My black stallion Mushahar Bex recently foaled a beautiful black colt out of one of the mares of Sha’laan Ibn Jlaidan of the Shammar. This colt is going to be a stallion in the future, in my opinion.
Recently I became aware of the existence of a young bay stallion of desert-bred stock that was bred in France, where he is now standing at stud. The name of this young stallion is Menjad Maram al-Baida, and his strain is Saqlawi Jadran (photo below, from his owners website). Menjad was bred by Mrs. Chantal Chekroun, and sired by the black stallion Mokhtar out of the bay mare Hijab. Both Mokhtar and Hijab were owned by Basil Jadaan in Damascus, Syria, then by Mrs. J. Menning to whom Basil gave them, and are now owned by Mrs. Chekroun. Mrs. Chekroun sold Menjad to Sophie and Dominique Balthasar of the Haras de la Lizonne, and still retains a full sister. A sketchy pedigree of Menjad looks like this: Awaad (S. Shaifi x Mumtazah) Mokhtar …
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…
After Kuhaylan al-Hayf and Kuhaylan al-Mimrah, next week’s “Strain of the Week” series will feature Kuhaylan Ibn Jlaidan, a personal favorite of mine. Stay tuned.