Ninety-Nine and 44/100 Percent*
The distinctive descriptive characteristic of the Arabian Horse is that it is “Pure”. What is “Pure”?
Among the Bedouin breeders from which we have these horses, the term “pure” is related to the concept of “asil.” To these people it was extremely important that a horse be asil. The trouble is that asil is even harder to define than pure. It is related to nobility of breeding and can be used in regard to creatures other than horses, including people.
According to the literature, the Bedouin themselves did not agree as to what the term meant. A horse might have been asilto one tribe and not to another, or asil might simply mean that a horse’s ancestors had been owned by one family for many years: “My grandfather owned this family of horses and his father owned them before him. Of course, the horse is asil.”
Chances are the Bedouin owners of horses are inclined to consider their own horses asil. Maybe there is some tendency for horses to be described as asil when sold to western countries. An interesting illustration of this is given in Davenport’s book where a pretty filly is offered for sale. Questioned, the seller said the filly was pure to Davenport, but not to God. [The Annotated Quest, 1992, p133]
The Bedouin had standards for keeping track of their most valued breeding stock as a matter of social custom. For them it was important that horses be vouched for by respected parties and even now it is our understanding that some still require witnesses of equine breedings. There are written and verbal authentications of pedigree, and these can be a real enforcement of pedigree accuracy, perhaps as good as our own stud books backed by scientific parentage verification.
Most registered Arabian horses in western countries descend from foundation ancestors which were acquired by agents or horse dealers. Comparatively few of these horses were acquired by people who wished to breed from them. Actually, these purchases seem to have worked out pretty well. The beautiful current Arabian horses of western countries speak well for them.
Are these beautiful modern Arabian horses “pure”? Of course they are: just ask their owners.
Are they asil according to the standards of the Bedouin breeders of Arabia? For the most part, this is an unanswerable question, because, through time, knowledge necessary for proof of purity has been lost. The Bedouin might say, “No. If a horse has left my tribe, it cannot come back as asil.” Another might say, “The horse came from respected people who vouched for him, so I respect their word that he is asil.” A third, politically inclined, might say, “Depends on how you defineasil.”
In Al Khamsa we do not talk much about “purity.” We have a definition which is a useful bit of weasel-wording: “Horses which are of interest to Al Khamsa are those in North America which can be reasonably assumed to descend entirely from Bedouin Arabian horses bred by the nomadic horse-breeding tribes of the deserts of the Arabian peninsula…” We do not define “reasonably”—or “nomadic horse breeding tribes.” The Al Khamsa definition can include many kinds of horses, and maybe each of us does not like all of them, but it has been useful in enabling us to foster the breeding of several worthwhile kinds of Arabian horses and to keep our emphasis on horses from Arabia and the breeding context which produced them.
*This article first appeared in Khamsat V20 N2
Thank you for posting this most useful piece Charles. It is key to explaining what has been at the core of recent discussions here. And the most important point that I believe is, to quote your final comment:
“…to keep our emphasis on horses from Arabia and the breeding context which produced them.”
Exactly, Joe!
If you wanted to know where there is pure Arabian horses in America The best horses pure is Edie Booth horses
and Davenport’s horses Without Ma’naghi and Jilfan .
or Come to Visit Saudi Arabia Or Bahrain
What’s wrong with Ma’naghi and Jilfan, according to you?
Eduard,
I am not sure if this is the right place to ask this question – if not, please forgive me. With regard to the Beduin thought on Asil – what do think their reaction might have been in the case of a SCID foal, or Lavender, or CA? Do you think they would have seen this as a curse and possibly questioned either the sire and/or the dam in terms of their being Asil, or not? Or was the term Asil strictly related to the rasan, etc?
Thanks,
Ray
Of course they had no way of identifying genetic diseases, so SCID and other diseases were irrelevant to them.
Ma’naghi and Jilfan is not first class
The north of horses (Chamie)
Thanks Eduard – diseases do have physcial symptoms and I would expect some response to those symptoms by the Bedu – perhaps a sharp knife across the throat, if nothing else. Anyway – in more general terms, did the Bedu ever demote a horse from Asil status for any reason at all? If so could you state some of those reasons and/or circumstances?
What some on this thread seem to be implying is that pure stock has no flaws, and the appearance of a flaw in a foal is evidence of impurity in one or both parents. That sounds to me more like 19th century German nature philosophy than it sounds like anything from the Middle East.
Hmm, has anyone here been reading Raswan?
I hope we are past the idea of a flaw meaning impurity. That has all sorts of social threads that can be unpleasant!