An interesting trend common to both Syrian and Bahraini Arabian horses is the disappearing of the old Bedouin concept of “Shubuw” or “Yishabby”. The concept means “fit for breeding” or “good for breeding”. Before the 1980s in Bahrain, and the 2000s in Syria, there was a distinction between the strains that were considered “fit for breeding” and the strains that were not. Within Syria, there was no broad agreement on which strains were “fit for breeding” and which were not, as each region, each tribe, even each group of people had their own opinion on the issue, but the concept did exist and was part of the conversation about Arabian horses. I recall that back in the 1990s a Syrian breeder could be chided for breeding his mares to a Sa’dan, a Rishan, a Rabdan or a Da’jani stallion. Today the distinction has become moot, and all strains are being bred from in both countries — for now.
The Facebook page for the publishing house, al-Dar al-Sultaniyah lil-Dirassat wal-Watha’iq al-‘Uthmaniyah publishes documents in the Arabic language from the Ottoman imperial archives in Istanbul. The publisher’s knowledge of Arabic and his apparent lack of familiarity with Ottoman Turkish, the official language of the Ottoman Empire, means that all the documents on the page are letters to Ottoman high-ranking officials from their Arabic-speaking subjects, usually urban notables, provincial leaders, or Bedouin tribal chiefs. They generally relay grievances, concerns, requests to officials in Istanbul. Occasionally, one finds documents about Arabian horses. The document below is one of these: The Facebook post mentioned that this was a list of horses sent by the Shammar to the Ottoman Sultan or his Grand Vizir in 1891. The document’s beginning and end appear to have been cropped by the publisher. This is my translation of the published excerpt: The blonde/chestnut Kuhaylah; also, the red/bay Kuhaylah, three legs white except the left foreleg, with a blaze (sayyalah); also they yellow and she is the Tuwayssah; also, the Kuhaylah Umm ‘Arqub, light grey; also the yellow/grey Kuhaylat ‘Aafess; also the red Kuhaylah, both hindlegs white, with a blaze; also the black Kuhaylah, right hindleg white, with a…
The British Arab Horse Society (AHS) celebrated its centennary in 2018. For this occasion, it curated an exhibition in Newmarket, England, where it showcased three hujaj of desert-bred mares imported to the UK, among other original documents. Kina Murray, who was then WAHO Secretary, had asked me to translate these for AHS. Below is the translation of the first hujjah. “Testimonial paper We, the undersigned from the tribe of al-Ghurayr, testify by God concerning the bay mare, a stripe in her forehead, named Nuha Khanum, the daughter of Salma, her origin is Kuhaylat Aba Snun al-Nawwakah, her sire is the Saqlawi of Ibn Mahmud, she belongs to Hazza’ al-Rashed of the tribe of al-Ghurayr; for this [reason] we composed this testimonial paper concerning the origin of the mare; God is a witness to and a trustee of what we say. About the sire of her dam he is the Hamdani, and the sire of her maternal grand-dam is the ‘Ubayyan al-Suhayli. Ubayd al-Jammagh One of the heads of the tribe of al-Ghurayr ‘Abdallah al-Rumman The head of the tribe of al-Masalihah Ibrahim al-Muhammad One of the heads of the tribe of Qartan Aswad al-Salbuh [uncertain reading] One of the heads…
An image of this document appears on page 79 of Peter Upton’s The Arab Horse (The Crowood Press, 1989). It is inconspicuously labeled as “Fig. 132. Facsimile of an Arab letter to Sir Gilbert Clayton“. Here is my translation, based off the image above, with my comments between the brackets: In the name of God, the Merciful the Compassionate [printed letterhead] The Hijazi and Najdi Kingdom and its dependencies [printed letterhead]The Diwan of His Majesty the King [printed letterhead] Number 87320 Dhul Qi’dah Year 1345 [printed year, date equivalent to Saturday May 21, 1927] From Abd al-‘Aziz son of ‘Abd al-Rahman of the House of Faysal [i.e., Faysal ibn Turki] to his Excellency the Sir Clayton:After greetings and compliments, we present Your Excellency with the horses, a male horse and a mare. As to the male horse, he is the Saqlawi of the most authentic [asaayil, plural of asil] horses of Najd; his sire is an ‘Ubayyan; the mare is Krush; her sire is a Kuhaylan.However, quite regrettably I saw today that their looks were not nice looks; the reason for this is the length of the journey, because they’ve been in the wilderness [al-barriyah, literally, “the bush”] for a…
In the same vein as other articles on the original documentation on desert Arabians imported to the US from Saudi Arabia, this is my translation from Arabic of a hujjah about the breeding of the mare *Halwaaji of the Saud Royal Stud to the stallion Mas’ud: In the name of God the Most Merciful and Compassionate Riyadh Province of Najd Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 11 Jumadah al-Aakhar 1380 I, Mutlaq al-‘Atawi, the head of the royal horse stables of his Highness King Saud ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, declare that the following testimony is correct: On the 11th of Rabi’ al-Thani 1378, the ownership of the red Hamdaniyah mare “Halwaaji” was transferred to Sam Roach; and it was well-known that this mare was in foal to the grey Hamdani horse “Mas’ud” at the time of the transfer of her ownership; the horse “Mas’ud” bred the mare “Halwaaji” on the date of the 14th of Dhul Hujjah 1377; he bred her another time on the date of the 16th of Dhul Hujjah 1377. And I certify in front of God Most High that the mare “Halwaaji” and the horse “Mas’ud” are both from pure blood and a noble origin, tracing to horses whose…
