The photo below comes from the Imperial War Museum’s Ministry of Information Second World War Collection. The description from the Imperial War Museum’s page reads as follows: CONTINGENT ARRIVES IN ENGLAND FOR VICTORY PARADE, LIVERPOOL, LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND, UK, 1946 (D 27677) Sergeant Major Mahmoud Zahaire of the Trans Jordan Frontier Forces tends to the two horses he was tasked with bringing to England on the deck of the ORBITA. The horses are a gift from the Palace of Prince Amir Abdullah for the Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth. A colleague from the Trans Jordan Frontier Forces helps to feed the horses. Copyright: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205202314
Rehan Ud Din Baber has this amazing Facebook page where he displays dozens of pictures of desert Arabian horses in their original environment. Most of the photos are from the US Library of Congress Digital Archives. My absolute favorite is this photo of the mare of Emir Abdullah of Transjordan. The photo, taken by John D. Whiting, has the following caption: “Emir Talal’s wedding. Emir Abdullah’s mare. The bridegroom wedding mount. c. 1934 – 35“. If this mare was the mount of the Emir (later King) of Jordan, and the mount of his son on this special day, then she must have been the best mare of the Jordanian royal family at that time. The precise date of the wedding of Emir Talal to his cousin Zein el-Sharaf is the 27th of November 1934. She was the eldest daughter of Sharif Jamil ‘Ali bin Nasser, and was to be the mother of King Hussain of Jordan, born in November 1935.
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.
Photo taken when the horse was more than 30 years old, and covered with scars from battles. Gleaned off the internet. Not sure in which book, magazine or article it was originally taken from. This is how the horses of Arab kings looked like, not like these show….. well, you know what I am going to say here.
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).
Beshier El Ashkar and Badria, the two Arabian horses known in modern Egyptian pedigrees as the Bisharat horses, are some of the least documented Arabians to have joined the Al Khamsa Roster of Arabian horses (in 1995, I think). There was another mare, Ward, from the same source, but she did not leave any modern descendents. Most of what we know about Beshier and Badria is from the Inshass Original Herd Book (IOHB, entries #80 and #83, Inshass being the stud of King Faruk of Egypt), and some of that information later found its way in Volume 3 of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization Studbook. This includes information on the horses’ color, sex, date of birth and the date the horses were presented to King Faruk. The Al Khamsa Roster, which aggregates all the information available on the two horses, has this succint but telling note: “Neither offer strain or family history”. Since Beshier and Badria’s blood runs in the veins of some of the most popular (and expensive) Arabian horses in the world (e.g., Jamilll, Ibn Galal-I, Salaa El Dine, etc), many breeders, especially in Germany, tried to learn more about them. Dr. Hans J. Nagel in particular, has a 1982 letter or letters from Midhat Bisharat,…
Click here for an informative article on the Jordanian Bisharat family, by one of its scions, George Bisharat, a professor of law at Hastings College in San Francisco. The article appeared in a political journal, and is not concerned with Arabian horses but it nonetheless offers interesting background information about the Bisharat family, which may be of interest to those of you who breed Arabian horses of Egyptian lines. The Bisharat family is a Christian family of merchants and entrepreneurs, orignally from the area around the palestinian city of Nablus. Like several other palestinian christian familties, the Bisharat moved to the eastern bank of the Jordan river at some point in the late 19th century, and settled the area of al-Salt and then moved to the south of Amman. They rose to economic and social prominence in the first part of the 20th century. At some point in the 1940s, a member of the Bisharat family, Shibli Bisharat (who may or may not be the Shibli mentioned several times in the article), sent three horses as a present to King Faruk of Egypt. Two of these, the mare Badria and the stallion Besheir (also known as Besheir El Ashkar) left modern descendents, and famous…
Louis Bauduin just sent me this older photo of the masculine stallion Jazour, a Kuhaylan al-‘Ajuz, by Saadi out of Izarra. Jazour was bred in France by Robert Mauvy, and reflects a blend of Tunisian and Algerian breeding. Too bad Izarra, bred by Admiral Cordonnier at Sidi Bou Hadid in Tunisia, never left a female line. A young Louis is holding the bridle.. Jazour is the sire of Kerak, bred in the Netherlands, by the late Dr. Foppe Klynstra, a friend of Mauvy’s out of the striking desert-bred mare Nijmeh, herself from the Majali Bedouins of Jordan. Both Nijmeh and Kerak are pictured in Klynstra’s beautiful book “Nobility of the Desert“. More on Nijmeh later.
This magnificent white stallion is not a show horse but a desert bred stallion that took part in a halter competition organized in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His name is Ruzayq, and he was sired by Haleem, a Hamdani. Ruzayq stands at the Saudi government stud in Dirab. He traces to Saqlawi mares bred by the Bani Sakhr tribe (now settled in both Jordan and Saudi Arabia). The Shaykhs of this tribe, Aal Fayiz, were famous for their Saqlawis. Thanks Pure Man for forwarding this beautiful photo. What a horse. What a HORSE.