CSA Baroness Lady, a 1999 Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah, joined the Al-Dahdah herd yesterday from her breeder Carol Stone. Oh, how I love this strain, and could write pages and pages of non-stop praise for it. This is the tail female of Milanne, Ferseyn, Farana, Amber Satin, and other American greats, back to *Ferida of Lady Anne Blunt. She will be bred this year to a stallion to be determined.
He is turning every bit like his dam, a fortress of a mare, which died this summer after inhaling a suspicious chemical gas near Aleppo, but he is more refined than her. I love his high withers. Click on the photo (by Fabienne and Severine Vesco) to enlarge it.
This is my translation of the hujjah of Mumtazah, the maternal and paternal grand-dam of the Kuhaylan Krush stallion Mokhtar, who is now in France with Chantal Chekroun and is already 27 years old. I am happy to see the number of his descendants increase every year. “I the undersigned ‘Iyadah al-Talab al-Khalaf, known as al-Qartah from the Faddaghah tribe of the Shammar al-Zawr, who now lives in the village of al-Taif, which is in the district of Tall Hamis in the province of al-Qamishli, I testify by God Most High, a testimony free from all self-interest, that the grey flea-bitten mare that is eighteen years old is Krush al-Bayda; she [i.e., her line] came to us directly from the Shaykh of the Shaykhs of the Shammar, Mayzar Abd al-Muhsin, approximately twenty years ago; her sire is Krush from the same marbat; and so are the sire of her dam, and the sire of her sire; her paternal uncles are from her maternal uncles [i.e., her sire and dam are closely related and so are their sires and dams] and no outside horse was introduced among them [i.e., the line was only bred to stallions from the same line]. And…
Somehow I missed this 6 years old article on the Shammar of Iraq in French weekly Paris-Match newspaper, which is translated into English here. I wish I could find the original, so I can see the photos, especially that one: [PHOTO CAPTION (page 74): Proud of belonging to a dynasty of glorious horsemen, Sheikh Abdullah shows us a purebred Arab, one of the twenty horses in his personal stud farm.]
Bill Cooke gave Jeanne Craver permission, who gave me permission to use this previously unpublished *King John photo, courtesy the Arabian Horse Trust collections at the International Museum of the Horse in Lexington. He was a Saqlawi Jadran from the marbat of Dari al-Mahmud, Shaykh of Zawba’ Shammar in Abu Ghraib. This was the best marbat of Saqlawi Jadran in Arabia in the 1920s/30s. Please use proper credit (above) when using. The line died out in Al Khamsa with the death of Beau Nusik (Nusik x Reshan Azab by Janeo, a son of *King John) in 1984. Thanks, Bill and Jeanne.
The desert-bred ‘Ubayyah Suhayliyah mare Reem al-‘Ud, bred by the Shammar tribe in northeastern Syria, also known as “the mare of Mattori” from one of her past Bedouin owners, was featured several times on this blog. Here is yet another photo of her in extreme old age, which shows well the black skin around her eyes. Her last owner was Sh. Mayzar al-‘Ajil al-‘Abd al-Karim al-Muhammad al-‘Abd al-Karim al-Jarba, a descendant of the great Shammar hero ‘Abd al-Karim al-Jarba known as “Abu Khudah”.
This mare, Al-Shumuss, was at the stud of Mustafa al-Jabri in Aleppo in the 1990s, and her dam was at Radwan Shabareq’s. She was a Kuhaylat al-Krush, by a Hamdani Simri who was himself by the black Saqlawi Marzaqani stallion of al-Anoud, Princess of Tai; the mare’s dam was by the same black Saqlawi Marzaqani. The line came from the Shammar, from Rakan al-Nuri al-Mashal al-Jarba, but before that it was his maternal uncles the Tai chiefs; and while most everyone among the horse breeders in Syria thought this line traced back to the Krush al-Baida marbat of Mayzar ‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba of the Shammar (it is even registered as Krush al-Baida in the Syrian studbook) which ultimately goes back to the Mutayr Bedouins, it turned out, following questioning of the elders and leaders of the Tai Bedouins in the late 1990s that this Krush marbat actually came from the Fad’aan Bedouins of the ‘Anazah. There are two distinct lines of Kuhaylan Krush in North Arabia: one going back to the Fad’aan ‘Anazah (like Krush Halba below, like the Davenport import *Werdi, like the mare in this picture), and another line, known as Krush al-Baida (the white Krush) going back…
Jeanne Craver just sent me this other photo of the desert-bred mare 214 Scherife (Cherife), the Shammar-bred Kuhaylat al-Sharif, which was imported by Fadlallah al-Haddad to the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1903. She actually very much looks like the the Kuhaylat al-Sharif of Ibrahim Dawwas al-Saadi, who was registered in the first Syrian Studbook as a Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz. It would be interesting to do a mtDNA analysis of the descendants of these two mares.
