The Nasiri book on the breeding of Arab horses
[Edited September 1, 2019, with new sections translated]
From the Nasiri book:
The breeding of horses (al-khuyul) is divided into three parts: one is the breeding of Arab horses (al-khuyul al-‘arabiyyyat); the second is the breeding of the hamaaliij and countrybreds (al-biqaa’iyyat); the third is the breeding of donkeys and Armenian mules. In this chapter, we describe the breeding of the Arab ones (al-‘Arabiyyat); the others will be mentioned later, in due course, if God Most High is willing.
As to the breeding of Arab horses (al-khuyul al-‘arabiyyat), it is said that the horses fit for breeding are […] and fast, and are not […], because these defects, when present in the fathers, are passed on to the sons. If the stallion were from a good origin (asil), and suffered from a blemish like being hairless, or one-eyed, or amputated, these are not passed on. It was said, in a proverb of the Arabs: “Look for the qualities in the stallion, and let go of the rest all you want”, because (dawaab, plural of daabbah) take after their fathers more than they resemble their mothers. It is preferred that one stallion (fahl) be assigned for every ten broomares (hajurah) [a section of reproduction, gestation and foaling follows].
The XIVth century Lisan al-Arab dictionary, defines the Hamaaliij (plural of Himlaaj) as among the birdhawn, especially the fast-walking ones. It adds that the word is from the Farsi language, and was Arabized.
As laid out here, the birdhawn is a small, stocky horse, distinct from the Arab horses, and generally used as a pack animal.
Note, and this is important, the multiple references to and awareness of Arab horses (al-Khuyul al-‘Arabiyyat, or simply al-‘Arabiyyat) as a distinct, separate group of horses as early as 1322 CE, under this name.
Note also the awareness, during the same period, of the existence of non-Arab horses (birdhawn/baraadhiin) and (himlaaj/hamaaliij), and of the distinction between those baraadhiin/hamaaliij and the ‘Arabiyyat.
I am loving this. Thank you. It is all so interesting, and very educational. The birdhawn and himlaaj horses are defined by function and type, correct? Sort of like the European distinction between palfrey, destrier, etc? And the al-‘Arabiyyat are defined by bloodlines?
Yes, re: the birdhawn and himlaaj being defined by function and type. re: al-‘arabiyyat being defined by bloodlines back in 1322 CE, no sure. They may have also been defined by function and type, but I haven’t translated these parts yet.
This is fabulous! I’m really glad more texts on Arabians written by Islamic and Arab scholars are being brought to the table. I’ve wondered for a number of years now why the narrative of the history of the Arabian horse was so deeply Eurocentric and why we don’t have more specific references to the Arabians and their history/type from more consortia sources.
@ Edouard & Kate: its yet to be determined what arabiyyaat means. Is it an adjective to horses or is it “horses among the arabs”. Grammatically both possible in various versions of the text. Hence my own research interest; how the narratives of horseclassification connects to Arab identity discourse.
@ Moira, the historic narrative needs to be drastically adjusted anyhow, as so far i havent found an arabi asil prior to the Nasiri text. So the whole narrative of it being ancient or pre islamic is to be discarded. Im still looking for the “first” arab horse 🙂
Hylke: I think that from an anthropological perspective, it makes little difference whether “al-3arabiyyat” were the “horses among the arabs” as opposed to the “arab horses”, during the early period you are interested in, say before the tenth century.
I believe that, during this early period, the “horses associated with the Arabs” / the “horses among the Arabs” meant the same thing as “the Arab horses”. At the limit, any riding horse bred/owned by the Arabs during that time was an Arab horse. The horse was therefore appropriated, “Arabized” to align with the solidifying identity of its people. In any case, from a linguistics perspective, doesn’t “the Arab horse” and “the horse of the Arabs” mean the same thing? There were no distinct breeds that early on, and the border being breeds were super fluid. Now I know that I am saying here is controversial, but it’s a hypothesis that deserves to be looked at.
I’m inclined to agree with Edouard. Even as late in the narrative of Arabian horses/in early European texts, while the writers talk of breeds, they often conflate that with “race” or “species” or something else similar. It seems to me that they really are talking about a type of horse whose identity is intimately tied to their relationship to the Arabs, rather than their identity being tied to their pedigrees/breed purity.
I’m also personally wary of using breed as we understand it in a Western context as a directly applicable term for breed in an Arabian context. Western and Arabian notions of breeding, purity, pedigree, authenticity, and more have been in conflict since the Arabian horse was first brought to the West.
I actually just messaged Edouard about a phrase I came across in Dr. Thomas Shaw’s “Travels, Or Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant.” Published 1757 in its second edition and detail his travels in the very early 1700s, he wrote in a section dealing with the natural history of Arabia: “Neither are the Arabs ever dexterous enough to overtake them [the ostriches], even when they are mounted upon their jinse, or horses, as they are called of family.”
