That interpretation is supported by a further archeological find, a stone tablet with cuneiform writing engraved on it -a page of book-keeping from King Bur-Sin of the Third Dynasty of Ur (2066-1955 BC). It accounts for 78 teams of four "Ansu" of all ages and types in the royal stables. "Ansu" was the Mesopotamian word for donkey; The horse, therefore, must still have been unknown in Mesopotamia around 2000 BC, or surely this king would have had some in his stables. The earliest proof of the true horse's arrival in the Tigris-Euphrates area dates from 1800-1700 BC. The first reports of horses here are found in old cuneiform texts engraved in stone tablets from this period. The animals were totally new to those people, as evidenced by the fact that they had not yet devised a word for these new "articles of import." "Horses" were referred to as "Ansu-Kura," meaning "Ass of the Mountains" (Hancar, 1955).

For a cultural/historical evaluation of this fact, recall that many west African jungle tribes called horses "Cows of the Whites" when they were first introduced by European colonists (Staffe in Hancar, 1955, p. 456).

Use of the term "Ansu-Kura" during this period points up the fact that horses were newly acquired, and brought in from the mountains. This is in complete agreement with archeological discoveries near the upper Euphrates, in the eastern mountains of Turkey; Three finds there indicate that as of 1950 BC, chariots drawn by true horses were already known in that area.
By 1700 BC, the city of Karkemish on the upper Euphrates was a lively centerofhorse-trading. This, too, is proven by stone tablets, one of which is in the form of a very primitive cuneiform letter from Aplachandas, King of Karkemish answering Zimri-Lin, King of Mari, a Mesopotamian city on the-mid-Euphrates as follows:

"White horses for the chariots are not available. I want to send out and, from there where they are available, have white horses herded up here. Until then, I will have blood bay horses brought in from Charsama."

King Aplachandas' stone tablet letter is of great interest to us, as it constitutes the oldest document in which white horses are specified. This indicates that, by 1700 BC, it was known how to breed for white or bay horses. The color grey is unknown among wild horses such as Tarpans or Przewalski horses. Therefore, horse breeding had reached a certain height by this time.

In Palestine, horse-drawn chariots were also known about the year 1700 BC, as shown by old fortress ruins of this period. These so-called "wagon castles" were especially built to accommodate chariots and their teams. In Egypt, on the other hand, the horse had not yet become a common item. It is generally assumed that the horse was brought to Egypt by the Hyksos. The Hyksos had once inhabited Syria and Palestine, but were driven out by chariot warriors, the Hurrains, whereupon the Hyksos banded together into a well-organized army, conquered the Nile delta, and stayed there for about a century (Hancar, 1855).

There are many archeological finds from this period, but none indicate that the Hyksos originally -i.e., about 1670 BC -used horses. They were probably forced to flee before the cha,riot warriors precisely because they still had no horses.

In Egyptian history the horse was first mentioned during the Wars of Liberation, 1580-1557 BC, when the Pharaoh Ah Mose engaged chariots to push back the Hyksos. It was then that Egyptians became truly familiar with horses -about 1000 years after horse husbandry had begun under the Tripolye culture in eastern Europe.

The oldest representations of horses in Egypt are found in XVIII Dynasty (1570 -1314 BC) pharaohs' graves near Thebes. These horses had been gifts to the Egyptian pharaoh. According to paintings, they must have been quite small perhaps 10.2 hands.

Horse remains from this period support this estimate. A mummified horse was unearthed forty years ago near Thebes from the grave of Queen Hat-Shepsut's protege, Sen-Mut (1490-1468 BC). The horse, completely wrapped in linen, lay in a coffin just slightly under eight feet long. Under the linen wraps, the horse still carried a primitive saddle and girth. This had been a saddle horse, a young mare about 5-6 years old, about 12.2 hands, with a typical Arabian head. The vertebrae count went as follows: 18 thoracic, 5 lumbar, and 14 tail. Very probably we see here the remains of a horse that can be counted among the ancestors of the modern Arabian horse (7: Chard, 1937).

We still do not know how and when the horse came to the steppes and deserts of the Arabian peninsula. However, for zoo-geographical reasons, we cannot assume that the Arabian is traceable to any wild horse in Arabia. Perhaps some feral horses lived in Arabia, like the American Mustang today; but these were surely not true wild horses. As far as known, no wild horses lived south of the Caucasus, that being the territory of the donkey;

No, the Arabian desert horse could only have been imported from the surrounding lands. As we have seen, horses were established animals in Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine as of 1700 BC, and also in Egypt as of about 1580 BC. These horses came from the north, having been imported over the Caucasus and other areas with several centuries of breeding history already behind them.

These were most probably traceable to Tarpans from west of the Volga. The head of a Tarpan foal, as can be seen at the Duisburg Zoo, has a concave profile like that of the Arabian foal, and this may be an interesting point. It is unthinkable that the Ukrainians, living thousands of miles to the north, transported wild Tarpans over the mountains so that Arab nomads could breed Arabian horses. There is no basis for the hypothesis that the wild Tarpans could have been the direct ancestors of the Arabian horse. It seems much more logical that horses from the Mesopotamian, Syrian, Palestinian, and Egyptian breeds were the ancestors of our Arabian horses. The eastern Arabian Bedouins could have brought horses in from Mesopotamia, while the northern Bedouins got theirs from Syria and Palestine, and the westerners from nearby Egypt. Additionally, these countries were already in possession of highly-bred horses. Could this not be the basis for the existence of the three main types: Kuhaylan, Saqlawi and Mu'niqi?

