A translation of the Hujjah of Kuhailan Afas from QDL

Kate McLachlan and I were recently exchanging about the treasure trove of Arabian horse related documents stored at the Qatar Digital Library. She has located, among other findings, a translation of the hujjah of the Bahrain import to Poland Kuhailan Afas, in the hand of Carl Raswan, as well as a translation of his full pedigree. Kuhailan Afas was a major stallion in twentieth century Arabian horse breeding. Click to read they are easily legible. There is also a typewritten Arabic hujjah, which Kate also found, and an extended typewritten pedigree in Arabic, both obviously based on a handwritten Arabic hujjah. These Arabic typewritten versions of the hujjah and pedigree are a bit odd, because they give the horse the strain of its sire (Kuhailan Wathnan) in addition to other glaring inconsistencies. Probably typos. “I declare I, o ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Abd al-Razzaq al-Sani’, the servant of Shaykh Hamad ibn ‘Isa Aal Khalifa, that I sold the horse known as Kuhaylan al-Wathnan to His Excellency the Mister Bogdan Zietarski and I produced this [piece of] paper for him, about the lineage of the horse to clarify its origin; he is of a young age; born on the 25th of Sha’ban the…

Desert bred imports to Poland and Hungary: Kuhailan Zaid

I am starting a series on the desert-bred Arabians imported to Poland and Hungary in the twentieth century. The first I will highlight is Kuhailan Zaid. This stallion came to Europe in 1931 at the same time as Kuhailan Haifi and Kuhailan Afas. He was purchased by Bogdan Zietarski and Carl Raswan for the Hungarian stud of Babolna. He was bred by the Ruwalah Bedouin tribe, by a Kuhailan Abu Junub out of a Kuhaylat al-Zyadah. Here’s Zietarski’s account of his purchase: “At last they bring a stallion of Kuhailan Zaid strain; bay, stripe, black legs over the knees, a splendid line of the trunk, a long strongly expressive neck, a dry head, legs somewhat worn out, hoofs in awful condition, but on the whole with much type, a first class sire, as created for Babolna… We buy him without any bargain.” Kuhailan Zaid was a herd sire at Babolna between 1931 and 1946, and 26 of his daughters were used for breeding, but only a handful of his sons (none in Hungary, only in Poland). Of these Kuhailan Abu Urkub (b. 1935) out of 22 Kemir, and of Kuhailan Said (b. 1934) out of 204 Kemir were perhaps the most influential. Both of them are asil.