lydian x Fragrance CF by Regency CF) on Randal Abler’s Facebook page. That Anthesis dynasty (Fragrance, Chancery, Firebolt, Lexington) is quite something within the Davenport lines.
Randal Abler posted this photo of Vice Regent CF son Laarado (x Laarisa EAF, who is by Alaadri). He is owned by Kathy Kelly in Georgia. My Jamr Al Arab (out of Jadiba) is his half brother.
This she-camel recently won first prize in a regional Gulf beauty contest in the category of white camesl “al-wuduh”. I am increasingly interested in the production of camel beauty criteria in modern Arabia, because unlike Arabian horses, the lack of significant camel breeding in the West could mean that the codification of such criteria for camels may have taken place without Western influence.
That’s how the clerk at the Egyptian consulate in Washington DC spelled my name on my visa’s receipt, when I dropped my passport last week.. I had always thought of myself as a Ma’naqi, but this fellow did not seem to agree.
HH Spartan Krush (HH Solstice Krush x HH Nadirah Krush), the young colt at Kim Davis’ in Capron, Illinois, is simply magnificent.
Carrie Slayton of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force has succeeded in placing the blind 1998 mare Jadah Kerasun (ASF Raphael x ASF Ubeidiyah by ASF Ezra), a rare Hamdaniyah Simiryah tail female to the Ibn Saudi mare *Samirah in the hands of preservation breeder Marge Smith of Oregon. The mare just got there yesterday. In related news, Carrie sent the following two pictures of the other remaining Samirah tail female mares: 1993 Jadah Samirah (ASF Hercules x ASF Ubeidiyah by ASF Ezra) and her 2008 daughter Samirahs Adlayah (by Jadah Echos Amir). Pictures are the mares’ owner Stephanie Theinert McCloud. Both look very good. By the way, this is the same tail female as some of the Rushcreek Endurance horses.
Does anyone know which mare Major Upton is referring to in this section of his “Gleanings”, Chapter 4, “Visit to the Sabaah”? “Towards the close of a long and trying day, we made repeated offers for a bay mare, five years old and unblemished; she was a beautiful creature, just under fifteen hands in height, very bloodlike, but wildly excitable, glared at us like a tigress, and resented our approach even. Crowds gathered round as we frequently repeated our offer. The Shaykh indicated she was not to be taken away, and we thought we were on the eve of obtaining her, but suddenly, among the sound of many voices and loud talking, the mare was taken off by her owner. […] It was Sulayman ibn Mirshid who put the halter rope in my hands; her price was told out on the table, exactly that which I had offered, and handed over to her former owner, and the mare was picketed at our tent. A very simple certificate of the mare’s breeding and family was written out at my request, in the presence of the two Shaykhs, to which they placed their seals, one as a guarantee, the other as a…
This nice portrait of the Syrian desert-bred stallion Nimr Shabareq unfortunately sold on Feb. 2013. I wish I had know about it.
The horses of Mustafa Jabri, located in rebel-held areas, were stolen and sold to Turkey, and so were the horses of Fouad al-Attar and other breeders. Half of the horses of Radwan Shabareq have died, not from starvation (plenty of grass there) but from inhaling strange and suspicious gases. The other are sick. Their caregivers has to endure countless ordeals to prevent the remaining horses from being stolen or confiscated. Sigh.
Another piece of good news from preservation breeder Jeannie Lieb yesterday, with new hope for the Davenport *Hadba rare and endangered tail female. “RL Thunder Cloud x RL Bilquis delivered a beautiful chestnut filly with a perfect blaze, 3 white anklets and 1 white sock, last night around 11:00pm. Mother and daughter are doing great and this little gal is a firecracker!” *Hadba was the war mare of ‘Ajil ibn Zaydan al-Jarba and was taken by the Ottomans when this Shammar rebel Bedouin leader was killed. She was later resold and ended up with Homer Davenport who imported her to the USA in 1906. This is the same tail female line as the racing legend Kontiki.
It’s that time of the year again, and Arabian foals are popping up here and there. One of the newborns I chose to feature is little Niinah Nufoud (AEP Kamar x AB Dafiinah by HHA Manabi), a 2013 bay Kuhaylat al-Ajuz tracing to *Nufoud of the Saudi Royal Stud. This little filly traces twice to *Nufoud as her sire, Monica Respet’s AEP Kamar is also from this line. She is her dam’s and her owner Linda Uhrich’s first filly and represents a ray of hope for this precious tail female line. Congrats to both Linda and Monica.
