I woke up in Beirut this morning to good news from Yasser from his countryside house in the Nile Delta. My Khallawiyah mare Bint Rammah just foaled a well-built filly by Batal al Zaman. Yasser and I are partners on the filly. Yasser’s photo. We will name her Jawaher Al Arab. Her older sister was already Jawharah (jewel), and she is jewels in the plural, so Jawaher. Yasser and I carefully selected Batal al Zaman for his pedigree (a very simple pedigree, old EAO-lines only, and low Nazeer) and his outstanding racing record in Egypt. He is by Ibn Dahsha (Wasel x Dahsha by Adeeb, tf Bint Radia) out of Saddeeqah (Adawy x Eetimad by Mourad, Farida tf).
The previous post in Arabic was to introduce the daughter of my Khallawiyah mare Bint Rammah, born a couple days ago. The new filly, named Jawharah Al Arab is owned jointly between Yasser Ghanim and I, and is at his small farm in the Sharqiyah province, east of the Nile Delta. Bint Rammah was already in foal to Maward AlPetra, a Dahman stallion from lines to the Nagel’s Katharinenhof Arabians (NK) and Ansata Arabians studs, when I acquired her a few months ago. Video below.
الحمدلله فرسي الخلاوية بنت رماح ولدت مهرة يوم البارحة. المهرة كبيرة الحجم وبصحة جيدة الحمدلله سميناها جوهرة العرب وهي شراكة بيني وبين ياسر غانم وموجودة عنده بمحافظة الشرقية بمصر ز الاب حصان دهمان شهوان من اصول مصرية تغلب على مشجر نسبه خطوط انساتا وناجل اسمه ماورد البتراء كانت الفرس عشار منه لما اشتريتها من صاحبها وهو من الاسرة الطحاوية الام بنت رماح من اصول بدوية بحتة معروفة مثبوتة محفظة من سلالات عرب الطحاوية القديمة غير المسجلة دوليا. ابوها رماح ابن ابن حصان السباق الاسطورة جولدن ارو الذي اكتسح ميادين السباقات في لبنان ومصر في الخمسينات والستينات من القرن الماضي واصبح فيما بعد فحل سفاد في مصر والعراق والمملكة العربية السعودية واذكر اني سالت والدي ذات يوم وانا في مطلع العمر عما اذا كانت هناك خيل سباق عراقية لا ترد بنسبها الى الفحل الهجين المعروف بالطبيب او السوري او “دهمان عامر” الذي ملأت احفاده اسطبلات مربيين وهواة خيل السباق في لبنان وسوريا وأجابني والدي انه ثمة حصان عراقي اشقر مشهور ركض في سباق بيروت كان اسمه جولدن ارو وكان معروف عنه انه لا يعود نسبه الى الطبيب وترسخ اسم جولدن اروهذا في ذهني خلال السنين التي تلت سرد والدي لهذه القصة حتى أتاحت لي ظروف سكني في مصر ان اتعرف على…
This was my father’s answer when I asked him why he was about to purchase a beautiful, authentic desert-bred mare that was not registered in any studbook. There was something idealistic and foolish — these two tend to overlap — about his stance which left a mark on the teenager I was. No formal authority at the time was ever going to recognize the purebred status of this beauty. Her resale value and that of her offspring were almost nil. Despite having given it a lot of thought over the years, I am still conflicted about registration. On one hand, one does not really need a formal registry to confirm the purebred status of a horse. Registries get their information from somewhere. That somewhere, in the case of this mare, was the spotless reputation and the word of the mare’s owner. Also, I reasoned, registries got it the other way around. The very definition of a “purebred” for most breeds is a horse entered in a registry. That includes WAHO’s famously circular definition of a purebred Arabian horse. Besides, registries around the world are full of horses proven not to be purebred. Heck, that is the rule more than it…
Earlier I shared a photo of the Chilean Tahawi stallion, PB Muahjid. I am now sharing a photo of the other Neveen foal in Chile that Miguel Acuña Álvarez has in his program, PB Mushka, who is tail female to the Hamdan Tahawi mare, Folla. This is her with her 1997 grey filly, Nueva Ortigosa Ghezira, by the Chilean National Champion stallion HS Kisra.