This photo was also taken in the same place as the one below it, and it shows the same chestnut Hamdaniyat Ibn Ghurab mare as the mare in the center of the photo below, four years later. Jean-Claude Rajot, who I believe took it, and Arnault Decroix, visited the marbat of Ibn Ghurab and several other marabet in 2009, in their quest for asil desert-bred horses to bring back to France, in the first importation of this type and scale since the 1920s. They brought back one mare, Rafikat al-Darb, a Shuwaymah, as well as several stallions: Mahboub Halab, a Shuwayman; Nimr Shabareq, a Ma’anaqi; Dahess Hassaka, a Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq; Milyar Halab, a Kuhaylan al-Krush; and Shahm, a Ubayyan who, in my opinion, was the best of the lot, and died a premature death a few months after his importation, without having had the chance to leave offspring. Look at where the ears of the Hamdaniyah mare in the photo are set, and how they point. They horses are like wild animals, in this sense. Most of the Hamdani of Ibn Ghurab are of a very rich chestnut color; both Radwan Shabareq’s al-A’awar, and Basil Jadaan’s Mobarak, were of this…
Either me or Hazaim al-Wair took this picture of three Hamdani Simri mares at the stud of ‘Abd al-‘Iyadah al-Dar’aan Ibn Ghurab of the Shammar in 2005. There were 15-20 mares all in all. The one in the center was my favorite of the lot, and the one on the right was the sister of the stallion al-A’awar, who was bred there. The house is that of his son Jamal, who took over the stud at his father’s death a couple years after our visit. They teared up when we read *Jedah’s hujjah to them. She was from their marbat, and was imported to the USA 99 years before our visit. Click on the photo to enlarge it.
I recently retrieved that photo of the black Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Mokhtar (Awaad x Doumah) which I had taken on my first visit to Basil Jadaan’s in 1989 or 1990. You can easily recognize Basil’s old farm from the red tile rooftops in the back. Mokhtar was then a two or three year old stallion, which Basil had recently obtained from his breeder, a Shammar Bedouin. He was literally born under the tent, and is from the best of the Shammar. Basil knew what he was doing. Mokhtar eventually made his way to France, where he still thriving with Chantal Chekroun at the age of 24. He is a frequent feature on this blog, and any European breeder within reach should try to breed from him while he is still alive. We will only know the value of these horses when they are gone.
