I have written frequently about this horse. In my opinion, Saad II was one of the three best sons of al-Aawar. He was out of a grand mare, Leelas, a Kuhaylah Khdiliyah of ‘Abbud al-‘Ali al-‘Amud of the ‘Aqaydat. That strain harked back to the Kuhaylaat al-‘Ajuz of the Khdilat section of the Fada’an. It was held in high esteem by all the Bedouins across Arabia. Indeed, I have rarely seen such unanimity about a strain. I took these pictures at Mustafa al-Jabri’s farm in 1997. Saad II was in poor condition then. My father, who really had an eye for picking good stallions for his mares, thought the world of him. He sent his favorite mare, a bay Saqlawiyah Sha’ifyah of Ibn Bisra from Rayak, Lebanon all the way to Aleppo, Syria, to be bred to him. She produced that gorgeous colt, below. Photos at the farm of Michel Pharaon, then leased by Husayn Nasser. I never knew what happened to him. My father probably gave him away to someone.
Also at Hisham Ghorayed. Sire: Sa’ad, a Saqlawi Sh’aifi son of Mahrous; dam: a desert-bred Kuhaylat al-Wati mare of the marbat of Hakim al-Ghishm of the Shammar, acquired by Hisham Ghorayeb. Sa’ad produced so well.
This mare was one of the most sought after in Syria. I took this photo in 1992 at the stud of Hisham Ghorayeb in Damascus. Her dam was a Ma’naqiyah Sbaliyah of the marbat of Turki al-Najriss of the ‘Aqaydat Bedouins, a prestigious strain that goes back to the Rasaalin of Sba’ah. Her sire was the Saqlawi Sh’aifi of Diban al-Ka’r. He traced to the horses of Hajjo Ibn Mahel of the Shammar. I recall that Hazaim Alwair and I spent an entire summer in 2005 making phone calls to multiple Bedouins to verify the authenticity of this horse. I have it all written somewhere.
I used to have a photographic memory. One glance at one of the thousands of pictures in my archives and I could tell you the name of the horse, his owner’s name, his parents, and his entire pedigree. Lately I have been catching myself gazing at a photo and asking myself: “who the hell is this horse?”, before reaching for the back of the photo in the hope of finding a handwritten note. I guess it’s called ageing. I thought it would never happen.
Many readers know of my passion for rare strains. They represent both genetic and cultural diversity. I am encouraged by the many rare lineages still extant in Syria, particularly in the Upper Jazirah area. It is the area where the formerly nomadic Shammar Bedouins chose to settle — at least those who did not go back to Saudi Arabia. It’s also the area where semi-settled tribes like the Tai and the Jubur are to be found. In addition to those registered, I have been able to verify the continued existence of the following stains, some not currently registered: 1/ Wadhnan, not registered, with the Tai. 2/ Mlayhan. One mare registered in Volume 1 of the Syrian Studbook, under K. al-‘Ajuz, and another in the second wave of Volume 7, with her offpsring. A dozen more unregistered, with the Tai. 3/ Kuhaylan Shukayli, which is Kuhaylan al-‘Ushayyir (not “al-‘Asheer” as wrongly spelled in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript). One mare was registered in Volume 1 of the Syrian studbook and another in Volume 1 of the Lebanese studbook, but no offspring from these. With the Tai. 4/ Kuhaylan al-Sa’eedan, which is different from Sa’dan. Not registered. Likely the same strain as the…
Lineages of desert-bred horses are surprisingly resilient. Each time I think a line is lost it seems to reappear somewhere else. I have been following the Shuwayman line of the Jarbah Shaykhs for three decades now. Many mares were lost during the Syrian civil war, and I feared the strain was lost. Yet a branch has survived with a branch of the Shaykhs of Tai in the Upper Jazirah. It is now helping regenerate that strain. It traces to that liver chestnut mare, born in 1986. Sire: a grey Saqlawi Jadran of the strain of Ibn ‘Amud, from the marbat of ‘Abd al-Hamid al-Talal al-Abd al-Rahman of the Shaykhs of Tai. His sire a Saqlawi Jadran Ibn ‘Amud of the same marbat. Sire of dam: a grey Saqlawi Jadran Ibn ‘Amud of Farhan al-Nayif al-Abd al-Rahman of the Shakyhs of Tai. His sire a Saqlawi Jadran Ibn Amud of ‘Abd al-Hamid al-Talal. His dam a grey Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah Ibn ‘Amud of Abd al-Hamid al-Talal. Sire of grand-dam: the black Marzaqani stallion of Al-‘Anud, the wife of Faris al-Abd al-Rahman of the Shaykhs of Tai. She had received him from the Maraziq as a colt. His sire I think the famous…
Evidence on the Mlayhan strain about the Gmassah, and the Shammar of both Mesopotamia and the Najd, from her book “Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates”: Wilfrid then inquired about the horses, or rather mares, in Jebel Shammar, and asked if the Arabs there had the same breeds as the Mesopotamian Shammar. “Just the same,” he answered. ” They have Kehilehs, and Jilfehs, and Dakhmehs, and Meleyhas, just as with us. There are not many horses (kheyl) bred there. And here: Several Arabs of the Gomassa have been here, talking principally about horses, for they are the great breeders of horses in the desert. Among others, they spoke of a wonderful mare, a Meleyha, which they said a certain European had once offered 6oo for, when they were in their summer-quarters near Aleppo ; but the manner of his dealing seems to have impressed them with the idea that he was out of his mind, and they would not sell the mare. They made very merry over this. We asked them the usual question about the horses of Nejd, and the existence of separate breeds there, and they gave the usual answers. […] Our horses are the same as those of…
I came across the text of an administrative decision, dated April 30, 1921, signed by General Gouraud, French High Commissionner for Syria and Lebanon, and conferring upon Mashal Ibn Faris al-Jarba, Shaykh of the Shammar of Der Ezzor, the title of Pasha. I sent it to his grandson Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Mashal, Abu Nayif. He is my source of information for a lot of the horse-related information on the Jazirah today.
