Lineages of horses in the Nasiri book
[Edited September 1, 2019]
I have been enjoying reading a scanned Arabic copy of the manuscript “the Complete Guide to the Professions of Veterinary Medicine and Horse Breeding”, which Hylke Hettema recently pointed me to. This is the medieval treatise otherwise known as the “Nasiri Book” in English or Le Naceri in French. It was composed by Abu Bakr ibn Badr al-Din al-Mundhir al-Baytar (d. 1340 CE), the head veterinarian in the stud of the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt/Syria/West Arabia al-Nasir Muhammad around 1333 CE. A more recent copy of this manuscript recently went on auction at Sotheby’s.
Nicolas Perron famously published a translation of this manuscript to French between 1852 and 1860. The translation was mostly done by the Egyptian scholar al-Dumyati. You can buy new French editions here, in two volumes. I don’t believe it has been translated to English yet.
I found Chapter 5 of Book 1, on the “anssaab” of horses, very intriguing. “Anssaab“, the plural of “nassab“, normally means lineages. I first thought about translating it as “breeds” but I am going to stick with “lineages” for now. Perron rendered it in French as “races” (see here, page 16).
Of the lineages of horses and what the horses were created from: as to the lineages of horses that were mentioned, there are ten lineages: the first — and they are the noblest (ashrafuhum — from sharif, noble) — is that from the Hijaz (Western Arabia); then that from Najd (Central Arabia), and it is the most auspicious (aymanuha, from the root yumn); then that from the Yemen, and it is the most enduring; then that from Sham (Greater Syria), and it is the one with the best colors; then that from the Jazirah (i.e., Mesopotamia / Iraq), and it is the most beautiful; then that from Barqa (Cyrenaica/ Eastern Libya), and it is the roughest (akhshanuha); then that from Misr (Egypt), and it is the nimblest (afrahaha, or most agile); then that from Khafajah (not sure where that is), and it is the one with the best origin (aysalaha, from asl); then that from the Maghrib (North Africa from Western Libya to the Atlantic shores of Morocco), and it is the most prolific (ansaluha, from the root nasal); then that from the Franj (the Frankish realms / Western Europe) and they are the most failed ones (afshaluha, from the root fashal = failure).
It is unclear if Abu Bakr ibn Badr was only referring to Arab horses here. Perhaps the Maghrib and Barqa “lineages” refer to Arab horses bred by North African Arab tribes (e.g., the Bani Hilal, the Bani Sulaym, etc. who famously migrated from Hijaz to North Africa in the XIth century). Perhaps the notion of an Arab horse at that time extended to North African horses now generically called Barbs, and to other cavalry horses too. The reference to horses of the Franks I still cannot place yet. He goes on:
As to the Duwayniyyat, and the Damkhiyyat and the Faarah, these are [references to] tribes. This marks the end on breeds of horses.
Now that is interesting. It seems like an early reference to strains of Arab horses that existed in the XIVth century. I need look deeper into this, but at least some of these seem to point to the Arabian Peninsula (e.g., Jabal Damkh).
Do we know anything about the author of this book: Abu Bark ibn Badr al-Din ibn al-Munthir al-Bitar?
Like where he was from, educated where? Age when writing this text?
Also, who was his audience?
The answers to these questions would greatly help to understand his perspective.
He was the chief veterinarian of the sultan, possibly his master of horses as well. References say he was born around 1301, died 1340 CE. His father was a veterinarian before him. He was from Cairo. He was writing for the Sultan, who commissionned the book for his library. Text written between 1322 and 1333. Sources disagree.
I am used to seeing arguments about catalogues of states in Hittite texts etc, and noticed that the list maaay divide itself geographically into two halves, as it seems to deal with horses in Arabia and regions north-east of it in the first half, and then horses west of Arabia in the second half, with Cyrenaica, Egypt and the Maghrib definitely in North Africa. So I trundled off to look up Khafajah … and it bucked the trend, assuming of course it is the modern Khafajah, which is in Iraq, just 11 km east of Baghdad. There is also a Khafaja tribe, who (according to Wikipedia) are part of the Banu Uqayl, along with the Muntafiq, who are found in southern Iraq.
Don’t know if any of that is useful, nor how accurate it is … but perhaps the Khafaja picked up the term asil from Iran, or perhaps the borrowing went the other way?