Miguel Acuña Álvarez has shared this photo of his foundation stallion, PB MUAHJID [pedigree] by the Ansata-sired Nasani and out of the imported Hamdan Stables mare Neveen, with whom he was with in-utero during her importation to Chile. Neveen’s dam was the 1963 Bint Folla II, and her dam was the Tahawi mare and Hamdan Stables foundation mare, Folla. In the United States this is a rather rare line, as Bint Folla II is only felt through the mare Neveen, and Neveen had but one daughter to carry her line forth, the 1990 grey mare Amira Neveen, by the ubiquitous TheEgyptianPrince. Amira Neveen had several offspring: two stallions, 1996 Amir Farid and the 2010 Amer El Khalid LDV; and four mares, Sulayah LDV, Morocco LDV, X Quisite LDV, and Perla LDV, all bred by La Dulce Vida Arabians / Martha Suarez and born respectively in 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2008. So far, it appears that the only one of these 6 offspring to breed forward is Sulayah LVD, who foaled the mare Amira Jewel LDV in 2008, meaning that it’s been a decade since this line last saw a foal on the ground. There’s still time, but this is definitely…
Sheykh Tahawi Saeed Mejalli al-Tahawi who is in his nineties was interviewed recently by Yehia Abdel-Satar Eliwa al-Tahawi. The old man, who is the memory of the Tahawi clan of Egypt, told him that the original Kuhayla Khallawiyah mare had come to Shaman Ghumah al-Tahawi from the Mawali Bedouins. I had hypothesized this connection of the Futna line to the Mawali tribe some seven years ago on this blog, here. It is now confirmed. This makes the Egyptian Kuhaylan Khallawi strain of Bint Futna one of the most prestigious strains of Northern Arabia, that of Khallawiat al-Nesswan [“of the women”, not sure why they are called this way]. A branch of the Mawali leading family, the Aal al-‘Aabed, who had settled in Damascus, and provided Syria with its first president, Muhammad ‘Ali al-‘Aabed, owned a Khallawi line that survived in Asil form until the late 1990s, in both Lebanon and Syria. I owned the last such mare in old age. These were quite the race horses. When Ottoman Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid was on his way from Istanbul to Mecca on pilgrimage, he was hosted by the leader of the Mawali Bedouins near Hama, in central Syria, and presented with a Khallawia mare. In Syria,…
Yasser Ghanim is issuing News Letter 1 about their horses twice a year.
The Tahawi preservation breeders have the last (with her dam) asil Kuhaylat al-Kharass filly, by a Straight Egyptian stallion from US lines and out of the desert mare. I have not seen her yet, but from the photos Yasser took, she seems quite something. There was only one horse from that strain, an aged stallion, in the Syrian Studbook and he died a while ago. There was an old mare from the same strain in the Lebanese studbook, but she died too. The strain is originally from the Sba’ah ‘Anazah, where it was much prized and sought after especially for racing. It is well represented in the sire and dam lines of many of the Hearst imports. It was also the strain of Proximo/Jadaan, the personal mount of the head of the Fad’aan Jadaan Ibn Mhayd, seen by the Blunts in their second desert journey in 1881 (Lady Anne spelled the strain as Kuhaylan Akhras) and bought by them in India where he had been sold for racing. Proximo failed to produce anything at Crabbet (not very fertile), and was eventually sold to Poland yet at some point it was considered likely that the Crabbet foundation mare Nefisa was his…
Bushra, the Ju’aythniyah mare of Tahawi lines of Yasser Ghanem Barakat produced this nice colt by an Egyptian stallion last week. The foal looks more like his dam than his sire, and that’s a good thing. Note the big black eyes and the long ears on this superior war mare of pure Tahawi lines.
In Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence, the nice journal entry on February 20th, 1887 on the visit to Saud al-Tahawi, the reference to: “Fourthly, a Kehileh Taytanyeh [?] fleabitten” is of course to a Kehileh Jaytanieh. The strain of K. Taytanyeh does not exist, while K. Jaytanyeh (or J’aitniyah) is well known. The J at the beginning of a sentence in a handwritten letter can easily be taken for a T, and the editors were not sure of the transcription hence the question mark after it. This is indeed the strain of several mares at Sh. Sulayman Abd al-Hamid Eliwa al-Tahawi, including Bombolla and her daughters, a strain he got from his father Abd al-Hamid, who in turn must have received it from other Tahawi. Also, the reference to “a Kehilet el Tamoryeh (bred here), chestnut, very like Damask Rose and said to be of Roala origin, dam of all the young stock except one” is to a mare of the Kuhaylan Tamri strain that was obtained by Saud al-Tahawi from Nasir al-Mi’jil (aka Ibn Maajil), and whose line is very meticulously recorded in the herd book of his son Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi, which was transcribed and uploaded online…
Also from Lady Anne’s Journals, February 24th, 1891: “A very bad day, wet, windy, cold and dull, not suitable for Judith to go to Cairo, so that I and Wilfrid went without her. When we got into the 1st class carriage we found in it Prince Osman Pasha who entertained us with agreeable conversation the whole way to Cairo. Prince Osman also explained the original connection of the Tihawi family (the Hamadi Sheykhs) with the Mohammed Ali family. It began from the arrival of Mohammed Ali in Egypt and the Tihawi were from the first the special body guards of the Pasha, which continued with his sons and descendants.”
