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.
A few days ago, I began a thread on the early story of strain of Kuhaylan Abu ‘Arqub, as it was mentioned in the ‘Abbas Pasha Manuscript. The information is reconciled from two slightly different sources: first, my notes from the English translation of the Manuscript (a copy of the book is in my father’s library in Beirut); second, from the book “Usul al-Khayl” by Hamad al-Jasir, which contains excerpts of the original Manuscript in Arabic (and a xeroxed copy of which was given to me by my friend Hazaim Alwair). The story of Kuhaylan Abu ‘Arqub involves central Arabian tribes such as the Qahtan, the Bani Khalid and the Mutayr, as well as the House of Saud, who were major breeders of the strain in the 1850s. The Manuscript’s account of the strain stops around this time. There are conflicting accounts of what happened to the strain after that, but what is clear is that the strain reappears in areas of the desert further to the north, with the “northern” tribes of the Bani Sakhr in today’s Jordan and the Hadideen in today’s central Syria. More recently, and according to author Khalid Bakr Kamal in his book “the Arab Horses”…
Matthias is back from Saudi Arabia from a horse tour organized by Europe’s Asil Club, and he and his wife brought back pictures of Arabians of the desert-bred lines, including one he sent me, below, of the stallion Khaleel Dirab, a Kuhaylan Abu ‘Urqub by by Rezaiq out of Khuzamah, bred and owned by the Dirab government stud. Rezaiq was featured here before. Not sure why the Dirab folks insist on mimicking the West by putting this stupid makeup on their desert-horses; it makes sick to see this proud asil steed, this son of the desert, this Kuhaylan (he who has beautiful eyes [naturally] with black around them, as if it was kohl), Kuhaylan by strain and by soul, so painted like a vulgar show horse. More soon on the background of the Kuhaylan Abu ‘Urqub horses of the Dirab Stud, and on that strain in general.
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.