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The Arabian Horses of Abbas Pasha by Edouard Al-Dahdah, with Kate McLachlan and Moira Walker Foreword by Judith Forbis New Discoveries: The 1860 Abbas Pasha Sale List and Other Original Documents Ansata Publications, Mena, Arkansas, 2022

For anyone who has ever been intrigued by the history of the Arabian horse, it will be fun to read this book. Beautifully produced, written with a light tone of voice, it resounds with the thrill of the quest. Old “truths” are overshadowed by the revelations of new primary sources of information. With the discovery and translation of these texts, our pedigrees are no longer a closed book but a promise of further enlightenment on the ancestry of our living safinat horses.

Of course, a missing link in this whole enterprise — why didn’t it happen before now? — has been the author, Edouard Al-Dahdah, an avid Arabian horse enthusiast and Al Khamsa contributor. Born in Lebanon in 1978 into a multi-generational Arabian horsebreeding family, he is fluent in many languages. He is also sharpeyed like a falcon. He saw what thousands of other enthusiasts have observed yet never explored in certain pages of photographs in early books on the Arabian horse.

While attending the 2016 Al Khamsa Convention, he spotted a book that was to be sold in the auction. His bid won. That was the beginning.... ~ Joan Schleicher, co-author of Heirloom Arabians. Contents include: An introduction explaining the background behind the discovery, and the writing of the book; About the sale itself, advertisements, a history by Baron von Hügel, description of the documents, how to read the tables; The Mare and Stallion Tables, with translated text, comparisons with other references, offspring, with connections to modern descendants; The Buyers Tables, with horses purchased by each; The Ali Bek Fahmi (Ali Pasha Sherif) Herdbook, dated prior to the Sale and other smaller Arabic documents related to Ali

Pasha Sherif; The Hujjah of Meshura, which extends back and related a group of

Blunt horses to ancestors sold to Abbas Pasha; Breeding Patterns in the Stud of Abbas Pasha; Revisions of modern pedigrees resulting from the translations of these documents; Many charts of Abbas Pasha horses going backwards into the desert or forwards into modern pedigrees; Many wonderful art images and many photos of Ali Pasha Sherif horses, connecting back to the Sale; And more!

The Attendant, gouache by François Hippolyte Lalaisse (French, 1810 – 1884), Collection of Claudia Dijkstra Crommelin

Left: A page of explanation of the famed desert sire, Al-Mahyubi Al-Araj, with his pedigree.

Below: One of the original plates in the Raswan Index that led author Edouard AlDahdah to recognize what a precious document it was.