It was not until many centuries later that Arabia could boast of much horse stock worth mentioning. In 450 BC, the Greek historian, Herodotus, relates that Bedouins under the Persian flag fought against the Greeks from camelback, and rode no horses. It is well known that horses have the advantage over camels in battle against infantrymen. One may conclude, therefore, that Arabic equitation had to make do without horses at that time. This assumption is supported in writings by the well-known Strabo, who lived during the time of Christ. Describing Arabia Felix, he wrote that there were no horses, mules or pigs there, and that Arabia Deserta had no horses -camels took their place.

The first sure report of Arabian horses comes from the 2nd century AD. Oppian, a Greek poet of that time, mentions them first as being rumored as good for hunting. Whether many or few horses lived in Arabia then is unknown, but it appears that the stock was not numerous. Arrian assures us that at this time horses were still being imported from Egypt into southern Arabia, brought there as gifts to the kings (Amman, 1834, p. 89).

Not until the 4th century AD were horses available in Arabia in great enough numbers to partially substitute them for camels.

Ammian writes (Marcellia, XIV; 4, 8 and XII, 6; Amman, 1834, p. 90): "The Saracens (a nomadic people of northern Arabia -Author) make all their raids on camelback, or on light, unpretty but durable horses." In another place, he writes: "The Saracens are known everywhere for their fast, slim-bodied horses."

According to this account, then, northern Arabia during the time of Ammian did indeed have horses, but they were certainly no beauties. One must remember, though, that even Carl Raswan confesses in his book, Drinkers of the Wind, that he could not recognize the desert Arabians' beauty in their starved, coarse, ungroomed condition among the desert Bedouins! "I was aghast! The truth slowly dawned upon me. The shock of the beauty of these creatures was followed by the realization that they had once been the same poor, shabby, disheveled horses which I, in my ignorance, had disdained at Nuri's camp and among the, tribes of the inner desert." (Raswan, 1942, p. 278 American edition).

If, in the 4th century, horses were rather scarce in northern Arabia, this was also the case in the south. In the year 344, the Roman Emperor Constantius presented the King of the Amorites, who ruled part of Yemen, with 200 Cappadocian horses, which were then as famed as the modern Arabian is today (Amman, 1834, p. 91).

It is certain that during this time shortly before Mohammed, the breeding of Arabians developed rapidly; it is also quite possible that there were already blooded horses at that time. The Arabian poet Imru said: "We inherited this excellent race (the blooded horses -Author) from our forefathers, and our sons will own them after our death." (The Mu'Allagat, or the Golden Odes, the seven preIslamic poems displayed on the temple in Mecca.)

These old reports indicate that horse breeding in Arabia first reached its bloom between the 2nd and the 6th centuries -many centuries later than in the surrounding countries.

One wonders why horse breeding developed so late in Arabia. It would seem to me that the Bedouins' prior possession of such outstanding beasts of burden as their camels is responsible. The camel by its very nature would be better adapted to desert life than the horse. This would be especially true if the horses were not yet used to the hard desert life, as those of the surrounding highly-cultured lands certainly were not. For centuries, these horses had been kept in luxurious stables and fed generously. There had been no culling by the hardest of living conditions. And life in the desert is very hard indeed.

In the 20th century, the foal mortality rate stands at 50%, even for the Bedouins' fully acclimated desert horses. The mortality rate must have been tremendous for horses newly imported to the desert, breeding under equally hard conditions. Initially, hardly any breeding stock could have survived -only the strongest could have withstood the Bedouins' murderous demands. With these few strongest of the strong, the Bedouins would have been forced by circumstances to resort to inbreeding and even incest breeding.

So it is easy to understand why the old camel riders of the desert hesitated to raise horses. The risks were too great, and feed too scarce. Therefore, breeding stock was only rarely imported. Considering the high mortality rate, it is easy to estimate how long it must have taken to build from the few survivors a herd which was even to some extent genetically able to pass on the prerequisites indispensable for nomadic life in the desert.

Therefore, Hemippus, with its donkey tail and upright mane, was native to the Near East. Archeological discoveries will tell us when and how the first true horses arrived in this area. We shall see that the horse must still have been unknown as of 2000 BC in the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates.

The frequently cited bone tablet (Zeal, 507) from Susa in the eastern mountains of Iraq has caused much confusion. Dated from about 2800 BC, the engraved bone shows nineteen equine heads of assorted profiles and manes, and accompanying protoElamic writings. Initially, the heads depicted were taken for horse heads. Some authors even went so far as to say that these bone carvings represented the oldest pedigree of an Arabian horse (Amschler, 1933). True, some of the heads show a concave profile, but this is found in donkeys as well as Arabians. Antonius argued that they represented the Near Eastern donkey with its upright mane.

What was the condition of horse breeding in Arabia at the end of the 6th century? At the time, the Hejaz, the strip of land along the Red Sea where Mecca lies, was known for its horses. However, they must not have been numerous. In the northwest, in Arabia Petraea, there were many camels but also few horses. The interior, however, was rich in horses. The Bedouins of that time were the great breeders of the Arabian horse. The Banu Dhubyan, the Banu Taghlib, and the Banu Abbas tribes, among others, were famed for their superior horses. According to the early Arabian poet, Zuhayr, the Sheikh of the Banu Dhubyan owned a thousand lovely horses with magnificent fittings. Imru wrote that the Banu Taghlib's horses stood second to none in beauty and ancient origin. In the Hejaz, the Quraysh tribe had an excellent reputation for their horses (Ammon, 1834, p. 97).