Lyman Doyle sent these photos of this year’s last arrival, another colt and another Ma’naqi Sbayli: Shaman Al Arab (Tamaam DE x SS Lady Guenevere by SS Dark Prince) was born two days ago. I am leasing his dam from DeWayne Brown. Shaman, pronounced SHAAH-MAAN, means “the one with a distinctive mark”, shamah. His odd blaze is certainly one. He also takes his name from a handsome Shammar desert-bred stallion in Syria, which I have been coveting for a while. He is the maternal uncle of the young Shaykh Al Arab. I will retain one of the two, not sure which one yet.
Radwan is looking for a new stallion for his growing herd. I advised him to purchase this young Mlayhan stallion, whose sons have been winning races. He is quite small but his origins are top notch. The Tai tribe, the clan of al-Nahhab in particular, have owned a marbat of the Mlayhan strain for a long time. They brought it with them from Iraq a long time ago, maybe two hundred years. His maternal grand-dam was part of the second wave of registrations in Volume 7 of the Syrian studbook. She had several sisters and relatives, but only she was registered. I don’t know if he is a Mlayhan Shahm al-Rass or from another branch. This is the strain of the “parrot-mouthed mare” which Major Roger Upton saw among the Sba’ah Bedouins in 1874, and which Lady Anne Blunt saw again in 1878. Upton and Blunt spelled it “Meleyhan”.
Lyman Doyle sent me these scanned photos of grand mare Jabinta (Jadib x Bint Malakah by Subani), a 1969 Saqlawiyat al-‘Abd tracing to Homer Davenport’s *Wadduda. She has my Jadiba (by Dib) at her side. Jadiba and Jabinta are the kind of mares that should have produced ten foals not one, and certainly not by the same stallion. As my father would say: “Ya hayk faras ya bala!“, or “Either a mare like that, or none at all!”
This was my father’s answer when I asked him why he was about to purchase a beautiful, authentic desert-bred mare that was not registered in any studbook. There was something idealistic and foolish — these two tend to overlap — about his stance which left a mark on the teenager I was. No formal authority at the time was ever going to recognize the purebred status of this beauty. Her resale value and that of her offspring were almost nil. Despite having given it a lot of thought over the years, I am still conflicted about registration. On one hand, one does not really need a formal registry to confirm the purebred status of a horse. Registries get their information from somewhere. That somewhere, in the case of this mare, was the spotless reputation and the word of the mare’s owner. Also, I reasoned, registries got it the other way around. The very definition of a “purebred” for most breeds is a horse entered in a registry. That includes WAHO’s famously circular definition of a purebred Arabian horse. Besides, registries around the world are full of horses proven not to be purebred. Heck, that is the rule more than it…
This horse is magnificent. He looks better and better with age and more like his paternal great grand sire, the Kuhaylan Nawwaq of ‘Iyadah al-Madi, a son of Krush Juhayyim. Photo by Severine Vesco in France. Pedigree here (couple minor errors in the back)
I think I am going to trace down the descendants of Ibn Jadran, and hint to them that they could become overnight millionaires if they copyrighted the use of their family name by thousands of people around the world each and every time the phrase “Saqlawi Jadran” is uttered. Just saying.
Looking back at more than thirty years around Arabian horses, I still remember the grand old Hamdani Simri stallion al-Aawar as one of two or three desert-bred horses I have admired the most in my life. He had this way of looking at you with a hint of disdain, as if he was the king and you were his subject. When he was led out of his stall, the third from the top at Radwan’s, he would walk slowly to the middle of the arena, then he would pause and gaze at the horizon, his head high. Every movement, every twist of his head was so dignified and majestic that you felt you were in the company of an important representative of his ‘people’. He demanded respect, and obtained it. The photo below, from 1995, captures some of that aura. I don’t think I published it before.
A new Hadban Enzahi colt by Vorrtex out of Zubaidah Assahara.
Hamad al-Jassir’s Usul al-Khayl al-Arabiyyah al-Hadithah has an interesting passage from the version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript manuscript he consulted. This passage is not in the edition of the Manuscript that was published by the King Abd al-Aziz Public Library (KAPL) based on an original that was in the family of Gulsun Sharif. That original is now in the hands of a senior member of the Saudi Royal family. The passage is from an account by Sayyid Sultan Ibn Sharaf the ruler of Turabah in the land of the tribe of al-Buqum about the origin of the Dahman Shahwan. As I had indicated elsewhere, this strain is the oldest attested of the modern strains of Arabian horses, going back to around 1280 CE. It is not yet possible to determine whether the passage which al-Jassir translated is the full account or only an except. Here it in any case: The Sharif Sultan Bin Sharaf said: “The Duhm of Shahwan that are from Kunayhir were named after their owner Shahwan, the father of ‘Arar, the brother of Rashed, and the uncle of ‘Umayr. Their mention became famous because of events in relation with them. It is said that Shahwan was…
The Abbas Pasha Manuscript is, at its core, a compilation of Bedouin accounts of the origins and ancestry of Arabian horses purchased by Abbas Pasha. Saudi historian Hamad al-Jassir, in his Usul al-Khayl al-Arabiyyah al-Haditha, listed the accounts featured in the version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript he consulted. I had already pointed to discrepancies between the accounts in this version and the accounts in the version published by the King Abd al-Aziz Public Library (KAPL) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The KAPL version is a facsimile of Gulsun Sharif’s original manuscript. I compared both lists, and there are more discrepancies that I thought. Here is, chapter by chapter and section by section, a list of the accounts that are not in the KAPL version, but which al-Jassir says are in the version he consulted: 1/ In the Dahman chapter: On Dahmat Shahwan The account of Muhammad Ibn Khalifah, Ra’i of Bahrain The account of Faysal ibn Turki, Imam of Najd (al-Jassir mentions two accounts by Faysal Ibn Turki, of which the second one is in the KAPL version The account of Sayyid Sultan Ibn Sharaf the ruler of Turabah in the land of the Buqum On Dahmat Najib: The account…
I always hoped I was born just one century earlier! My good fortune of descending from a Bedouin tribe of rich heritage in breeding Arabians was not complete to live all these traditions while they were still practiced in the daily life! I look at the long history of the Bedouin traditions and I wonder in sorrow: how for the sake of God I could escape the thousands-years long timeline of the Bedouin life only to come to life in the very last century where everything became history! Nevertheless, without any introduction or material reason, a child raised in the city was strongly inclined to the two main facets of the Arabic identity and pride (you may refer to my previous post here); the language, and the horse! Nothing can make my soul tremble like a butterfly more than hearing a piece of good Arabic poetry and being on the back of a true Arabian! I was always fascinated by the pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. Even a good piece of Arabic prose is still poetic enough to my ears. The Bedouin dialect inherited many of the musical characteristics of the classic Arabic language. Although it is barely understood by any non-Bedouin…
