Also from the collection of Jacques Edinger at the French Musee du Quai Branly — Jacques Chirac is this photo of a Bedouin leader and his beautiful mare from the Negev/Naqab desert around the city of Beersheba/Bi’r al-Sab’. Note the prickled ears, the small muzzle, the protruding eye sockets and the broad, flat forehead on this beautiful desertbred horse.
From the collection of Jacques Edinger at the French Musee du Quai Branly comes this bueatiful photograph titled “Fils de chef bédouin tenant le cheval de son père” (“Son of Bedouin chief holding his father’s horse), and taken between 1930 and 1937 in Syria.
When I first opened Volume One of the Syrian Studbook some twenty five years ago, the first thing that struck me was the very limited number of horses that traced to the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe. After all, this powerful and wealthy tribe which is part of the larget ‘Anazah confederation spent its summer quarters in the area directly east of the city of Hama in central Syria. As a result it was familiar to Western travelers and government agents who took off from Aleppo, Damascus or Beirut, in search for Bedouin Arabian horses. Another result of this geographical location was that many of the early desert-bred imports to the West and Egypt, which form the antecedents of many of today’s Arabian horses, hailed from the Sba’ah tribe. Major Roger Upton, for instance, spent some time with Sba’ah leader Shaykh Sulayman Ibn Mirshid in 1874, and bought horses like Kesia, Yataghan and Haidee from his tribesmen. Similarly, Lady Anne and Wilfrid Blunt visited with Beteyen Ibn Mirshid a few years later and some of their best known early desert imports were bred by the Sba’ah: Queen of Sheba, Meshura, Azrek, Pharaoh, Dajania, Hagar, etc. Some of the horses imported by Homer…
One of the most interesting passages of Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence is her visit to the Bedouin Tarabin tribe of the Sinai peninsula and the Negev desert, during her and Wilfrid Blunt’s crossing from Cairo to Jerusalem in February 1881, and her account of their camel and horse-related traditions; here is on the camels, to set the stage for what will be more than one blog entry, and I will have to say more on the horses and legends associated to them: “A delul [female camel] or hajin [male camel] becomes asil like the English thoroughbred. Five generations of a thoroughbred sire are considered sufficient among Ayeydeh, Shuaga, Terabin, Naazeh [in reality Maazeh] and perhaps Howeytat, though as the last touch on the confines of [Arabian Peninsula Bedouin tribes of] Harb and Sherarat they ma others notions”. [February 11th, 1881] A lot of the tribes mentioned above appear in this map of the area in 1908: The Tarabin today number around half a million, spread across Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Territories and Jordan. In Egypt, they are mostly present in the Sinai, of which they are the largest Bedouin group, but also the Suez Canal cities and the…
Today was one of those days when you receive a bottle you threw in the oceans of your memories ten years ago. Back in 2004, I made a note about a rare book I have long wanted to read or get a hold of. It’s French Army Commandant Victor Muller’s “En Syrie avec les Bedouins: les Tribus du Desert” (Paris, 1931). It’s a complete account of nomadic life in Syria in the early 30s, with references to horse-breeding, strains, and histories of battles during which horses were acquired. In my 2004 note, I was saying that only two copies of that book could be found for sale: one at a bookshop in Nice, France (which turned out to have closed); and another at L’Orientaliste bookshop in Cairo. I left it at that. Yesterday, I found this note, and this morning I entered L’Orientaliste, and asked them where they still had it. They did. I bought it and sent it for binding, as it’s in pretty bad shape. I still can’t believe I bought it, and that I will be able to read it soon (and share it with you). What a treasure.
If you have a Facebook account, click here and take a look at this wonderful slideshow of photographs of the Jordanian Majali Bedouins in the 1940s, taken by Australian photographers Frank Hurley. Wow. Only the Raswan photo collection comes close to the beauty of these pictures. Link shared by Majid al-Sayigh. Let me know if the link works.
Anita Enander sent me this very interesting study on the “Genetic Structure of Nomadic Bedouin from Kuwait“. It’s about people, not horses.
Did you know that the Arabic letter qaf‘, which in Latin script is equivalent to the letter Q has at least three different pronunciations in spoken Arabic, depending on the dialect? One pronunciation of qaf is as [Q] in conformity with classical Arabic, and is used in the dialect of the Druze inhabitants of Mount Lebanon, and the ‘Alawi inhabitants of the coastal mountain chain in Syria, as well by many other groups elsewhere in Arabic speaking countries. For example the would pronounce the Arabian horse strain name Nawwaq as “Nawwaq”, just as you would in English, and as it is spelled in classical Arabic. Similarly, “Saqlawi” would be pronounced exactly as it is written. Another pronunciation of qaf is as the glottal stop [‘], which is best rendered in latin script by the letter [A]. Most Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians and Lebanese — including myself — will pronounce it this way. Nawwaq is pronounced “Nawwa’ ” in this case, and Saqlawi becomes “Sa’lawi”. A third pronunciation of qaf is as the letter [G], and this is the way most (but by no means all) Arabs of Bedouin stock will pronounce it, including a majority of Jordanians, Saudis, other Gulf citizens and some…
I recently found out that Trad al-Milhim al-Mizyad (below), the leader of the Hsinah Bedouins of the Syrian desert, was a frequent visitor of my maternal grandfather’s house, in Hims, Syria. My grandfather, Salim Yazigi (1902-1989), was a Syrian police (“gendarmerie”) officer who retired with the rank of general, and his relationship with Trad al-Milhim, whose Hsinah Bedouins had their summer quarters in the close vicinity of Hims, must be attributed to frequent dealings with the authorities of Hims to address various tribal matters. The Hsinah are a branch of the ‘Anazah and had a very highly reputed marbat of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak, from what the late Azmi Bey al-‘Uthman al-Miri’bi, an Arabian horse authority in Lebanon, told me, back in the 1990s.