This is one of the foundation stallions for the Blue Star program, he is a Hamdani Simri, a son of the imported Sindidah, and of the Ibn Jalawi stallion Jalam Al Ubayyan. The more I look at this picture, the more he reminds me of old Lebanese asil horses. The photo was posted by Susan Whitman on the Blue Arabian Horse Catalog Facebook page.
The stunning AAS Haizum (Desert Dhellal x Hawla Al Badia by Ibn Taamri), owned by Edie Booth of Canton, TX.
Susan Whitman recently sent me this picture of a promising and very correctly built 2011 colt from her tail-female Turfa program, MD Turfairan (MD Ibn Hattairan x MD Bint Turfaira by El Rabih). I especially like the photo of his maternal grandsire El Rabih (Al Felluje x Sharifa Abkar by Famaje), a Ubayyan stallion, with prominent facial bones, a sign of authenticity in Arabian horse breeding.
This morning I was looking up “Ibn Duwayhiss” , owner of an excellent marbat of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak in my notes — why? I will tell you later; this is more like a note to myself at this stage — and I found the following: “Ibn Duwayhiss, a family from al-Mawazin, from al-Jabbar, from al-‘Umayrah, from al-Husayn, from al-Bteynat, from al-Sba’ah”
Few passages from Lady Anne Blunt’s (LAB) Journal and Correspondence have left me thinking more than this one, from May 14, 1906: “Saw Mutlak for some time going through old list I had of families in various tribes, owners of special strains of blood. Found most of them correct.” How I wish I had access to LAB’s list. Over the past twenty years I have been compiling from various sources and updating a list of Bedouin sheykhs, notables and rank-and-file warriors and trying to match these to strains of blood (marabet) associated with them. The list is pretty extensive for the Shammar and ‘Anazah (in all its branches) tribes of Northern Arabia, but thinner for the other tribes. I will be publishing this list progressively here.
I am sure I have said this here before, but here it is again: Lady Anne Blunt’s Jauza is my favorite Arabian mare of all time.
I am so fond of this picture of Lady Anne’s Radia/Ghadia (Feysul x Ghazala) and can’t stop looking at these eyes and muzzle. Why did so many of today’s Egyptian horses, as beautiful and pretty as they are, lose these soulful eyes? Their eyes now have the size, the sparkle, the stare, the dark skin, but not the soul. Where has the soul gone? From time to time, it makes a comeback in a few individuals, and then it vanishes again.
There are a couple of hypotheses that could be tested. If anyone has a horse that is tail female Bint Kareema or knows someone who has one, please contact me: ealdahdah@hotmail.com
The Institute of the Desert Arabian Horse has undertaken a study of the following US and international asil maternal lines of Arabian horses. A lot of us are eagerly awaiting the results.
The other day I spent a most beautiful day between Abu Kebeer and Geziret Saoud in the Sharqiyah province of Egypt with the Tahawis. Yehia Abdelsattar al-Tahawi, Mohammed Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi and Yasser Ghanem Barakat, their friends and I spent hours talking about horses and looking at them. One can hardly find people with a richer and better preserved equine tradition. As always with them, I learned new and interesting things that could benefit Egyptian horses. It is about the Kafr Ibrash farm, which is where the Inshass foundation mare Bint Kareema was purchased from by the Inshass Stud. Here’s what we know about Bint Kareema: — She was a roan grey mare, born in 1935 and acquired from the “Kafr Ibrash Farm” by the Inshass Stud of King Fouad and his son King Farouk; — She was by Lady Anne Blunt’s Rasheed (Jamil Blunt x Zareefa), out of Kareema, a mare by a “Dahman” out of an “Obeya”; — She was sold to a Abd el Samad el Gayar on July 5, 1953, according to Pearson and Mol, first edition. — According to Judith Forbis’ Authentic Arabians, Volume 1, page 274, her strain was ‘Ubayyah’; this is perhaps an inference from her grand dam’s…
Here is a comment from Gerd, from Chile: “Three friends, readers of his blog, also inspired by the Blog, joined forces to try to keep the line of a Tahawy Arabian mare who arrived in Chile. So they found 3 mares.The only Arabs asil there are in chile are Egyptian, so they must continue in that line. Dreaming,they hope someday import semen from some asil stalion. It shall be from France as health formalities are easier for chile.”
