Ibrahim, 1899 desert-bed Saqlawi Faliti stallion

This morning my neurons’s synapses made a long-overdue connection concerning the strain of the 1899 grey desert-bed stallion Ibrahim, who was famous for siring Skowronek. Ibrahim’s recorded strain is “Saklawi Faliti” (cf. the comprehensive list of sources of information on him on allbreedpedigree.com).

There has been much speculation about this Faliti qualifier, some of it involving a fake pedigree of Skowronek drawn by Lady Wentworth (but that’s not the point of this article). This morning it occurred to me that the Faliti were none other but the leading clan of the Frijah section of the Ruwalah Bedouin tribe (see here for example, spelled Fliti).

That Ibrahim was a Saqlawi by strain makes this inference very plausible. That’s because the Frijah were the wellspring of the Saqlawi Jadran and Saqlawi Ubayran strains, as shown in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. The Qidran (or Gidran, hence Jidran and Jadran) are one of the ten or so subsections of the Frijah. The Ubayrat are another section of the Frijah. One of the many, many Saqlawi mares Abbas Pasha acquired from the Frijah was known by his agents as the “Mare of Yahya al-Faliti”, after the Bedouin leader of the Frijah Ruwalah (cf. the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, in the Saqlawi Ubayri and Marighi sections).

That he was born (cf. allbreed) in the village of “Hadjar” some miles south of Damascus (now a absorbed by that tentacular city) makes this connection even more plausible. The area just south and east of Damascus was the endpoint of Ruwalah seasonal migrations.

That Ibrahim was reportedly (cf. allbreed) “bred and raised by Shaykh ‘Abdullah ‘Abd Ar-Rahman of the Banu Sakhr Bedouins”, (or “Obdurahm Abdullah”) is not a contradiction, given the blood ties between the Bani Sakhr and some Ruwalah clans (like the Kawakibah), and the frequent exchanges of Saqlawi horses between the Frijah and the Bani Sakhr. It would make sense that Ibrahim was “bred and raised” by a Bani Sakhr Bedouin out of a mare from the Faliti marbat (stud) of the Saqlawi strain, that marbat being owned by the Faliti/Fliti clan of the Ruwalah.

With this context in mind, the presence of the word “Faliti” as part of the identity of the Saklawi stallion Ibrahim speaks well for his authentic status. Too bad this does not help making the case for his son.