Each of the eleven chapters of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript in its Arabic version starts with a table. The table lists the titles of the accounts on every marbat and the page number where the account begins. Sometimes the title includes information not present in the body of the account. There are six sections under the general title “Chapter Three on the Saqlawiyaat”. Section One is on the Saqlawi Simni, section Two is on the Saqlawi Sudani, and so on. The last section, “Section Six on stand-alone Saqlawiyaat” is where the author of the Manuscript grouped those Saqlawiyaat not falling under the previous five sections. This sixth section includes the following title entry: “Accounts of the parti-coloured (rabshah) Najmat al-Subh, the mare of Hussayn al-‘Awwadi, page 129“. Here is my translation of the account on page 129: Accounts of the parti-coloured (rabshah) Saqlawiyah, the mare of Hussayn al-‘Awwadi of al-Ghubayn, her sire is al-Mahyubi. Saddah ibn Jadran informed that: “This mare belonged to a Ruwalah man [who was] in al-Jazirah, beholden (qasir) to Farhan al-Jarba. The Ghubayn [clan] had unhorsed him [in a raid] and taken her. She is Saqlawiyah of al-Njaymaat. Her dam had passed to the Ruwalah from…
The Arabic culture and identity had always been best manifested in two glorious forms; the poetic Arabic language, and the noble Arabian horse! The image of a Faress (horseman) and Sha’er (poet) was the ultimate form of nobility in the Arabic perception! I consider the two the facets and flip side of the coin of the pride of the Arab people! Nothing is more related to the identity and characteristics of the Arabic personality than these two. Even the message of Islam, which was primarily carried by the Arabs along with their vast prosperous empire from Spain to China do not relate as such to the Arabic identity. The Islamic civilization had many benefactors and contributors from different ethnic backgrounds and it declared itself from the very beginning as a universal message. This is exactly what caused the Arab control over the empire to fade out and finally collapse in a few centuries in favor of the Kurds, Turks and Persians. Both, the language and the horse, remained gold-pure in the daily practice of the Arab people protected by strong cultural, religious and ecological parameters. They were so when the Arabs were virtually isolated in their peninsula, and they remained…
DA Ginger Moon delivered a beautiful, strong chestnut filly by Subanet Jabbar this morning. This one is for Bev.
I have been aware of the existence of another version of usul al-khayl, a.k.a the Abbas Pasha Manuscript for some time now. Hamad al-Jassir, in the introduction of his book usul al-khayl al-arabiyah al-khadithah (“Origins of the modern Arab horses”), wrote that he accessed a copy then with his friend Khair al-Din al-Zarkali (photo below) during a visit to his house in Beirut. Zarkali, a Syrian by birth, was a leading Arab intellectual, a diplomat, and Saudi Arabia’s envoy to League of Arab States. For a long time, I thought Zarkali’s manuscript was identical to the one Gulsun Sherif had inherited from her family, translated into English, and beautifully published with Judith Forbis, under the title The Abbas Pasha Manuscript: And Horses and Horsemen of Arabia and Egypt During the Time of Abbas Pasha, 1800-1860. Hamad al-Jassir’s Arabic book quoted liberally from the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. I never paid much attention to these, always preferring to go back to the original text. Recently, after rereading the original manuscript cover to cover, I realized that it did not include several accounts of strains that Hamad al-Jassir had attributed to the text of the Manuscript. One of these accounts is that of…
From the Arabian Horse Archives comes this beautiful picture of the Stud of King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Aal Sa’ud at al-Kharj, the dream of many a horse breeder. From the collection of Comar Arabians. It is not available in better resolution anymore.
Kuhaylan al-Jalala is yet another strain that goes back to the Sharif of Mecca. A mare from this strain, Saida, was imported by Count Stroganoff and Prince Sherbatoff from the Northern Arabian desert to Russia. I had written about this strain ten years ago, here. Back then, my sources were Shammar oral histories through veteran horse merchant ‘Abd al-Qadir Hammami. They were supplemented by information French intelligence officer Victor Muller had collected from the Northern Shammar around 1922. I am now reading the account on Kuhaylan al-Jalala in the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, which is very consistent with the oral histories of the Shammar. Here is my translation of the relevant excerpt: Sultan Ibn Suwayt the Shaykh of al-Dhafeer was queried about al-Jalala: “Which of the Kahaayil is she, and what is the original source from which she spread (shiyaa’ah)?” The aforementioned reported in the gathering: “She is a Kuhaylah, to be mated. The original source from which she spread (shiyaa’ah) was the Sharif, of the first Sharifs of Mecca. She passed from the Sharif to Ibn Dayiss of the ‘Ulyan of Shammar al-Jazirah. In ancient times, at the time of Shuhayl [who was] one of our…
Bait al-Arab Kuwaiti researcher Yahya al-Kandari found a manuscript on Arabian horse strains in a private library in Jerusalem. The manuscript seems to date from 1264 Hijri, equivalent to 1848 CE. The handwriting is indeed characteristic of the mid-XIXth century Arabic script. I am eager to learn more, but for now, I will take what’s in that screenshot, which Radwan Shabareq sent me. It says: The second chapter is on the types of Arabian horses (al-khayl al-‘arabiyyaat), their names and their affiliation with their tribes. The horses of Bani Jamil: Sawafiyyah, Haraabah, al-Lulu, Sawdat al-‘Ayn, al-Juwayrah, al-Trayfiyyah; the horses of Bani Tay: al-Hawqah, al-Hajiniyyah, al-Ruhaybiyyah, al-Mar’aaniyyah, Umm ‘Amer, al-Ju’aythiniyah, al-Dahhakah, al-Da’jaaniyah, al-Ru’ayl, al-Ghazalah… Some strains I recognize, many I do not. The Bani Jamil, also known as al-Mujamma’, are a large Bedouin tribe settled in Iraq, in the province of Diyala. Their area of settlement is along the Tigris river, from Tikrit to Balad with a concentration around Samarra’. Of the horses listed under them, I recognize the strain of al-Haraabah and the much older strain of al-Trayfiyyah. The Tai mentioned in that snippet are not the segment of this tribe settled in North East Syria around al-Qamishli and Tall…
Monologue CF recently had a very showy son for Laura Fitz in Michigan, the outcome of his stay there last here. His dam is Laura’s 2014 grey mare Mi Blue Angel (DB Khrush x Thank Heaven by Mlolshaan Hager Solomon). Unfortunately, Laura’s other mare, HH Karisma Krush proved barren to him.