Ammon sketched the following image of the Arabian horse, developed from several accounts by Arabian poets: "They had a small head and a long neck; their back and croup were straight (the poet, Amralkais, said their backs were as smooth as the stone on which one rubs salves for brides); the body lean; the limbs lovely and strong; the feet fine but tightly built; the tail long and beautiful; and the coat short and fine. At the same time they were quick, swift, strong, durable, courageous, and undauntable, and as good for use in battle as in the hunt. "

CHAPTER II

BREEDING ASIL AS A RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION

Although the Arabian peninsula at the time of Mohammed's birth already claimed a blooming horse industry, we should begin the history of the modern Arabian horse breed with Mohammed's appearance as a prophet. In fact, it is difficult to view the Arabian horse apart from Islam. It was the prophet himself who made it almost a religious duty to breed asil desert horses. "The Prophet Mohammed was foremost among the Arabs who cherished Arab horses. He was attentive upon them, seeing that they were well treated. Indeed it was his pleasure to listen to their neighing. He forbade crossbreeding, fearing purity's corruption, and knowing that once lost, it could never be regained. " (From the Arabic according to Omar Abdel Aziz in Hamdan Stables Stud Book of Arabian Horses, Cairo, 1969).

To further his plans among the sons of the desert, Mohammed attached great advantages to the ownership and care of asil horses. He promised that "an evil spirit cannot enter a tent where a pure-bred horse is kept "

"When someone cannot comply with all his religious duties, let him keep a pure-bred horse for God's sake, and all his sins will be absolved. "

"He who makes sacrifices and prepares a horse for the Holy War will be treated, in the other world, as if he had been a martyr. " (According to Emir Abd-el Kadr in Daumas, The Horse of the Sahara, Eng. trans.).

These are stong arguments for the pious Moslem to guard the purebred horses' asil blood. To understand why Mohammed placed so much value on asil desert horses, we must look for a moment at the history of Islam. Mohammed was born in 570 AD, a member of the Quraysh tribe. He lost his parents and was raised by his uncle, Abu Talib. From his uncle he learned to lead camel caravans over dangerous, almost impassable paths. A caravan leader travelling through hostile territory must have had quite exceptional attributes. Mohammed had them in high measure, and became a respected, well-to-do caravan leader.

In his free time, he began meditating on the slopes of Mount Hira. Often, he would stay overnight in a grotto there. During one such night, the Angel Gabriel appeared to him, saying, "Mohammed, you are God's chosen one, and I am Gabriel." When the angel again appeared to him a few days later, Mohammed was convinced. This night has since been known as "al Kadar," the Night of Destiny; The future of a great part of the world was in fact decided on this Night of Destiny, as was that of our Arabian horse, as we shall see.

For three years after "al Kadar", Mohammed taught only family members and his nearest friends the basic precepts of Islam (meaning "submission") -namely, that one should submit oneself to the will of the one and only God. As of 612 AD, he began to preach publicly, preferably not far from the holy Kaaba in Mecca. This soon caused difficulties. Mohammed was threatened, his sons persecuted and murdered. The situation became unbearable, and in 622 Mohammed fled to the city of J atrib. The Islamic calendar is counted from this flight, "the Hegira," or "Hijra," on Friday, September 20, 622.

In Yathrib, later called Medina (Madinat an-Nawab, City of the Prophet), Mohammed found warlike Bedouins receptive to the new religion. During the time that followed, Mohammed doubtless came to appreciate the great advantages of tireless, fast horses. He and his fanatic disciples earned their livelihood by raiding rich, well-guarded caravans underway to and from Mecca. Having previously been a caravan leader, he understood the profession well. He won much acclaim when he, 300 infantry, and 70 riders, successfully raided Abu Sufyan's heavily armed caravan in the spring of 624 near Badr. Fourteen Moslems fell, while Abu Sufyan lost 70 riders, and 74 were taken prisoner. The spoils were tremendous:

It should be remembered here that the Bedouins considered the "ghazu " (raid) and plundering caravans as a chance to perform deeds of renown and to gain status, even into our century.

Following the above episode, Mohammed carried the war to the surrounding heathen Bedouin tribes. Due to his great successes, he gathered one tribe after another to his flag. The number of desert riders in his army grew daily. As long as the battles were confined to the coastal area, the Hejaz, he commanded no more than two to five-hundred mounted soldiers, but once he conquered central Arabia, the Nejd, his troops grew to 10,000 (Ammon, p.97).

After his death in 632, the succession went to the warlike Abu Bakr, who soon conquered the rest of Arabia. War was declared on the Sassanid's Byzantine Empire, (Persia). The Arabs' commanding general, Khalid Ibn al-Walid, was one of history's most skillful field commanders. He was victorious over large, well-armed forces, and overwhelmed fortresses that had been thought impenetrable. The Bedouins had become the most powerful army in the world.

Morafic photo

Following Abu Bakr, the second caliph (steward), Umar, reigned from 634 until 644. Under his reign, Khalid Ibn al-Walid defeated Heraklios' imperial army in 636 near the Yarmuk River in present-day Jordan. With that victory; all of Syria fell into Arabian hands. In June of 637; the Sassanid capital, Ctesiphon, was captured by the Arabs' general, Sa’ad. Caliph Umar declared Holy War, "jihad", against all unbelievers.

In 642, the Egyptian capital city, Alexandria, was taken. The victorious Bedouins pushed ever westward. In 844, however, Umar was murdered, and was succeeded by Caliph Uthman. Under Uthman, the Koran reached its final form, derived from "... writings, forgotten tablets, and men's remembrances" (Sugano, Amsterdam 1970, p. 46).

In the meantime, the Arabian army pushed still further west. Still during Uthman's reign, Tripoli in Libya was conquered. Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Spain followed. The armies pushed on over the Pyrenees and finally into the heart of France. In the east, they reached the banks of the Indus and up to Kashmir. These overwhelming victories, which had so quickly transformed the formerly inconspicuous Bedouins into a world power, were attributed to Allah's help, of course. But the Arabian army officers were well aware of their swift, practically tireless desert horses' inestimable value for the Holy War. Victory or defeat at that time depended largely on the quality of one's cavalry. Its role on the battlefield was quite comparable to that of the Panzer divisions in World War II.

