Pre-Islamic Arabic Names
I am very fond of these, because Arabic names in the period before Islam did not yet have a religious connotation. One of my favorites is the masculine name Mu’awiyah. It’s the name of the first Ummayyad Caliph, Mu’awiyah Ibn Abi Sufyan (661-680 AD), as well as that one of the kings of the ancient South-Arabian kingdom of Kinda in the third century A.D, whose capital was Qaryat al-Faw, in south central Arabia. It’s also my cousin’s name..
Interestingly, although a masculine name, it means something like “barking bitches”, or better still, “whining bitches”. By the way, the article I linked to above mentions a number of Arabic inscriptions from the collection of Sam Roach of ARAMCO. I wander if that’s the same as the importer of four Roach Blue Start horses to the USA.
By the way one of the most useful resources on the archaeological site of Qaryat al-Faw is the book of Abd al-Rahman al-Ansary on the subject: Qaryat al-Faw: Portrait of a Pre-Islamic Civilisation”. It is available for free online!
http://ia700404.us.archive.org/19/items/QaryatAl-fawAPortraitOfPre-islamicCivilisationInSaudiArabia1982/QaryatAl-faw.pdf
Thanks for all these interesting little avenues, I am going to ride now not to waste daylight but look forward to some interesting reading tonight!
I used to have a copy of Wentworth’s the Authentic Arabian Horse many many years ago. I recall she mentioned some pre Islamic poetry or other written stuff that named two strains that were called I think Lahik or something similar and another. I was wondering if there is any information about this that you know of, other than the standard strains, this was from before they developed? I suspect the whole breed may descend from some extremely popular stallion who later was credited to Solomon but was more recent. the zad el rakib story.