When Arabia’s Bedouins tribes engaged in warfare with one another, mares were typically chosen over stallions as war mounts. A number of these war mares found their way to the hands of Western buyers like Homer Davenport and the Blunts, and became part of the foundation stock of Arabian horse breeding in the West. Below is a non-exhaustive list of such mares, which had actually taken part in these battles and raids: — Rodania, taken in war by Tays ibn Sharban of the Sba’ah Bedouins from Sattam ibn Sha’lan of the Ruwalah Bedouins; the Blunts bought her from Tays. — *Wadduda, the war mount of Hakim ibn Mhayd of the Fad’aan Bedouins; Hakim gave her to Ahmad al-Hafiz, who gave her to Davenport. She had two battle scars on her body. — *Abeyah, the war mare of Mit’ab al-Habd of the Shammar Bedouins, taken in war by the ‘Anazah, and later obtained by Davenport. — *Hadba, the war mare of ‘Ajil ibn Zaydan al-Jarba of the Shammar, went to two other people after his death, before she was obtained by Davenport. There should be more, but, as far as I can recall, there is no direct evidence of their participation…
This desert-bred mare is a representative of the rare and precious strain of Rishan. She traces to a most ancient and authenticated marbat of the Rishan strain, that of Ibn Hathmi of the ‘Abdah section of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. Her breeder Ayid al-Fnaish obtained the line from Ibn Hathmi a few decades ago. Mustafa al-Jabri is her current owner and I took this photo at his stud in 1995. She was registered in Volume 1 of the Syrian Studbook under the generic strain of Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz, reportedly because one of the members of the local registration committee was unaware of the existence of the Rishan strain. This oversight was fixed in the next Studbook iterations. She was born in 1986, and I believe her registration name is Bint al-Badiah. Her sire is al-A’war, the chestnut Hamdani (Simri) Ibn Ghurab stallion which the Shammar Bedouins were heavily using at the time, before he ended up with Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo in the 1990s. Her dam’s sire is the Saqlawi (Jadrani) Ibn ‘Amud of Muhammad al-Faris al-‘Ad al-Rahman of the ‘Assaf, the leading clan of the Tai Bedouins. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Basil Jadaan with WAHO, Volume 7 of…
I received the following message yesterday, as a comment to one of the entries on the Tahawi tribe horses. Dear Edouard, I write to you on behalf of Al-Tahawia website managed by my cousin Mohammed ‘Etman (Othman) El-Tahawi. We are glad that the photos and documents we posted on the site were valued by you and your visitors. We are also very pleased with the recent acceptance of the three Tahawi mares to the notable Al Khamsa Roster. By this decision the Tahawi mares are now fully acknowledged by all the Arabian horse organizations. In addition to the few documents from our website that you posted here, we still have a larger number of authentic documents that we will be glad to share with you. We are in contact with Mr. Bernd Radtke who visited us in the 80s and we are aware of his work about Arabian horses. We will be glad to communicate with you and see how we can help. I will be glad to receive from you on the e-mail registered here. Best Regards This message illustrates the generosity and authenticity (asalah) of the Bedouin in general and the Tahawia in particular. I feel humbled by it,…
Check this feature out on the Bedouin Heritage Project website.
Nimr Shabareq (photo below, by Zaarour al-Barary out of Yamhad by al-A’war) is one of the desert bred stallions that were recently imported to France. He is now standing at stud with Louis Bauduin, who took this picture and gave it to Arnault Decroix, who sent it to me (Merci, Arnault). This is not your usual Arabian horse. This is a horse from hell. This is fire made horse. Both Jean-Claude Rajot and Arnault Decroix told me about their first encounter with this horse in 2008, when he was just a weanling at the stud of his breeder Radwan Shabareq: three grooms were needed to handle him as he was being shown to the stunned visitors. This is probably why Radwan called him Nimr — tiger. He hails from one of the most prestigious desert bloodlines: the Ma’naqi Sbayli marbat of Shawwakh al-Bu-Rasan, Shaykh of the Wuldah tribes of the Euphrates valley. Shawwakh had obtained the line from his neighbor and friend ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn, a Fad’aan Bedouin who owns the strain now. ‘Atiyah’s great-grandfather had stolen the original mare from the Sba’ah (click here to read how), the fountain-spring of the Ma’naqi Sbayli strain. The clan of al-Bu-Rasan is…
The ‘Ubayyan Suhayli stallion Mahrous was, until his death in the late 1990s, the herd sire at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud in Aleppo, Syria. Today his sire line is, along with that of the Damascus stallion Ayid, the most prolific in modern Syrian Arabian horse breeding. If you check Mahrous’ entry in the Syrian Arabian Horse Studbook, you will find relatively little information about him, in comparison with other major stallions of his generation (e.g, Mobarak, Mashuj, Raad, Marzuq, Mokhtar, all born between 1982 and 1987). I was able to learn more about Mahrus’ background by asking a number of persons, including Mustafa, Radwan Shabariq and the late Abd al-Qadir al-Hammami, as well as others who knew the horse well. Hazaim al-Wair has also conducted a masterful inquiry among the Shammar Bedouins clans of al-Sbeih and al-Ghishm about Mahrous’ sire. Mahrous was born in 1981, in the steppe area between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in Northeastern Syria. He was bred by a Bedouin of the Faddaghah clan of the Shammar tribe, a man named Wuhayyid al-Hamad al-Duhayyim. Wuhayyid then sold Mahrous to horse merchant, who sold him to another, before Mustafa bought him as a young stallion in 1983/84. The photo of Mahrous,…
This horse should have been mine, years ago. Actually, he was about to be mine, and he somehow slipped between my fingers by going to greener pastures. I first encountered him on a hot summer afternoon in 1996, while on a visit to the Aleppo Equestrian Center, with friends Radwan Shabareq, Kamal Abdul-Khaliq, and my father, Salim al-Dahdah. We had come to see a famous Arabian mare, owned by a man of the leading clan of the Shammar, the Jarba clan, with the intention of buying her. She was a celebrated mare in the desert, and I have featured her several times on this blog. The Aleppo Equestrian Center is located inside a gated compound; a paved road takes you from the main entrance to the stables and the administration offices uphill. Paddocks and jumping competition arenas are in the middle of the compound. As the four of us were walking up the paved road to the stables, the afternoon sunrays pounding on our heads, I was faced with this un-real image of a light grey Arabian stallion, tethered to the paddock fences, with a majestuous yet very gentle attitude, one that welcomes and inspires awe at the same time. I thought to myself: “I didn’t know they had…
The Tahawi family website in Arabic is a gold mine of original information on the asil horses of Egypt’s Tahawi tribe. Here’s what I found today on this website concerning the horse Barakat, who is the paternal grandsire of the three foundation mares Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat [my own annotations in between square brackets]: “The stallion Barakat is the son of the old Dahman, the stallion of ‘Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi which was bought from the ‘Anazah Arabs in 1322H (1898 AD), and the origin of this Dahman stallion is from the Dahmat ‘Amer mare of Jar Allah ibn Tuwayrish, and his sire is a Saqlawi Jadran [Note from Edouard: This is the same horse whose hujjah was reproduced and translated in an entry below]. As to the dam of the stallion Barakat, she is the mare of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi, and she is Dahmat Shahwan“. Further above on the website there is the mention that “the Dahman horses of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi are from the horses of Ibn Maajil of Syria.” The information on Barakat’s dam is extremely interesting. Not only because it allows us to go one generation back in the pedigrees of the three Hamdan stables foundation mares: Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat.…
Check out this article from the New York Times archives, dated Oct. 14, 1906, on the importation of 27 horses from Arabia by Homer Davenport. You can actually go to the website of the New York Times, type “Homer Davenport” in the search box, and access a lot of really interesting articles from the archives section. Don’t forget to choose the category “All results since 1851”.