Hujaj (plural of hujjah), the Arabic authentication certificates, come in all shapes and forms. Some consist of a few handwritten words scribbled by the breeder or owner on a piece of paper. Some are more elaborate, the work of government officials, with dates, stamps, letterahead, and formal language. Some are the words of barely literate men, some are high literature. Look at this hujjah for the 1945 grey stallion Walid El Seglawi (his photos below), the sire of the mare Jamalah El Jedrani imported to the USA by ARAMCO expatriate Fran Richards. This is my translation of it: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Testimony on the origin of a horseLet it be known that my mare, the Saqlawiyah, was bred to my horse the Saqlawi, and that this horse was born in August 1945 [implied: as a result of the mating]. My mare and my horse are from a deep-rooted origin in the steppe [badiyah] with the tribe of Bani Khalid; and this horse, named Walid, was sold to Mr. Nick Lederle of al-Dhahran. Hasan son of Mansur the Saihati The document is straightforward, but there is more than meets the eye. A few observations on both text and context: First,…
I have been reading a passage in the Arabic original version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript on the testimony of an elderly man of the Ruwalah Bedouins about a certain Kuhaylah mare. Here is my translation into English: “Some say that she is Kuhaylah, and other people say that she is ‘Ubayyah, and we don’t know which stud [marbat] she is from, and it slipped our mind; after some years of breeding the mare, she produced a bay filly, which turned into a beautiful [zaynah], nadhir, and speedy [sabuq] mare… these are the stories we know about her, other than this we don’t know“. [He] was asked about the sire of the mare; [he] reported: “It has slipped our mind, O ‘Ali; however, at that time, they [i.e., the Ruwalah] mated the Saqlawi Jadran and Kuhaylan Tamri of the horses of Ibn ‘Abhul; these were the dearest of the stallions we used to mate; but we don’t know who her sire is, and we haven’t pinned down which horses her sire is from“; [he] was asked about the mare’s dam: did she happen to beget anything else [other than the bay filly] or not? [He] reported: “By God, O ‘Ali,…
The authentication document — in Arabic, hujjah — of the Blunt desert-bred import Meshura is not done yielding more information. One year after having published its translation and commentary into English in the book The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha, I keep learning new things about it. As background, Meshura great-grand-dam, “The Mare of Daghir”, a Saqlawiyah Ubayriyah of the Marighi strain, was imported to Egypt by Abbas Pasha. The episode of the sale of this mare is narrated in the hujjah, as follows: “This mare was bought by Abbas Pacha from the house of Dirri and the sale transaction took place in the house of Jad’aan in the presence of Mujayhim ibn Dari and her price was 4000 ghazis [two illegible words] Muhammad Ali Sharif with Ali Bek and he was our guest in [three illegible words, including one place name] before the uprising of Aleppo ([illegible word] (the verification of the date of the year needs to be done)“; I was unable to unlock the meaning of that “uprising of Aleppo” (in the Arabic text of the hujjah qawmat Halab), nor to date it precisely — until now. While browsing a selection of Ottoman archives online, I came across…
The photo below comes from the Imperial War Museum’s Ministry of Information Second World War Collection. The description from the Imperial War Museum’s page reads as follows: CONTINGENT ARRIVES IN ENGLAND FOR VICTORY PARADE, LIVERPOOL, LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND, UK, 1946 (D 27677) Sergeant Major Mahmoud Zahaire of the Trans Jordan Frontier Forces tends to the two horses he was tasked with bringing to England on the deck of the ORBITA. The horses are a gift from the Palace of Prince Amir Abdullah for the Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth. A colleague from the Trans Jordan Frontier Forces helps to feed the horses. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205202314
I like this fuzzy video screenshot of Nelyo, the 2015 dark bay Ubayyan stallion I got from Edie Booth a couple of years ago. It shows his “style” when moving and his flowing lines, including the arch of the tail “comme un jet d’eau” as the French would say. The lines are such that one wants to grab a pencil and make a sketch. That deep black-bay color is called asda‘ in Arabic (from sada‘ = rust). He is part of this plan of mine to inject “newer” (ie, 1940s and early 1950s, so mainly the ARAMCO horses) desert blood into my mares from older (ie, 1880s-1900s) American lines, and see where that takes me. The asil Arabian horse is one. Compare with that even fuzzier photo of Nelyo’s ancestor Jalam Al Ubayyan, another Ubayyan stallion direct from Ibn Jalawi. Jalam’s photo is from Edie’s collection, I think.
