Saqlawi Al Araj, a desert stallion in the 1850s

The digital copy of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (APM) has allowed me to follow the tracks of particular horses as they changed hands from one Bedouin tribe to another. One of these horses is Saqlawi Al Araj (“the lame”), apparently a famous horse in the mid 1800s. A search of Al Araj in the APM yields the following information: he was a Saqlawi Jadran from the strain of Ibn Sudan. He was probably bred by Ibn Sudan of the Sba’ah, and the Sba’ah certainly used him for breeding. Several mares of the Sba’ah were bred to him, whose daughters then went to the Abbas Pasha stud. Subsequently, he reappeared in the ownership of Bandar Ibn Sa’adun, the leader of the Muntafiq tribe in Southern Iraq. Bandar also used him as a stallion, and bred from his Wadnan son after him. Example on page 547: “And we mated the daughter of Hadban a second time to Saqlawi al Araj of the strain of Ibn Sudan, belonging to Bandar al Sa’doun“.

The lists of Abbas Pasha imports gathered by Prince Muhammad Ali Tewfik include several daughters of Al Araj (correctly spelled al-A’raj). From a quick look, most appear to be out of mares of the Sba’ah, so in the first part of his career. Many of these mares were later taken in war by the Ruwalah, and bought from the Ruwalah by Abbas Pasha. It is clear from the APM that the Ruwalah tribe enjoyed a special relationship with Abbas Pasha.

Many second hand Western accounts confuse this horse with Al Mayhubi, but they were not the same. Al Mahyubi was not lame, and he was a Saqlawi Ubayri, not a Saqlawi Jadran.