Fully convinced of the Arabian horses' superiority, Mohammed and the caliphs had feared that crossing them with the great number of captured horses could well lead to the downfall of the Arabian desert horse. So it was impressed as strongly as possible on the Bedouins to keep the breed pure. Again I quote: "Should one not be able to comply with all his religious duties, let him keep an asil horse for God's honor; and all his sins will be absolved ...An evil spirit will never enter a tent where an asil horse is kept. ..H e who has bred an asil horse for the H oly War will save his mater from the fire on the Day of Resurrection."

These are religious duties for the pious Moslem, but Mohammed and his generals did still more to uphold the simple soldier's belief in the superiority of the Arabian horse. For example, a Bedouin who rode an Arabian horse received a higher wage than others. Ammon (1834) relates the following on page 100 of his book:

"When the Arabs divided up the spoils after the victorious massacre at Yarmuk in 636, each rider with a horse of Arabian breeding received twice the portion of those who rode horses from other countries or of other parentage. "

So it stood in the 7th century, and so it remained through the centuries. This fanaticism for purity of blood was anchored in the religion, and was also carried forward in poetry, becoming an indispensible part of the Arabian culture.

In the l0th century, the Arabian poet Mutanabbi wrote: "Noble steed, whose dam was covered by a noble stallion. (Translated from the Arabic, Ammon, 1834).

To keep the race pure, "noble" (purebred) mares were allowed to be bred only by "noble" purebred stallions. Consistently executed, one then is breeding purebred (asil) whether or not studbooks are kept. It suffices to know that the dam as well as the sire is of a recognized blooded strain, i.e., Kuhaylan, Saqlawi, etc. In this respect, the Danish Neiburh's report in his famous book, Descriptions of Ardbiafrom My Own Observations, and Reports Gathered in the Country, " (1772) is of interest. On pages 162-3, he describes how the Bedouins did this 200 years ago.

"... Although the Arabians have had no registry of their Kochlani carried over some hundreds of years, they can, nevertheless, be rather sure of their parentage, since the mares are always bred in the presence of witnesses -Arabian witnesses. While it hardly disturbs the conscience of many Arabs to bear false witness, there is no instance of an Arab ever having falsely testified about the birth of a horse, since they surely know that their entire family would be exterminated should they deny the truth in this case. So, if a Christian owns a Kochlani mare, or is keeping one for an Arab, and wants her bred by a Kochldni stallion, he must also call in an Arab witness. He stays with the mare for twenty days, to be sure no common stallion has dishonored her. She is not even allowed to see a stallion or donkey in the distance during this period. At foaling, the same witness must again be present, and the certificate of birth will be written up legally within seven days. The witness receives a 'Benish' -i.e., a garment, for his trouble. No mare of the Kochlani race is intentially allowed to be bred to a common stallion, and if this should happen through carelesness, the resulting foal is considered a 'Kadish’. The Arabs may well allow a highly bred stallion to be crossed with a mare of unknown background, but the foal from that mare is also considered Kadish (impure). So wrote Niebuhr, two hundred years ago.

In this century, too, the breeding of mares took place in the presence of witnesses. Spencer Borden presents such a report in his well-known book, The Arab Horse, (1906): ". ..and among the Anazah not one single purely bred mare (koheilet) may be bred excepting in the presence of witnesses, who later testify that her offspring is bred asil, a son or daughter of a purebred mare."

Facsimile of an "Huj-Ja"

(an Arabic certificate for an asilArabian)
This is a certificate: We, whose signatures and seals stand below, Sheikhs of the Suwailimats, branch of the Aeniza Bedouins, swear by Allah and Mohammed, son of Abdullah, with truth, under no duress, in regard to the horse, Ma'-a-shi 'Hash-sha-i,from the Suwailimats: he is a bay with a mark on his head like the new moon; by our stars and fortune, his dam belonged to the Wad-da Khir-san strain; and his sire to the Kuhailan Abujunab -the well-known strain. He is a breeding stallion. It is also known to us that Khidhr the Agel had to pay

We can look in vain for the names of grandparents, etc., in the pedigrees received when purchasing a purebred desert Arabian. It is required, however, that a purebred Arabian dam's strain be mentioned, and the sire's name is often entered, as well.

The following is a text from a typical Arabian pedigree dated 1951. The original is hardwritten in Arabic.

"In the Name of God, the Most Merciful and Compassionate:
550 gha-zis (ca. 88 L sterling) for him. We have written this testimony to the best of our knowledge and understanding

By the blowing chargers, By the strikers of fire,

By the dawn raiders Blazing a trail of dust, Cleaving through the enemy host. "
Koran, Sura 100

We, the undersigned, Sheikh Sharari-el-Bahit, and Sheikh Shaher-el-Diab, and Sheikh Taher-el-Diab, hereby certify as follows:

The horse bought by Ajub Kanuk, the Teherkess,from Sheikh Shaher-el-Diab and taken to Beirut, was sold to Mr. Henri Pharaon, who named him Shatt-el-Arab. This horse is of the breed Siglawi Jidran and was sired by Abu Urkub from the el-Diab family's stud farm. "

Three seals and signatures follow. The pedigree, we see, begins with a quote from the Koran, and explains that the dam was a Saqlawi-Jidran and the sire an Abu Urqub, a strain related to the Mu'niqi. The term "purebred Arabian" is missing on all these documents. Only asil strains are recognized there, as we will explore in greater detail in the following chapter.

We could now ask if this blood fanaticism which became a religious obligation under Mohammed is still alive in the Bedouin in the 20th century; I would like to present some opinions given by experts in the field, who carefuly investigated the matter in person, i.e., in the Arabian desert with the Bedouins themselves.