Shoq is another one of Basil’s mares. I had written about her earlier, here. She is the only daughter of Mahboub Halep in Syria. Her breeder had seen Mahboub at Radwan’s stud in Aleppo prior to this importation to France, and bred her dam to him. She should have foaled by now.
The past few weeks have been fairly productive, in terms of my digging into the origins of Arabian horse strains, based on the accounts in the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. I wrote about the origins of the Dahman, Saqlawi, Hamdani, Hadban, Shuwayman, Krushan, Mimrah, and Harqan strains. I also have upcoming entries on the Wadnan and Rabdan strains. I will be pulling all these together into an article or a book chapter, while trying to identify some emerging common trends. One can already see that three groups, the Sharifs of Mecca, the tribe of Bani Lam (from Tai) and the tribe of ‘Abidah (from Qahtan), play a central role in the original configuration of modern Arabian horse strains. Whatever analysis emerges will remain incomplete without accounts of other ancient strains, such as Jilfan, Trayfi, Tuwayssan, Sa’dan and Frayjan.
Last week Basil Jadaan sent me photos and videos of his mares. He is carefully rebuilding his stud after having lost all his horses during the Syrian civil war. This is his lovely 2007 Ubayyat Ibn Suhayyan mare Zamzamah. She is by a Kuhaylan Hayfi government-owned stallion Midyan al-Ghouta (Layth al-Arab x Mayyada), out of Zamzam, who was by Dinar (Al-A’war x Aseela) out of Raabi’ah (Al-A’war x Freiha al-Sughra). Freiha al-Sughra was bred by Shammar Bedouin Hamid Ibn Suhayyan, the owner of the strain. The strain is a branch of ‘Ubayyan, which the Shammar clan of Ibn Suhayyan has been breeding for close to 200 years. Before that, the strain was with al-Lumaylimi of the Wuld ‘Ali Bedouin, and before that with al-Hunaydees of al-Dhafeer. The maternal grand-dam of this mare was the full sister of the stallion Shahm that was imported to France but died soon after.
Some twelve years ago, I wrote several blog entries about the strain of Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. One of these entries, here, summarized the strain’s origin as it was reported in one account in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. This account traced this strain’s origin to a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz mare owned by ‘Ijl Ibn Hulaytim, a celebrated figure in the history of Najd. He was from the old tribe of Aal Mughirah. Aal Mughirah, now vanished as a single tribal unit, was one of the sections of the larger Bani Lam tribe. ‘Ijl was the ruler (amir) of a small but powerful principality in Najd centered around the town of al-Shu’araa, some 200 kilometres west of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The second map zooms in on the black box area in the first map, enlarged. Ignore the red point. According to this account, a precious, ancient line of Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz had passed in war from ‘Ijl ibn Hulaytim to the tribe of Qahtan, then from Qahtan to al-Maryum, who was from the Dhafeer tribe. From al-Maryum, it had passed to al-Mimrah, who was from the clan of al-Muwayni’ of the Sba’ah. The line has been known as Kuhaylat al-Mimrah ever since.…
CSA Baroness Lady “Lady” is coming back, after four years in the caring ownership of Cathy Fenton in Michigan. Thank you Cathy for letting me have her back. She is perhaps the last living Al Khamsa mare from the strain of Ferida, a Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah bred in the Arabian desert and imported by Lady Anne Blunt from Egypt to the UK in 1891. Three other mares from Carol Stone’s Ma’naqi preservation breeding program, CSA Amira Kista (Sharif Zaraq x Takelma Rosanna) a 1997 grey mare; CSA Trilours (Mahtar x Takelma Velours), a 1999 grey mare and CSA Zaraqa (CSA Maneghi Amir x Takelma Velours), an unregistered 2000 grey mare, all died within a few years of each other. There are three other mares of breeding age, from another breeding program. The AK Preservation Task Force is trying to establish whether they are still alive, and if so, to locate them. Tall order..