Mustafa al-Jabri is a longtime Syrian breeder of desert Arabian horses from Aleppo, Syria, and a beloved family friend. Mustafa’s stud near Aleppo, which has up to 100 mares and two dozen stallions, is one of the most highly regarded studs in Syria. Over the past decades, Mustafa spent extensive amounts of time with Bedouins and those familiar with them, and collected a large compendium of stories, some in verse, some in prose about Arabian horse strains, Bedouin feats and deeds, and the relationship of Bedouins with their horses. Mustafa’s family is now working on putting these stories in writing in Arabic, for education and awareness raising purposes. Below is one of these story from Mustafa, which I translated from the original Arabic, and which Mustafa and his family graciously agreed to share: One day Dham al-Hadi al-Jarba the Shaykh of the Shammar tribe went hunting with one of the men from his tribe, a Bedouin known as Wati al-Ghishm (as an aside: Wati means lowly and vile, and it was a Bedouin habit to give their children rough or negatively connotated first names to draw the evil eye away from them ; they would keep positively connotated first names to…
Blog reader Mathias, from Germany, asked a pertinent question a few weeks ago: How come, he observed, “the horses from Saudi sources […] mostly have one strain name and no substrain, like Turfa and […] the mare Ghazala imported to Germany from Saudi Arabia”? I had never noticed before, but Mathias is correct. Check out the available, recorded information on the Saudi horses sent to Egypt’s royal Inshass Stud as gifts: Nafaa, a Kuhaylah, but what Kuhaylah? Hind, a Saqlawiyah, but what Saqlawiyah? Mabrouka, a Saqlawiyah, again with no “substrain”, or marbat; El Kahila, a Kuhaylah with no marbat, etc. Now check out the recorded information on the Saudi horses imported to the USA: *Mahraa and her daughter *Muhaira: Ubayyan, but which Ubayyan? *Al Hamdaniah: Hamdaniyah, but no substrain; *Taamri, *Jalam al-Ubayyan, *Al Obayya: all Ubayyan, no substrain; *Amiraa, *Rudann, *Halwaaji, *Sindidah, *Bedowia El Hamdani: all Hamdanis but no substrain; *Turfa: Kuhaylan, but no substrain, etc. etc. These horses came from famous and well established studs like that of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud at Al-Khorma, or that of Saud Ibn Jalawi in al-Hasa, they were from the Bedouin tribes, who were justifiably proud of their horses’ origins and who carefully, albeit orally, transmitted…
I found some of my notes on the subject of the now extinct strain of Kuhaylan al-Jalala. Victor Muller, a French army intelligence officer who had overall responsibility over the Syrian desert area at the time of the French Mandate on this country authored an authoritative book on the Bedouins of Syria. In one chapter, he wrote that the initial marbat of Kuhaylat al-Jalala among the Shammar was with Ibn Dayes of the Khrissah clan, but that it had recently become extinct with Ibn Dayes. He also wrote that he knew of a Kuhayla al-Jalala mare with the Jayss tribe, the traditional enemies of the Shammar, whose pastures are by the Turkish border with Syria. He also added in what looks like an update to the previous information that the last Kuhaylat al-Jalala mare, owned jointly by Dham al-Hadi al-Jarba (leader of the Northern Shammar in Muller’s time) and by the Qa’it clan (a clan of Shammar warriors) had died recently. He also adds that the number of ancient strains taken by the Shammar in that famous battle with the Sharif of Mecca were five, and cites all the strains I cited except Kuhaylat al-Dhabi. That said, I heard al-Dhabi…
Samura, a chestnut 1895 mare, is a first generation offspring of two desert-bred Arabians imported to Russia by Count Stroganov and Prince Sherbatoff, and was bred by the former at what is now the Tersk Stud. Stroganov’s breeding program was completely wiped out in the events that led to the bolchevik revolution of 1917, and nothing remains of it today. A couple words on the strain of Kuhaylan al-Jalala: it is specific to the Shammar tribe, among which it is now extinct. It is one of the seven (some say eleven) strains which the Shammar took in war from the Sharif (Ruler) of Mecca, when this tribe crushed the Sharif forces in a grueling and epic battle still celebrated by the Shammar in their poems, some two hundred years ago. The other strains taken by the Shammar from the Sharif of Mecca in this battle (actually, a series of battles) are, off the top of my head: Kuhaylan al-Sharif, Obayyan al-Sharif (also known as ‘Ubayyan Suhayli), Kuhaylan al-Dhabi, Kuhaylan al-Jalala, Nkhayshi, Kuhaylan al-Shnaynan, and a seventh I don’t recall now as I am writing from work without my notes. The first two strains are still extant among the Shammar in Syria today,…
[Edouard’s note: the story below was sent to me to Pure Man in Arabic, and is posted here under his name. Translation mine. It was first published a year ago, almost day for day and is being republished now] These horses, al-Musinnat [plural form of Kuhaylat al-Musinn or al-Musinnah] are very ancient. They are from the horses of ‘Abdallah ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Faysal ibn Turki Aal Saud, the brother of King ‘Abd al-Aziz Aal Saud. Prince Abd Allah, the brother of the king, had kept his horses in a private, separate farm. Upon his death, the horses went to his son, Prince Abd al-Rahman, and then to his grandson, Prince Faysal. And Prince Faysal is now aged. Then the horses went to Prince Turki Ibn Fahd Ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Faysal ibn Turki, who is now preserving what remains from the asil horses, per God’s will. Some of the Musinnat horses of Prince Abdallah, the brother of King Abd al-Aziz, participated in the Hedjaz campaign [i.e., the takover of the Hedjaz region from the Sharif of Mecca by the army of Ibn Saud in 1924]. Two men from Ibn Saud’s army fought particularly well in some episodes of this campaign:…
Here’s an interesting and well-referenced analysis on the social transformations of Bedouin society in Jordan spanning 150 years from the middle of the XIXth society until today, from Rami Zurayk’a blog Land and People. Rami teaches at the Faculty of Agriculture of the American University of Beirut (my alma mater).