I would like to refer to Dr. H. Seydel as our first expert, Dr. Seydel was awarded his degree in Breslau for his thesis, Das arabische Vollblut (The Arabian Purebred) after a study trip through Arabia in 1932. He determined, among other things, that "(t)he fanaticism of the Arabian nomads with regard to the ancestry of their horses is as truthful and reliable as our most exact records of birth."

Also quite interesting is the official Turkish Commission's report, which begins as follows: " By commission of the Turkish government, we, the department heads of the Animal Husbandry Section of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nurettin bey and myself, made a study trip to Syria and Iraq from October 19, 1933 to February 20, 1934, to investigate the present state of horse breeding in these areas,..."

On page 30 of this extensive report, we read: "From the above mentioned comments it can be concluded that a great confusion reigns in Arabia today as to type; nevertheless, the existence ofa true Arabian horse cannot be denied. The reasons for this are as follows: although the Arab may completely disregard type in breeding, he does lay great value on a purebred broodmare being bred absolutely only to a stallion which also belongs to a recognized strain, i.e. a stallion that is Shabbuh. This blood fanaticism is the main reason that pure blood is bred only to pure blood, and thereby the most valuable characteristics are maintained, and less valuable blood is rejected. It is thanks to this blood fanaticism, 01; biologically expressed, this pure breeding within the purebred strains, that representative examples of Arabian blood can still be found today despite the primitive stable management and breeding conditions. For this reason, it is essential to know the strains generally recognized as purebred. "

As our third expert, I would like to cite the American veterinarian, Dr. Fred Pulling. In 1947; under commission by the American Arabian horse breeder, Mr. Hearst, he travelled to the Middle East with the director of the Hearst stud farm, Mr. Preston Dyer, and with Mr. John Williamson, to purchase some desert Arabians. After the expedition, Dr. Pulling wrote among other comments that “importers of Arabian horses to England and the United States, including the members of the recent expedition, agree that these horses in their native lands (ie. Arabia) have not changed since the early nineteenth century." The American expedition visited, among others, the Rualla Bedouins in the Syrian desert, which includes parts of northeastern Jordan, southern Syria, and eastern Iraq. This tribe still owned about 500 horses which had been born and raised in the desert. It turned out that many of these horses had been bred pure in strain, i.e. asil Kuhaylan, Saqlawi, etc.

Pulling also determined that, as of 1947; no written pedigrees were known to the Bedouins, so knowledge of each horse's parentage rested solely on passing on information orally. The post-World War II Bedouins themselves knew only of the so-called "memory pedigree." That such memory pedigrees are completely normal for purebred Arabians bred in the desert seems quite strange to Western breeders. They are accustomed to their stud book system with "complete," written pedigrees. A blank in the pedigree of an imported desert Arabian's name is something beyond their understanding. There presently is discussion among some "experts" to close our stud books to all Arabians bred in Arabia on the assumption that no pure-blooded horses are bred in Arabia anymore. However, this myth was also being circulated a century and a half ago in England. The German hippologue, Dr. A. Jaeger, wrote in The Eastern Horse and the Private Stud Farm of His Majesty the King of Wuerttemberg (1846): "In England, the Arabian horse had fallen into total disrepute: one could no longer purchase any highly bred and superior horses there, it was said, as they had been exterminated in wars or were thoroughly degenerated." Jaeger, p 9). But history caught up with this false conception. A half a century after the desert horse's supposed extinction, the Blunts bought first-class horses in Arabia which laid the cornerstone for the world-famous Crabbet Park breeding.

Today, in the second half of the 20th century; as before, there are breeders in Arabia who consider it a matter of honour to breed asil purebred Arabians. Alexis, Baron von Wrangel, who lived in Arabia for years, wrote in The Arabian in Arabia (1966 ): "Outside of a few Bedouin families, there are however but few stud-s: where the purest desert Arabian horses are still bred and where the blood lines of mares and stallions are diligently studied in order to keep the race pure. One of these is the famous Egyptian breeding farm founded by Sultan (sic) Muhammed Ali over 150 years ago; another is the stud belonging to Sharif Nasser; an uncle of King Houssein of Jordan; and lastly a private establishment owned by D1: Iskander Kassis of Aleppo. This noted physician is a fanatical friend of the Arabian horse and devotes all his energy to preserving the remaining pure strains of the desert bred horse. In his efforts he is most ably assisted by an American citizen, M1: Thomas Weave1; professor at Aleppo College "

With 300 broodmares, however, H. R. H. Sharif Nasser's purebred Arabian stud farm was many times larger than El Zahraa. Some were kept in the desert, as this Bedouin prince explained to me, to stimulate the love and admiration for asil-bred desert horses. Breeding asil Arabians was much more than a mere hobby for Sharif Nasser ben Jamil. For his branch of the Hashemite royal house, it was a centuries-old family tradition. Eight hundred years ago, these direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammed were breeding asil Arabians, first in the Hejaz, where they were feudal lords of Mecca, and, after 1919, in present-dayJordan. The ancient bloodlines are sacred to them, and asil breeding is a religious duty. The "theft" of the mare, WAHIDA, in 1958, after the murder of Nasser's nephew, King Feisal of Iraq, points this up. To rescue the old bloodline, Nasser did not hesitate to resort to horse theft: typical for the true Bedouin.