Ameenah was the foundation mare for all the Kuhaylan al-Mimrah horses currently in Syria. They all trace to her in the tail female. She was bred by the Tai Bedouins, from a marbat that had belonged to the Shammar, and which traced all the back to the Muwayni’ clan of the Sba’ah Bedouins, who own the strain of Kuhaylan al-Mimrah. If a Kuhaylat al-Mimrah cannot be traced back to the clan of Ibn Muwayni’, then she is not a Kuhaylat al-Mimrah. That’s because the original man known al-Mimrah belonged to the Muwayni’ clan. The Muwayni’ clan, one of the noblest of the ‘Anazah confederation, were such famous breeders of Arabian horses that they were known as ‘ahl al-khayl’, the “people of the horses”. Nahar Ibn Muwayni’ is one of the Bedouin witnesses in the ‘Abbas Pasha Manuscript. Ameenah was sired by the “first horse of Juhayyim”, a Kuhaylan Hayfi who was used by Juhayyim al-Mitkhan of the Tai as his breeding stallion (he later stood a Kuhaylan al-Krush at stud, and this was the “second horse of Juhayyim”); her dam was sired by the “second horse of ‘Ebbo”, a Saqlawi Jadran of the strain belonging to Dari al-Mahmoud of the Shammar,…
Some time ago, I wrote about how the 1964 mare Carila (Caravan x Akila by Akil), the last asil mare from the female line of the Davenport mare *Abeyah was lost in the 1990s despite a last minute preservation effort.. Recently, while going through Datasource, I was thrilled to find out that an asil line to *Abeyah has actually survived, through modern show ring lines and outside any preservation program. This is the line of the 1963 mare RO Jameelah (Faaris x Ramleh, by Ghazi x Fersaba, by Ferdin x Saba), who has a line to Nureddin II through his son Ferdin, which means she is not Al Khamsa, because Al Khamsa does not accept Nureddin II. Now the case of Nureddin II (Rijm x Narguileh by Mesaoud) is a long and complex one, and a painful one at that. In my opinion, he is who the studbooks say he is, that is, the 1911 son of his two parents, the Crabbet horses Rijm and Narguileh. I have seen all the documentation available, and I don’t buy the arguments of either Carl Raswan or his disciple Jane Ott, about him being the son of an English Thoroughbred. This theory has been refuted many times by all serious researchers.…
Black Kuhaylan Hayfi stallion at Mustafa Jabri in 1990. Sire: Mahrous; dam: a Kuhaylah Hayfiyah from the Shammar Bedouins. I don’t remember her name.
I found this family tree of the Shammar Bedouin clans from the section of the tribe known as Zawba’ (Zoba). It can be found online on an Arabic genealogy website. Most Shammar genealogies were put together by Western travelers, often basing themselves on more or less reliable Bedouin informants. This one was compiled by a Syrian ‘traveler’ in the years between 1963 and 1971 across three countries Iraq, Syria and Kuwait ( to where many Shammar Bedouins from Syria emigrated in the 1960s). It is special in that it references its sources, the tribal elders who were used as sources when compiling the information. The document says it will be published [was it already?] in an upcoming book about the Shammar Bedouins in three volumes. I have been trying to compile such a list for many years, and was facing three challenges — other than the logistical challenge of locating and reaching the sources, which were getting increasingly scarce as time was passing by: 1) first, the difficulty of reconciling tribal genealogies, as they was always a point were the elders’ versions differed, like in all oral histories; one would claim his clan is related to another clan; the elder from…
Mokhtar, the old asil Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion, bred by the Shammar Bedouins in Syria and now in France, continues to sire nice foals at 24 years of age. Here is a photo of the little filly Mutarak Nesba (Mokhtar x Murad Diffa) bred by Guillaume Lambert and Margot Leroux-Berger, in France. By the way, it turned out that Mokhtar’s semen does not ship well, and that means he will have to be used live. It is still time to catch him before he leaves us, because if I had to vouch for the asil status of one horse in the world, it would be him. He is a time capsule straight from the 18th century.
Catherine Wocjik of France just sent me these recent photos of the 2005 young asil Shuwayman Sabbah stallion Mahboub Halab, bred in Syria by Radwan Shabareq, and now in France with Jean-Claude Rajot, who is the man on his back. By the way, this stallion will be the subject of my upcoming talk at the next Al Khamsa Convention in Pennsylvania: “A closer look at a modern Syrian Arabian horse pedigree: the case of Mahboob Halab”. Photos of his first foal crop coming soon..
Amoori (Al-Aawar x Ghallaieh, by the black Saqlawi Marzakani, the “horse of Al-‘Anud”) is a full brother to Amshet Shammar, pictured below. He was bred by Radwan Shabareq in Aleppo, from a mare bred by Rakan al-Jarba of the Shammar Bedouins, from a line originating from the Tai leaders, in turn originating from the Fad’aan Bedouins. This is the same line that produced the Kuhaylan Ibn Mizhir horses. The photo comes from Arnault Decroix who took it in 2000.