From Lady Anne Blunt’s Journals and Correspondence under the January 13, 1903 entry: “Course to Om Kamr (for the third time). We started at 7.30 am making for the Hamad. Cantering on we came in sight of a tent, which at first H.F. [Wilfrid Blunt a.k.a. Head of the Family] thought might be Abu’s tomb _ a Kubba _ but it proved to be a white tent. On approaching we saw two figures come out. We asked them who was the owner of the tent and they replied Sheykh el Arab Mazin (el Tihawi) and that he was gone out hunting. We had not gone out much further when we saw 5 horsemen between us and the rief, and we loitered watching them as they got nearer and saw that they carried hawks and one carried a gun and the fifth was followed by a pack of about half a dozen hounds. On first speaking, by H.F. to the two nearest us, hey seemed very suspicious of us but afterwards their chief was most amiable, he proved to be Mohammed Ibn Majello, owner of large lands near Karaim and a connection of saoud el Tihawi between who and Majello there is a…
Mohammad Mohammad Osman Faysal Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi sent me this beautiful photo of his grandfather Faysal on a Ubayyat Ibn Thamdan mare, taken around 1955. I like everything about this photo: the whitewashed tombs in the background, straight out of the Arabian Nights, the mud brick walls and the mud houses and the oasis, the old Shaykh on the mare, and the electric pole as a lonely testimony of creeping modernity in a scene that could otherwise have taken place a thousand years ago. And the mare of course: look at that perfect specimen of a desert mare: the full powerful croup, the walk, the carriage of the neck, and the long head so full of character. The strain above all: Faran Ibn Thamdan of the Sba’ah Bedouins was the owner of one of the three or four best strains of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak in North Arabia, a strain which produced some of the best foundation horses of the Arabian breeding program on my home country of Lebanon some fifty years ago. More about the strain of Ubayyan ibn Thamdan later, once I am done staring at this picture.
This is Bint Delingat (Delingat x Bint Ammoura), one of the non-registered Tahawi mares that are currently being considered for registration by the EAO in a registry separate from the “Straight Egyptians”. She belongs to Yahia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi, who otherwise owns and breeds a lot of registered Arabian mares of Tahawi backgrounds, tracing in tail female to the three mares of Hamdan Stables. I took this photo in Geziret Saoud in Egypt last month. Bint Delingat is a Kuhaylah Tamriyah, and the very last of her strain. Oh, what an mazbut and precious strain Kuhaylan Tamri is! I especially like her long ears, and her overall type, which is reminiscent of some horses from Syria.
In the ancestral homeland of the Tahawi clan, looking at old documents, with Mohammed Saoud al-Tahawi in Arab garment and headgear, Yasser Ghanem Barakat in the striped shirt, and Yahia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi on his right.
As I was telling you in an earlier entry, last Friday I spent a most delightful day as a guest of Yehia Abd al-Attar al-Tahawi in Geziret Saoud in the Sharqiyah province of Egypt, along with Mohamed Osman al-Tahawi and Yasser Ghanim al-Tahawi and a number of others. I took tons of pictures with my i-phone, but I am having trouble downloading them on the laptop, so that will have to wait a bit. However, I did take some pictures with Mohamed’s camera when my phone’s battery was dead, including the following ones of a wonderful speckled Kuhaylah Khallawiyah mare. She is not registered, and she is one of the few remnants of their old tribal horses, 11 mares and one stallion in total. Her name is Bint Rammah, and she was born in 2003. Her dam is by the tribal Tahawi stallion Marhaba and her grand-dam by the “Straight Egyptian” Tahawi stallion Marshall (Amlam x Bint Fulla), who is her only link to registered Egyptian horses. According to the oral histories I heard during my visit, the Kuhaylan Khallawi strain of the Tahawi clan traces to an original mare brought from the Syria desert by one of the Tahawi shaykhs. From there she spread among various members of the Tahawi clan, including to Sh. Abd…
Yasser Ghanim Barakat sent me this recent photo of the asil Kuhaylat al-Nawwaq Tahawi mare Felha (El Kharass x San’aa), aged 25. Felha was bred by Shaikh Soliman Eliwa al-Tahawi and is now owned by his grandson Hossam Abdullah Soliman. An ongoing campaign is currently taking place to get her and 11 other Tahawi mares accepted by the EAO and mtDNA testing was done to compare this line with that of another Tahawi Kuhaylat al-Nawwaq mare, *Malouma, as well with the existing K. al-Nawwaq lines in Syria and Lebanon.
The informal working group on the Arabian horses of the Tahawi in Egypt is unearthing new written and oral evidence of the Tahawi horses day after day. Stay tuned for two upcoming stories on the French/Tunisian desert bred stallion Nasr, a Saqlawi Shaifi from the Tahawi, and the US import *Malouma, a Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah also from Tahawi breeding.
Many of you have been writing to or hearing about Yasser al-Tahawi who is one of the main persons behind the recent revelations about the original horses of the Tahawi tribe. Well here’s a picture of him, riding bareback on his Kuhaylah Ju’athiniyah mare Bushra.
One of the few asil Tahawi mares left in Egypt is this old Kuhaylah Nawwaqiyah owned by Helga al-Tahawi, the wife of the late Shaykh Soliman al-Tahawi. She is one of those which the Board of Directors of Al Khamsa recently recognized as tribal “horses of interest”. I think the photo is from Bernd Radtke, but it might directly from the Tahawis. A collective effort on three continents is under way to get these 15 or so remaining Tahawi horses recognized by the EAO in Egypt, and as a result, by WAHO.
As part of the working group on the horses of the Tahawi, which Edouard mentioned in a recent post, I wanted to share with you brand new information about the Egyptian stallion Gamal El Din. The information was obtained when Yehia Abd al-Sattar al-Tahawi, Mohammad Saoud al-Tahawi, and myself, recently recorded a one hour video with one of the very old Tahawi horse breeders, Shaikh Tahawi Sa’eid Mejalli al-Tahawi, who was born around 1904, and is 107 years old today. He still has an amazing memory for his advanced age, and is one of the old Bedouin breeders, and a great horse expert, following his father Shaikh Sa’ied Mejalli al-Tahawi. In this interview, he shared many exciting details about the old Tahawi horses such as “Dahman Abdullah Saoud” which he saw himself when he was young. “Dahman Abdullah Saoud” was the sire of the race horse Barakat (also a Dahman, but from another line), among others, and is today represented in modern Egyptian pedigrees through his great-grand-daughters Fulla, Futna, and Bint Barakat. Shaikh Tahawi al-Tahawi also spoke about lady Anne Blunt and her frequent visits to the Tahawi clan, and about the horses she bought from them. These horses are referred to…
I wanted to post this photo of the Shuwayman Sabbah stallion Hamdan II (Hamdan X Folla by Ibn Barakat) born in 1957, bred at Hamdan stables and imported to Austria by the late Gustl Eutermoser. I took the photo as a schoolboy in Austria back in 1979, when Hamdan II was 22. Mr Eutermoser maintained a stud of horses from Egypt and Saudi Arabia after having lived in the Middle east for some years. Later he moved to Spain where his wife continues breeding, concentrating on asil horses tested in endurance and dressage. The Tahawi mares on the blog reminded me of this old stallion. Matthias
Another of the handful of remaining asil Tahawi mares in Egypt is Mayssa, of the Kuhaylan al-Nawwaq strain, tracing to a marbat from the Sba’ah tribe. Mayssa belongs to Mrs. Helga al-Tahawi, the German wife of the late Sheykh Soliman al-Tahawi. Mrs. Helga is on the far left of the picture with Yehia, Sheykh Soliman’s nephew, and otherwise a breeder of registered (WAHO, EAO) Straight Egpytian Tahawi horses from the three Hamdan lines. Mayssa is not registered but is very asil. Forgive the quality of the photo please, and try to look at the mare itself.
I am very proud to share with you some photos of the remaining asil horses of the Tahawi clan in Egypt. These horses are the very last remaining asil descendants of the large breeding program of the Tahawis, based exclusively on desert-bred Arabians imported from the tribes of Sba’ah, Ruwalah, Fad’aan, Hssinah and Shammar between the 1880s and the 1940s. This one is a Kuhaylah J’aithiniyah, a grand-daughter of the mare Bombolla (Rock x Masquerade by Ibn Bakhshish), of Sheykh Soliman ‘Abd al-Hamid Eliwa al-Tahawy, and tracing to the desert-bred mare “J’aithiniyah al-Kabira”, brought by the Tahawis from the ‘Anazah in the 1920s. I, Yasser, am the proud owner of this mare. She is one of the handful mares that has been recognized as “horses of interest” by Al Khamsa at their last annual convention.
I am happy to introduce Yasser Ghanim Barakat of the larger Tahawi clan in Egypt as a guest blogger on Daughters of the Wind. Yasser, his cousin Mohammad Mohammad Othman al-Tahawi and Yehia Abd al-Sattar Eliwa al-Tahawi have been working with Bernd Radtke, Joe Ferriss and myself as well as a number of others to further the cause of the remaining asil horses of the Tahawi (some 20 plus mares and a stallion), as Yasser put it so well in his post on the StraightEgyptians.com: “The great and historical decision taken by Al Khamsa to recognize all the remaining Tahawy horses renews hope in preserving these asil and rare bloodlines of desert Arabians (see: https://daughterofthewind.org/tahawi-tribel…is-is-historic/ ) Tahawy Arabians were dominating the race in Egypt in the period between the 1880s and 1960s. They were an important source for most of Egypt’s famous breeders such as Lady Anne Blunt, the Egyptian Royal family and the members of the Jockey club. The Tahawy horses descend from some of the finest desert bred horses acquired by the Tahawies from the best strains of the notable Sheikhs of Eneza and Shammar tribes. Original certificates stamped by Eneza and Shammar Shaikhs were issued for the Tahawy horses…
The below standing rule has been unanimously adopted by the Al Khamsa Board, and concerns recognizing the remaining, surviving, original, tribal, authentic, asil horses of the Tahawi clan of Egypt as “horses of interest to Al Khamsa”. They are not registered by the Egyptian Agricultural Organization (EAO) and therefore not accepted by WAHO (long and sad story). They include some 20-25 mares of four different strains and one stallion. Whereas Al Khamsa, Inc. has an interest in and a history of saving bloodlines of horses of bedouin tribal background outside of North America, and Whereas expanded communication offered by the internet allows for availability of documentation beyond what could have been imagined when Al Khamsa, Inc. was founded, and Whereas the standing of Al Khamsa, Inc. allows it to exert peer pressure on international organizations, and Whereas the status of some of these bloodlines outside of North America is at a critical point, but an amendment to Article I of the Al Khamsa bylaws requires greater than a two-year lead time, be it resolved that: 1) Al Khamsa will recognize the last few remaining asil horses of the Tahawi tribe in Egypt as being “Al Khamsa Horses of Interest” on a preliminary…
Monday mornings are rough. This one was all the rougher because the weekend that preceded it was so good. Yesterday afternoon, I came back from the Al Khamsa Convention in Pennsylvania, where I saw old friends and made new ones. Many important things took place at this Convention, including the unanimous acceptance by Al Khamsa’s Board and General Assembly of the three Tahawi mares (Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat) and their otherwise Al Khamsa eligible descendants as Al Khamsa Arabians Horses. All three mares trace their origins to horses imported by the Tahawi clan of Egypt from the Northern Arabian desert (to which the Tahawis had many connections, all documented) and more specifically from the ‘Anazah tribes of Sba’ah (mainly), Fad’aan, Hssinha, Wuld ‘Ali, Sawalimah and Ruwalah.
In a few days, Al Khamsa will be in a position to announce a very good news concerning the last remaining asil horses of Tahawi bloodlines. In the meantime, I am sharing with you this 30 year old photo, which Yehia al-Tahawi, a member of Cairo’s Jockey Club and otherwise a breeder of Straight Egyptian Arabians of modern Tahawi lines (Fulla, Futna, and Bint Barakat), sent me of his father Sheykh Abd al-Sattar ‘Eliwa al-Tahawi with his asil Kuhaylah Tamriyah Ammoura (‘Darling’ in Arabic). Ammoura traces to a desert bred K. Tamriyah mare imported to Egypt by Sheykh Quwayti’ Smayda al-Tahawi from the ‘Anazah Bedouins in the Syrian desert. Her sire is a Hamdani Simri horse called “Ibn Damas” bred by Mohammed Fergani El-Tahawy, and tracing back to a Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare imported from the Sba’ah Bedouins. Yasir Ghanim who supplied all this information from his cousin Yehia also tells me Ammoura has an asil granddaughter that is still alive today. This news is a great ray of hope for the Arabian horse in general and for the Kuhaylan Tamri strain in particular, of which this mare would be the single remaining representative, as far as I know.