Jinse confused me, and Edouard suggested it might be “jinsi” — species. I’ve found references of Jinsi also contextually meaning something akin to: sexuality, intimacy, race, kind, type, nationality, ethnicity. In this text, it specifically calls to mind a familial relationship or some kind. It also suggests to me, as do a lot of these European writings on the history/nomenclature of what we’ve come to know as the Arabian horse, that any definition of the Arabian horse is going to be intrinsically tied to the Arab/Bedouin.
To follow up, I would even go as far as to simplify it and say: the Arabian horse is defined and legitimated by the Bedouin social network. Can’t have the former without the latter.
This is such an interesting discussion, and I am loving all the points being made. To add to what Moira is saying, Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien (1772, so rather later than the Nasiri book!), writes
“Wenn also ein Christ eine Stute von dem Geschlechte Kächlâni besitzt, oder für einen Araber unterhält, und sie von einem Köchlâni belegen lassen will, so muss er darzu einen Araber als Zeugen rufen. Dieser bleibt zwanzig Tage bey der Stute, um gewiss zu seyn, dass kein gemeiner Hengst sie verunehret hat. Ja sie muss in dieser Zeit keinen Hengst oder Esel nur in der Ferne sehen. Bey der Geburt des Füllen muss der erwähnte Zeuge wieder gegenwärtig seyn, und der Geburtsbrief wird in den ersten sieben Tagen gerichtlich abgefasst.”
Which basically underscores the fact that bloodlines alone don’t make an Arabian horse, but that it also requires a connection to the Arab people, the horse being authenticated by the Bedouin social network.
I’m curious to learn whether Nasiri has criteria for defining the Arab horse, or whether it refers simply to the (riding) horse of the Arabs at that time. Very keen to see what further gems Hylke and Edouard find!
Hi Kate, yes the Nasiri does have criteria for defining the ‘Arabiyyat, but I did not get there yet.
Meanwhile, one implication of the required connection to the Arab people is that, according to this definition, these horses stop becoming Arab once they outside of the hands of the Bedouin. It also begs the question of whether, at some point in history, an Arab horse was whatever horse a Bedouin owned.
@ Edouard: linguistically we cannot consider them the same. Not grammatically nor semantically. Nasiri is so far the first one using Arabi the adjective in the sentence that also features Asil. Arabiyyat is not the matching adjective for khayl, nor khuyul. (and we see this based on the adjective for people identitied as arab since the 9th century) Arabiyyaat are specific groups of people or horses (females!). So it would be horses among the arabs. And since we know that some of the people who became arabs, had horses prior to the existence of the arab identity, we cannot conclude that any horse among arabs would be an arab horse, unless we anachronistically arabise all the horses for them?It would insinuate the existence of breeds, while Nasiris explanation of classification of horses is more ethnographic than ethnogenic. It is precisely these kind of narratives that we have to contextualise, because the context in which they were formed is ignored when they get translated for horsey history discourse.
@ Moira, Bedouin is not synonym to Arab. Various Bedouin tribes were “arabised” (although academic world doesn’t use that word anymore because Bedouin tribes in question often didn’t know of their identity being submerged into the new arab identity, as they were not present in urban Iraq where the narrative began). Arab identity is an Islamic contstruct and the popular narratives are still largely in need of historic contextualising. We cannot conclude that Bedouin had “Arab horses” until we find evidence that they named their horses as such. Which most of them currently still don’t do! So there is an issue that needs to be studied there!
@ Kate: so far my research has shown that the horse is “arabised” and that is often confirmed in early modern orientalist literature: the ultimate Arab(Ian) horse is considered a product of true arab culture. However, the bedouin doesn’t necessarily plays the key role to its validation as the majority of documents of proof of “drabness”of horse in question is sedentary, and most westerners purchased their horses in towns. I vote for sticking to the “Arab” identity discussion, before we go on to see how that interacts with Bedouin identity.
@ Edouard, I think the argument of Bedouins owning Arab horses is tricky. Ive met with modern Bedouin and they didn’t call their horses Arab, but by western interpretation any horse they own would be Arab, but in the end the west doesn’t register Bedouin horses, just Arab horses according to their own standard. (Tahawi case for example) So even if the Bedouin claims his/her horse is Arab, the west will decide whether that is true.
@Hylke: I am not sure I follow you re: translation of al-Khuyul al-Arabiyyat? How would you translate it in Nasiri?
Full phrase: “Ahaduha nitaaj al-khuyul al-‘Arabiyyat” — “One of these is the production/progeny/ of the ‘Arabiyyat horses. link here: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/17603/view/1/8/
Khuyul/horses is a noun in the femine plural, right? ‘Arabiyyat is its adjective (both have the article al-, the adjective is following the noun and qualifiying it), so in the same feminine plural form.
There is no genitive (as in “horses of the Arabs”, or “khuyul al-Arab”, the Arabs being a goup of people here). There is no adverb of place (as in “horses among the Arabs” — or “khuyul bayna al-Arab”). All I see is a noun and its ajective.
