The Desert Acquisition Terms of the Arabian Horse

I always hoped I was born just one century earlier! My good fortune of descending from a Bedouin tribe of rich heritage in breeding Arabians was not complete to live all these traditions while they were still practiced in the daily life! I look at the long history of the Bedouin traditions and I wonder in sorrow: how for the sake of God I could escape the thousands-years long timeline of the Bedouin life only to come to life in the very last century where everything became history! Nevertheless, without any introduction or material reason, a child raised in the city was strongly inclined to the two main facets of the Arabic identity and pride (you may refer to my previous post here); the language, and the horse! Nothing can make my soul tremble like a butterfly more than hearing a piece of good Arabic poetry and being on the back of a true Arabian!

I was always fascinated by the pre-Islamic Arabic poetry. Even a good piece of Arabic prose is still poetic enough to my ears. The Bedouin dialect inherited many of the musical characteristics of the classic Arabic language. Although it is barely understood by any non-Bedouin native Arabic speaker, and even for a Bedouin descendant like me I still have to revert to my elders to understand some Bedouin terms, but I still find it fascinating enough.

In this post, I try to list and explain some of the Bedouin terms around horse acquisition and trade among the Bedouins. These terms are important for the full understanding of the Bedouin narrations available in texts like Abbas Pasha manuscript. I am not suggesting that you need to taste the phonetics of these terms unless you wish to try so 🙂 , but rather get some idea of the different patterns and means of acquiring an Arabian in the desert. All these terms can apply to both mares and stallions but it is more often that they refer to mares.

1. Noun: Med-raaj – Verb: Daraj:

This is the most general term that means any transfer of ownership of a horse. Daraj from X to Y: means passed from X to Y. The literal translation of Daraj is to move or walk.

2. Noun: Qi-la-’aa – Verb: Qala’a: [1]

Literally means to pull out or uproot something. In the horse context, it means winning a horse at war (as a war bounty.) The term reflects the difficulty of pulling-out a horse from the possession of its owner. It depicts that losing a treasured and valued mare is similar to uprooting a tree!

3. Noun: Hi-ya-faa – Verb: Haaf:

To steal a mare! The original meaning is to do injustice to someone. The indication is that nothing is more unjust and harmful to a Bedouin than stealing his mare!

4. Noun: ‘E-ra-faa – Verb: Ta’arraf:

This is one of the very interesting terms with the most complex indication. When the owner of a Marabat (e.g. Hamdani Simri that belongs to the Simri clan of Dhafeer tribe) loses a Hamdaniya mare by Qila’aah (as explained above) to another tribe in war (e.g. Anazah), and then the mare is returned back again by another Qila’aah (in a subsequent battle) to the original tribe but this time won by another person from Dhafeer, the legitimate heir of the Hamdani Simri marbat can go to his relative and recognize the mare (‘Erafaah literally means recognition.) The Bedouin norms give the Simri man the right to claim the Hamdaniya Simri mare back to her original Marbat and pay the current owner a female camel (Naqah) as a nominal compensation for the mare. This can still happen even after several generations of losing the mare. It is quite significant. The concept indicates the recovered mare is just treated like a family member rather than a possession. The mare goes back to her family!

5. Noun: Ma-nee’a – Verb: Mana’a:

This is also interesting. Mana’a means to prevent or to stop something. It is often used in the tribal context (even in classic Arabic) to mean protecting someone by preventing any attack on him. When a Bedouin horseman is about to lose his life in a battle he can ask his chaser from the opposing army to spare his life and protect him. He usually does this as part of a deal by paying his mare in exchange for the Manee’a he receives. In other cases, negotiations take place and the proposal to give Manee’s is initiated by the winning side at the battle in attempt to convince the owner of a precious mare to surrender his mare voluntieerly. Here is a very interesting story in the manuscript in the version of the Saudi author Hamad Al-Jassir (Edouard had a similar translation from Gulsun Sherif version. See here):

Mugheer Ibn Buraykan from Al-Qamssa [Sba’aa, Anazah] narrated: that Abdullah Ibn Ghubayin, one of the Sheikhs of Fad’aan, told him: that the Hamadniya Simri mare Darajat (feminine form of the verb Daraj, see above) to the Al-Jad’aa [a clan] from the Simri [member of the Simri clan of Dhafeer]. The Dhafeer tribe while still at the Rasha valley in Najd attacked Anazah. One of the cavalry of Al-Jad’aa chased the Simri man while on his mare (Hamadaniya Simri), while the Al-Jad’ai [the Al-Jad’aa horseman] was on a Kuheila Ras Al-Fedawi mare. The Al-Jad’ai Mana’a [gave Manee’a and promised protection] to the Simri for half of his mare [the Hamdaniya], and gave him his mare Ras Al-Fedawi and twenty female camels (Naqah) for the other half! And since then the Hamdaniya was at the Al-Jad’aa [clan].

What is very interesting here is how they negotiated the Manee’a terms, and how the Hamdani Simri mare was worth the Manee’a (sparing the life of her owner) in addition to a Kuhaila Ras Al-Fedawi mare and twenty camels all as a price for one mare!

6. Noun: Faydhah – Verb: Faadh:

The verb originally means to excessively fill something with water until the water flows off its edges. The word Fayadhaan, which means Flood, is derived from the same root. In the modern dialects Faydhah means what remains after someone had already received his need, like the remaining food in the plate or drink in the glass. Now in this context it has a very specific meaning. When a Bedouin has to sell his treasured mare for any reason and she is the last of the strain in his Marbat then he sets a condition on the buyer. The buyer takes the first daughter of the mare, and the second one returns back to the seller. This second daughter is called Al-Faydhah, or sometimes Al-Mathani (the second one).

The following two terms are regular terms and have no special indication. I include them for completion:

7. Noun: Bay’e – Verb: Baa’a: Selling.

8. Noun: ‘Aa-taa’ [2] – Verb: A’ata : Giving, like a present or gift.

The above terms represent the different ways of obtaining or acquiring a horse in the desert.

In addition, I include two more terms related to horses because they often appear in the same context:

9, Noun: Shi-ya-’aa:

The word originally means spreading or expanding in all directions like light beams. For horses, it indicates the source Marbat of a strain or a mare that became very famous and well-known among the tribes. The Shiya’aa of a mare is its well-known origin. Shiya’aa is confirmed, attested for, and exchanged in the congress of Shaikhs and conventions of the tribal figures.

10. Noun: Kone – Verb: Akaan:

A military term that refers to a battle. It actually means the occurrence of something as an incident or event. It is derived from the verb “Kan” which is like the verb “be” in English. The Kone is the context where Qila’aa and Manee’a take place, and the precondition for ‘Erafaa.

Footnotes:

[1] The many “ ’a ” and “ ’e ” letters in the above words and names are always problematic when writing Arabic words in English letters. They indicate a letter in the Semitic languages that comes from the center of the throat. It is the first letter of the word Arab, Anazah, and Obayyan. Its name in Arabic is letter “Ain”.

[2] The single apostrophe at end like ‘Aataa’ indicates the letter “Hamza” in Arabic, which represents the glottal stop.

The below chart shows the terms in Arabic.