I finally managed to make sense of the short section in the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript that deals with the genealogies of the Sudaniyaat mares — from the strain of Saqlawi Jadran of Ibn Sudan. This section consists of about eighteen lines of a testimony by Dabbi Ibn Shtaywi and Nimr Ibn Sudan of the Gmassah, on pages 86 and 87 of the Arabic edition. The English translation is confusing by the translators’ own admission, because of a couple missing words at the end of the testimony. I would like to propose the following genealogy, based on my translation of the Arabic text: Dabbi Ibn Shtaywi and Nimr Ibn Sudan and the elders of the Gmassah reported that: A mare of the Saqlawiyaat of Ibn Jadran [Mare 1] was left by him with the Bani Husayn on the year water was being sold. From them, she [Mare 1] passed to Saliim the son of the paternal uncle of Dabbi Ibn Shtaywi by way of purchase. She [Mare 1] was bred to the Saqlawi Jadran horse al-Bahim which passed to Saud and she produced a chestnut mare [Mare 2], which ‘Ali ibn Sudan purchased. The daughter of al-Bahim…
What follows is an account of the origin of the Saqlawi strain from the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, and my analysis of it. It ties together two distinct series of entries on this blog: a series on dating the beginning of Arabian horse strains, and a series on the history of the medieval tribal emirate of the Tai in Northern Arabia, under Muhanna ibn ‘Issa Aal Fadl (d. 1335 CE) and his descendants from the Aal Fadl clan of the Tai tribe (genealogy below). This account of the Saqlawiyaat needs to be handled with care, because of how it weaves together myth and reality. Careful analysis can however yield useful information, including a tentative dating for the origin of the strain. First, my translation of the account from Arabic, then my notes and analysis: A gathering was held in the presence of the prince (amir) of al-Mawali ‘Arif Bek, from the descendants of Ibn al-Zarbah, […], in the presence of Hammad al-‘Abitah, aged one hundred and twenty years — a caretaker in the household of the descendants of Ibn al-Zarbah, and in the presence of all the Mawali, old and young. Hammad al-‘Abitah and ‘Arif Bek were queried at the gathering:…
One consequence of my re-discovering George Tabet’s booklet after a twenty year hiatus is that it allowed me to solve a couple of puzzles related to Arabian horses imported to the USA. One of these relates to the 1947 W.R. Hearst desert-bred import *Rajwa and her son the stallion *El Abiad, who was imported by to the USA by F.E. Mars. Rajwa recorded strain is Saqlawi “Ejrifi”. *El Abiad’s is a variant: “Ejrefi”. I had not heard of this marbat of Saqlawi Ejrifi or Ejrefi. I long thought it was a spelling mistake. Tabet’s bilingual list of Arabian horse strains finally resolved that puzzle. Under the Saqlawiyaat to be mated, it had this: Saqlawi al-‘Ajrafi/’Ujrufi/’Ejrefi, goes back to Saqlawi al-‘Abd [in the French version: with Turki Ibn Najriss of the ‘Aqaydat] Here it was, as a branch of the Saqlawi strain, with the exact same spelling as for *Rajwa and *El Abiad, with additional information on the strain and its breeder. Tabet’s booklet was written in 1937, ten years before the Hearst importation. Tabet’s reference to the Shaykh of the ‘Aqaydat, Turki al-Najriss as the breeder of this strain also provides a clue about *Rajwa’s breeder, given how rare that strain…
Georges Philippe Tabet’s short booklet “Arabian Horse Lineages” (Ansaab al-Khayl al-Arabiyah, Dar al-Ahad, Beirut, June 1937, 56 pages in both Arabic and French) features a long list of Arabian horse strains. This is the “yellow booklet” I mentioned in an earlier entry. The list is different from lists of Western travelers — Blunt, Upton, Raswan, etc — I have seen before. It is also different from Ali al-Barazi’s equally comprehensive list. They would benefit from a thorough comparison with each other. Tabet mentions the Bedouins as the source of his information in the introduction to the book. He wrote: Faced with this state of ignorance, I decided to turn to the source of the breeding of the Arab horse — the people of the Badia — until after much effort, I was able to know the reasons for these terms [the strains] and what differentiates them from each other. The list has minor errors, which I will be noting in the comments sections over the coming days. Most errors are of two sorts: spelling errors resulting from differences between how Bedouins and settled people pronounce some Arabic letters, and the attribution of the wrong tribal affiliations to some strain owners,…
Today was a special day. As a child, I used to treasure the times spent talking with my father about Arabian horses. In the evenings, I would sit by his bedside,and read from the same books or magazines he read from. There was a white nightstand near his bed. In one of the nightstand’s drawers, there was a stack of small papers, bound together with a staple or two. My father would refer to it as “Abu Tahir’s booklet” (karrasit Abu Tahir), after the late Ahmad Ghalyun (Abu Tahir), who seems to have given it to him. Abu Tahir had a farm outside Homs in Syria, where my father kept some of his horses on occasion. Lots of nice teenage memories there. The booklet consisted of a list of Arabian horse strains, their owners and owners’ tribes in Arabic. It classified the strains into ‘hedud‘, those to be mated, and ghayr hedud, those not to be mated. More on this notion later. Over the years, the booklet’s printed words faded and its creased pages became yellow. That’s what I liked the most about it. I treasured it, and today I still attribute my passion for Arabian horses strains to the…
[This article was last revised on June 26] My dive into the Abbas Pasha Manuscript — that bottomless treasure — for approximates dates of the beginning of the main strains of Arabian horses continues. The approach remains the same. After the Dahman Shahwan (ca. 1280 CE), Hamdani Simri (ca. 1670) and the Hadban and Harqan strains (both ca. 1650), now is the turn of the Krushan. The Krushan strain is the subject of Chapter 11 of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. This my translation of the opening testimony: Al-Hamidi Al-Dawish, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Dawish, Husayn Ibn Farz, and Mutlaq al-Dawish, a man advanced in age, were queried in the presence of a crowd from the Dushan and the Mutayr about the Krush. Which of the Kahaayil does she go back to? ?Who did she originally spread from? The aforementioned reported: “She is a Kuhaylat ‘Ajuz; she is the first of the Kahaayil; she was was named Krush after Ibn Karshah of Qahtan, and al-Ghandur after al-Ghandur of the Buqum. She is a precious strain, [they are] authenticated and blessed horses. She first spread from Ibn Ramthayn of the ‘Abidah of Qahtan. The Sharif Abu Srur al-awwal asked for her from Ibn Ramthayn,…
