There are four references to the Mulawlish (also spelled Mulawlishan, Mlolshaan, Mlolshan, etc) strain in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (APM). Both occur in accounts by members of the Ibn Khalifah family of Bahrain, who were already using stallions from that strain by the early 1850s, and perhaps earlier on the Dahman mares. The first is on page 251: “[she] was covered by Kuhaylan al Moulawlish and she foaled a safrafilly.” The second is on the same page: We covered the shaqra mare, daughter of alJallabi, by Kuhaylan al Moulawlish (ibn al Jallabi, ibn Kuhaylan Zoayr) and she gave birth to anashqar colt which died”. In both cases, the strain is referred to as a branch of the Kuhaylan.
Yesterday, Jana and I spent a lovely afternoon in the company of Pienaar, Pauline and Gerhard Du Plessis at Saruk Arabians outside Albertinia in the Western Cape. We came for lunch on Easter Sunday and spent a lot of time chatting so time flew by. They run a successful endurance racing operation mainly oriented towards a Gulf audience. They have two very impressive sons of Tuwaisaan 406 (he died in 2011), built like tanks, out of old South Africa dam lines. I also saw and took some photos (iPhone 8…) of Mlolshaan Mutaab, who put on a show in his paddock. He reminded up of the Davenport stallion Vice-Regent CF in pictures I have seen. Mutaab is 22 years old but does not look it. He is quite small for a Bahraini horse — Pauline believes he was raised as an orphan — but is well balanced. Round croup, broad chest, hig tail carriage, good shoulder, deep jowls, small expressive ears. He has that big, bulky Mlolshaan head, not unlike Mlolshaan Hager Solomon’s in the USA. When he moves, he looks transformed. I also saw one of his daughters out of a mare of Egyptian lines. Videos in the next…
كحيلان الملولش من خيل البحرين عند بولين وبينار دو بليسيس في جنوب افريقيا Mlolshaan Mutab, from Bahrain, owned by Pienaar and Pauline Du Plessis in South Africa. Photo Kate McLachlan.
… poetically, as Pienaar Du Plessis put it to me. I am soo excited.. a 25 year old (yes!) dream of mine has come true, five generations later.. UPDATE: Less cryptically, Pienaar Du Plessis gave me the opportunity to realize a 25 year old dream of acquiring an asil mare from the Egyptian Kuhaylan Mimreh line. We had been looking for a mare from this line but without show blood, and he found this 21 year old grey beauty, which his family had owned years and years ago, MH Egyptian XTC, a couple hours down the road from his farm in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. She had been the owner’s daughter’s riding horse, and his daughter had gone to college. The mare is a problem breeder and has never had a foal. She is now at Pienaar’s Saruk’s Stud, with Mlolshaan Mutab, her future husband (top photo). The idea is to do embryo transfer at a clinic in George in the Western Cape. She carries eight diverse lines to Morafic (3x through Ibn Moniet El Nefous, 2x through Ahir, 1x through Shaker El Masri in the tail male, 1x through Inas, 1x through The Egyptian Prince) and otherwise plenty…
Pauline Du Plessis’s Saruk Arabians is standing the bay 1999 Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Mutab (Mlolshaan Hilal x Mlolesh Durra by Jellaby Adari) at stud in South Africa. He was bred by the stud of Sh. Mohammed Bin Salman Aal Khalifah, and is heavily linebred with Mlolesh (Mulawlishan) blood. He is a sire of endurance winners. Photo from Saruk’s stud Facebook page.
Mlolesh Wesaal M654 at the stud of Sh. Mohamed b. Salman. Photo courtesy Amanda Jane Smith.
Mlolesh Samra 1020, bay mare, born 1996, by Kuheilaan Umm Zorayr al Dheelem 407 out of Mlolesh Alyatima Radhwah 412 with her filly Mlolesh 1780, black by Jellaby Balsam Mlolshaan Wesam 1371, bay stallion, born 2004, by Kuheilaan aafas Rakaan 886 out of Mlolesh Samra 1020 Mlolshaan Al Ward 1471, bay stallion, born 2012, by Obeyaan Barakat 1093 out of Mlolesh Samra 1020
I finally saw the Arabian horses of Bahrain, those “Pearls of Great Price”, after a 30 year wait. Thanks to Jenny Lees who arranged the private visit to the Stud of the late Sheikh Mohammad Bin Salman Aal Khalifah, we, my father and I, had the privilege of seeing these horses two days before their presentation. In an unforgivable episode of forgetfulness, I only brought my camera phone, the battery of which died after snapping photos of the third stallion. The others are in my head, just like hundred of other horses seen but not photographed. Most impressive among the horses of the late Sh. Mohammed was a grey Hamdani (no photos). An older Rabdan, a chestnut Sa’eedan, a grey Tuwaisan, a grey Shawafan, and a dark chestnut Radban, many of these sons of the older Radban. The three below were among my favorites: from top to bottom: a very showy ‘yellow Ubayyan; a very balanced and powerful Jellabi; and a more refined, drier speckled Mlolshaan.
Bill Biel just sent me these two older photos of his Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, which I thought I’d share with you.
This magnificent stallion is a gift from the King of Bahrain to the Queen of English. Photo from the Arabian Horse World Magazine.
Thank Heaven is now in the ownership of Jeannie Lieb, who took this photo of the beautiful Mlolshaan Solomon daughter as was settling in her new home. She has her sire’s withers, shoulder, and clean legs. Compare with his own photo, in extreme old age, below.