This is the third feature on the series on uncommon strains, and it features the strain of Kuhaylan ibn Mizhir. Kuhaylan ibn Mizhir is a little known strain in the West. It is specific to Syria and to parts of Iraq that are adjacent to the Syrian border. The strain belongs to the Bedouin tribe of Tai, who are very proud of it. The reason it is so little known is that the strain is actually Kuhaylan al-Krush. About eight or ninety years ago, a Tai Bedouin by the name of Ibn Mizhir acquired a Kuhaylat al-Krush from ‘Anazah (either from the Fad’aan or the Sba’ah, and more probably the former), and many in the Tai tribe started calling the strain after its new owner. Other Tai Bedouins stuck to the old Krush strain name. One of the descendants of this original Kuhaylat Krush of Ibn Mizhir went to the leading clan of the Tai Bedouins, and one of the offspring of this mare then passed to Nuri al-Mash’al al-Jarba of the Shammar, who married a woman from the Tai leading clan. The Jarba leaders of the Shammar, who took pride in their own Kuhaylan al-Krush marbat (Krush al-Baida, a marbat that came to the Shammar from the Mutayr Bedouins…
This is an old photo from the collection of French breeder Pierre-Henri Beillard. It shows the 1916 asil mare Noble Reine (by Dahman d.b. out of Nacre by Achmet out of Naeleh d.b.), a mare bred at the French government stud of Pompadour. Noble Reine is a daughter of the magnificent desert-bred stallion Dahman (by a Dahman Amer out of a Kuhaylat al-Rabdah), a former herdsire with the Shammar Bedouins, who has been often featured on this blog, including here. Noble Reine also traces to another prominent desert-bred stalli0n, the Saqlawi Jadran Edhen, bred by the Sba’ah Bedouins. Note the resemblance with some of the early horses of Davenport bloodlines in the USA.
Recently, I wrote here about the little-known group of horses from the Hadban strain tracing to the desert-bred mare *Hadba, imported by Homer Davenport from Arabia in 1906. The hujjah (Arabic authentication certificate) of that mare is available, and I did a new translation of it, which appeared in the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians III (2008). I am reproducing an updated, revised version of this translation here: We, who put our names and seals below, based on our honor, say that the bay mare whose has a stocking on her left hind leg and a star on her face, that her dam is a Hadbah to be mated and her sire is Shuwayman Sabbah, and the sire of her filly is Ma’naqi Sbayli; Abd al-Sakam Azraq took this mare from Hajj Ismail the Shaykh of Sfireh, and Hajj Ismail took her from ‘Ajil ibn Zaydan the Shaykh of Shammar, and for the sake of clarity, we have put our names and seals [below]. Written by: Abdessalam Azraq [seal] From the people of [the town of] Sfireh: Muhammad Nur [or Nadar or Thawr, unclear] [finger print] Ahmad al-Muhammad [seal] Mustapha al-Bdeiwi [seal] Hajj Ahmad al-Abdallah from the tribe of al-Fardun [seal] Ahmad Sarraj [seal] I swear by God…
Few people outside the group of North American Davenport breeders are aware of the existence of a fourth tail female of asil Arabians entirely tracing to the 1906 importation of 27 desert-bred horses from North Arabia. The Kuhaylan Haifis, the Kuhaylan Krush, and the horses tracing to Schilla are well known, but the Hadbans not so much. Homer Davenport imported the mare *Hadba, bred by the Shammar, to the USA in 1906, and bred her daughter Killah, in 1911. Her grand-daughter Anlah by Antez was bred at Kellogg Farms in California, while Anlah’s daughter Ehwat Ansarlah was bred by W.R. Hearst’s stud in 1948, also in California. Ehwat Ansarlah was part of the Second Foundation group of Davenport horses, and produced a daughter, Trisarlah by Tripoli. The line still goes on, but so thinly that it is hanging by a thread. There are still a few mares of breeding age, but they are not being bred, and the entire group risk falling off the radar screen and disappearing entirely in a few years. This is why the Institute for the Desert Arabian Horse thought to place the 1995 grey mare RL Zahra Assahara (Portent x Antezzah by Grand Pass out of Letarlah, by…