I realize I haven’t written for two weeks and I apologize. These are busy days at work and in general, with little time left to other endeavors. I received my Khamsat magazine in the mail last week, and I have been reading it in the metro on my way to work. In it is an article by Peter Harrigan, adapted from his talk at the Al Khamsa 2009 convention in Redmond, Oregon, where Peter introduced his audience with the travels and works of Czech explorer and academic Alois Musil. The Khamsat writeup from Peter’s talk has this excerpt from Musil’s masterpiece “Manners and Customs of the Ruwalah Bedouins” (which by the way is widely recognized as the single best work of the ethnography of Bedouin tribes): “The Bedouins assert that no horses were created by Allah in Arabia. According to their tradition, they brought their first horses from the land of the settlers whom they raided”. There is increasing archaeological, epigraphic and zoological evidence that points to a domestication of the horse by settled population in an area straddling today’s nations of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq, in the plains by the foothills of the Taurus and Zagros chains of mountains.…
Bien que je suive très attentivement et très régulièrement les articles de ce blog merveilleux , je me rends compte avoir laissé passer de nombreuses occasions d’apporter commentaires et précisions. Je m’empresse donc de réparer cette négligence en ce début d’année 2010. Tout d’abord , je m’étonne de la perplexité qu’a suscité la petite maxime : ” Le cheval de pur-sang Arabe (asil) est le cheval de l’homme, le cheval de course est le cheval du diable “. Robert Mauvy citait très souvent cette phrase; il la tenait , comme je l’ai dit, des Rouallah . Jamais je ne me permettrais de parler au nom de ceux-ci- seul Pure Man me paraît habilité à le faire ici- mais dans l’esprit de Robert l’enseignement en était très clair: L’emploi des chevaux asils et, pire encore, leur selection par les courses plates à l’européenne est un non sens tel qu’il confine à la monstruosité… C’est dévoyer la race voire avilir le cheval . Je suis en mesure d’apporter commentaires et exemples , d’ailleurs connus de tous, par la suite. Si ces épreuves sous poids ultra-léger, sur de très courtes distances et sur le velours du “turf”sont celles du pur-sang anglais , il n’en est…
225,000 is the size of the Bedouin population of Syria and Lebanon in 1924, as estimated by the French Haut Commissariat de la Republique Francaise (the HCRF, which is the French mandatory power in both Syria and Lebanon) in its 1930 report “Les tribus nomades et semi-nomades des Etats du Levant places sous Mandat Francais”. This number consisted of 125,000 nomadic individuals and 100,000 semi-nomadic ones, for a total combined Syrian and Lebanese population of 1.5 million. Now check out the graph below to follow the evolution of the Syrian population alone since 1960:
I just bought this book, “From Camel to Truck: the Bedouin in the Modern World“, by Dawn Chatty, one of the foremost authorities on nomadic societies and migrations. I will tell you what I think when I read it.
I have always felt considerable sadness whenever an Arabian horse strain dies out. With it, part of the rich and colorful history of this breed vanishes forever. I can’t really say why, but to me it feels just like losing the last copy of a rare manuscript. Most of the best-known and most important Arabian strains are still represented today in asil form, and we are lucky to have them. A number of really significant ones were lost in Arabia Deserta over the last fifty years. These include Kuhaylan Tamri (known to US breeders as the strain of the Davenport import *Houran), Kuhaylan al-Kharas (the strain of the Blunt import Proximo), Kuhaylan Harqan (the strain of the grandsire of the Ali Pasha Sherif stallion Mesaoud) and Kuhaylan Om Soura. Until last week, I thought Kuhaylan Abu Junub was one of these. Kuhaylan Abu Junub is a strain I have always been interested in. There are some indications it is somehow ‘related to’, in a way I am not yet in a position to explain fully, to Ma’naqi, Jilfan, and Frayjan, all of which are ultimately Kuhaylan branches as well. It is on the list of Abbas Pasha’s ten favorite strains,…
One more picture of Omar Anbarji’s now deceased desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Musinn stallion Ra’ad, this time by a professional photographer. I think this is the fourth picture of him I post. I would like to familiarize readers with the foundation stock of the Syrian Arabians, because I feel they will become more and more significant in the future. You have already seen pictures of some of the most influential Syrian Arabian stallions, many of which are personal favorites: Ra’ad, a Kuhaylan al-Musinn; al-Aa’war, a Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mubarak, another Hamdani Ibn Ghurab; Mokhtar, a Kuhaylan al-Krush; Marzuq, a Ma’naqi Sbayli, etc. Look them up in the search function of this blog on the right hand column, and you will see the relevant entry with their photos. Ra’ad was bred by Jamal al-Turki al-‘Ilyu of the Saw’an clan, which is the leading clan of the settled, part peasant, part sheep-herding tribe of al-Sabkhah, on the banks of the middle Euphrates. Jamal’s family also bred Ra’ad dam Nawal al-Kheil, and her grand-dam as well. The Sabkhah, who occupy the area of same name (click here to see it on Google Map) are themselves part of the larger peasant confederation of the Bu Sha’ban.…
Click on the YouTube link below to listen to a story and poem (in Arabic) about ‘Arar ibn Shahwan, the original owner (ra’i) of the marbat of Dahman Shahwan. The audio was prepared by Sa’d al-Hafi al-‘Utaybi. ‘Arar is the from the very noble and ancient Dhayaghim clan of the Abidah section of the Qahtan Bedouin tribe. The poem records an episode of the Dhayaghim saga, when this clan and others left their original home of Wadi Tathlith in Southern Arabia after a sequence of severe droughts, and moved northwards to settle in the mountains around the central Arabian town of Hail, which were then inhabited by Tai tribes and were known as Jabal Tai. There the Dhayaghim and other southern clans merged with some Tai tribes to form the core of the Shammar confederation, which gave Jabal Tai it’s new name: Jabal Shammar. By the way, the Ibn Rashid ruling clan of the Shammar of Jabal Shammar traces to the Dhayaghim clan.