(This post will remain on the top of the page of Daughters of the Wind for a month. Fore more recent posts, scroll down please) If you want to support the goals of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force of rescuing, rehoming and advocating for Al Khamsa Arabian horses from rare, precious and endangered lines, you can now make donations by PayPal, by visting this page (click here). Over the past week alone, we raised 2,450 USD from generous Al Khamsa supporters, and the goal is to reach 5.000 USD by the end of next week. You can also get there by going to to the Al Khamsa website site main page (www.alkhamsa.org) and click on the “Donations” banner to the right. There, you can either chose to support the Al Khamsa General Fund, the Preservation Task Force, or the Al Khamsa Endurance Award. The goals of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force for 2012 are to: 1) identify bloodlines in danger of being lost, and classify them in order of most urgent to less urgent (Code Red and Code Orange lists); write about them and advocate for them; search for horses from these bloodlines and their owners; establish a…
Black Sambo (Mahroun x Biroufa by Khebir) was the sire of the two Managhi Sbayli mares Milanne and Velours who are the source of the asil Ferida tail female in the USA, through the excellent mare Fejr (Rijm x Feluka out of Ferida), also photo below. You’ve go to love that powerful Crabbet hindquarter on Fejr.
Check out this really nice picture blog about Egypt.
I grew up in Lebanon during the civil war, witnessed my shared of charred bodies and bloodstains on the sidewalks, and consider myself rather immunized against violent sights, but this photo of a little one sobbing after Thursday’s suicide bombing near a school in Damascus (83 dead, including several dozen children) broke my heart, and haunts me at night since I saw it first three days ago. If hatred-filled “grownups” want to kill each other until no man is left standing, and no stone left on top of another stone, it’s their problem, but what do this little one and his dead and injured classmates have to do it with it? In the name of what was this done to this little one? Freedom? This word loses its value when such crimes are committed in its name.
Some time ago, I announced on this blog a series of blog posts on “ten myths about Straight Egyptian pedigrees”, which I contended were harder to dispel than misconceptions about other groups of Arabian horses (see here, and the ensuing discussion). I did not plan to start with this one, but a recent side discussion about El Samraa (INS) on this blog prompted me to do it. So here’s the first “myth” in this series: The 1924 Inshass Stud foundation mare “El Samraa”, entry is #13 in the “Inshass Original Herd Book“, is listed as sired by a stallion named “Hab El Reah” and out of a mare named “Bint El Sheik”. I always thought these were unusual names for horses but did not second guess the information until recently. It turns out these are not horse names at all, and the explanation is fascinating. Here’s why: In a number of hujaj (original Arabian horse certificates in the Arabic language) dating from the early to the late twentieth century, references are made to individual horses being “from Habt El Reah and Nabt (not Bint) El Sheeh”, in Arabic “min habbat al-reeh wa nabata al-sheeh”, a phrase which rhymes in Arabic. Below…
Is anyone interested in going through the online roster and tracking down how many tail female Rabanna mares of breeding age?
Then send US$ checks payable to Al Khamsa Inc. designating the money for the Preservation Task Force. Send by postal service to Al Khamsa Business Office, 7275 Manchester Road, Capron, Illinois 61012, USA.
Photo by Syrian traveler Hussain Ibish, who was accompanying faculty from the American University of Beirut (AUB, my alma mater) to a trip to the Syrian desert in 1935. I am sure the AUB library has a lot of hidden treasures about this period and part of the world.
Gleaned off the internet.. an announcement about the spring festival of 1937 in Deir El Zor, Syria.
See what you could with mtDNA? Modern breeders who knowingly cheated with Arabian female lines should be scared… “Despite this, a team of enthusiasts and historians traced the likely area – and, crucially, also found a 17th-generation descendant of Richard’s sister with whose DNA they could compare any remains recovered. Genealogical research eventually led to a Canadian woman called Joy Ibsen. She died several years ago but her son, Michael, who now works in London, provided a sample. The researchers were fortunate as, while the DNA they were looking for was in all Joy Ibsen’s offspring, it is only handed down through the female line and her only daughter has no children. The line was about to stop […]. She added: “There is a DNA match between the maternal DNA of the descendants of the family of Richard III and the skeletal remains we found at the Greyfriars dig. In short, the DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III.” Read the full article here, and a related article here.
Marie Arthur shared this photo of RL Boomerette (DDA Ihsan x DDA Hadba by Letarnad), a 2000 mare of the Hadban strain from Davenport bloodlines.