Dahess (Awaad x Al-Jazi by the Ubayyan of ‘Atnan al-Shazi) was a 1987 grey stallion. He was bred by sayyid Muhammad al-Shaykh Salim a Tufayhi, a non-Bedouin from a family of religious notables in Upper Mesopotamia, as so was his dam. He was a ‘Ubayyan Sharrak by strain, tracing to the marbat of ‘Awwad ‘Azzam al-Sahlan, or ‘Ubayyan Suhayli. He was sired by the grey Kuhaylan al-Krush stallion Awaad, who hails from the famed marbat of Mayzar al-‘Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba, and as such he is a half brother to the black stallion Mokhtar now in France. His dam, al-Jazi, was reportedly one of the prettiest mares in Syria, and eventually came to be owned by the late Basil al-Asad, brother to the current president of the Syrian Arab Republic. Dahess was sold as a youngster to the former Qatari consul in Damascus, the late Yusuf al-Rumaihi, who owned a wonderful collection of beautiful and well-authenticated desert-bred mares (more on this later), as well as the two Egyptian stallions Okaz (Wahag x Nazeemah) and al-Qahir (Ikhnatoon x Marium). When Rumaihi passed away, the horses were dispersed and some of them found their way to Qatar, where they were overlooked and eventually given away. Dahess then…
The first and only desert-bred Syrian stallion we ever owned. More on him later, as I dig up better photos. This one was taken in 1995 at the farm of Mustafa Jabri in Aleppo, where Dahess was standing at stud. My father is teasing him..
The desert-bred Saqlawi Jadran stallion Ihsan (Hamdani Simri x Nadya, a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah) was the second stallion at the Jabri stud in the 1990s. He was mainly used as an outcross to Mahrous daughters. What I liked about him was his large expressive eye, his huge half-moon cheekbone, his nice croup, as well as his good tail carriage. I took this photo in 1990. Ihsan traces all the way back to the famous Saqlawi Jadran marbat of Dari al-Mahmoud, the leader of the Zawba’ Shammar of Iraq, and a hero of the Iraqi resistance to the British in the 1920s. There are only three Saqlawi Jadran marbat among the Shammar today, and they will be the subject of an entry to come. The 1922 stallion *King John, who raced in Egypt, and was later imported to the USA, was also a Saqlawi Jadran from Dari al-Mahmoud’s marbat, according to his hujjah (featured in the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians II, 1993). A thin asil line to *King John survived in the USA until the 1980s, through his great-grandson Beau Nusik (Nusik x Reshan Azab by Janeo, who was by *King John), but it was eventually lost. *King John (photo below)…
This mare was mentioned several times on this blog. She is a Kuhaylat al-Wati of the marbat of Hakim al-Ghishm of the Shammar Bedouins in Nort-Eastern Syria. Her sire, dam, grandsire and granddam, and her ancestors beyond that are from the same marbat, and bred by the same family. She was owned by Mustafa Jabri of Aleppo, is the dam of the stallion Kassar, owned by Omar Anbarji. I took this photo in 1990
This desert-bred mare is a representative of the rare and precious strain of Rishan. She traces to a most ancient and authenticated marbat of the Rishan strain, that of Ibn Hathmi of the ‘Abdah section of the Shammar Bedouin tribe. Her breeder Ayid al-Fnaish obtained the line from Ibn Hathmi a few decades ago. Mustafa al-Jabri is her current owner and I took this photo at his stud in 1995. She was registered in Volume 1 of the Syrian Studbook under the generic strain of Kuhaylat al-‘Ajuz, reportedly because one of the members of the local registration committee was unaware of the existence of the Rishan strain. This oversight was fixed in the next Studbook iterations. She was born in 1986, and I believe her registration name is Bint al-Badiah. Her sire is al-A’war, the chestnut Hamdani (Simri) Ibn Ghurab stallion which the Shammar Bedouins were heavily using at the time, before he ended up with Radwan Shabareq of Aleppo in the 1990s. Her dam’s sire is the Saqlawi (Jadrani) Ibn ‘Amud of Muhammad al-Faris al-‘Ad al-Rahman of the ‘Assaf, the leading clan of the Tai Bedouins. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Basil Jadaan with WAHO, Volume 7 of…
I recently scanned a number of photos of Syrian Arabian horses that I took in the early 1990s, and I will be sharing them with you over the next days and weeks. It makes sense to begin this series of photos with the 1981 ‘Ubayyan Suhayli stallion Mahrous, head sire at the Jabri stud in Aleppo, Syria in the 1980s and much of the 1990s. He is consequently one of the most influential stallion in Syrian pedigrees today. I took these photos in 1992. Mahrous was a masculine and prepotent stallion, who stamped his progeny. All his sons and daughters inherited his balanced, near-faultless conformation and his good disposition. His head was criticized by some for not being a classic Arabian head with a ‘dish’ — Mahrous had a straight profile and a — but you can see from these pictures that it had all the essential characteristics of the head of a true desert-bred Arabian stallion: huge soulful eyes, short pricked ears, huge arched cheekbones, a broad forehead between the eyes, and a clean, delicately arched throat (mithbah). I have already discussed Mahrous’ very well-established pedigree in an earlier entry, to which I refer you (click here).