The circumstances of the acquisition by Lady Anne Blunt of the Bahraini mare Bint El Bahreyn, an existing line in Egyptian Arabian horses, are well documented in her Journals and Correspondence, which Rosemary Archer and James Fleming published in 1986. The published Journals, however extensive, are only a curated subset of Lady Anne’s original handwritten journals at the British Library. They do not represent a full record of what Lady Anne recorded about Bint El Bahreyn in her journals, including a controversy about the mare’s actual strain. Read on. Sometime in late 2021, as Judith Forbis and I were working on the publication of the book “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha“, she shared with me typewritten excepts that she had transcribed from Lady Anne’s manuscript journals at the British Library visit in 1974 — so before Archer’s and Fleming’s publication. What follows below is a compilation of the journal entries about the purchase of Bint El Bahreyn, from the published journals and as well as in Judi’s typewritten notes. [From the published J&C] December 4, 1907: “He [Prince Mohammed Ali] says [his brother] the Khedive is also selling the two mares, Dahmeh Shahwanieh’s from I. Khalifeh, so I said…
The Abbas Pasha Manuscript was completed in 1853 and is a compilation of accounts dating ca. 1850. Its Kuhaylan section has three short but interesting accounts about the “Five, the Mares of the [Prophet’s] Companions [al-Sahabah]. Account of ‘Arar Ibn Hunaydi, an elderly man, in a Ruwalah majliss of more than thirty people: “one Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah, one Jilfah Istanbalutiyah, one Saqlawiyah, and two that slipped my mind“ Account of ‘Ali ibn Daham, aged around seventy or eighty years or more, and Hamdan ibn Sani’, aged around seventy years or more, in a Bani Sakhr majliss of around fourty people: “one Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah, one Jilfah Istanbalutiyah, one Mukhalladiyah, one Kubayshah [uncertain reading], and one Saqlawiyah” Account of Tariq Ibn Dalmaz, owner of al-Saqlawiyah, of the Arabs of al-Sardiyah: “one Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah, one Jilfah Istanbalutiyah, one Saqlawiyah, one Mukhalladiyah, and one that’s not on my mind” A few quick observations on these accounts: 1/ Nowhere are the Five referred to as being the Five mares of the Prophet Muhammad [khams al-Rasul]; rather, they are referred to as the Five of his Companions [khams al-Sahabah]; it’s an important difference. In this regard, the Mukhalladiyah, which is listed in two of the three accounts,…
In my earlier dives into the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, I had somehow missed this statement on the origin of the Saqlawi Jadran strain: Talal Ibn Ramal [a Shammar Bedouin notable from Najd] was asked: from whom did the Jadraniyah originally reach Ibn Jadran? The aforementioned stated before the gathering that these were ancient utterances [qaalaat mubtiyah, meaning that recollections about them were faint]; but that they had heard from their first forefathers that the Jadraniyah was originally a Kuhaylat ‘Ajuz from amongst the Five [al-Khams]; that at the time of the [Prophet’s] Companions, the Kuhaylah had kicked [saqalat] another mare and injured her, and was named Saqlawi after that [incident]; that Saqlawi was a name [ie, for that Kuhaylah]; that she had originally passed to Ibn Jadran from one of two tribes, either from al-Dhafir or from al-‘Issa; that was what they had heard from the ancient ones. It is especially hard to disentangle foundational myths and legends from historical fact. In oral cultures, it’s almost impossible. That the source of the account acknowledged upfront “that these were ancient utterances” should be in this case be taken as a disclaimer of sorts, or at least a healthy dose of distancing;…
Today I took — yet another — deep dive into the Saqlawi Marighi section in the Arabic version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript as published by the KAPL from the original of Gulsun Sherif. What I like the most in the book are the snippets where Bedouins share their views on breeding and conformation. These are usually buried within accounts of how horses passed from person or tribe to another. As such there are not gathered in one place. For example, here’s what al-Hudayri, a Bedouin from the Frijah clan of the Ruwalah, and otherwise a key source on the histories of the Saqlawi Jadran, Saqlawi Ubayri and Saqlawi Marighi strains, had to say about the impact of inbreeding Saqlawi Marighi mares to Saqlawi Marighi stallions on the size of their progeny: Whether the body of the mares is large or small has to do with the stallions, because the mares were not “struck by” (i.e., bred to) other stallions, only [to ones] from within and among them, the strain to itself, so they became the medium-sized mares that you are seeing now; and it is common knowledge that the shape [of the mares] is from the stallions; so when…
