The Concept of Arabian Horse Strains and Sub-Strains

By: Yasser Ghanim

The Arabs started to chronicle for their history and traditions in the first Islamic century (7th and 8^th century AD) after Islam spread the sense of unity, literacy, and civilization among the people of Arabia. However, the living chronicle of the Arabic history and traditions long before the rise of Islam was always Arabic poetry, which was widely celebrated, narrated and preserved for at least the last two centuries before Islam until it was largely documented in the 2^nd Islamic century.

After Islam, a big movement of recording and documenting the Arab history and literature started, first focusing on the Sira (Prophet Mohammed life) and the Arabic Language (the language of the holy Quran), then on poetry as a complementary field to Arabic language studies, then to a diversity of other studies. The very first equine writings appeared when the two great lexicographers [lexicographer: one who compiles dictionaries] Al-Asma'i (AD 740-828) and Abu Ubaida (AD 728–825) wrote the first Arabic texts on the Arabian Horse. The two books focused on horse anatomy, traits and descriptions, and on its mention in Arabic literature. They extensively used quotes from Arabic poetry as the ultimate evidence for every piece of information they provided. This is a practice that has to be understood within the context of the Arabic linguistics studies at that time, which considered narrated Arabic poetry as the supreme source of linguistic facts. Providing a verse of authentic poetry or even quoting a sentence attributed to an Arab Bedouin was sufficient to establish the credibility of a new linguistic theory or proposition. This is something that often puzzles the non-Arab researcher just as the notion of “Asil” (or purity of blood of the Arabian Horse) puzzles many. The Arabic language as spoken by ANY Bedouin up to the 7th and 8th centuries AD was PURE and AUTHENTIC enough (just like an Arabian Horse) to qualify as basis for establishing a grammatical rule in the newly established field of Arabic linguistics that started to develop and advance by people like Al-Asma'i and Abu-Ubaida in the 2nd Islamic century.

Now having all this said, one finds a lot in the literature of that era about the Arabian Horse in general; its purity, nobility and characteristics. However, the concept of Strains was never mentioned, not even once in any of the horse-related works of the 7^th and 8^th  century including the famous Ansab Al-Khayl (Horse Lineage) book of Ibn Al-Kalbi (AD 737-819) where one should expect strains to appear. This made many researchers doubt the authenticity of the concept of strains and conclude that it is merely an invention by the Western Orientalists. However, we the Bedouin know as a matter of fact and out of firsthand knowledge that this is not true. The notion of strains is far rooted in our inherited culture that predates any of the 19^th, 18^th or even 17^th century Western travelers and writers. The concept of strains has been consistently and predominantly used by the Arabic tribes of Arabia from south to north. Again it was well recorded in their (unwritten) poetry and oral traditions. So, there must be another explanation for the lack of reference to strains in the early Arabic texts.

Since the decline in the power of the Arab tribes and their losing control over the Islamic empire in the 9th and 10th centuries AD in favor of Turks, Persians and others, the Arab tribes (or what remained of them within Arabia) dwelled into another wave of nomadic life and often illiteracy (the first was the pre-Islamic era) that intensified by the 7th and 8th Islamic centuries (14^th and 15^th centuries AD). One side effect of this is that the Middle Ages Bedouin traditions (including poetry) received less attention by the Arabic scholars and writers in the metropolitan centers of Islamic civilization like Cairo, Baghdad, Damascus ... etc. and it became largely oral and undocumented (again!) This was also the time when the classic Arabic language that was spoken since the pre-Islamic times was lost for good as a daily-life spoken language among the Arab tribes. The classic Arabic was inherited by a new slang version of Arabic, which is the Bedouin dialect. Some old words faded out and new terms were coined and adopted. So the purity of the language that always remained gold-pure within the sanctuary of inner Arabia was now lost. This was a huge cultural shift. It is conceivable that the Arabs felt the cultural loss and how this can also impact some of their most treasured traditions like the breeding of pure Arab horses!

The cultural impact coming from the more wealthy and powerful Islamic states controlled by non-native Arabic speakers that contaminated the pure Arabic language must have its threat to the Arabian horses as well, and the Bedouins must had felt that threat!

This was the time (the late middle ages) when the concept of strains started to develop. My personal estimate is that the system of Arabian Horse strains and Bedouin pedigrees as we know them in the 19th century writings, like Abbas Pasha manuscript, started to develop some time between the 13th and 15th centuries AD. It was the Bedouin people’s defense to protect the breed against external contamination in the absence of any mechanism to document the lineages of their horses in the desert. The Asil status was at great risk and the simplest way to respond was to establish horse families (strains) and to attribute horses to their most trusted sources or studs (Marbat or sub-strain). Here started to appear the names of famous breeders and horsemen who owned trusted and authentic Arabians like Shahwan (for the Dahma), Jadran (for the Saqlawiya), Ajuz (for Kuhelia), Sabbah (for Shwima) and so on. The names between parentheses are for horse families (strains) while the names attached to them are for tribal figures who lived in Arabia after the 13th century AD and were famous for the quality and purity of their Arabians. The oldest known name among them is Shahwan Al-Obaidi in the 13th century AD (refer to a recent study by Edouard Al-Dahdah on the identity and era of Shahwan Al-Obidi, founder of the strain) from the Yemeni tribe of Qahtan. It is common knowledge among the Bedouin that the strain of Dahman Shawan traces to Shahwan from the tribe of Qahtan even if the information about Shahwan and the period he lived in was lost. It is thrilling that new research can now prove his existence. The practice continued and only horses that were traceable to the studs of those trusted breeders (often tribal leaders) were accepted for breeding while any other doubtful horses were excluded. This was an effective defense mechanism to purify the breed from any possible contamination that must had found its way to the culturally venerable Arabia of that time.

The practice succeeded and the Bedouins for the next four to five centuries until the modern time refused any individual horse that was not identified Asil as per the strain system. The strain system was guarded in the daily practice by heavy requirements of attestation when individual horses switched hands, within a bigger circle of cultural values and practices. Only horses witnessed (under strong religious oath) by no less than the chiefs of the source tribe or clan (more than one person) enjoyed a strain and the credentials of being Asil. No matter how many non Asil specimens had found their way into inner Arabia (which was very possible), those individuals could never qualify for breeding as per the strain system, which was protected by the requirements of attestation by the tribal leaders. So this was a kind of registration authority that consisted of the tribal leaders at large who built a safety net against horses of unidentifiable sources.

Strains are the Bedouin pedigrees that served the same role of the modern registration systems and allowed the pure Arabian horse to survive for at least another half millennium amid the culturally and politically disturbing era of late Middle Ages Arabia. It is a Bedouin invention that has nothing to do with the Western travelers or orientalism. It is not as old as the Arabian horse, but it developed during a point of history when the purity of the Arabic language was lost and the purity of Arabian horse was at great risk. The Bedouins developed an effective way and a strong value system around the Strain and Asil concepts to protect the purity of their most treasures breed.