Jenny Lees sent me these four beautiful photos of the two new Bahraini stallions standing at her stud, with her grand-daughter. She meant them as an example of the wonderful disposition and temperament of Arabian stallions in general and Bahraini horses in particular. She wrote: I was invited to take the two Bahraini stallions presented to HM the Queen to the AHS National Show at Malvern this summer. After they had done the display we all settled down in a corner of the showground for a picnic. This is my five year old granddaughter Elsie with the stallions Tuwaisaan That’atha’ta the grey and Mlolshaan Mahrous. Both stallions are in their early teens and both have covered mares. Elsie has a special relationship with the grey Tuwaisaan. To learn more about the pedigrees of both stallions, visit this link.
Mlolshaan (Bahrain Studbook spelling) is an Arabian horse strain now only found in Bahrain, but which was also present in Najd in the past, as evidenced by its mention in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript page 251, under Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish. I was always curious about the origin of the word Mulawlish, which is uncommon in Arabic today. It is obviously a Bedouin Arabic word, which means it can be traced to Classical Arabic, the language of the Qur’an and of pre-Islamic Bedouin Arabia. The Bahrain Royal Stud website offers this interpretation of the meaning of the strain: “The name Mlolesh is believed to derivate from the word “Mlolash” the trilling high-pitched sound the Arab women make at weddings and other happy or exciting occasions. The original Mlolesh mare must have had a beautiful neigh!”. So a Mlolesh is a trill, so to speak, and its usage, originally associated with women, was extended to mares. It is a common pattern with horse strain names, as is the case with the Kuhaylah. Still, I thought I’d look up the word in another way, through a dictionary. The first step to find the origin of an any Arabic word is to take it back…
From Jenny Lees: “Here is Mlolshaan Mahrous . He is around 15 hands 1” a very pretty stallion with a slightly cheekier sense of humour. He will cover Hamdanieh Munya this summer.”
I am extremely impressed with the structure and conformation of Jenny Krieg’s filly, Ubayyat al-Bahrain, one of two daughters of the twenty seven year old desert-bred Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon, out of the Ubayyah mare DB Kalilah. I don’r think she is even two years old. To be honest, I have never seen such depth of girth, shortness of back, strength of musculature, and length of ear (all marks of an asil ware mare) in any Arabian horse in the USA before. She reminds of war mares I have seen in Syria including Mari a Shuwaymah Sabbah at Radwan Shabareq and Nawwarah a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah at Abdel Mohsen al-Nassif. That’s how war mares in the desert were like. Really. Seeing this photo encouraged me to breed to this Bahraini stallion and I will do it as early as this spring, even if I would have preferred not to have to fork out 1,000 USD in breeding fees. The image below is copy of Loan Oak Photography.
Cathie Fye recently shared with me this picture of her 2003 Dahmah Shahwaniyah mare Thank Heaven (*Mlolshaan Hager Solomon x Llanys Winddancer x Ru Serr Llany), one of two daughters of the Bahraini stallion Mlolshaan in the USA. She is doing well in endurance, as she should. Look at the gaskin, and the clean hocks. Where do you see this anymore? I had already decided to breed one of my mares to this stallion before he is done, but seeing this photo confirms my decision. He will be 25 next year.
Bill Biel, the owner of the desert-bred Kuhaylan al-Mulawlish stallion “Mlolshaan Hager Solomon“, told Jenny Krieg that he was open to shipping semen from his 25 year old Bahraini stallion, if his semen actually proved shippable. This is a unique opportunity to breed from the only Arabian horse currently alive in the USA that was actually born in Arabia. Kuhaylan al-Mulawliwsh is known as Kuhaylan Mulawlishan. Photo Jenny Krieg.
This photo is from the collection of the late Mary Gharagozlu, through Brigitte Killian. It pictures the Bahraini Kuhaylat al-Mulawlish mare Mlolesh Al-Yatima (Jellabi al-Asil x Mlolesh).
This one is Thank Heaven, a 2003 grey mare (by Mlolshaan Hager Solomon x Llanys Winddancer by Ru Serr Llany), owned by Cathie Fye in the USA. As far as I know she is the only progeny of the Bahraini asil (heck, super-asil) stallion Mloolshaan Hager Solomon who has been in this country for 22 years now…
In 2000, while I was still living in Lebanon, I recall taking a trip to the area of Byblos, north of the capital Beirut, with my father, General Salim al-Dahdah, to see two young stallions that had recently been imported from Bahrain to Lebanon. The stallions were a gift from HH Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salman Aal Khalifah to a Lebanese engineer by the name of Riad Az’our. There was a bay and a grey; and one was a Rabdan and the other a Hamdani. They both were quite tall, and stood high on the ground. I also recall their highly expandable nostrils as they moveed, and their high tail carriage. I am sorry I don’t have pictures at the present time. I don’t know whether they are still alive, and still in Lebanon. If so, then someone should use them. HH Shaykh Muhammad ibn Salman Aal Khalifah is the same person who provided Jenny Lees of Pearl Island with some of her Bahraini stallions and mares. He is also the same person who gave Bill Biel in Michigan his stallion Mlolshaan Hager Solomon (Rabdan Al-Wasmy x Mlolesh Asila) in 1988. The stud of Shaykh Muhammad has a new webiste, which is…