In my book The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha: New Discoveries: The 1860 Abbas Pasha Sale List and Other Original Documents (Ansata Publications, 2022), with Kate McLachlan and Moira Walker, I showed how the strain of the Blunt mare Basilisk and hence that of her female descendants, including the Pritzlaff mare Rabanna and her own descendants, is actually Saqlawi Marighi. I made this discovery using two surviving original Arabic sources: the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, and the hujjah (Arabic certificate) of the Blunt mare Meshura, a close relative of Basilisk’s in the female line. The Abbas Pasha Manuscript was translated into English by Gulsun Sherif and beautifully published by Judith Forbis (Ansata Publications, 1993). The Arabic manuscript was then acquired by officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and published in Arabic under its original title Usul al-Khayl al-‘Arabiyah. An image copy of the hujjah of the Blunts’ mare Meshura was originally published in the book of her daughter Lady Wentworth, The Authentic Arabian Horse (1945). I published an English translation of it for the first time on this blog in May 2008 (link here), before publishing a slightly revised translation in my book in 2022. In summary, both primary sources…
From Rehan Ud Din Baber’s page, quoting King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud in the book ‘Ibn Sa?oud of Arabia, his people and his land’ by Ameen Rihani: “The Arabs of the North,’ he said, ‘ are heavy of foot and stolid; the people of Najd are quick, light, wiry. They snap and break not. Like our camels. The zelul of the North is strong but slow; that of the south is fast, although he has not so much enduring power. But the people of Najd are like the Bedu in hardship and adversity. We train ourselves in endurance. We put up with much that is hard and onerous. It is our land, our habit of life, our destiny —all one. We have to be always ready and fit. I train my own children to walk barefoot, to rise two hours before the dawn, to eat but little, to ride horses bareback, —sometimes we have not a moment to saddle a horse—leap to his back and go! This is the Najdi —the Najd spirit—the Najd condition of life. Especially the Najdis of the South — we are like our Bedu in this. ‘The people of Al-Qasim are traders and are not,…
I am happy to introduce Silvia Bacci as a guest blogger from Argentina on Daughters of the Wind ab horse in the way it came to us, when they were taken away from their cradle land. From Silvia: I have loved horses since I was born. And that love hasn’t diminished with age but on the contrary grew to encompass all and everything horse related. Was riding horses in the open fields by myself at 3 years old and riding in the sierras fresh-off-the track TB at 8 and enjoying them like the horse crazy kid that I was – and in part still am. My professional career took me away from the horses that I loved but the first thing I did when I stopped traveling and finally settled in one place was to buy a horse. My first Arabian horse. I have loved and admired Arabian horses and their history and relationship with their people all my life. Since discovering the Arab horses I have been a student of them – and I guess I can say, I will keep studying, learning and loving them until the end of times. With the study and learning of the Arabian…
In the British Museum lies this wall panel relief believed to represent queen Shamsi of the Arabs following her defeat at the hands of Tiglath-Pileser III’s Assyrian armies in 732 BCE. The four camels and the vase she holds in her hand are a representation of the tribute her Arab tribes had to pay to their victor. The relief dates from 728 BCE and was set at the central palace of Nimrud in today’s Northern Iraq, where British orientalist Sir Austen Henry Layard excavated it and moved it to London in 1848.
Edie Booth posted this new-to-me, fuzzy, yet revealing photo of Jalam Al Ubayyan on her Instagram account. He was an Ubayyan Sharrak from the strain of Ibn Jalawi in Eastern Saudi Arabia. Somewhere on this blog, I wrote about what Dr. Ahmed Mabrouk of the RAS said about this strain on his visit to Ibn Jalawi in 1936.
Shams Al Arab (Cascade DE x SS Lady Guenevere) is built like a tank. Jeanne Craver and I were discussing whether her muscular hindquarter was more like that of a Doyle horse or whether it was more characteristic of the Drissula horses. She think it’s the latter and that her old mare Soiree (Sir x Sirrulya by Julyan) was like that. Julyan certainly produced horses built like that. Photos by DeWayne Brown this time, at the Doyle ranch. Click to enlarge them.
Shams is Shaman’s maternal sister, out of DeWayne’s mare SS Lady Guenevere and by Cascade DE, a young Doyle stallion born in 2018. She is very strongly put together — look at that rear end! — but her neck could be a tad too short. Then again, her back is very short too, as DeWayne was quick to point out to me. Lyman Doyle, who took the nice pictures a couple days, ago thinks that she will turn a deep liver chestnut like her dam. It’s one of my favorite colors in Arabians. If Shams lives and matures into a broodmare I should like to breed her to a Davenport stallion with a long neck, e.g., Anecdote CF, to try and recreate the pedigree of Jeanne Craver’s mare Soiree, a distant relative from the same line. I may breed her to her brother Shaman as well.