Below is a translation of the Arabic language hujjah of the mare *Abeyah, imported by Homer Davenport from the Northern Arabian (i.e., Syrian) desert to the USA in 1906. It is adapted from the translation of this hujjah which I did in 2005 for the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians III. The Al Khamsa Arabians III translation remains the one readers ought to refer to, because it is a word for word translation of the original Arabic, but the one below reads better in English: “I, o Faris al-Jarba, witness that the bay mare which has a blaze on her face and two stockings on her hindlegs is a ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from the marbat of Mit’ab al-Hadb, to be mated in the dark night, purer than milk; we only witness to what we know, and don’t withhold what is unknown. Faris al-Jarba bore witness to this [seal of Faris al-Jarba follows] I testify by God that the witness referred to, Faris Pasha from the tribe of Shammar, is a just man and that his testimony is acceptable. Ahmad al-Hafez [seal of Ahmad al-Hafez follows]” I will be discussing this hujjah in detail in the comments section below, so when you…
The chestnut stallion Kassar (Mahrous x Dawha by K. al-Wati) was bred by Mustafa al-Jabri and purchased by Omar Anbarji of Aleppo, who sent me the picture below. Kassar’s dam Dawha hails from the ma’ruf (well-known — by the Bedouin community, that is) and mazbut (reliable, authenticated, trusted) marbat of Kuhaylan al-Wati of the sons of Hakim al-Hsayni al-Ghishm of the Shammar, now settled in North-Eastern Syria. Hakim, his sons Mohammed, Ali and Fawaz and his grandsons such as Husayn followed a policy of only breeding their Kuhaylat al-Wati mares to their Kuhaylan al-Wati stallions. They own several branches of the same horses. Kassar in particular is heavily linebred to the Kuhaylan al-Wati strain. Kassars sire Mahrous is a son of a dark grey Kuhaylan al-Wati stallion, also from Hakim’s, and so is his paternal grandsire. Kassar’s paternal grandsire and Kassar’s dam are said to be very closely related. Theirs is a relatively old marbat with the Shammar; The grey stallion “Koheilan”, imported to England in the early 1910s (I think, but maybe it was the 1920s, in any case the horse is pictured in the first pages of Al Khamsa Arabians I, 1983), where he left no progeny, was of that strain. The Kuhaylan…
The ‘Ubayyan Suhayli stallion Mahrous was, until his death in the late 1990s, the herd sire at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud in Aleppo, Syria. Today his sire line is, along with that of the Damascus stallion Ayid, the most prolific in modern Syrian Arabian horse breeding. If you check Mahrous’ entry in the Syrian Arabian Horse Studbook, you will find relatively little information about him, in comparison with other major stallions of his generation (e.g, Mobarak, Mashuj, Raad, Marzuq, Mokhtar, all born between 1982 and 1987). I was able to learn more about Mahrus’ background by asking a number of persons, including Mustafa, Radwan Shabariq and the late Abd al-Qadir al-Hammami, as well as others who knew the horse well. Hazaim al-Wair has also conducted a masterful inquiry among the Shammar Bedouins clans of al-Sbeih and al-Ghishm about Mahrous’ sire. Mahrous was born in 1981, in the steppe area between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, in Northeastern Syria. He was bred by a Bedouin of the Faddaghah clan of the Shammar tribe, a man named Wuhayyid al-Hamad al-Duhayyim. Wuhayyid then sold Mahrous to horse merchant, who sold him to another, before Mustafa bought him as a young stallion in 1983/84. The photo of Mahrous,…