Still larger than Sharif Nasser's breeding facilities are those of the King of Bahrain, H.R.H. Sheikh Isa bin Suliman Al Khalifa. When the royal family of Al Khalifa from the Arabian peninsula occupied the Bahrain Islands in the Persian Gulf about 200 years ago, they brought with them a selection of asil horses from the Arabian desert. Largely as a result of the Bahrain Islands' isolation (area: 186 sq. mi.), these Arabs could easily preserve their old methods of pure breeding. The royal stables presently hold about 500 Arabians (Dannah al Khalifa, 1971). Breeding there is done in the old, traditional, desert way; The older desert Arabians imported in 1782 are strictly separated from those given as gifts about 200 years later. Egyptian Arabians, for example, are accepted only for racing (Schiele, 1972). The families are still bred pure-in-strain. So one can see pure-in-strain Dahmans, Kuhaylans, Kursans, and others.

An example of such a pure-in-strain Kuhaylan Arabian is found on page 37; Vol. VI, of The Arab Horse Stud Book (England) -the bay Kuhaylan Al-Maisan stallion, BAHRAIN.

The oldest signs of Arabian horses in Egypt trace back to the 16th century B.C., as we saw in the previous chapter. However, the basis for the famous contemporary horse breeding there was not laid until the beginning of the past century; It was Mohammed Ali (Egyptian ruler from 1805 to 1848) who spent millions of pounds gold to build luxurious stables and to populate them with first-rate Arabian horses. Initially he bought them for top prices from tribal princes. Later, in the course of successful campaigns against the Wahhabi in central Arabia, he stole the best stock and sent them to his Egyptian stud farm.

Abbas Pasha inherited the precious horses in 1848 from his father, and expanded the collection with laudable expertise. After his death in 1854, the stud was disbanded. Many horses were sold, and some were sold abroad to France, Italy, and elsewhere. However, some of them did remain in Cairo. It was then that Ali Pasha Sherif took over the breeding program. His stud farm had about 400 horses, and he is generally recognized as the best breeder of classic Arabian horses in the second half of the 19th century; It was with this blood that the Blunts improved their own Arabian horses (Raswan Index, * 462, p. 29). Under Ali Pasha's son, however, the stud had to be publicly auctioned for debts.

In the West, now, it is all too often forgotten that the stock bred by Bedouins themselves has proven to be indispensible. In the first half of our century, too, knowledgeable Egyptian breeders fell back upon original desert blood. We can still see this in the Egyptian Arabians' pedigrees. One example of this is the pedigree of the stallion, SID ABOUHOM, foaled in 1936. Two of this stallion's four grandparents are "nameless" desert-bred (D.B.) Arabians. In the Inshass Studbook of Arabian Horse Breeding, we find numerous further such cases.

These horses were often gifts from Bedouin princes, and were then used in the Egyptian stud. One example is the Kuhayalat mare, NAFA, foaled in 1941 in Saudi Arabia. Only her parents' strain names are entered, as is traditional (see Ch. III). Like many others, this desert-bred (D.B.) mare was used for breeding in Egypt where she produced 2 fillies and 3 colts. Her pedigree is blank behind her dam's name. We see another such blank in SID ABOUHOM's pedigree, and in that of many others. This is a riddle for Western breeders. Quite incorrectly, they assume in their ignorance that such a blank in a pedigree is an indication that the asil bloodline is unproven.

Although the English don't make it well known, they have often fallen back on original desert blood. Between World War II and now they have imported 28 desert Arabians, of which 9 were foaled after World War 11, as a study of their Arab Horse Stud Book, Vol. VI (1944) and Vol. X (1970) will show. They are:
Horse Year Foaled Breeder
Formidable 1945 Albu Asaaf Bedouins
Sabah 1946 Sheikh of Amara
Sabahia 1950 Sheikh Abdul Rezak, Iraq
Shammah 1950 Majali Bedouins, Jordan
Amal Al Sibaq 1954 Hadi al Hindi, Iraq
Comar 1954 Sheikh Habes el Majali, Jordan
Princes Mune 1958 Jordan
Shams 1955 Sheikh Habesel Majali, Jordan
Shamyl 1961 Habes el Majali, Jordan

Most of these come from Jordan. It cannot be coincidence that both desert Arabians entered in the Dutch Arabian studbook were also bred by the Jordanian Majali Bedouins.

Misk A 181 f. 1958 Majali Bedouins
Nijmeh A 352 f. 1954 Majali Bedouins

In the USA, on the other hand, most desert Arabians imported in the 1960's came from Saudi Arabia.

In the Arab countries there are few Bedouins who still breed asil horses. One of the few tribes with a significant herd is the Tahawi tribe in the Egyptian delta region.

Mrs. Erica Brunson, USA; the authoress, Erika Schiele; the Swiss journalist, Elsie Stteiff; the breeder, Gustl Eutermoser; and, publisher and breeder Walter G. Olms are among those few who have interviewed the Tahawi Bedouins in person, and have seen their horses in the flesh. In day-long conversations with Sheikh Soliman el Tahawi and Mrs. Helga Tahawi, a German who has lived with the Tahawi for 20 years, as well as in my own lengthy discussions with Abdelati Abdalla Seoud, we were all convinced that the horses there are bred asil. The Tahawi uphold two abolute principles: 1. Purity of Blood (el asil); and, 2. Performance

Type plays a subordinate role, so only about every tenth horse conforms to our idea of a typey Arabian. It is a difficult task for Egyptian and all other supporters of the asil horse to decide whether all asil horses should be internationally recognized, or should only the truly typey performance horses be accepted. El Zahraa could show us an example by using a few of the Tahawi's outstandingly classic performance horses, as the Hamdan Stables has done, supervised by the E.A.O.: FOLLA and her get, BINT FOLLA, FOL GAMIL, and MARSHALL; or as has done Mrs. Barbari, with a highly-bred Tahawi mare.