Note also that khuyul is anthropomorphized, because the adjective follows the feminine plural form as applied to people (al-Arabiyyat with the elongated letter T) not the feminine plural form as applied to animals/things (al-Arabiyyah with the short/marboutah letter T)
Literally, word for word, I would translate it “the horses the Arab ones” but that is not proper English.
Edouard, yes, I think those are very interesting corollaries of Niebuhr’s observation, and have been wondering about that. Yes, I imagine at one point an Arab horse was indeed any horse an Arab owned, though presumably that would have been some time before Niebuhr. (I am basing this presumption on the earlier European writings that talk about the Kochlani/other variations on Kuhaylan, and/or list strains, whether they recognise them as strains or as separate races, as they all make it clear that these are a special type of horse, defined in part by bloodlines.)
For the other, whether a horse loses its status as an Arab horse once it is outside the hands of the Bedouin, well, I have been wondering about that. There is the story you mentioned of Diyab al-Sbeih and the Kuhaylan al-Wati, who sold the colt from the recaptured mares as kadish, because he could not be certain of the identity of the sire. Between that, between Niebuhr, between the other posts you have made here, and other works I have read, it makes me think that it comes down to trustworthy identification/authentication. If belonging to a Bedouin were sufficient to make a horse Arabian, then the colt should have been Arabian, but he wasn’t, because there was no guarantee of his sire.
So maybe it goes back to the social network, then. Niebuhr describes a social network where only fellow Arabs (and I’m guessing Muslim Arabs, specifically) were considered reliable witnesses in the matter of Arabian horse breeding. But say the social network loosens the religious/ethnic restrictions as to who may be considered a reliable witness, then horses could still be considered Arab outside the hands of the Bedouin? I mean, could Abbas Pasha have returned horses of his own breeding to, say, Faisal al-Saud, and would they have been considered Arab? Could the Blunts have done that? I have no clue, and I imagine the answer would vary not just by time period, but by region, and even by individuals, but it is still an interesting thought experiment.
Hylke, when you talk about “arabised” horses and documents providing proof of “arabness”, are you talking specifically about Arab horses in the west? Or the Arab horses in the desert? Or both? My understanding is that the horses in the desert did not need a hujjah to provide proof of their identity and ancestry, because that was contained in their strain name, their marbat, and their owner’s name, which would be sufficient information for the Bedouins. (I feel so awkward and like some caricature of an anthropologist right now, talking about “the Arabs” and “the Bedouins”; it is so much easier when talking about the ancient world.) The hujjah was then a document that was associated with urban dwellers and foreign buyers, who wanted some sort of assurance that the horse was indeed the real deal. So if I’m understanding you correctly, what you’re talking about is how the identity of the Arab horse as we know it in the west today was constructed in part from documentary evidence, etc, provided by urban residents?
And while, yes, I am all for defining terms, I think that part of the debate here is indeed the relationship of the horse named “Arab” with the Bedouins, and that we can’t really leave it out of the discussion.
Edouard, there is also an important distinction between Etaq (plural of Atiq) horses and the other horse breeds that can be found in a Hadith mentioned in the 12th century book Al-Mughni by Ibn Qudamah with a correspondence between the 7th century Caliph Omar and commander Abu Mussa Al-Ashaari related to the war bounties dedicated to Arab Horses (according to the Islamic law) in comparison to non-Atiq horses that are nearly of similar performance at war. The answer of Omar was that non-Atiq of good quality receives one share and Atiq receives two!
Another similar but much older reference is to be found in the famous book Kitab Al-Umm by Al-Shafii in the 8th century AD discussing the same issue and stating that Bradheen (plural of Berdhawn) don’t receive shares in war bounties (unlike the Etaq) and that this practice was followed until the time of Al-Fitna (the great conflict in the late 7th century). This Al-Umm entry is one of the oldest in the Arabic literature that documented this distinction.
Thank you. Can you write about the exact quotes from Shafi’i and Ibn Qudamah?
I will put it in Arabic and leave the translation to you:
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“??? ?????????? ??????? ?? ??? ????? ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? ??????: ??? ????? ??????? ???? ????? ????? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???????? ?? ???????? ???? ????: ??? ????????? ??? ???? ?????? ????? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ??? ???.”
?? ???? ???? ???????:
“??? ??? ????? ??? ???? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ??? ?? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ???? ???? ???????? { ???? ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ???? ????? ?????? ??????? ???? ???? } ????????? ??? ?? ??????? ??? ? ???? ??? ????? ????? ???????? ???? ? ???? ???????? ??? ???? ???????? ???? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ?? ?????? ????????.”
I don’t know why i cannot have Arabic characters.
Perhaps the blog doesn’t have appropriate Unicode support for non-Latin characters? I’ve stopped using certain characters when composing posts on here, because they come out as question marks. A bit of Googling suggests coding so that the blog uses UTF-8, but coding for computers is not my strong suit; however, I am sure that there is a solution.
I sent you the Arabic text in a DM. You may wish to post the translation directly. What blogging tool do you use? Maybe we can add the unicode.
I use WordPress, and I would love to add the Unicode and start blogging in Arabic, and open the blog to Arabic writers. It is frustrating. can you help me?