Looking good with a lot of maturing left to do. I am confident however that he will continue to fill up and will live up to his promise. He has substance and style and oozes masculinity. He moves well too. He is more old Blunt than the Crabbets themselves. I want to see him in his prime, at 8-10 years old. I also love his pedigree, not just the Ma’naqi Sbayli tail female, but also all the Greggans, Parnells, Subanis, and Julyans close up. The existence in 2023 of horses like him is such a miracle, in the world of [insert the name of your favorite Italian designer here, reincarnated as a show horse] Photos by Lyman Doyle two days ago.
Twenty three years on, this remains one of my favorite pictures ever. I miss the man and the times.
This colt which Belgian breeder Patrick Vermuyten recently bought really caught my eye. He is from the Bint Kareema line, hence an Ubayyan by strain. Bint Kareema‘s (Rasheed BLNT x Kareema) is in my view one of the Arabian breed’s most underrated lines. Despite its very small numbers (mostly in Europe), it has consistently produced first class, well conformed, stlylish horses over the past fourty to fifty years mostly in Europe (e.g., Kauber Platte’s Hakeel Ibn Kaisoon). Unlike other damlines that become “worn out” over the generations — my friend Jean-Claude Rajot refers to these as “fin de lignée” — this line seems to be only getting better with time, if this colt is any indication. As an aside, Bint Kareema is one of the very few Straight Egyptian lines not yet accepted by Al Khamsa, due to missing information about the antecedents of the her dam Kareema, by a “Dahman” out of an “Obeya”. I have my own educated guess, which I wrote about some ten years ago. Today, an mtDNA comparison between this line and an Ubayyan Sharrak tail female line from the Tahawi,e extinct in asil form, but still represented in the general equine population, should help…
Little Wujra, Wadha’s new filly by the Bahraini stallion Shuwaiman Al Rais, was put down yesterday at the veterinary hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She only lived three weeks, two of which at the hospital. She was born dysmature (with a “dummy foal syndrome”) and was afflicted with soft tendons. At first she was unable to rise to nurse, then she was unable to walk with ease. Things got better after two weeks, so she left the hospital with socks on her toes and wrappings around the front legs. Her prognosis was very good so I felt that the effort was worthwhile. Her left hock got infected at the farm and the infection quickly spread. She was rushed back to the vet hospital, but her low immunity got the better of her. I thought she would pull through. This is Wadha’s third failed attempt to put a live foal on the ground. In 2021, she slipped a foal by Monologue CF when seven months pregnant. In 2022, the foal, a colt also by Monologue, was too large and died half way out of the womb. Wadha suffered injuries in her vulva and almost died. This year at least she…
This morning Lyman Doyle bred Kinza to Jenny Krieg’s magnificent Bashir Al-Dirri for a 2024 foal. They are from two different branches of the Basilisk female line: Bashir traces to the Peraga branch (*Mirage x Slipper), of which he is the last asil representative, while Kinza traces to the better represented Rabanna (Rasik x Banna) branch. Both stallion and mare blend Crabbet (i.e., Doyle), Babson (i.e., old Egyptian) and Pritzlaff (i.e., new Egyptian lines) seamlessly, so they should be a good match. Of course, Basilisk is from Ibn Dirri’s branch of the Saqlawi Marighi strain, as I have shown in the new book “The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha”. Below, a recent natural shot of Bashir, from Lyman. He truly is a magnificent horse.
The little Ma’naqiyah filly seems to be doing well at the Doyle Ranch in Oregon. I named her Shams — the Arabic word for the sun. Because she is a welcome ray of sunshine after a string of colts — three very nice ones but still not helping with keeping this precious strain going. Second because it’s the name of my maternal grandfather’s last wife. Well, her name was Shamsi, a derivative of Shams. According to an Assyrian clay tablet from 715 BC, Shamsi was the name of an ancient queen of “the distant Arabs, dwellers of the desert, who did not know learned men or scribes, who had not brought tribute to any king”. That same table is the first to mention horses as tributes from the Arab Bedouins to the Assyrian king. It’s a very very old name, and a nice name. Hopefully that filly will grow into a nice mare. Photos by DeWayne Brown, the dam’s lucky owner.
After four years of trying, SS Lady Guenevere (“Guen”) gratified me with a filly yesterday, born at the Doyles’ ranch in Oregon. The filly’s sire is Cascade DE, a young Doyle stallion. I have been leasing Guen and her daughter Pippa by Chatham DE from DeWayne Brown in the hope for a filly. She is the first filly following three colts from both mares: Shaykh Al Arab (Tamaam DE x Pippa), Shaman Al Arab (Tamaam DE x Guen) and Sharif Al Arab (Bashir Al Dirri x Pippa). I hope she goes on to produce many fillies from that precious (to me) Ma’naqi Sbayli strain.