With the kind permission from the Swiss journalist, Mrs. Elsie Streiff, I quote the following, part of an article from her pen:

"The Tahawi Bedouins: Horse Breeders for Centuries The nomadic life lies a good 200 years in their past, but for the sake of form and tradition, the Tahawi are still called Bedouins. Their ancient homeland lies in the present-day Saudi Arabian Hejaz. Three hundred years ago, they began the search for new pasture, moving through Libya and Tunisia and finally to Lower Egypt. There they served under Mohammed Ali, who as the sultan's governor in the early 19th century, held the country's fate in his hands. He rewarded them with generous sections of land. The later regent, Abbas Pasha, was so hostile to the foreign tribe that he threatened them with extinction. The Tahawi fled to Syria, and could return to their lands in the Sharkia province only after the regent's death in 1854.
Purity of blood. Raising cotton, rice, and corn builds the solid basis for the Tahawi's established lifestyle. As Bedouins, they are unconcerned with propaganda and "recognized" papers for their horses; as Bedouins, they have also maintained their conservative everyday lifestyle: houses are built only to receive guests. The wife furnishes the bedroom, dining room, and salon, but most of their life is not spent in these rooms. traditionally, they sit separated according to gender on mats in the courtyard, and conduct their daily activities under the open skies. Their cuisine also has hardly changed since they abandoned the wandering life. Wage-earning black laborers perform the same duties that African slaves had done earlier. Week-long mounted field trips in the same natural elements encountered by their forefathers are among the most important events for these genuine sons of the desert. They are passionate desert falcon hunters.
The Tahawi sell their horses relatively cheaply, in comparison to the Egyptian Arabians, whose price has gone through the roof since they were discovered by American buyers. Much of their young stock returns to their parents' native Saudi Arabia or to Kuwait. The Tahawi Bedouins' horses are the offspring of those extremely durable mares and stallions whose ancestors accompanied them on their long wanderings out of the Nejd. This bloodline is adhered to fanatically. Not even breeding stock from kings and princes are recognized by the Tahawi. The Bedouins lay great value on a horse's ability to perform, a characteristic often known to have decided over the rider's life or death during their nomadic existence and on raids. They trade and buy horses only among themselves, since they trust only their own pedigrees. A mare's owner is always present when she is bred. He would entrust no one else with this duty. While Europeans, as a rule, take only beauty into consideration, no horse however beautifulwould be used at stud if there is doubt about the most important criterion: " el asil" -purity of blood. Only the absolutely pure are recognized. In second place follow performance and beauty, although the Bedouins' "beautiful" horses don't necessarily appeal to European tastes. Written documents of parentage are not kept. It was emphasized that every Tahawi horse breeder can recite all of his breeding stock's maternal and paternal lineage with no gaps. The Tahawi do not spoil their purebred horses. All are hobbled, as is customary for other draft animals - donkeys and camels. Mares are bred at 4 - 5 years of age. Their foals are petted frequently from their first day of life, and cajoled with sugar lumps into accepting the presence of people - a psychological preparation for weaning at four or five months, if the dam is again in foal. The young horse is then tied to a four -to five- yard long rope by a neck collar. For the first few days he always has human company, which distracts and calms him in his new station in life. H e is repeatedly touched and spoken to. A few weeks later; he, too, is hobbled. Before being led to water; the forehand and hindquarters are handled. In the seventeenth month of his young life, a saddle is laid on his back for the first time, and a little later one of the family's boys, about ten years old, will begin riding him. " I am always amazed how gently and trustingly the young horses behave for this, " said Frau H elga el Tahawi, a native German and wife of 20 years of Sheikh Soleiman el Tahawi. Integrated into the traditional "resident Bedouin life" she officiated as translator of topical information. Since ages past, she explained, the tales of purebred, durable horses have been told among the menfolk as they gather in the " hair houses, " as the Bedouins call their goat hair tents, and pass around a pot of their black, rather bitter coffee. Copper chestnut is the preferred color. Sheikh Soleiman had her translate an orally passed on theme: the other horses are but servants to the chestnuts. They are like the princess, served by slaves, and it is they who can fly. Believe it, they are the daughters of the wind, and that is no exaggeration." -Elsie Streiff

Unfortunately the efforts of the Tahawy were doomed to failure: Neither to EAO (Egyptian Agricultural Organization) nor the WAHO (World Arabian Horse Organisation) would register the Arabien horses bred by the Tahawy as pure-bred, with no exception of those few Tahawy descendants owned by the Hamdan Stables and by Mrs. Barbary (see above).

Odd and sad as it is: While the asil stock ofTahawy horses was not acknowledged, the probably non-asil Skowronek descendants in Egypt were acknowledged as pure-bred by the EAO andtheWAHO.

Certainly there are skeptics here and there who, for whatever reason, question the oral tradition and therefore the asil horse, the desert-bred with strain names given for the sire and dam. "Who can say; given the completely different mentality of the East, that horses' pedigrees, above all, are supposed to be so correct, since it is surely possible to obtain many a lovely paper with seal and signature for the appropriate "baksheesh'?" it is said' and "we Europeans with our 'document delusion' are laughed at, and are given what we asked for with no great twinge of conscience. And the desert thieves, who have made their living from theft -why should precisely these same people be reliable in such an important matter ? They are dreamers, those who would believe that! "

All skeptics and all interested parties are referred to the Asil Club's documents (see pp. 3853) of which, for example, it is said in South African Arabian:

"No better collection of expert opinions of our horses will be found in the whole of literature dealing with Arabians."

This collection of testimonies from literature regarding the Arabian horse convincingly presents the facts of the matter. If one cares to investigate further, references to the original works are given on page 301 of the above mentioned book.

