The yellow booklet

Today was a special day.

As a child, I used to treasure the times spent talking with my father about Arabian horses. In the evenings, I would sit by his bedside,and read from the same books or magazines he read from. There was a white nightstand near his bed. In one of the nightstand’s drawers, there was a stack of small papers, bound together with a staple or two.

My father would refer to it as “Abu Tahir’s booklet” (karrasit Abu Tahir), after the late Ahmad Ghalyun (Abu Tahir), who seems to have given it to him. Abu Tahir had a farm outside Homs in Syria, where my father kept some of his horses on occasion. Lots of nice teenage memories there.

The booklet consisted of a list of Arabian horse strains, their owners and owners’ tribes in Arabic. It classified the strains into ‘hedud‘, those to be mated, and ghayr hedud, those not to be mated. More on this notion later.

Over the years, the booklet’s printed words faded and its creased pages became yellow. That’s what I liked the most about it. I treasured it, and today I still attribute my passion for Arabian horses strains to the memories centered around this booklet, regardless of the value of the information it contained.

For over twenty years I did not know who the booklet’s author was, until 2008, when the late Joe Achcar posted this article on this blog. Some excerpts from his article are below:

Georges Philippe Tabet, was the Finance minister of Lebanon under the French Mandate (1920-1943). He owned ‘’Al Mushrefeh’’ a big estate near Homs in Syria where he use to breed Arab horses for more than 20 years. Moreover he was member of the ‘’Arab Horse Society ‘’ his name appearing in Vol I of the AHS stud book 1919.

His status of big wealthy land owner and Arab Horse breeder certainly made the Bedouins of the Homs and Hama region, mainly ‘’Sbaa’’, to sell him mares and stallions, moreover he must have had  good relations with the “Kassasse’’ of both Homs and Hama, famed horse breeding regions in Syria.

In 1937 he edited a small book in French and Arabic called’’ Les noms de Familles des chevaux Arabes’’ (Arab horses family names).This book taken from Bedouin sources, makes the difference between the ‘’Pure Asil” “The Asil’’ and the ‘’Kadish’’ more over Georges Tabet listed the ‘’The Chebou’’ horses’’ and the ‘’Non-Chebou’’ horses.

[…]

When I read Joe’s post, I immediately recognized the yellow booklet. On my next trip to Beirut, and over the years that followed, I looked for the booklet in my father’s nightstand. It was nowhere to be found. Recently I asked him about it again, but he did not even remember its existence. I also looked online without success.

This evening — twelve years after Joe’s article, almost to the day — Yasser asked me for sources of information in Arabic about the Ju’aitniyaat, the strain of his beautiful mare Bushra. I told Yasser about the lost yellow booklet, its author Georges P. Tabet, and its list of Arabian horse strains, including the Ju’aitniyaat. Seconds later, Yasser sent me a full PDF copy of the booklet on WhatsApp. “I have my ways“, he said after I asked him how he obtained it.

I was floored. I was so grateful that I promised to help Yasser with the importation of a stallion from Syria to breed to Bushra before she was too old. I hope to keep my promise. Meanwhile, I am going to translate the main contents of the book for you.