Another horse photo I had favorited on my smartsphone is this head shot of a Bahraini stallion of the Musannan strain at Jenny Lees in the UK. I forget his name now.
Going through some photos on my smartphone, which has an admittedly nice sample of the horses I like. This is the outstanding Jabinta (Jadib x Bint Malakah by Subani), a 1969 Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd (*Wadduda line) and the maternal granddam of my Jamr Al Arab. As my father would say in Lebanese Arabic, ya haik khail ya bala, which means: “either horses like this or none at all”.
Kate found this “new” photo of the early Crabbet mare Bozra, by Pharaoh out of Basilisk. Both sire and dam were desert-bred, and both of the strain of Saqlawi ibn Dirri — a branch of the Saqlawi Marighi, itself a branch of the Saqlawi Ubayri (not Jadran). This mare would not be out of place in North-Eastern Syria today. The picture comes from Volume 1 of The Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture and Rural Economy, edited by R. Patrick Wright, and published in 1909, says Kate.
My black stallion Mushahar Bex recently foaled a beautiful black colt out of one of the mares of Sha’laan Ibn Jlaidan of the Shammar. This colt is going to be a stallion in the future, in my opinion.
Today the vet found Barakah Al Arab (Wadd Al Arab x Jadah BelloftheBall) 22 days in foal to Monologue CF. I am very excited about this foal prospect, expected in mid April 2024. A foal from Monologue is something to look forward to, especially at his age.
Can anyone guess the origins of this stallion? A/ Babson Egyptian B/ New Egyptian C/ Davenport D/ Syrian E/ Bahraini F/ Saudi G/ None of the above
Muhammad Ma’sum al-Aqub has got a nice filly by my black Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion, out of his Ubayyah Sharrakiyah mare, from a Shammar strain that traces back to the Sba’ah. It’s the strain of Habbo al-Shgayyif of the Thabit Shammar.
Another desert scene from the collection of French enthnographer Robert Montagne shows the tents of town merchants that use to stay among camel herding Bedouins on a seasonal basis. They would sell them the necessities that the desert environment could not produce: sugar, tea, coffee, dates, rice, spices, metal utensils, etc. Bedouins, their leaders in particular, where often heavily indebted to these merchants who also acted as creditors.
A nice desert scene from the collection of Robert Montagne at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, showing sheep herders in the Syrian desert, around 1930
From the collection of Jesuit priest, pilot and archaeologist Antoine Poidebard at the French Musee du Quai Branly comes this photo of a group of sheep herders from the Shammar tribe. The back of the photo has the following writing in French: “Berger bédouin de la tribu Chammar / Haute Djéziré / Cliché Poidebard”- manuscrit à l’encre bleue : “Berger bédouin de la tribu Chammar (désert de Syrie)”- étiquette collée : “Environ 300.000 nomades vivent sur les immenses territoires du désert de Syrie et sont rattachés au gouvernement de Damas. Nomades et pasteurs, ils pratiquent l’élevage du mouton et du chameau.“
From the collection of French anthropologist Robert Montagne at the French Musee du Quai Branly comes this photograph of a vivid desert scene showing a desert well and a camel (in the back) pulling waterskins out of the well.
A gorgeous photo from yet another collection at the Musee du Quai Branly, this time that of famed French anthropologist Robert Montagne, who studied Bedouin society and culture. The title in French is: “Desert de Syrie — Reunion dans la tente d’un grand chef bedouin de la tribu des Rwalla”. The young man to the right looks like Fawaz al-Sha’laan, the young leader of the Ruwalah at the time, who often appears in photographs by Carl Raswan dating from the same period.
Also from the Varliette body of photographs at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris comes this beautiful photo of a camel-herding tribe marching. The palanquin of the daughter of the chief of the tribe is in the middle of the picture. The photo is also associated with Albert de Boucheman’s masterpiece “Materiel de la Vie Bedouine”.
From the Varliette collection at the French Musee du Quai Branly comes this stunning photo of a “Tribe Marching” (Tribu en ordre de marche). It was taken between 1920 and 1934. The photo seems to have been published in Albert de Boucheman’s foundational study “Matériel de la vie bédouine”, of which I own a rare copy. I now have a lead into who Varliette is, given this apparent association with A. de Boucheman, whose focus in that book was the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe.