Below is one of the first photos I took, at age 12 in 1990 or 1991, with my father’s Nikon. The mare in the picture is Tahirah, then a 25 year old ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of the Saffaf family of Hama. Hama is an ancient city in central Syria, just west of the Syrian desert, and as such was the main marketplace for the Sba’ah Bedouin tribe, which was famed for its many marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (‘Ubayyan al-‘Awbali, ‘Ubayyan al-Usayli’, Ubayyan Ibn ‘Alyan which by the way is Queen of Sheba’s marbat, ‘Ubayyan Ibn Thamdan,’Ubayyan Ibn Duwayhiss, ‘Ubayyan Labdah, etc). The Saffaf family were in close business contact with the Sba’ah Bedouins, from whom they obtained a number of desert-bred mares. One of these mares was Tahirah’s maternal grand-dam, a chestnut ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah, bred by Ku’ayran al-Amsa’, a Bedouin of the Rasalin section of the Sba’ah tribe. She was by a famous Ma’naghi Sbayli stallion, then the herd sire for the Rasalin section. Tahirah’s sire was a Kuhaylan al-Krush, also from the Saffaf family, who owned a Krush marbat as well. Her dam’s sire was a Hamdani Simri, also from Hama. Tahirah has many of the features…
The video below was shot in Qatar, and the rider is a Bedouin from Bani Hajar, a large branch of the tribe of Qahtan. This way of riding is called “Bdaawi riding”. I believe – but I am not sure – that the mare he is riding is from the from the horses exported to Qatar from the Hasa (al-Ihsaa) eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Most of the horses, the camel and the sheep owned by ordinary Qataris come from the eastern part of Saudi Arabia. Here in Saudi Arabia, we have several hundred horses like this mare that were not registered in the WAHO accepted studbook, despite being asil. These horses are currently overlooked. Notice how the mare runs with her hindquarters wide part. The Arabic term for a mare with hindquarters wide apart is “fajhah“. One can also tell this is a racy mare, because of the way she throws her forelegs forward, and the way she pushes her head and her neck forward too. This type of song is called “Samiri”. The words are, in transliterated Arabic: “atliqu al-khayl dama al-khayl mukhtalah, fikku quyudaha banat al-kuhaylah, nahmidu allahu ‘alyana ‘ammat akhbaruhu” which means, roughly translated: “let the horses run,…
The archives of Gertrude Bell, sometimes referred to as the “Uncrowned Queen of Iraq” ( how I hate that title!), are at Newcastle University in the UK. If you do not know who Gertrude Bell is, or simply wish to know more about her, then click here. The archives include this first photo of a Shammar camel rider, with horses in the background, near the ancient Arab ruins of al-Hadr (ancient Hatra), in Iraq; and this second photo of Fahd Ibn Haddal, leader of the ‘Amarat Bedouins, and Gertrude’s “friend”.
Arabian horses do not come in one type or form; rather they are of many, many types; unfortunately, in this day and age, one type has come to dominate and has spead everywhere; it is the type associated with the dished profile, so popular in show contests. According to a number of oral stories from old Bedouin men, dished or concave profiles were considered a physical defect, and horses with such profiles were not sought after. It was considered that such horses could not keep up with other war horses, because the slope or angle of the “dish” would somehow affect the horse’s capacity to exhale large quantities of air while running. The two photos below show two separate types of heads largely found among Bedouin horses of yesterday and today. The first one is a picture of Mershid (Hamrah x Dahurah), a Kuhaylat al-Ajuz mare in the USA. Mershid’s head is very reminiscent of desert breds in Saudi Arabia today. The second one represents the stallion Ribal (Berk x Rijma), who looks like another type of Bedouin horses to be found in Arabia. *Written by Pure Man and Translated by Edouard
Jean-Claude Rajot, who has lately been a frequent visitor of Syria (more on these visits later, including from Jean-Claude himself), sent me these photos of a couple horses in the stud of Hussain al-Ghishm in North Eastern Syria. Both horses are of the Kuhaylan al-Wati strain. The al-Ghishm, a family of ranking shaykhs of the Shammar, have been famously breeding desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Wati for at least five human generations. Their horses are asil and are held in high repute across the desert. I have been meaning to keep these photos for a full entry on the Kuhaylan al-Wati strain, as part of the “Strain of the Week” series, on which I am way behind, but they have been sitting in my hard drive for some time now, and thought, hey, the pictures speak for themselves anyway.. The older stallion is al-Ghishm’s main breeding stallion. I think his name is Amer Hakem but I am not sure. I especially like the younger colt. Of course, even though both horses are in very good health, you shouldn’t compare their condition to that of horses grazing in Europe or America’s lush pastures. PS – this is the best blood in the Syrian desert.…
A famous verse from a long poem by Beduin prince and poet Imru’ al-Qays al-Kindi (501-544 AD), where he describes his Arabian horse: Lahu aytala zabyin wa-saaqa na’amatin wa-irkha’u sarhanin wa-taqribu tatfuli In English (translation mine): “He has the flanks of an antelope, the legs of an ostrich, the trot of a wolf and the gallop of a young fox.” “He” refers to the poet’s horse, of course. Below is a picture of an Arabian wolf (Canis Lupus Arabs) from the Saudi Arabian desert reserve of Uruq Bani Ma’arid.