I finally located the original reference to the famous account of the gift of a really expensive desert-bred mare to al-Malik al-Nassir Muhammad Ibn Qalawun, Mamluk Sultan of Egypt, Syria and Hijaz. He reigned from 1293 to 1341 CE, with two interruptions (1294-99 and 1309-10). Al-Nassir Muhammad was really fond of desert-bred horses from Arabia. He paid large sums for them and collected them in large numbers — a sort of precursor to Abbas Pasha. When he died, he left behind 4,800 of these horses in his stables, not counting the ones he had given to his Mamluks during his long rule. The account of that expensive gift occurs in pages 503 and 506 of this edition of al-suluk li-ma’rifat duwal al-muluk (free download link for those who read Arabic!), a work by Taqi al-Din al-Maqrizi (1364-1442 CE). Maqrizi was one of the foremost historians and chroniclers of the Mamluk Sultanate. It is not to be found in Maqrizi’s al-mawa’izh wa al-i’tibar, as the Arabian horse website of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina says. Here is my translation of the account, under the events of the year 715 Hijri (1315-16 CE), followed by my notes: On [this year], Muhammad ibn ‘Issa, the…
Check out this excellent article about the modern Bani Lam tribe, a subset of the medieval tribe of same name. Some sections splintered, reformed, absorbed sections from other tribes, and become the modern day tribes of al-Dhafeer, al-Fudul, Aal Mughirah, and Aal Kathir. The remainder of the tribe retained its tribal name, and: Pushed out of northern Hejaz in the 9th/15th century, they moved to the lower Tigris-Euphrates region about 950/1550 (Oppenheim, II, pp. 320, 324; III, pp. 18-19). Late in the 10th/16th century they migrated to the east bank of the Tigris. They are now settled in the ‘Amarah district of eastern Iraq and the Khuzistan province of Iran. I guess they are the source of the Iranian Asils, at least in part. That would make a lot of sense, given that some of the strains of today’s Iranian Asils like Wadnan and Hamdani were originally Bani Lam strains. Some Iranian Wadnans below. You may be wondering why the focus on the Bani Lam on this blog over the past few entries. I feel I am onto something, in terms of the beginning of Arabian horse strains, and that such beginning may be connected to both the Sharifs of…
An interesting account from the Meccan chronicle Ghayat al-Maram bi Akhbar Saltanat al-Balad al-Haram by ‘Izz al-Din al-Hashimi al-Qurashi under the year 917 Hijri (1511-12 CE): The Sharif Barakat raided the Mafarijah [a tribe of the Bani Lam] and their allies the Bani ‘Uqbah. He [the Sharif] had some of the Mafarijah with him. Then he met with the Shaykhs of Bani Lam. They agreed with him that he’d give them their usual subsidies. They told him that the Sultan had sent six thousand [units of money] with al-Burhan al-Samarqandi, which they had not received. The Sharif gave the tribes of Bani Lam and Bani ‘Uqbah and others large numbers of horses and garments. He showed much beneficience to them. Bedouin oral histories have conserved the memory of many horses strains coming from the Sharif Barakat. However, there were at least three Sharifs of Mecca by this name. Also, this episode in another source, Nayl al-Muna, involving the same Sharif Barakat and his son Abu Numayy in the year 926 Hijri / 1520 CE: The tribe of Bani Lam laid siege to [the holy city] Medina. They cut some of its palm groves that were toward Mount Uhud. They asked…
Another Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz strain from the Sharif of Mecca. The below account of the Kuhaylan Harqan strain in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript offers some of the clearest indications for dating an Arabian horse strain. The accounts of Kuhaylat al-Ru’ail and her name is al-Harqah: Those present at the gathering of Ha’il were queried about al-Ru’ail, “as it is said it is yours, O Shammar”. Talal Ibn Ramal and ‘Ubayd ibn Rashid reported: “The accounts we have heard from the forebears were that, in early times, al-Suwayt was in the homeland area [dirah] of al-Jabal [Jabal Shammar]. He [al-Suwayt] would raid the people of Najd each time one of the ashraaf from the people of Mecca took over power [in Najd]. When the Sharif Muhammad al-Harith, the leader of the ashraaf at the time, took over power [in Najd], he [i.e., al-Suwayt] raided Najd [again]. Muhammad al-Tulay’, a son of ‘Abdah, of the Fdayl of the Shammar, unhorsed the Sharif Muhammad al-Harith and took him prisoner. He made many demands over his release. Among his demands was the Kuhaylah. And she [i.e., a mare from that line, not the ransom mare herself] went to Abu Utait, the Shaykh of the Faddagha…
I have been reading and writing a lot about the Dhafeer Bedouin tribe lately, because of its link with the origins of the Hamdani and Hadban strains. So here is a rare picture of ‘Ajmi ibn Suwayt (died 1988), the tribe’s Shaykh during most of the twentieth century. While the tribe’s traditional dira (i..e, the area associated with it, including the main wells and watering places) fell within the borders of Iraq, as well as the old neutral zone between Iraq and Saudi Arabia (in brown in the map below), ‘Ajmi Ibn Suwayt transferred his allegiance to Saudi King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn Saud, and moved to Saudi Arabia with part of his tribe. The Dhafeer therefore acquired “Saudi tribe” status, which opened the door to the naturalization of its members as Saudi. Another part of the tribe remained in Iraq, under a rival cousin.
[I revised this article several times, the last time on June 16, 2020] The subject of this article is a battle between the Dhafeer Bedouin tribe and the Sharif Hamud Ibn ‘Abdallah either in the year 1667-68 Hijri (1078 Hijri) or 1669-1670 CE (1080 Hijri), depending on the sources. This episode is relevant to understanding the beginnings of the Hadban and Hamdani strains in Arabian horses. Both strains find their origins with the Dhafeer. Some context first: The Sharifs (Arabic plural ashraaf) are the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, which have over time come to form a special social group. In the Hijaz region of Arabia, the ashraaf have turned this special social status into political power. Different branches competed for the rulership of Mecca, with frequent conflicts. The Sharif Hamud never ruled Mecca. He was a cousin and a serious rival to the ruling Sharif, Sa’ad ibn Zaid whose rule began in 1666-7. Here is British explorer and historian Gerald De Gaury on this contested nomination episode and the ensuing conflict between Sa’ad ibn Zaid and his rival Hamud: “Sa’d it was, who in the end received the Sultan’s approval, and Hamud in consequence at once left Mecca for…
From the “History of Najd” of ‘Uthman Ibn Bishr: Under the year 1670-71 CE: In the year 1081 [Hijri], was the battle of al-Kaythal, a well known place in Najd, between al-Dhafeer and al-Fudul. Under the year 1674-75 CE: In the year 1085, [came] the famous time known [as] Jarman during which prices increased, and during which the nomads of the Fudul (bawadi al-Fudul) went eastwards. Under the year 1675-76 CE: In the year 1086 […], in this year, Salamah ibn Suwayt, the chief of the Dhafeer was made prisoner, Barrak Ibn Ghurayr felled him and made him prisoner.