From the Varliette collection of photographs at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris comes this photo taken between 1920 and 1934 of a Bedouin sheep herders’ encampment near Palmyra in Syria, titled “Campement de Bedouins Moutonniers”. Sheep herding tribes present in this area and at that time include the ‘Umur, the Fawa’irah, the Lhayb, and other smaller tribes. They were called in Arabic shawayah, or “people of the sheep” (shaat in Arabic), in contrast to the jammaalah tribes (those of the “people of the camel” – jamal in Arabic); and the baqqarah tribes (those of the “people of the cow” – baqar in Arabic).
Title: From the same Jacques Edinger collection as the earlier photos on this blog, housed at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris comes this photo titled “Chameau entravé de la tribu des Rwalla.”
From the same collection at the Musee du Quai Branly as the pictures in the earlier posts.
From the same collection of Jacques Edinger at the French Musee du Quai Branly: inside a chief’s tent: the divider separating the public area of the tent from the private quarters (now a rare, highly sought-after item); a barebones camel saddle, and the falcon on his perch.
Also from the collection of Jacques Edinger at the French Musee du Quai Branly — Jacques Chirac is this photo of a Bedouin leader and his beautiful mare from the Negev/Naqab desert around the city of Beersheba/Bi’r al-Sab’. Note the prickled ears, the small muzzle, the protruding eye sockets and the broad, flat forehead on this beautiful desertbred horse.
From the collection of Jacques Edinger at the French Musee du Quai Branly comes this bueatiful photograph titled “Fils de chef bédouin tenant le cheval de son père” (“Son of Bedouin chief holding his father’s horse), and taken between 1930 and 1937 in Syria.
I seldom post photos of horses for sale on this blog, if at all. Once in a blue moon, I make an exception for horses I would have liked to acquire myself. This one is one of them. Bev Davison has a gorgeous black colt for sale. Pedigree here. His name is SpiritWind Sahmadhi by SpiritWind Ahsahm out of DA Willow Windsong by Serr Serabaar. He is black (genetic tested, and clear for SCID, CA, LFS, & OAAM1.) He has Fay-el-Dine sire line and Basilisk dam line. He is built like a tank and with a lot of style, the way I like them. Look at the shoulder, the withers, the bad and the hip.
I am so taken with Belle’s new colt by Jamr, born a couple months ago at the farm of their new owner Moira Walker. Moira named him Belisarius. He is a throwback to the USA Arabians of a hundred years ago, those you find in black and white photographs of horse magazines and books. At that time, Arabians were good all around horses, not overly specialized in a single discipline, whether halter, endurance or racing.
Today Barakah Al Arab was bred to Monologue CF for a Sharp foal of the *Nufoud Kuhaylan ‘Ajuz tail female of King Ibn Sa’ud; and Madinas Miracle was bred to Jamr Al Arab for a foal from the rare Ubayyan strain belonging to Ibn Jalawi.
I have not looked at my “Aldahdah Index” in a while. It is a compendium of standardized entries on older Middle Eastern Arabian horses, mostly Syrian and Lebanese, in the style of the Raswan Index. I will publish it one day. I looked up the entry of the Khdili stallion of Abbud Ali al-Amud, who has recently been the subject of discussion on social media (Facebook and WhatsApp groups). I had written this about him back then: AL-KHDILI OF ABOUD ALI AL-AMOUD: an Asil desert-bred stallion; later owned by the Armenian horsedealer Apo in Aleppo. Strain: Kuhaylan Khdili, of the marbat owned by ‘Abbud ‘Ali al-‘Amud, a Bedouin from the Aqaydat tribe; al-‘Amud got his horses from the marbat of ‘Udayb al-Waqqa’ of the Saba’ah tribe. Comments: He was a small horse of such classic Arab type, with such an extreme head, that people in Aleppo were reluctant to use him because they found him to be ‘pretty like a mare’. He is closely related to the beautiful mare Leelas, a Kuhaylah Khdiliyah bred by ‘Abbud ‘Ali Al-‘Amud, and which is a daughter of the Ma’naqi al-Shwaiti al-Najrissi of the Aqaydat tribe. That was what I had about him some…
Below is a photo of the young filly that my father traded Dahess for. She was 10 days old in the picture. Her name was Amshet Shammar, born in 1995. Her sire was al-Aawar, the desert-bred Hamdani Ibn Ghurab stallion, and her dam was the old bay Krush mare Ghallaiah, which Radwan Shabareq had acquired from Rakan son of Nuri al-Jarba. Ghallaiah was sired by the black Saqlawi Marzaqani of al-‘Anud, the wife and mother of leaders of the Tai tribe. Ghallaiah’s dam was also sired by the same horse, which came from the Marazeeq, the owners of that strain since the 1840s (at least). That’s me on the background, and the late Mustafa al-Jabri to the right.