Pretty sure im not supposed to be sharing this here, as this info is from the Encyclopedia of Islam and not public domain:
Ab? Bakr b. Badr , with the by-name al-Bay??r al-N??ir? , was grand master and chief veterinary surgeon of the stables of the Maml?k sultan of Egypt al-N??ir, N??ir al-D?n Mu?ammad b. ?al?w?n (who ruled in 693/1294, from 698/1299 to 708/1309-10 and from 709/1310 to 741/1341). It was at This ruler’s request that Ibn al-Mund?h?ir wrote, in about 740/1339-40, his treatise on hippology entitled K?s?h?if hamm al-wayl f? ma?rifat amr?? al-k?h?ayl , a compilation from earlier sources and in particular from the K?mil al-?in??atayn ( al-bay?ara wa ’l-zar?afa ) of a certain Ibn Ak?h?? ?iz?m or Ibn Ab? K?h?azz?m of the 3rd/9th or 4th/10th century; the copyists very soon gave the second title to the work of the Maml?k veterinary surgeon. It is found also called, more simply, Kit?b al-N??ir? (MSS Paris, Bibl. Nat. 2813-14 and Vienna, Flügel 1481). A. Perron published a translation of This treatise, in three volumes, with a detailed introduction, under the title Le Nâcéri : la perfection des deux arts ou traité complet d’hippologie et d’hippiatrie arabes , trad , de l’arabe d’Abou Bekr Ibn Bedr . The first volume, which appeared in 1852, contains as an introduction much information on the Arab horse and the breeding of horses [see faras and fur?siyya ], stressing the special efforts made by the sultan al-N??ir to develop stud farms in Egypt; it contains in addition a large collection of verses selected from the abundant classical poetry on the horse. The introduction to This first volume received from J. von Hammer-Purgstall (in Das Pferd bei den Arabern , Denkschr. d. K. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Wien , vi, 1855-6) a rather condescending criticism, which he would surely have modified if he had lived long enough to see the rest of the publication. The second volume (1859) contains the translation of the section on hippology and the third (1860) that on hippiatry. Although it is a good source richly documented, A. Perron’s Le Nâcéri is no longer a basic work for ¶ the knowledge of early Arab hippology, in view of the number of works devoted to This subject which have been published during the last century; one need mention only, for example, the K. ?ilyat al-furs?n . . . by the Andalusian Ibn Hud?h?ayl [q.v.], a contemporary of Ibn al-Mund?h?ir.
I do agree with Kate. Khafaja probably refers to eastern part of Iraq (east from Al Jazirah).
This is extremely interesting anyway. I wonder how much you should actually consider this list as a list of “breeds” versus this being a list of “legendary places where you can find horses”. I have to check it again but if my memory is good : this part is extracted from a more “mythical” etc. chapter of the book. There is several classifications like this in the book with some of them being more “historical” ones while others are more “zoological”(c.f. Chapter VII)
Amelie, talk to Hylke. The mythical stuff turned out to be insertions by Perron from somewhere else (e.g., Wahb ibn Munaabbih’s book. We did not find the mythical stuff (expect a tiny five lines) in any of the three manuscript copies we looked at.
Khafaji: I don’t know. Yes, the word has strong links to a village and a tribe in Iraq. But why this small tribe and this small village, in the middle of a description of large places like Egypt, Libya, North Africa, Syria, Western Europe, etc.
I am finding this list of ten “breeds” very fishy. As if the author of the Nasiri book took it from somewhere else.
That’s because he mentions other breeds in another part of the book : tatari (the mongol poney), khurasani (central asian), rumi (byzantine), etc. These are clearly not Arabians. I need to look into it more.
@ Amelie: its fascinating, and even more that Perron somewhat created his own book on horses as half of the stuff in the French edition is not actually in any of the Arabic versions of al Nasiri! He says he got it from 3 other places, but we checked Munabbih and its not in there either. Also he doesn’t mention Ibn al Kalbi as a source, but almost word for word included sections on the origin story and Zad al rakib, which makes one think he may have copied it from al kalbi..
@ Edouard: The fact that part of the list are clearly not arab horses is probably due to the fact that furusiyya works are compilations. Much of the info is scrambled together from various preceding authors including greek, Persian and Indian manuscripts. Its possible he lists the Islamic stuff first but then included the rest of the “knowledge” because that was tradition to do so. Most of the works can trace their core back to Abu Ubayda. Everyone elaborated on that one basically. The process of transmission is a study in itself!
Here I have changed “breeds” to “lineages”, because I am increasingly feeling that he is talking about Arab horses here, whatever the definition of an Arab horse was in his time.