Read this entry in the stud book of Faysal ‘Abd Allah Sa’ud al-Tahawi, excerpted from the tribe’s website: “Then, in the year 1356 H, we bought the bay ‘Ubayyah Sharrakiyah from Ibn Samdan, when she was in foal, and she gave birth, while in our ownership, to a chestnut colt whose sire is the [Kuhaylan] Nawwaqi who was [standing at stud] with the Arabs of Sba’ah, and whose owner was Fanghash, on the first day of Rabi’ al-Awwal 1356 H [equivalent to the 12th of May, 1937]. And we solt that colt to Cairo.” And further down: “And on July 27, 1949, Faran Ibn Samdan came to us, and we each took our shares [in horses], and he gave up his shares in al-‘Ubayyah and received from us 172 pounds. This was the bay ‘Ubayyah which came from Salih al-Misrab at the hand of Husayn Abu Hilal in 1356 H.” Now please tell me, how many people in 1950, just over sixty years ago, had the luxury of receiving Ibn Samdan, the breeder of the best and most authenticated marbat of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak among the Sba’ah, in his own house, to pay him his share of the ‘Ubayyat Ibn Samdan,…
Recently, Mohammad Mohammad Uthman al-Tahawi, who maintains the very rich Tahawi tribe website, uploaded an important document, which is like a Abbas Pasha Manuscript in miniature. It is the herd book of his great grandfather, and leader of the Tahawi clan, Shaykh ‘Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi. Mohammad found it among the horse related documents of his grandfather Uthman, and was told that the book was started by Shaykh ‘Abdallah, and kept up by the latter’s son Shaykh Faysal. When the sons of Shaykh ‘Abdallah divided their father’s horses between them upon his death, they passed book to each other to keep it updated. Mohammad copied it by hand in 1980, and has now uploaded it online. Rather than tell you about it, I will translate some of its parts, with Mohammad’s permission: In the name of God, the Most Merciful and Compassionate, blessings upon God [follows a string of religious invocations…] This is a record of the history of the origin of the horses of the Kuhaylat origin, the Tamriyah branch, established by the glorified Shaykh of the Arabs Sa’ud [son of] Yunis al-Shafi’i of the Arabs of [the tribe of ] al-Hanadi may God rest his soul and welcome him…
Both Mohammad al-Tahawi and Yasir Ghanim have sent me a new link to the website on the Tahawi Bedouins where they have uploaded many, many more documents about the original Tahawi horses, including the herd-book of their leader Shaykh Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi, which contains hundreds of entries documenting purchases of horses from the desert, dates of breedings, foal productions, sale records, etc. It is a treasure trove of information like no other, and it establishes the asil credentials of the Tahawi horses beyond any doubt. I will even go further to point of saying that many Tahawi horses are by now more authenticated than the majority of desert-breds from the RAS (e.g., Halabia, Nafaa al-Saghira, Badaouia, Eid, etc), and Inshass (e.g., El Samraa, El Shahbaa, Badria, Beshier El Achkar, Bint Karima). It’s a paradise of primary sources for those who love the original Bedouin horses. This is of course related to the great work Bernd Radtke is doing with his upcoming book, about which those of you went to the EE (Extreme and Exotic) already heard. I will be slowly working on the translation of these documents over the next several weeks. I think I need to find a replacement at…
I recently received some fresh news from Muhammad al-Tahawy who maintains the fascinating website of the Tahawi tribe with a large section dedicated to their horses. Muhammad directs me to one of the sections of the website, where he is regularly uploading photos and documents of original horses purchased by the Tahawi from Syria, mainly from the central city of Hama, a major horsebreeding center near the pastures of the Sba’ah Bedouins. Here is one such photo, reproduced with his permission. This is the legend on the back of the photo, and my translation follows: “This mare, a Kuhaylat al-Mimrah, now in Hama at the Iskafi [‘the shoemaker’, not clear whether it’s a reference to the owner’s surname or his profession], and she is the daughter of the grand old mare, whose owner was offered 800 gold pounds and refused to sell her, and she [i.e., the dam] is currently with him.” The information on the back of the photo does not tell us who the owner of the dam was, but we know this from another source: in his book “the Arab horse”, Hama native and racehorse owner Ali al-Barazi talks about the Kuhaylat al-Mimrah mare of Mukhtar [Mumtaz,…
The Tahawi website maintained by Mohammed al-Tahawy is a wonderful resource of original testimonies about the horses that this Bedouin clan bred throughout the XXth century. A few months ago, English translations of some of the hujaj (Arabic certification documents) of some of the foundation horses acquired by the Tahawi were featured on this website, as part of the collective effort of getting the three Tahawi mares of Egypt’s Hamdan stables accepted in the roster of Al Khamsa, Inc, the North American preservation organization. Here is a translation of another one of these original documents; this one is not a hujjah but rather a letter written to a member of the Tahawi tribe: To our beloved brother Faysal Abu Abdallah [al-Tahawi] may God protect him, Greetings and salutations, and longings to see your beautiful face, and after that, I would like to congratulate you on the advent of this holy month [of Ramadan], may God make you witness its advent again in health and well-being. You had asked us about the lineage of the colt, and in accordance to your demand, we are writing to you about the lineage of his dam and her ancestors, and that of his sire and his ancestors. The dam of the horse is al-Dahmah…
