List of horses sent by the Shammar to the Ottoman Sultan, 1891

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 blaze, and she is Buraysa; also the blue/grey Kuhaylah; also the red/bay Kuhaylan, three white legs except the right foreleg, with a blaze;
And the yellow/grey Krush; also a red/bay Krush’;
And the red/bay Saqlawiyah Qadraniyah, three white legs except the right hingleg, with a blaze; also the brown Saqlawiyah of the horses of Ibn Zubaynah, with a blaze;
And the blonde/chestnut Dahma Umm ‘Amer, both hindlegs white, with a blaze
And the red/bay ‘Ubayyah, four legs white, with a blaze

The offspring of these horses mentioned above are to be mated.

The male horses

The red/bay Hamdani, three white legs except the right foreleg, with a star
And a red/bay ‘Ubayyan, four white legs, with a blaze;
And a yellow/grey Samhan;
And a yellow/grey Harqan, his mane is black
And light grey Krushan

It’s a shame the document is incomplete. I should try to access the full text of the original. Some information can still be derived from it, however. First, it’s in the Arabic language, which means it was produced by an Arab, not by an Ottoman official (such as the Pasha of Damascus or Baghdad), who would use Ottoman Turkish for formal correspondence with the Ottoman authorities in Istanbul; second, it’s written in beautiful calligraphy, which means it was still intended as a formal document of the sort addressed to an Ottoman Sultan or Grand Vizir; third, the terms used for coat colors (safra, sha’lah, etc), as well as those used for white markings (mutlaq al-yamin, etc) indicate a familiarity with equine terminology, and so does the correct spelling of the strain names; fourth, this list features a large number of horses: fifteen mares and five stallions, indicating a worthy gift, perhaps even a tribute, to the Sultan or Grand Vizier from someone of importance.

Fifth, and most importantly, there are three clues to the Bedouin/tribal Arab identity of the producer of the document. The first is the spelling of Saqlawiyah Qadraniyah with a Q not a J. Townsfolk who heard Bedouins pronounce Qadraniyah as Jadraniyah in the Bedouin dialect believed that it should also be written with a J (and foreigners took it from the townsfolk and wrote it with a J in their languages, same for Qadran/Jadran, and other names like Qasim/Jasim, and Muntafiq/Muntafij, etc); however, Bedouins knew that that what they were pronouncing as a J in their dialect was a written as a Q. Second, the mention at the end of the mares’ list that the offspring of the mares is to be mated indicated a familiarity with the Bedouin concept of shubuw; i.e., how the male offspring of some strains can be bred from, while the offspring of others cannot; this sentence can be read as reassurance from the producer of the document that these were shubuw strains. Third, the definite giveaway as to the producer of the document being a Bedouin is his use of the Bedouindialect of Arabic. One clear example is the same sentence as being mating the mares: “Ha al-khayl yushabba ‘iyalhun“. The use of ha al-khayl (“These horses”) instead of “hadhihi al-khayl” betrays the Bedouin provenance of the producer of the document.

if one puts all these clues about the producer of the document together (Arab ethnicity; formal document; familiarity with terminology on horses’ strains, markings, coat color; important person/leader; and Bedouin origin), one reaches the conclusion that this document was produced by a Bedouin tribal leader (or his scribe, most probably). The publisher mentioned the Shammar and the year 1891. This leaves one with two main contenders: either Ibn Rashid of Jabal Shammar, who then ruled a quasi-state centered on Hail as a vassal of the Ottomans; or Farhan Pasha al-Jarba who led the Mespotamian Shammar and was also a vassal of the Ottomans. The latter had his base in the town of Qal’at Sherqat (where the ruins of ancient Assur were located) north of Baghdad, where he was trying to initiate his Bedouins to agriculture.

The strains mentioned, especially the Harqan and the Kuhaylan Aafess stallions and the Buraysa mare tip the balance towards Ibn Rashid. However, per Lady Anne Blunt and many others, there was such frequent movement of horses between the Mesopotamian (Norther) and Hail (Southern) Shammar that the same strains could be found among both; for example, the Saqlawiyah from Ibn Zubaynah is from a Fad’aan strain; these were in the extreme North of Arabia at the time, close to Aleppo were Homer Davenport saw them in the summer of 1906; still Ibn Rashid was known to have horses from that strain. He also had horses from the Krush strain, but so did the Mesopotamian Shammar. Still, my money is on Ibn Rashid, given the large number of horses involved, but more information is needed.