To reaffirm this position, I would like to cite yet another author who, independent of any horsemanly prejudice, wrote the following in his excitingly-told book, Verrat in schwarzen Zelten, (Zurich, 1977), dealing with experiences of the Swiss gentleman, John Henry Mueller:

It was good to ride with these experienced men of the desert. To be sure -the inexperienced should not even attempt it. The Bedouin life is oriented toward survival, and for over a thousand years the leading families in M ecca, Medina, and Damascus have sent their sons to their desert tribes. There the youths become men: they learn about hunger, thirst, and survival; they are schooled with weapons and camels, instructed in the art of raiding and in desert diplomacy; and they are imbued with the desert's own code of honor. They are taught the traditions in such a manner that they will never be forgotten to the end of their days. Here in the desert, among the true Arabian aristocrats, they learn the meaning of keeping blood pure and the strict ban on marrying beneath their station. Their tribe's ancestory is learned as thoroughly as the Koran; these sons of the great families could unhesitatingly recite the names of forty generations. Here, they learn to abide by the Koran's requirements and to respect the thousand unwritten taboos of the desert.

For the great families' young men, this time with the desert tribe is a long and thorough purification process. By the end they will have become sinewy, strong men, cunning, hard as steel, and brutal, familiar with the ways of desert folk -the unconquerable well of strength for the family -with their power and strength as well as their own faults and weaknesses and those of their tribal comrades. They have been instructed in Arabic eloquence and verse, have built a tremendous vocabulary, and are wellversed in all forms of behaviour and etiquette . For over a thousand years, Arabia has isolated itself from the world, and during these thousand years, nothing in the central tribal lands' Bedouins' means or manner of living has changed; their dogged clinging to tradition and the Koran is a living anachronism in the lOth century. The Caliphates in Baghdad and Cordoba went to ruin because they grew soft, losing the conquered lands which once had comprised the greatest empire the world had yet known. But in inner Arabia, the desert's inhabitants' strength has remained intact, the people untouched by global developments, protected from all outside influence by the impassable isolation. There is here still a kernel of that earlier tremendous power that conquered half the world and converted large sections of the Earth to Islam.

Now, not many exciting things happen in the Bedouin's everyday life, and a life among camels in the desert is not exactly strewn with sensation. So the Bedouin is wont to fall back on events of past years, engraving them on his memory as if on a copperylate. It is simply unbelievable how good a Bedouin's memory is and with what exactitude he can portray events of ten years ago. Not the smallest detail is left out, not one name missed, and he still remembers very exactly that he drank milk from a wooden cup decorated with brass nails in a star pattern. He may even know how many nails there were...

It is not unusual for Abu Chdeir to expound for four hours in the desert on the advantages of the Rualla camel saddle, but not yet cover half of the aspects important to a Bedouin " {With the kind permission of the Schweizer Verlagshaus AG, Zurich ).

The author of probably the most exhaustive and greatest work about Bedouins, the learned Max, Baron von Oppenheim, says in his three-volume tome, The Bedouins, (Leipzig, 1939-1952):

"The one truly binding thing, the one power before which the true Bedouin bows, is public opinion -fear of others' censure and mockery. Public opinion stands behind the unwritten desert code of honor that every Bedouin must respect "

Although Egypt is not of the Arabian peninsula. Its population is mostly Islamic. The famous state stud farm and breeding facility for asil Arabians is El Zahraa, in Cairo near Heliopolis, which is supervised by the E.A.O. (Egyptian Agricultural Organization, known as Royal Agricultural Society until 1949, founded in 1898). The exact translation of the stud's title is: Stud for the Breeding of Asil Arabian Horses: El Zahraa (Mahatet Tarbiat Al Konal Al Arabia Al Aseela 'El Zahraa').

Note: Arabians are bred there -asil Arabians -not Egyptians. One could say 'straight Arabians' per the English usage but it is perhaps better to use 'asil,' as every Arab would when he means 'pure.'

General Tibor von Pettko-Szandtner, previously commandant of the Babolna State Stud in Hungary, brought the stud (previously kown as Kafr Farouk) to a new brilliance in the 1950's. It was years, almost until 1970, before the world -especially the Commonwealth and the USA -recognized the value of these asil Arabians. These horses had been ignored for decades, or even dismissed as degenerate, except among a few countries and private breeders who did successfully improve their breeding. Germany led the way, thanks expecially to State Equerry, Dr. G. Wenzler, who brought the stallions, GHAZAL and HADBAN ENZAHI to the state stud in Marbach, thereby leading the way for other great stallions such as KAISOON.

Here at El Zahraa was a sanctuary for maintaining Arabia Deserta Bedouins' valuable asil blood stockespecially that of the Nejd. They knew to add selectively the Bedouins' asil desert-bred performance horses to their stock, and did not hesitate to reimport asil stock or their get from England. So Egypt, too, lying in the same latitude as Arabia Deserta but with a completely different and milder climatic situation for breeding, clearly recognized the necessity of regularly introducing new blood from Bedouin stock.

One must differentiate between various Middle Easterners, especially urban dealers, and the Bedouins with their traditions, code of honor, and religious conviction. A Bedouin enroute to a 'ghazul' (raid) proceeds according to certain rules, is proud and hopeful of equestrian feats and adventures. He wants to prove his courage, and is characterized by his hospitality, conservatism in all matters of life, unconditional reliability, amazing memory, eloquence, and religious conviction. These qualities are absolute necessities in communal desert life. He who sins against them, and therefore against the requirement to breed with asil blood, is expelled from the community; He also lives in constant fear of punishment after death.

The great interest in asil Arabians now alive throughout the Western world must not lead to importing blindly everything merely because it is asil. Such a run on asil Arabians has contributed to importing horses from countries unrecognized by WAHO, or to buying stock from Egypt that was meant to be sold domestically at auction by El Zahraa, for example, and not to be exported. Caution is advised in acquiring such horses being detoured through dealers. Every stud farm, small or large, has culls which must be sold. Such culls, meant to be sold as saddle horses, must not reappear as breeding stock.