Below are three beautiful verses from famed pre-Islamic Arab poet al-Nabigha al-Dhubyani (535 AD -604 AD) about the desert Arabian horses of the Bedouin tribe of Asad. Al-Nabigha praises the tribe in this poem, and part of this exercise consists in praising its horses: fihim banatu al-‘asjadiyyi wa-lahiqin, wuruqan marakiluha min al-midmari yatahallabu al-ya’didu min ashdaqiha, sufuran manakhiruha min al-jarjari tushla tawabi’uha ila ullafiha, khababa al-siba’i al-wullahi al-abkari which in English, approximately translates into the following: [translation mine]: “Among them are the daughters of al-‘Asjadi and Lahiq, their flanks are grey from training Daisy juice drips from their cheeks, their nostrils are yellow from chewing on groundsels They call their young, who trot back to their mothers like worried adult leopards” It’s notoriously difficult to render the beauty of Arabic poetry in other languages, but these lines are particularly challenging to translate because they describe events and things tied to the particular context of pre-Islamic central Arabia. Some further explanation is due: “Them ” in the first verse refers to the Asad tribe. Al-‘Asjadi and Lahiq are famous pre-Islamic desert Arabian stallions from some 1500 years ago. This verse is proof of their actual existence. More about them later. The reason al-Nabigha…
I am honored to introduce “Pure Man” as the latest addition to the growing list of the “Daughter of Wind” guest bloggers. Of all the distinguished ladies and gentlemen who have contributed (and still contribute for some) to this blog from time to time, “Pure Man” is the one I know least. In fact, I know about him just as much as most of you do. I know that he is a citizen of the Kindgom of Saudi Arabia, that he breeds desert-breds (real ones, not Egyptians labeled as “desert Arabians” for marketing purposes), and that he hails from the one of the largest, most noble and most powerful Bedouin tribes of Najd. I know he has the courage and the intellectual honesty to speak his mind, and that he is a straight shooter. I know that he comes from a civilization _ the Bedouin civilization – where being politically correct is certainly less valued than being honest and true to ones beliefs. His name and the name of his tribe will not be disclosed here, to protect him, unless he chooses otherwise. His opinions – and I do not necessarily agree with all of them — and his style have…
Je voudrais rappeler le cri d’alarme lancé par Monsieur Robert Mauvy ! : “Renouvelant mon cri d’alarme, mon cri de désespoir ! Il faut absolument et à tout prix sauver ce qui reste du véritable Pur Sang Arabe. Il est impossible de laisser disparaître l’une des plus belles oeuvres du Créateur. Que l’initiative privée, que les amis et admirateurs du Noble Cheval se resserent et prennent en main cette admirable mais dure tâche : Sauver à tout prix le Cheval Arabe ! Je les en supplie car demain … demain il sera trop tard !…” Monsieur Robert Mauvy qui avait plus de quatre vingt années d’expérience a fait éditer un petit livre; oh, non pas un album de photos ni même une encyclopédie mais le contenu en est d’une très grande richesse : “Le Cheval de Pur Sang Arabe” chez Crépin Leblond. Il est très néfaste et dangereux pour la race chevaline entière de vouloir élever l’Arabe en fonction d’une mode ou d’une discipline ! L’Arabe est et doit rester le cheval de chasse et de guerre des nobles Bédouins d’Arabie. c’est le “Don d’Allah”. “L’Arabe de Sang Pur” est fait pour l’attaque et le repli avec ses démarrages, accélérations et arrêts…
According to the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century, a Bedouin warrior by the name of Rashid ibn Jarshan, from the tribe of al-Buqum, owned a branch of the strain of Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz that was known as Kuhaylat Ibn Jarshan, after his name. His marbat was famous, and one of his mares was even the subject of a Bedouin ode. Ibn Jarshan sold one of his Kuhaylat mares, a grey by the name of al-Shuhaybah, to another Bedouin, Sarhan al-‘Abd of the tribe of al-‘Ajman. The strain of Kuhaylan Ibn Jarshan seems to have prospered at al-‘Abd, because al-Shuhaybah produced a grey daughter for him (by a Saqlawi), and that daughter in turn produced a grey daughter (also by a Saqlawi). Al-‘Abd leased the latter, the grand-daughter of Ibn Jarshan’s Kuhaylah, to a third Bedouin, Ibn Jallab of the tribe of Aal Murrah. She stayed at Ibn Jallab for six years without producing any foals, so al-‘Abd took her back by force, and sold her to Ibn Khalifah of Bahrain for a ton of money, plus camels, falcons, clothes, a slave (!) and a sizeable bunch of dates, a sale that effectively turned him (al-‘Abd) into a precursor of today’s Gulf millionnaires.. Her short and unproductive stay at…
I don’t know where to start from.. the story of Kuhaylan al-Wati is so long and so rich, and begins way before the strain acquired its current name.. It also encompasses a number of other related, albeit better known strains. While I mull this over, let me leave you with this picture of Falat, a Kuhaylat al-Wati (by a Ma’naghi Hadraji from Ibn Ufaytan) from the sons of Hakem Hsaini al-Ghishm of the Shammar Bedouins. This family is the owner of the strain.. Falat was later sold to Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo, Syria.
In my opinion, *Abeyah was the best mare of the Davenport importation, and perhaps one of the best mares to come out of Arabia. She was certainly the best authenticated one. Look at my translation of her hujjah (also published in Al Khamsa Arabians III): I, o Faris al-Jarba, witness that the bay mare which on her face has a blaze and on her two back legs has a stocking, [i.e.] she has two stockings on her hindlegs, that she is ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of Mit’ab al-Hadb, [that she] is to be mated in the dark night, [that she] is purer than milk, and we only witness to what we know and do not keep [information] about the unknown. Faris al-Jarba bore witness to this [Faris al-Jarba’s seal] A hujjah couldn’t get any better than this. Concise, to the point, and written and sealed by the supreme leader of the preeminent Bedouin horse-breeding tribe of Arabia Deserta: the Shammar al-Jazirah. In comparison, how many horses otherwise known to have been berd by the Aal Saud have Ibn Saud’s own seal on their hujjah? How many other imported mares have Faris al-Jarba’s seal? [I know of only another one: the…
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…
A previous entry had discussed how the young children of Shammar Shaykh (and prominent Syrian politician) Mayzar Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba lost the ownership of their father’s prestigious marbat of Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida strain upon the latter’s death (late 1960s? early 1970s?), and how the man Mayzar had entrusted with his assets took the horses for himself. That man was a Bedouin from the Faddaghah section of the Shammar tribe, by the name of ‘Iyadah al-Talab al-Khalaf, and was also known as al-Qartah. Al-Qartah bred Mayzar’s horses until the mid-1980s, continuing the practice of close inbreeding that Mayzar (and perhaps Mayzar’s father and grandfather before him) had been practising before. The grey Mumtazah was Iyadah al-Qartah’s main broodmare. Both her parents were bred by Mayzar Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarbah, and all four grandparents were from the same Kuhaylan Krush al-Baida strain. It’s not clear whether Mumtazah was bred by ‘Iyadah al-Qartah, or whether she was taken by him from Mayzar’s estate as a foal. An impressive mare with a crested neck not unlike the Godolphin Arabian (see my picture of her in old age, below), Mumtazah produced the bay mare Doumah, also by a Kuhaylan al-Krush (maybe a full brother), and the grey…
I first saw Mubarak in 1989 when an old truck disembarked a batch of three horses at the farm of Hisham Ghurayyib in Damascus, Syria. I was told that the truck had just come from the desert area of al-Jazirah, “Upper Mesopotomia”. It was my first encounter with Arabian horses born and raised in the desert. I was 11. My father was breeding Asil Arabians back then and I was familiar with the first generation offspring of desertbred horses, or horses born on the fringes of the desert, but I had never seen the “real thing”. My very first reaction was one of disappointment. Not only were the three horses – a black Kuhaylat al-‘Armush mare, a fleebitten Kuhaylat ibn Mizhir mare, and a chestnut Hamdani Ibn Ghurab stallion – tiny, they were worn out, and extremely thin. They feet were badly damaged, and the hooves were so overgrown that the poor horses could badly walk. Were these the “horses of the desert” (khayl sahraa)? My father had given me his Nikon and asked me to take photos of all the horses, while he was checking them out and asking about their origins. I took a rapid photo shot of the…
Question : Quand a eu lieu la dernière razzia en Syrie ? Réponse : La dernière razzia a eu lieu en 1943, des Shammar sur les Sba’ah. Ils sont partis d’ici (Hassakè ou al-Hassakah) avec 100 cavaliers le matin. Ils sont tombés sur le campement Sba’ah distant de 40 miles, à midi. Tous les cavaliers étaient de retour dans l’après-midi. Question : Vous voulez dire dans la nuit ? Réponse : Non, non dans l’après-midi. Je me suis permis d’insister : mais vers les 8 ou 9 heures du soir ? Réponse empreinte d’un certain agacement : Non dans l’après-midi vers les cinq heures ! Voilà ce qu’aux yeux des Bédouins leurs chevaux pur sang sont à même de faire naturellement. Il est à noter qu’à l’heure actuelle cette moyenne horaire correspond à ce que l’on fait avec les 4×4 en dehors des pistes.