This hujjah comes from the Tahawi tribe website and is very interesting, because of the place of origin of the horse: unlike most of the Tahawi hujaj I saw, this one comes from the Upper Mesopotamia area (al-Jazirah) while the others came from Western Syria. I hope the horse referenced in this hujjah document left some modern descendants, because his origin is precious. Here’s my translation of the document: “We testify by God and his Prophet, in truth and righteousness, that the grey horse, brother of the bay horse, which [the grey] has a small star on his face, and which is five years of age, and which was purchased by Abdel Aziz Bek and Husayn al-Hilal from Adham al-Humayyid that he is Saqlawi Jadran, and that his dam is a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah, and his sire a Saqlawi Jadran, from the horses of Dari Ibn Mahmud, the Shaykh of the tribe of Shammar al-Zawba’; and the horse is ‘shubuw’ [to be mated] and can be mated, and is protected [from the side of both] his sire and his dam, and that there is no impurity in his origin; and for this reason we have prepared this testimony, and God is the…
The 1988 grey Hamdani al-‘Ifri stallion *Ta’an (Awaad x al-Efrieh by a Kuhaylan al-Wati) was born in the Jazirah area of North-Eastern Syria. His breeder, Mis’ir al-Hamad is a member of one of the small Arab nomadic tribes that settled in this area in the XXth century. I first saw *Ta’an in 1990 as a yearling, at Mustafa al-Jabri’s stud outside of Aleppo. I took pictures which I will scan and share with you. I then saw him again in 1991 and 1992. In 1993, Mustafa gifted *Ta’an to Gerald and Debra Dirks who took him to the USA, then to Jordan in 1996. At that time, the Arab Horse Association studbook did not recognize the Syrian Studbook, so *Ta’an never got registered, even though Al Khamsa, Inc accepted him on the basis of his being a Bedouin-bred horse from Syria. The two pictures below were taken at the Dirks’ farm, and are courtesy of Marie Arthur. *Ta’an’s sire was Awaad, a grey Kuhaylan al-Krush bred by ‘Iyadah Talab al-Khalaf, of the Shammar Bedouins, from the prestigious Krush al-Baida marbat of Mayzar al-Abd al-Muhsin al-Jarba of the Shammar. Awaad sired many good mares and stallions in Syria, among them the…
Mustafa al-Jabri is a longtime Syrian breeder of desert Arabian horses from Aleppo, Syria, and a beloved family friend. Mustafa’s stud near Aleppo, which has up to 100 mares and two dozen stallions, is one of the most highly regarded studs in Syria. Over the past decades, Mustafa spent extensive amounts of time with Bedouins and those familiar with them, and collected a large compendium of stories, some in verse, some in prose about Arabian horse strains, Bedouin feats and deeds, and the relationship of Bedouins with their horses. Mustafa’s family is now working on putting these stories in writing in Arabic, for education and awareness raising purposes. Below is one of these story from Mustafa, which I translated from the original Arabic, and which Mustafa and his family graciously agreed to share: One day Dham al-Hadi al-Jarba the Shaykh of the Shammar tribe went hunting with one of the men from his tribe, a Bedouin known as Wati al-Ghishm (as an aside: Wati means lowly and vile, and it was a Bedouin habit to give their children rough or negatively connotated first names to draw the evil eye away from them ; they would keep positively connotated first names to…
A nice photo of a son of two desert-bred imports. Letan is by *Muson, a Kuhalyan al-Musinn of the Ruwalah, out of *Jedah, a Hamdaniyah Simriyah of the marbat of Ibn Ghurab. Both *Muson and *Jedah were imported from Northern Arabia by Homer Davenport in 1906. My Wisteria has 25 crosses to him, and her daughter Wadhah 37 crosses. Now compare him with another Hamdani Ibn Ghurab, Mobarak born some 80 years later, at the stud of Abd al-‘Iyadah al-Dar’an Ibn Ghurab of the Shammar Bedouins, and notice the similar body structures: