The Hamdani Simri line of the Davenport import *Jedah in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript — also on the rules of ghazu

This entry compares two Arabic primary sources some 53 years apart:

First, my translation of a passage in the Abbas Pasha Manuscript (1853) about the Hamdani Simri strain, with my notes in brackets.

“Mughir Ibn Buraykan of the Gmassah [a clan of the Sba’ah tribe], a man aged one hundred years, was queried. He testified that ‘Abdallah Ibn Ghbain, one of the senior Shaykhs of the Fada’an had informed him that the Hamdaniyah Simriyah had reached al-Jad’ah [a clan of the Fad’aan tribe] from al-Simri of the Dhafeer.

It happened that a raiding party from the Dhafeer had attacked them [“the Fad’aan tribe] at Wadi al-Rasha in Najd. Fad’aan and Sba’ah [who often camped together] pursued him [i.e., al-Simri, who was part of the Dhafeer raid] and unhorsed him. The Hamdaniyah escaped from her owner, and she was a two-year old. A horseman from al-Jad’ah — the owner of [the marbat of] Kuhaylat Ras al-Fidawi — went after her. He [the horseman from al-Jad’ah] offered him [al-Simri] protection in exchange for half of her [the mare] and gave him the [Kuhaylat] Ras al-Fidawi and twenty she-camels for the second half, and took her. So [the clan of] al-Jad’ah had the Hamdaniyah from that time onward.

Ibn Jzayil bought a bay mare from them [i.e., from al-Jad’ah], [specifically] from Rabi’ah Abal-Hashi, from [the line of] the aforemonetioned Hamdaniyah [i.e., the one from the Dhafeer]. Ibn Buraykan [also] bought a filly, daughter of al-Mahyubi, a daughter of the daughter of the original bay, and that became his marbat until today. The marbat of Ibn Ghurab of Shammar is [also] from the aforementioned marbat [i.e., that of al-Jad’ah].

Now, compare with this excerpt of the hujjah of the Hamdaniyah Simriyah mare *Jedah, which Homer Davenport imported to the USA in 1906 (translation mine, for the new edition of Davenport’s Annotated Quest):

[…] I declare that the “burnt blonde” mare which I sold to Ahmed al-Hafez of the people of Halab is a Hamdaniyah to be mated, protected, purer than milk / and she came to me from the tribe of al-Jad’ah and the tribe of al-Jad’ah, it came to them from the tribe of Shammar from the stud of Ibn Ghurab and I bear witness upon the owners of this stud that their testimony is acceptable and I bore witness to their testimony / and we bear witness to what know and we do not know about the unknown.

The testifier Sharay’ah Aba Hassan [seal]

I swear by God [that] the aforementioned witness Sharay’ah Aba Husayn from the tribe of the al-‘Aqaqirah from the section of Hakim Bek Ibn Mhayd is just and [that] his testimony is acceptable.

Ahmad al-Hafiz [seal]

SIDE NOTE:

What I found most interesting in this account is how (and how much) the raider paid for the half the mare he took after the raid.

Ghazu (Bedouin raiding) functions much like a sport, with clear rules of the game and a code of honor. The raider who unhorses a horseman from the other “team” and takes his mare gets to keep the mare as his prize. The mare is then referred to as qila’ah/gla’a (“pulled” or “plucked out”).

Here it appears that the raiders who unhorsed Simri could not grab the Hamdaniyah mare under him, and that the mare escaped. It was another man – diferent from those who unhorsed Simri — who pursued Simri’s mare and eventually got hold of her. Accordingly, this other man’s capturing the mare did not fully qualify as qila’ah according to the rules of Bedouin ghazu. He offered the unhorsed man protection (mana’ah) over half of the mare, and had to purchase the other half, even giving up his own mare as partial payment for this half.