This afternoon I scanned some photos from a trip to Syria my father and I took in 1995 (almost 30 years ago, yikes!). I am more aware than ever about the need to put old analog records in digital format and online. Starting with Dahess, the handsome Ubayyan Suhayli stallion my father had just traded for a filly from the breeding of Radwan Shabareq. Dahess was a personal favorite of mine. Funny how some horses are just horses, while others touch your soul. This was the last time I was to see him, as he met an untimely death in a freak accident a few months later. To me, he will always remain the epitome of the desert Arabian horse, the real deal. His origins were flawless. His sire Awaad was a Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida from the strain of Mayzar Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba, a strain that goes back to Ibn Rashid and the Mutayr Bedouins; his dam al-Jazi was sired by the grey Ubayyan Suhayli of ‘Atnan al-Shazi, a Faddagha Shammar Bedouin who had obtained the line from the Sahlan/Suhayli owners of the strain; I recall being told that this horse was sold to the UAE in the early 1980s…
I have been trying to go back in time as far as possible with the pedigrees of modern Syrian Arabian horses, looking for male ancestors as early as the 1930s and 1940s. It’s a difficult task, because the registration of Syrian foundation horses (the first wave in Volume 1, and the second wave in Volume 7) is based on oral testimonies, which seldom go beyond three or four generations, whether in horses or in humans. How many of us can readily remember the name of our paternal great-grandmother? A horse that keeps coming back in the back of the pedigrees of Syrian Arabians is the Dahman Amer of Sa’ud al-‘Ajarrash. In the back of the pedigree of this mare born in 1971, for example, where his owner’s name is misspelt and his strain is misrepresented. The mare’s hujjah shows the right strain and owner for this stallion, her great-grandfather, which was likely active in the 1940s. The same stallion appears as the sire of the Egyptian RAS desert-bred stallion El Nasser. Below a photo of this really fine mare in extreme old age (around 32). She was a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the strain of Ibn ‘Amoud. I took this photo…
A photo of Tarff (*Fadl x *Turfa) I had not seen before — he is in two of my mares. What a good mare *Turfa was, perhaps one of the best ever imported to the US. I second the old saying among US Arabian horse breeders that the more *Turfa in a horse, the better the horse. The same cannot be said of other more recent desert blood, which is precious but needs to be used with care, in my opinion, if one wants to avoid longer back and shorter hips. On another note, Americans really maintained their stallions very fat in the 1950s.
Very happy with how Shaman is turning out (look past the winter coat ), and he is not three yet. I am inching closer towards the type of horses I want to see. I like them built like tanks, the stallions very masculine and the mares very feminine, all very dry and superlative movers. No to “living art”, no to “cute”, no to “extreme”. Yes to being a good horse first, before being an Arabian. Yes to irreproachable authenticity of bloodlines. Shaman will make a good stallion. Photo by DeWayne Brown taken today.
The Sba’ah ‘Anazah had a first-class marbat of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak known as Ubayyan al-‘Awbali. The ‘Awbaliyyat were the Ubayyan Sharrak mares of al-‘Awaabilah clan of the Mihlif of the Mawayiqah of the Sba’ah. The Nawwaq clan owners of Kuhaylan Nawwaq are from the Qasim (Gasim) section of the Rasaalin of the Sba’ah. The Ma’naqi Sbayli take their name after Ibn Sbayyil of the Ajlan of the Rasaalin of the Sba’ah. The Ajlan are headed by Ibn Mijlad. Zudghum, owner of the most famous Ma’naqi Sbayli marbat of the XXth century was Zudghum Ibn Mijlad (TBC). Amir al-Dandal told me that the Ma’naqi Sbayli (Najrissi) marbat of the Aqayadat was obtained from the Rasaalin. The hujjah of the mare Aseelah (dam of Dinar, by al-Aawar) states that she was Ma’naqiyat Zudghum.
The last horse I bred in Lebanon before moving to the USA in 2000 was this handsome young colt, by the Ma’naqi Sbayli stallion Dinar (Al-Aawar x Aseelah) out of my Saqlawiyah Sha’ifiyah Fadwa (Al Kaher x Loumah, by Faisal x Hababah). Fadwa was a striking bay mare, the outcome of an Egyptian-Syrian cross as her sire Al Kaher (Ikhnatoon x Marium by Ibn Shahrzada) was an Egyptian EAO export to Syria. He was given away to somebody as a weanling. Pity, because I thought he was special. But then again, one can’t keep them all. Not sure he was ever registered. I need to look him up.
Two more pictures of the authentic desert-bred stallion Barazan (Odeilan x Asfourah), a Saqlawi Marzaqani bred by the Shammar Bedouin. Photos by Gudrun Waiditschka in 2006 in Syria. Look at the striking similarity of the the bottom photo of Barazan with that of *Haleb, another desert-bred that was imported to the USA in 1906. True desert type has remained remarkably consistent over the past 100 years.