I was re-reading Edouard’s December 11th, 2012 post on the photo of Haleb in 1906 with the Anazah Bedouin and how he is a “benchmark”. Haleb was a huge early influence on me as a novice because I noticed this minimalist aesthetic that he had in the photos that I had seen — the same quality in which we admire the Gazelle for its natural beauty combined with supreme function. Nothing to excess and everything in its place as Homer Davenport once said. No doubt this is what the Bedouin celebrated in their poetry. In a certain light, even the camel is a beautiful animal for its supreme function without any excess for its purpose. Now is wish to comment about benchmarks. I still tend to see the Egyptian horse in kinships with its tribal bred cousins rather than apart from them. I realize that modern tastes and a restless…
Philippe Paraskevas has posted dozens of photos of the asil Arabians of the Royal Stud of Bahrain on his Facebook page, the Egyptian Alternative, under three albums: stallions, mares, fillies and colts. If you don’t have a Facebook account, I would get one just for that.
Here are excerpts from the report the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force submitted to the Al Khamsa Board of Directors at this January’s winter Board meeting: Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force January 2013 Update Task Force Goals for 2013: 1) identify bloodlines in danger of being lost, and classify them in order of most urgent to less urgent (Code Red and Code Orange lists); write about them and advocate for them; search for horses from these bloodlines and their owners; establish a database for these bloodlines; the task force is limited to endangered Ancestral Elements and Foundation horses, plus some rare and significant tail females that are not otherwise endangered when found in the middle of the pedigree. For example, it’s about preserving the *Aire tail female, rather than the line of *Aire in the middle of the pedigrees. 2) reach out to owners of horses from above bloodlines to encourage them to preserve these horses, and if they can’t find new preservation homes for them, help them find preservation homes; 3) provide assistance with registration issues faced by owners of such horses; Since the last update on October 2012, we did the following things: –locate five Davenport fillies of…
This is how of the rescued Davenport Hadban Enzahi mares, RL Bilquis (DDA Rasan x RL Boomerette) looks like when in the knowledgeable, caring and responsible hands of someone like Jeannie Lieb. This mare, 6 months pregnant, was a pack of bones when Jeannie rescued her, and it was not certain she would survive.
Based on the racing records of some specific horse lines in the Middle East, and on the identity of horses from these lines imported to the USA, here is a list of US Arabian horse lines that would be expected to do well in the competitive racing and endurance realms, in addition to the *Hadba Davenport line, already discussed below: — Any line tracing to any of the Hearst imports, especially *Layya, *Lebnaniah, *Bint Rajwa, *Mounwer, *Bourhane and *Kouhailane. All these were good race horses in Lebanon prior to their importation to the USA in 1947. There is one Al Khamsa line left to *Layya. — Any line tracing to *King John, a good race horse himself when in Egypt, and a representative of the superior line of Saqlawi Jadran of Dari al-Mahmoud, many representatives of which were either race winners in the Middle East or sires and dams of race winners (e.g., the desert bred Saqlawi Ebbo, a close relative of *King John’s, and the sire of ‘Ataba, an outstanding race horse who sired the Hindi US import of *Bint Attebe). *King John had a thin line in Al Khamsa through Beau Nusik, but it is now gone. —…
I enjoyed the story that Edouard related about the Shammar Hadba female line and indeed it has fame in American racing bloodlines through Kontiki. It also interesting to note that in the Al Khamsa bloodlines one branch of the Hadba Davenport dam line has distinguished itself in racing according to AJC and DataSource. First of all, posted above are two chestnut mares and a yearling colt. The first mare is the Davenport mare Waddarlah (El Alamein x Trisarlah) and the second mare is her full sister Letarlah. Both of these mares were bred by Carolyn (Kiki) Case of the famed Glorieta Ranch. Glorieta is mainly renowned for the straight Egyptians it bred which have a big international following particularly in the Gulf and Egypt. However Kiki also had these two Davenport mares, one of which was at Glorieta when I visited in the mid 1970s, that was Letarlah. Waddarlah had just gone to Illinois before I arrived and became well known in Davenport breeding, particularly for her daughters Bint Oberon and full sister Aischia. Letarlah remained at Glorieta until the early 1980s when she then produced for Davenport lines. Prior to their Davenport breeding careers these two sisters at Glorieta…
Today marks the 5th anniversary of Daughters of the Wind, and the 5th anniversary of my daughter Samarcande who inspired this website. She is now a young lady, a future champion swimmer and horse-back rider. She also loves ice cream.. I realize I have been less active than in previous years; this is partly because I am a much busier person now than I was before, and partly because the needs to act, and act fast, before it is too late on preservation emergencies in North America. This has increasingly shifted my focus from advocating for the preservation of the precious few Asil Arabian horses to actually helping undertake the time-consuming, labor-intensive, tedious and often uninspiring but oh-so-rewarding tasks of preservation in the context of the Al Khamsa Preservation Task Force: identifying the horses; contacting their owners, finding new homes; arranging leases, shipping, following up on breeding, etc. I will also be moving to Egypt for work in a few months, for a two or three year stint, and I hope I will be both less busy at work and more active on this website. Meanwhile, Samarcande was joined by a little sister three months ago. Solenn Hend Al-Dahdah is…
This is what winter looks like in Northern California. And this is what a 19yo Davenport mare looks like when training a young eventer (note stirrups crossed over withers). Bruce Peek will immediately note the reach of her inside hind. 🙂 Blessings of the new year to you all — Ambar
I was looking at the current Babson Egyptian Arabian stallions tonight, and I was struck by this younger stallion, bred by Dan Ulm. The 2001 chesntnut Saqlawi Jadran stallion Du Akhir Flame (Ibn Mahrouf x Serra Afina by Serr Rou) is quite something. He is really well built, and I especially like the shoulder, the depth of girth and the withers. I even like the color. He is owned by Kim Cooper of Missouri Virginia.