It’s an exaggeration but this is what Hamid ibn Mudhi al-Suhayyan, the Shammari owner of the marbat of Ubayyan Ibn Suhayyan, told me in 2006. At the time I did not fully grasp the significance of what he had said. After reading the initial stories about the foundation of every strain in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, I now see what he meant. Bani Lam, a Najd branch of the Tai tribe, broke into four tribes sometime in the mid 1650s: Dhafeer, Fudul, Aal Kathir, and Aal Mughirah. The first three migrated easterwards, towards Iraq shortly after, because of pressures from the Sharif of Mecca, the rise power of the Shammar conferation (which was part Tai and part ‘Abidah/Qahtan) and a devastating famine known as Jarman. Today the Aal Kathir are considered part of the Dhafeer. The following strains were created with one or another of the branches of the Bani Lam. By “created”, I mean that they acquired their separate names as distinct branches of the Kuhaylan tree: Hadban (Dhafeer branch, at Mani’ of Dhafeer, then to Nzahi of Fudul) Wadnan (Fudul branch, at al-Khursan of Fudul) Shuwayman (Fudul branch, at Sabbah of Fudul) Mimrah (Aal Mughirah branch, started as…
The below account of the origin of al-Hadb is an application of the way I propose to date the origin of Arabian horse strains. I translated it from the Arabic version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. My own notes follow. The accounts of al-Hadb with al-Dhafeer: In the presence of Sultan Ibn Suwayt and a crowd of people at the gathering, Shabat al-Mani’ of al-Suwayt, a man advanced in age, and ‘Ali al-Mani’ the son of Shabat’s brother, were queried about al-Hadb, how they came about, their origins, and which of the strains they trace back to. The two aforementioned reported that: “Mani’ was at the time of Bani Lam. He was from our grandfathers. Between us, O those present here and Mani’, there are four grandfathers. We do not know how she passed to Mani’, except that we hear and know from our elders that there is no Hadbah other than the horses of Mani’. She [the strain] traces back to Kuhaylat Umm Ma’aarif. The reason for her being called Hadbah is that there was a mare at Mani’s with profuse hair, so abundant that it covered her crest. For this reason, she was called Hadbah. She [the strain]…
I take special interest in the origin of Arabian horse strains. I am particularly keen on establishing the approximate dates when the main strains first came about. In the context of oral Bedouin culture, this can present obvious challenges. Before the advent of modernization and mass literacy in the twentieth century, Bedouins did not assign numerical values to years the way literate societies did. They linked years to important events that took place in the same time period, e.g., “the year Sfug al-Jarba was murdered“. This was 1847, according to British spies’ cables to London. The Abbas Pasha Manuscript helps resolving the dating problem to some extent. It features hundreds of pages of written testimonies from several dozen Bedouins. The preamble to the manuscript mentions a completion date in 1269 Hijri, which extends from November 1852 CE to October 1853 CE. This means that Abbas Pasha’s envoys to the tribe must have gathered their accounts in 1851 or 1852 at the latest. Incidentally, one of the accounts refers to “the year Sfug al-Jarba was murdered” (1847) in the recent past, so the accounts must have been collected in or after 1848. A date of 1850 is therefore a good estimate,…
Also from the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, my translation: Ghadir al-Simri of the Dhafeer, a white haired man, the owner of al-Simr, was asked about the marbat of the Hamdaniyah Simriyah, in the house [Bedouin house, i.e., tent] of Farhan al-Jarba, at a gathering [majliss] in the presence of Farhan al-Jarba, Khuzaym the Shaykh of al-Sayih of Shammar, Ubayd Ibn Suqi, and Samir Ibn Zaydan al-Jarba [that’s the brother of ‘Ajil Ibn Zaydan owner of Davenport’s *Hadba], and a crowd of people, more than a hundred individuals. O Ghadir, by your honor and good fortune, and belongings and children, recount the story of the Hamdaniyah Simriyah, your marbat. From where he pass to you? To whom did she pass from you? What are the marabet which recognize? Inform us truthfully in this gathering! During the gathering, Ghadir al-Simri reported that: “As to the strains that passed from us to outsiders, our grandathers say that on the day of the battle of the Sharif, in times past, when our grandfathers were in Najd, twelves fillies from the daughters of the Hamdaniyah Simriyah our marbat left to the tribes [the tribes allied with the Sharif of Mecca]. This is…
This entry compares two Arabic primary sources some 53 years apart: First, my translation of a passage in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (1853) about the Hamdani Simri strain, with my notes in brackets. “Mughir Ibn Buraykan of the Gmassah [a clan of the Sba’ah tribe], a man aged one hundred years, was queried. He testified that ‘Abdallah Ibn Ghbain, one of the senior Shaykhs of the Fada’an had informed him that the Hamdaniyah Simriyah had reached al-Jad’ah [a clan of the Fad’aan tribe] from al-Simri of the Dhafeer. It happened that a raiding party from the Dhafeer had attacked them [“the Fad’aan tribe] at Wadi al-Rasha in Najd. Fad’aan and Sba’ah [who often camped together] pursued him [i.e., al-Simri, who was part of the Dhafeer raid] and unhorsed him. The Hamdaniyah escaped from her owner, and she was a two-year old. A horseman from al-Jad’ah — the owner of [the marbat of] Kuhaylat Ras al-Fidawi — went after her. He [the horseman from al-Jad’ah] offered him [al-Simri] protection in exchange for half of her [the mare] and gave him the [Kuhaylat] Ras al-Fidawi and twenty she-camels for the second half, and took her. So [the clan of] al-Jad’ah had the…
Syrian racehorse owner Ali al-Barazi was an authority on the horses of Homs and Hama in Central Syria. He was also a primary source of information about the horses of the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, whose summer encampments were near these two cities. His family acquired many horses from the Sba’ah. His information about the racehorses of Egypt and Lebanon could be relied upon. His book “the Arab Horse” (in Arabic) is a lot less reliable when it comes to horses from other parts of Arabia. It also seems that Barazi had access to the English translation of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, which Judith Forbis and Gulsun Sherif were working on in the 1960s and 1970s. His book features many photos from the Judith Forbis article “Pearls of Great Price” in Arabian Horse World about the horses of Bahrain. He also cites information that appears only in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. One can tell from the errors in his translations back to Arabic that he was working off excerpts from the English version of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript. This is a minor criticism of what otherwise remains one of the better books to be published in Arabic about Arabian horses over…