Since the last couple posts have been about mares of the Shuwayman Sabbah strain bred by the Shammar, here is a quote from Lady Anne Blunt‘s “Bedouin tribes of the Euphrates” (p. 235) that had a lasting impression on me: “Faris’s own mare is a tall bay, Shuéymeh Sbàh, with a powerful shoulder, great girth, legs like iron, but a rather coarse hindquarter.” Also, in the same book, in an annex on strains (p. 439), under “Shueyman Sbàh”: “Faris, Sheykh of the Northern Shammar, has a mare of this breed. She is coarse, but of immense strength and courage, and when moving becomes handsome.” How true of Hakayah, the black Shuwaymah mare from Tai. Uninspiring when standing, magnificent when moving. Again, Hakayah’s g. g. granddam (I may be adding “g” or two) was a wedding gift from Nuri al-Jarba to the Shaykh of Tai. Nuri is son of Mah’al (Pasha) al-Jarba, who is son of Faris. The same Faris in the above quotes. Does it mean that Hakayah and her offspring trace directly to Faris’ war mare? There is no way to know for sure, but they certainly are from the same close family.
In 1997, Jens Sannek and Bernd Loewenherz published what is perhaps the most interesting book to be written in recent times by Western travelers looking for Arabian horses in their original homeland. Traveling with a party of about 14 people which included French preservation breeders Jean-Claude Rajot, Louis Bauduin and Benoit Mauvy, as well as several young children, and joined by Syrian guides and friends, Jens and Bernd visited the Syrian cities of Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, as well the Syrian desert, from Palmyra to Der el Zor (map here), for about two weeks. They described and photographed many of the older Syrian desertbred horses I grew up around (such as Mahrous, Mashuj, both now deceased and Mokhtar, still alive and now in France with Chantal Chekroun). They even met with some of Syria’s last truly nomadic Bedouin clans, the ‘Affat al-Dbayss – a clan from the Fad’aan tribe that owns a good marbat of Ma’naghi Sbayli in the general vicity of Der el Zor. Their book, written in German with an English summary at the end, is full of insights and anecdotes, as well as factual information, and gives one an excellent overview of the state of Syrian Arabian horse breeding in the late 1990s. Unlike other contemporary accounts I have come across, the authors’ description of the…
The Bedouin tribe of Al Murrah has been immortalized by Wilfred Thesiger‘s gripping classic “Arabian Sands” (1959). If you want to have a less romanticized account of the life of this South Arabian Bedouin tribe, then you ought to read this book, by Donald Powell Cole of the American University in Cairo. Yet Cole’s book was written in the early 1970s, and the nomadism it describes is now gone. By the way, Al Murrah was the tribe of Ibn Jallab, founder of the marbat of Kuhaylan Jallabi, now extinct in Asil form (sorry, but can’t help but rubbing it in, in light of mtDNA evidence).. [correction: the Jallabi line still exits in Asil form in Bahrain, of course]
It was already two in the afternoon when our van stopped at the house of Faddan Ibn ‘Ufaytan, the owner of the marbat of Ma’naghi Hadraji I had heard so much about. We had spent the entire morning looking at the horses of the Sherabiyin, in the villages of Tall al-‘Arab al-Gharbi and Tall al-‘Arab al-Sharqi, formerly Kurdish villages of North-Eastern Syria, now settled by a majority of Arab sheep-herders turned farmers. The modern-day Sherabiyin constitute a loose tribal grouping of Bedouins of humble descent and disparate origins, with a solid reputation as cattle thieves and petty robbers. Bedouins from more noble tribes do not typically hold them in high esteem as a group, and jokes about the Sharabiyin’s dubious sense of truth abound. Our host, Dahir al-Salih was a Sharabi from Tall al-‘Arab al-Gharbi, which everyone called by its more common Kurdish name: Garhok. Dahir’s sons and his extended family made a living by training horses for long distance racing. The traditional sport was quickly transforming into a profitable industry, fueled by rising demand for endurance horses from Damascus and the Gulf countries. Dahir was making good money, and his horses were fat. Our party included two friends from Aleppo, both horsebreeders, Radwan Shabareq and Kamal Abd al-Khaliq, in addition to Hazaim and I. Radwan and Kamal boarded their horses at Dahir’s, and visited…
My fourth feature in the “Strain of the Week” series is late. This time, I will be telling you about the Ma’anaghi Hadraji strain, and in particular about the marbat (Bedouin stud) of Ibn ‘Ufaytan of Shammar. Meanwhile, here is a picture of Faddan Ibn ‘Ufaytan (left), the Shammar Bedouin who owns the strain, which we took at his house in North-Eastern Syria, in October 2005.
I found a picture of a Kubaylat Ibn Jlaidan to show you, as well as a writtten certificate of origin (hujjah, plural hujaj). The picture, taken in the mid 198os, does not do justice to the mare, and I hesitated a bit before posting it: it shows a chestnut desert-bred mare in rather poor condition, against a background of miserable mudhouses. These were built in the second half of the twentieth century by impoverished Shammar Bedouins who had finally abandoned their black tents and camel herds, and settled in a relatively barren area of North Eastern Syria (known as the Upper Jazireh), not far from the Iraqi and Turkish borders. Many Shammar clans paid a heavy price for clinging to their nomadic lifestyle till the very end: the more fertile lands had already been grabbed by earlier settlers. The picture also shows the concrete houses which Bedouins started building as of the 1980s, to replace the older mudhouses. Barely an improvement. The mare herself is well built, with a deep girth, high withers, a round hindquarter, a well-sloped shoulder, a nicely set tail, and a pretty head. Her neck is thick though, a defect typical of many of the desert-horses of the twentieth century. The man holding her…
Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan is the third strain featured in the “Strain of the Week” series. You will almost certainly not find a representative of this strain outside of Arabia today. A few of you may have heard of it in the context of their trips to Syria. The strain is emblematic of the Shammar tribe, as opposed to the two other strains featured previously, Kuhaylan al-Hayf and Kuhaylan al-Mimrah, both of which were owned by the ‘Anazah group. Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan is very simply, Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz of the marbat of Ibn Jlaidan, a Bedouin from the Hdibah clan of the Shammar. Many Shammar Bedouins still refer to the strain as Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz. Some time in 2006, my friend Hazaim and I spoke to ‘Abdallah Ibn Jlaidan over the phone, as part of our project to collect as much information as possible strainght from Bedouin sources. ‘Abdallah told us that his “fifth grandfather” (i.e., the grandfather of his grandfather) Muhammad al-Jlaidan once visited the Sharif of Mecca, and that the latter gave him a Kuhayla al-‘Ajuz mare as a gift. He could not tell us the exact day when this occured, but said that it was more than a hundred years ago…
As with many Arabian horse strains, Kuhaylan al-Mimrah takes its name from its owner. The Kuhaylat al-Maryum mare that came from the tribe of al-Dhafeer to tribe of the Sba’ah became known as Kuhaylat al-Mimrah, or Kuhaylah Mimrahiyah, after the Sba’ah Bedouin who owned her. The strain bred on at al-Mimrah’s, and was passed to his sons and grandsons. Of these, Subaylah al-Mimrah was the most well known for breeding it. Al-Mimrah (the people) is one of the many closely-related families that compose the larger Muwayni’ clan (click here for a genealogical table of this clan). The Muwayni’ is the leading clan of the Bayayi’ah section of the ‘Abdah tribe — itself one of the two branches of the Sba’ah tribe. The clan even assumed the leadership of the entire ‘Abdah, until a date in the 1880s when an armed incident with an Ottoman tax-collecting detachment resulted in its downfall and replacement by another rival clan. Still, the Muwayni’ enjoy special respect within the Sba’ah tribe and the general ‘Anazah, partly because of their past status, and partly because of their famous copper seal, one of ‘Anazah’s oldest. Around the time the Abbas Pasha Manuscript was compiled, the Shaykh of the Muwayni’ and head of the Sba’ah ‘Abdah was Nahar Ibn Muwayni’, whose close cousin was Za’aazi’ al-Mimrah. Za’aazi’ al-Mimrah was a fierce warrior who owned a…
I took this photo of the Asil stallion Khalid (Mahrous x Khalidah) in Aleppo, Syria in the mid-1990s, at the farm of Mustapha al-Jabri. Khalid is a half-brother to the stallion Basil, the subject of an previous post by Joe Ferriss. Both Khalid’s sire and dam are desert breds. Notice the excellent legs and the strong sinews on this horse. Khalid’s dam, Khalidah, is a Saglawiyah Jadraniyah from the horses of Hulu al-Hulu, the leader (Shaykh) of the ‘Adwan Bedouin tribe, and traces to the glorious marbat (tribal stud) of Ibn ‘Amud of the Shammar tribe. His sire is a ‘Ubayyan Suhayli (a branch of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak), also from the Shammar. According to Mahrus ibn Haddal, who was Shaykh of the al-‘Amarat tribe in the 1920s, Ibn ‘Amud obtained his original mare in a ghazu (tribal raid) against the al-Frijah section of the Ruwalah tribe. Ibn Haddal’s testimony is given in Khairi al-‘Azzawi’s great book on the tribes of Iraq (in Arabic). Other accounts I have gathered from recent conversations with Bedouins have the Saglawiyah Jadraniyah of the marbat of Ibn ‘Amud (or Saglawiyat ‘Ibn ‘Amud for short) trace to the ‘Anazah tribe in general, of which the Ruwalah is a part of. To me Khalid is the quintessential Asil stallion: powerful but graceful, strong but…
I am never tired of showing this picture of the lovely mare Wadeehah, a 1970 desert-bred Asil Ma’naghiyah Sbayliyah from the marbat of ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn. The strain is also known as Ma’naghiyat Abu Sayfayn. I took this picture of Wadeehah in 1992 in Aleppo, Syria, where she spent the latter part of her life in the ownership of my friend Kamal ‘Abdul Khaliq. It is a shame Kamal never managed to get a filly out of her, only colts. She did produce the mare Sayfia, however, which is the subject of an earlier post. Sayfia is now in her early twenties and is still in the desert with ‘Abdallah Abu Sayfayn, ‘Atiyah’s son. Sayfiah has now a filly by a Saglawi Jadran of from the tribe of al-Baqqarah. So the line goes on. Kamal had bought Wadeehah in 1982 from ‘Atiyah Abu Sayfayn himself. She had a young colt by her side. The colt, named Marzuq, was accidentally hit by a truck soon after arriving at Kamal’s, but he survived his hinquarter injury and went on to become a leading stallion for Kamal, leaving plenty of splendid colts and fillies, before dying a few months ago. The most striking thing about Marzuq was his kindness. You…
If anyone of you is in the mood for some serious reading about Bedouin tribes in modern day Arabia, then William Lancaster’s The Rwala Bedouin Today is the book to read. I found it a rather easy read for an academic book that delves deep into into anthropological theory. It describes in detail how the Rwala creatively used a number of assets and options in their possession to cope with the many transformations modernity brought about to their identity and lifestyle. The chapter on the history of the tribe is informative, too.