I received the following message yesterday, as a comment to one of the entries on the Tahawi tribe horses. Dear Edouard, I write to you on behalf of Al-Tahawia website managed by my cousin Mohammed ‘Etman (Othman) El-Tahawi. We are glad that the photos and documents we posted on the site were valued by you and your visitors. We are also very pleased with the recent acceptance of the three Tahawi mares to the notable Al Khamsa Roster. By this decision the Tahawi mares are now fully acknowledged by all the Arabian horse organizations. In addition to the few documents from our website that you posted here, we still have a larger number of authentic documents that we will be glad to share with you. We are in contact with Mr. Bernd Radtke who visited us in the 80s and we are aware of his work about Arabian horses. We will be glad to communicate with you and see how we can help. I will be glad to receive from you on the e-mail registered here. Best Regards This message illustrates the generosity and authenticity (asalah) of the Bedouin in general and the Tahawia in particular. I feel humbled by it,…
This entry is a follow up on an earlier entry on the Egyptian stallion Ibn Ghalabawi, sire of the 1971 mare Azeema out of Naglaa 1963 (Azeema’s photo is below, thanks Timur Hasanoglu for sharing it with me), which was exported to Germany. While implicitly included in the Pyramid Society’s definition of a Straight Egyptian Arabian, Ibn Ghalabawi is explicitely left out of the Asil Club’s otherwise wholesale embrace of the Egyptian Agricultural Organization’s Studbook. He shares that distinction with two other stallions, Sharkasi, and Registan (Skowronek x Riz). In 1978, WAHO accepted Ibn Ghalabawi’s daughter Azeema as purebred, based on the testimony of Sayed Marei of Al Badeia Arabians. That testimony identifies Ibn Ghalabawi as by Ghalabawi out of the mare “Bint Nabras”, by Nabras out of “Bint Soniour”. Soniour is only identified as a “desert-bred horse”. Assuming that pedigree information is correct, further research is needed on the following four horses before the credentials of Ibn Ghalabawi can be bolstered: the three stallions “Ghalabawi”, “Nabras”, “Soniour” and the great-granddam in the tail female, about which nothing is known. “Ghalabawi” is said to be by Balance x Bint Magboura by Ibn Rabdan, and to be bred by the RAS. I…
The Dahman stallion Barakat is the paternal grandsire of three “Straight Egyptian” mares: Folla, Futna and Bint Barakat. The Tahawi family website, maintained by Mohammed son of Mohammed son of Othman son of Abdallah son of Seoud al-Tahawi, has these few lines on Barakat: As to the dam of the stallion Barakat, she is the mare of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi, and she is Dahmat Shahwan“. Somewhere else on this website, there is the mention that “the Dahman horses of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi are from the horses of Ibn Maajil of Syria.” Now here’s what the Arabic edition of the Abbas Pasha Manuscript, edited by the late Saudi royal historian Hamad al-Jasir, has to say on these Dahman horses of Ibn Maajil, in the section about a specific descendent of the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare known as Al-Khadeem: “The mare, and she is a green [a shade of grey] daughter of the yellow [another shade of grey] Rabdan the horse of al-Dahham, had these foals while in a possession [a list of two foals follows, of which is the second is] a filly whose sire is Duhayman [‘little Dahman’], the stallion of Ibn Rashid, from the horses of Ibn Maajil.” You can find this except on pages 408…
Kuhaylan Khallawi (often misspelt Halawi) is a strain of Arabian horses little-known in the West. It is mentioned in Lady Anne Blunt’s list of strains derived from the Kuhaylan family, and in Carl Raswan’s list. The only other place it is mentioned is in Roger Upton’s writings, where his desert-bred import Yataghan (sire of the Ma’naqiyah mare *Naomi, which still has an asil tail female in the USA) was recorded as having been sired by a well-regarded Kuhaylan Khallawi stallion belonging to the Shammar. That’s it. In Egypt, the 1943 mare Futna, bred by the Tahawi Arabs, and bought by Ahmad Hamza as a broodmare for his Hamdan Stables, was from that same strain. Her dam is recorded as a Kuhaylah “Halawiyah”, just another way to write Khalawiyah, depending on how you choose to pronounce the Arabic letter [?]. Futna still has a thin tail female alive in the USA and Egypt, so the Kuhaylan Khallawi strain still goes on. According to their family website, wihch has a very rich section on horses, the Tahawi clan leaders brought all their horses from the area of Hims and Hama in Central Western Syria in the period extending between the 1880s and 1930s. …
Yesterday, the Al Khamsa Board of Directors unanimously approved the proposal submitted by Joe Ferriss to include the three mares Folla, Fotna, and Bint Barakat in the Al Khamsa Roster. The three mares were bred by the Tahawi tribes and sold to Ahmad Hamza of Hamdan Stables. On Saturday, the general assembly of Al Khamsa will be taking a vote on these three mares, in the next step towards their final inclusion in the Al Khamsa Roster.
