A relatively recent revised edition of Abdallah al-Bassam’s (Lady Anne Blunt’s acquaintance from ‘Unayzah in Qassim) book “Tuhfat al-mushtaq fi akhbar Najd wa al-Hijaz wa al-‘Iraq” (edited by Ibrahim al-Khalidi, pub. Kuwait, 2000) has this photo that claims to represent the Emir of Hail Mohammad Ibn Abdallah Ibn Rashid of Hail (Lady Anne Blunt’s host in Hail in Jabal Shammar). It is the second representation of him I have ever seen, and the first on a horse. Has anyone seen this photo before? From which book was it picked? or was it unpublished before? Look at that horse.. shouldn’t we go back to breeding like that?
The Dahman stallion Barakat is the paternal grandsire of three “Straight Egyptian” mares: Folla, Futna and Bint Barakat. The Tahawi family website, maintained by Mohammed son of Mohammed son of Othman son of Abdallah son of Seoud al-Tahawi, has these few lines on Barakat: As to the dam of the stallion Barakat, she is the mare of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi, and she is Dahmat Shahwan“. Somewhere else on this website, there is the mention that “the Dahman horses of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi are from the horses of Ibn Maajil of Syria.” Now here’s what the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, edited by the late Saudi royal historian Hamad al-Jasir, has to say on these Dahman horses of Ibn Maajil, in the section about a specific descendent of the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare known as Al-Khadeem: “The mare, and she is a green [a shade of grey] daughter of the yellow [another shade of grey] Rabdan the horse of al-Dahham, had these foals while in a possession [a list of two foals follows, of which is the second is] a filly whose sire is Duhayman [‘little Dahman’], the stallion of Ibn Rashid, from the horses of Ibn Maajil.” You can find this except on pages 408…
[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:…
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.
I have written a lot about the Kuhaylan Krush strain recently, more particularly on the branch of that strain that has been associated with the Dawish leaders of the Mutayr tribe. The mares Dafina (to the UK in 1926) and probably El Kahila (to Egypt in 1927) are both representatives of this branch, and so are the three Blunt imports to Sheykh Obeyd: the mares Aida, and Jauza and the stallion Krush. Below are two modern day representatives of that famed strain. The two mares Sharidah and Ma’yufah were bred at the stud of Prince Turki Ibn Fahd Ibn Muhammad Aal Saud in Najd, Saudi Arabia, then exported to the Nujaifi stud in Mosul, Iraq. PS — I wonder what an mtDNA test would show, if samples from these two mares were compared to the Dafina and El Kahila lines, or to some of the Krush Al-Baida horses with the Shammar Bedouins in Syria. The latter are known to trace to the “white Krush” of Ammash Raja al-Dawish of Mutayr, through a mare that had gone to Ibn Rashid. Read more about the Krush of Shammar in Syria here.
This mare is one of my all-time favorites. I had featured her earlier on this blog, here. Her name is Reem al-Oud [see correction below, actually this is Reem’s daughter Bint al-Oud], she is a Ubayyah Suhayliyah (a branch of the Sharrakiyah) from the tribe of Shammar in Syria. She is currently owned by Shaykh Mayzar al-Ajeel al-Abd al-Karim al-Jarba. Shaykh Mayzar is a direct descendant of the famous Shaykh ‘Abd al-Karim al-Jarba, who led a bloody rebellion against the Ottoman Turks. The Turks quelled the rebellion, hung ‘Abd al-Karim on a bridge in Mossul, Iraq, in 1874. They put his half-brother Farhan in charge of the Shammar in North Arabia. ‘Abd al-Karim’s mother, Amsheh al-Husayn (a daughter of Husayn al-Assaf, the Shaykh of Tayy) then fled North Arabia with her younger son, Faris, and sought refuge with Ibn Rashid, the ruler of Hail in Central Arabia, and the leader of the Shammar there. Years later, Lady Anne Blunt met both Amsheh and Faris. Faris became Wilfrid Blunt’s “blood brother”. Back to Reem al-Oud. She is from the marbat of Maskawi al-Ju’aydan al-Shammari, whose clan, al-Ju’aydan, breeds some of the best Ubayyan Suhayli horses among the Shammar. Maskawi’s father Madfaa…
As I put the final touches of the fourth and last entry of the feature on the Krush al-Baida strain, take a second look at the three previous entries on this precious strain, here, here, and here. Also, check out this account of a conversation about Krush al-Baida with Shaykh Faysal ibn Sattam ibn Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba. By the way, the Royal Stud of the Kingdom of Bahrain still retains a line from the Kuhaylan al-Krush strain, from the same branch as Krush al-Baida, “the White Krush”. Here is an exerpt from the Krush page of the Royal Stud’s website, followed by a picture of a Bahraini representative of this strain: “It is said by some that the original Krushieh mare came from the Muteyr tribe – and by others that the original came from the Al Rasheed, Amirs of Hail from 1835-1924. Yet everyone agrees that the strain has been in Bahrain since the 1850’s. This old family of Krush is perpetuated through the tail female line, and is predominantly of bay colour.” Note that the Krush al-Baida horses of the marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba of the Shammar tribe in Syria are from the very same fountainhead – that…
A previous entry quickly went through the Kuhaylan al-Krush horses that came out of Arabia. Of these, the stallion Krush (sometimes called Krushan), imported by Lady Anne Blunt to Egyptian stud of Sheykh Obeyd in 1911, is of particular relevance for the Krush al-Baida branch of that strain. This is what the Sheykh Obeyd Studbook, quoted by Rosemary Archer in “The Crabbet Arabian Stud: its History and Influence“, has to say about Krush: A Kehilan el Krush. Grey stallion bred in 1909. Sire: Kehilan el Sueti of the Harb stock. Dam: Grey Kehilet el Krush whose dam was the mare of Ammash el Reja el Duish, known as the ‘white Krush’ famed for her speed. Purchased in the desert in 1911. As far as I know, these three lines are the only Western reference to the ‘white Krush’, “Krush al-Baida” . They are important because they give away the name of the owner of “Krush al-Baida” – a Bedouin warrior of the al-Dawish ruling clan of the Mutayr tribe, the reason for her fame – speed in tribal warfare – and an approximate date. If Krush was foaled in 1909, and “Krush al-Baida” was his granddam, then she would have been alive in the 1880s-1890s. Bedouin oral tradition remembers “Krush al-Baida” as a mare that carried her rider and…
Western Arabian horse breeders are relatively familiar with the Arabian horse strain of Kuhaylan al-Krush (also known as Kuhaylan Krushan) through a variety of sources. A specific branch of this strain, Krush al-Baida (“the white Krush”) will be the subject of the sixth part of the “Strain of the Week” series (which, by the way, is starting to look like a “Strain of the Month” in disguise). For now, I’ll start the discussion with a brief resfresher of the encounters between Arabian horse breeders and the more general Krush family (beyond Krush al-Baida). Feel free to pitch in with feedback in the comments section of this blog post if you noticed that I omitted a reference or more, or visit this site, which also offers an overview (with pictures) of the main Krush lines around the world. The early fame of Kuhaylan al-Krush was certainly associated with the quest of the Egyptian Viceroy Abbas Pasha I for Asil horses from this strain. Several sources (or perhaps one source that was quoted several times, will look that up later) tell us that Abbas’s quest eventually failed, and that Bedouin owners of Krush mares refused to sell them, or give them…