My kind of mare. By Sportin Life out of Sarra Al Krushah by Asar Al Krush. Davenport lines. She reminds of Qadheefah, a bay Ubayyah Suhayliyah from the stud of Mustapha Jabri outside Aleppo. Note the high withers, the deep girth, the hocks well let out, and the long ears. As long as there are still mares like that 100 years after Davenport’s importation from Syria to the USA, then there is hope for this breed.
Jose Manuel from Spain sent me this nice note: “I am a follower of your blog and I would like to tell you thanks so much for your wisdom about the arabian horse and the Bedouins because they go together. following your suggestions I saw the stallion Najm Yarob in abrash krush stud near Madrid( if you want you have photos of him in the stud website) and I bought him to breed to my Egyptian mares. Please continue writing; you are helping many asil arabian horses (for exemple, najm yarob). I THINK IF YOU SEE THIS HORSE YOU WOULD LIKE HIM. YOURS SINCERELY.” I want to tell him: your courage (yes, this requires courage) encourages me.
Photo from the Davenport Project on Facebook. This was the benchmark for an Arabian stallion, by the way. Today’s beauty champion winners belong to another race, a distant descendant from the original one. They are post-Arabians, and it is time to recognize this fact.
I have one thing to say to those Arabian horse breeders around the world who cheated by replacing a mare with another, and registering the progeny of the second mare as being from first: with mtDNA scientific progress on your doorsteps and the genetic tracing of female lines, you are doomed. You, your horses and your reputation. For those who did a similar deed by registering one stallion’s progeny as another’s, your turn is coming soon.
Something needs to be done for the Syrian Arabian horses in the Aleppo area, fast. The price of fodder has been multiplied by ten, and horses from solid studs are starving. Some of us are trying to think of long term solutions, fast. A question here: it is currently difficult to get export papers from the government. Suppose horses are made to cross the border with Turkey, without export papers, vet papers, but with their registration papers, what would happen to their registration? Would it be possible to register them in another country post-factum? Or are they not register-able forever? Is one harming the potential future contribution of these horses to the breed by getting them outside of the country without proper papers?
I am stuck in the Frankfurt airport on my way to Cairo (again) because of a snowstorm, and was reading this future studies article on what the Middle East will be looking like fifty years from now. The scenarios outlined are quite grim. Most of them involve a combination of large-scale and extended droughts, environmental degradation (salinity and rapid urbanization are rapidly killing the Nile Delta), water shortages (San’aa, the capital of Yemen will be the first city in the world to completely run out of water by 2020– that’s in 7 years), water wars, demographic explosion, urban unrest in sprawling slums, large scale unemployment, violence, etc. This brings me to the subject of the survival of the Desert Arabian horse in its original homeland, which is seriously threatened. It reinforces my belief that the valuable genetic material still available in the Middle East will need to find its way to more stable parts of the world (like the USA or Canada, because I just don’t see Western Europe on a path of long term stability) where it can be preserved for generations to come. I am not talking about the high-end, overbred, delicate Egyptian Arabian horse creatures that grace Egyptian and Gulf studs; the blood of Nazeer, Moniet, Bukra, etc, is all over the world, and it’s not…
Jamal Pasha, known as al-Saffah (“The Blood Shedder”) was governor of the Ottoman Vilayet of Syria just before World War I. He is shown here surrounded by the Shaykhs of Iraqi Bedouin tribes, celebrating the completion of the al-Hindya dam on the Euphrates river near al-Hilla, south of Baghdad. Photo from Wikipedia.