This photo of the stallion Rock (Ragie x El Charsaa by Gezeier) with proud owner Shaykh Sulayman ibn Abd al-Hamid ibn ‘Ulaywa al-Tahawi was taken from the Tahawi family website. I am so grateful to Bernd Radtke for among other things, his sharing with me the pedigree of Rock’s daughter Bombolle (Rock x Maskerade), which has allowed to reconstitute Rock’s pedigree. Rock’s strain is Kuhaylan al-Kharass, and his tail female traces to the Kuhalyan al-Kharas marbat of the Sba’ah Bedouins. Kuhaylan al-Kharas is a flagship strain of the Sba’ah, and is the strain of the Blunt import Proximo, among other well known Arabians of Lebanon and Syria. Rock’s pedigree is heavily linebred to the two strains of Dahman ‘Amer (from the marbat of Jarallah Ibn Tuwayrish) and ‘Ubayyan Sharrak (from the marbat of Abu Jreyss).
This photo was sent by a horse merchant in Syria to one of the Tahawi clan leaders in Egypt, bto probe his interest in purchasing the horse. Here is what figures on the back of the photo: “Photo of the Saqlawi Jadrani horse, his sire is ‘Ubayyan of the horses of Ibn Samdan and his dam a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah of the horses of the Sba’ah” A couple noteworthy observations: 1. The marbat of Ibn Thamdan (mispelt Samdan on the back of the photo) is one of the most respected and authenticated marabet of ‘Ubayyan Sharrak among the Sba’ah tribe. It survived in asil form in Lebanon until the late 1950s. 2. Notice the resemblance of the horse in the photo with the Blunt mare Basilisk, who was from the same strain and the same tribe.
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…
This stallion, from the area of Hims and Hama in Syria, was offered for the sale to one the Tahawi leaders in Egypt; the back of the photo reads as follows: “His dam is the Nawwaqiyah and his sire a Nawwaq from the horses of ‘Arsan al-Nawwaq of the Arabs of [illegible, stain on the reverse of the photo, probably the tribe which is Sba’ah], golden chestnut, 5 years old
Excerpts from the Tahawi clan/family website, translation mine: When in the 1850s, the Tahawi began to settle in the province of al-Sharkiyah, in the areas of Bilbeis, Abu Hammad, Geziret Saoud, Kfar Saqr, al-Ismailia, and Abu Sultan, they owned horses which they used for transportation and nomadizing; then they settled down and acquired agricultural land, and gave up their pastoral and war-like lifestyle; their Sheykhs then went on to constitute their own horse studs (marabet); around this time, the Syrian region of Hims and Hama was the homeland of the Arab horse, and was known as al-Sham, since it was home to some of the Bedouin tribes like ‘Anazah, Shammar, al-Fad’aan, and al-Sba’ah, which specialized in the breeding of Arab horse and the tracing of its bloodlines; The Tahawi Arabs owned some land and maintained social ties with their relatives living in this area, as well as some close friends, so they started bringing brood-mares and stallions to Egypt. Some of them would travel there [to the area of Hims and Hama in Syria] and buy horses, then return [to Egypt] and wait for their horses to arrive; others would buy horses through an agent. Each horse came with a pedigree document, which included a description…
The Tahawi family website in Arabic is a gold mine of original information on the asil horses of Egypt’s Tahawi tribe. Here’s what I found today on this website concerning the horse Barakat, who is the paternal grandsire of the three foundation mares Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat [my own annotations in between square brackets]: “The stallion Barakat is the son of the old Dahman, the stallion of ‘Abdallah Saoud al-Tahawi which was bought from the ‘Anazah Arabs in 1322H (1898 AD), and the origin of this Dahman stallion is from the Dahmat ‘Amer mare of Jar Allah ibn Tuwayrish, and his sire is a Saqlawi Jadran [Note from Edouard: This is the same horse whose hujjah was reproduced and translated in an entry below]. As to the dam of the stallion Barakat, she is the mare of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi, and she is Dahmat Shahwan“. Further above on the website there is the mention that “the Dahman horses of Mnazi’ ‘Amer al-Tahawi are from the horses of Ibn Maajil of Syria.” The information on Barakat’s dam is extremely interesting. Not only because it allows us to go one generation back in the pedigrees of the three Hamdan stables foundation mares: Folla, Futna, and Bint Barakat.…
These have been quite busy days for me, and I have not been able to write as often as I wanted to. That said, I wanted to quick highlight the fact that two new proposals to add new horses to the Al Khamsa Roster have been sent to the Al Khamsa Board of Directors. The first was sent by Joe Ferriss, and concerns the three Tahawi (an Egyptian peasant tribe of Arab stock) mares that are the foudation of Egypt’s Hamdan Stables: Fulla (a Shuwaymah Sabbah), Futna (a Kuhaylah Khallawiyah), and Bint Barakat (a Saqlawiyah Jadraniyah). The second proposal (click here if you interested in reading it) was submitted by yours truly and concerns the mare *Lebnaniah, a Ma’naqiyah Sbayliyah imported by W.R. Hearst to the USA in 1947. The AK Board is currently discussing both proposals.