I love reading the Abbas Pasha Manuscript in its Arabic version. I find it entertaining, a bit like a novel. This is one of my favorite passages — my translation, and my annotations in brackets: Shahata al-Hunaydees was asked: “Do tell us about your marbat [a Bedouin stud], by your honor and good fortune. From where did the Ubayyah al-Hunaydisiyah come to you? Which marabet [plural of marbat] do you recognize? To whom did she pass from you? He declared: “She passed to my grandfather al-Hunaydis from al-Sharrak in person. Al-Sharrak was the maternal uncle of al-Hunaydis, and he gifted her to him as an elderly mare. As to her passing to outsiders [i.e., beyond his tribe], I will not tell you about it. So Farhan al-Jarba went to see him, and from noontime till the evening he tried to trick him [into discussing the horses from his stud]; he even threw his children in the lap of al-Hunaydis [a Bedouin way of pleading with someone] so that he traces his horses, but he would not trace them. Al-Hunaydis was eventually coerced to tell that: “a mare passed from us to al-Sardiyah [a small noble tribe in North Arabia] and…
This is not a photo I would have shared a few months ago. I don’t remember who sent it to me. It features a member of the Islamic State (IS) on the Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion Shamikh Al Jabri. The background to the photo is the equestrian club of Raqqah with its conspicuous blue gate. The club was destroyed in the US coalition bombings. Many horses perished. Shamikh and a few mares survived. He died last year, but several mares are alive that are in foal to him. His pedigree is one of the best in Syria, and certainly one of the cleanest. The sire of Shamikh is Wesam Halab (Raad x Aaliyah), a Hamdani al-‘Efri of the breeding of Omar ‘Anbargi. His dam is Fattanah (Faris II x Dawhah), a Kuhaylat al-Wati. Dawhah was one of the original Kuhaylat al-Wati mares of Mustafa Jabri, from the breeding of Hakim al-Ghism. Faris II was by the Kuhaylan Mimrah stallion Basil (Mahrous x Halah) out of the ‘Ubayyah Suhayliyah mare Qatheefah. Below, from top to bottom: Halah the chestnut, Qatheefah the bay, and Dawhah the chestnut. Three mares I have known through the 1990s and continue to admire. I don’t think either…
‘Azzah was one of my father’s favorite mares at Mustafa Jabri’s. She was a daughter of the Hamdani Ibn Ghurab al-Aawar and of Nadia, a desert bred Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah tracing to the marbat of Muhammad al-Dahdah of the Jawwalah clan of Tai and to Dari al-Mahmud of the Zawba’ Shammar before that. That strain originally goes back to the ‘Anazah. I took this photo of hers in the mid-1990s. Despite being the daughter of two registered horses, and the full sister of Mustafa’s other senior stallion Ihsan (photo below), Azzah was somehow missed by the first wave of registrations of the late 1980s, and was only registered in the second wave in 2001. By the way, it took me ten years before I realized that Ihsan was a son of Al-Aawar.
A younger me with Mustafa Jabri on the left and Radwan Shabareq on the right. The good years. Some 25 years ago if not more.
I saw ‘Am’um (Kuhaylan al-Buthah x Raddah) in 2005 and snapped this photo. His sire is a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz from the very old marbat of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Jlaidan (or Kuhaylan Jlaidani). His dam is Raddah, a 1977 Ma’naqiyah Hadrajiyah of Faddan Ibn ‘Ufaytan. The sire of Raddah is the black Ma’naqi Hadraji of Mudhi al-Sabah al-Shihaan al-‘Ufaytan, Faddan’s cousin. The sire of her dam is the chestnut Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz of Bardan Ibn Jlaidan. The Jlaidan and ‘Ufaytan are all cousins. They only use each other’s stallions, and seldom introduce outside horses to their closed breeding programs. This stallion met an untimely death. In my opinion, he was one of the best desert-bred stallions I had seen among the Shammar and Tai Bedouin tribes. Look at the prickled ears, the broad forehead, the low-set large eyes, the long neck, the long withers, the sloping shoulders, the strong back. And he was starving like most Bedouin horses I saw that year.
Dali was the brother of Radi al-Hkaysh and the paternal cousin of ‘Atallah al-Battu, who owned the Hamdani Simri stallion al-Aawar, and before him a Dahman ‘Amir of the horses of ‘Ajil al-Yawar. This Dahman ‘Amir had been given to him by his maternal uncles so he could earn a livelihood from charging stud fees. Both stallions were Shammar herdsires. Radi, Dali and ‘Atallah are descendants of the former black slaves of the Jarba leaders of the Shammar. The reference to their maternal uncles is a euphemistic reference to their former masters, the family of Hmaidi al-‘Ajil al-Yawar al-Jarba of the leaders of the Shammar in Iraq. It means that they are related to the Shammar shaykhs in blood, but through concubines. Dali had just returned from Damascus where he performed as a singer at wedding parties.
Faddan Salim al-‘Ufaytan and his son, from the Hdibah clan of the Northern Shammar. The ‘Ufaytan have owned the Ma’naqi Hudruji strain among the Shammar for some hundred years. They got the strain from the ‘Anazah. The strain originally belonged of the ‘Amarat tribe of the ‘Anazah. I think, but I am not sure, that Hudruj was an ‘Amarat Bedouin. Horse merchant and connoisseur ‘Abd al-Qadir Hammami once told me that he bought a Ma’naqi Hudruji colt from the ‘Ufaytan for the Beirut racetrack in 1938. The black Ma’naqi stallion of Dhahir al-‘Ufaytan (Faddan’s paternal uncle) was a major herdsire with the Shammar in the 1970s and 1980s. Most Syrian horses now trace to him. He was the sire of the Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan stallion Al-Asda’, of the Shuwaymah Sabbah mare ‘Abirah, and the Da’janiyah mare Nojomieh, among many others. It is now increasingly hard to find a Syrian horse that does not trace to any of these three horses. Here, with Raddah, a 1980 bay Ma’naqiyah Hudrujiyah. She, like their other horses, was registered in the second wave of the Syrian registration with WAHO in 2001-2. Raddah was my favorite mare at their place. Photo by Edouard Al-Dahdah in…
And now a picture of Wadd Al Arab, out of Oregon, from owner Jessie Heinrick. He has never looked so good.
Roxana Star, a very distinguished Kuhaylah Hayifyah of Davenport bloodlines, is the daughter of the timeless Jauhar El Khala by Personic LF. A Christine Emmert photo.