The Environment of the Asil Arabian
The nomadic lifestyle of the tribes of the Arabian deserts remained almost unaltered for many hundreds of years, right up until the 20th century. This chapter is dedicated to the Bedouin, fathers of the Asil Arabian.
The customs, practices and traditions of the Bedouin have been described in numerous authentic travel reports. A convincing summary entitled "The Essence of the Bedouin" was published in earlier volumes of this documentation. The testimonies of professors M. von Oppenheim and W. Caskel (Die Beduinen, vol. 1 to 4, Leipzig and Wiesbaden 1938-68, Reprint: Hildesheim 1984) whose introduction to their four-volume standard work we printed, were particularly impressive. It is a work which is unequalled world-wide, but which as yet has no translation into either Arabic or English.
In order to present the reader of the current ASIL ARABIAN DOCUMENTATION with further reports about the world of the Bedouin, which has now unfortunately met with almost total decline, numerous older and newer works were scoured with the aim of building a mosaic of particularly relevant testimonies from well known authors. This chapter aims to show how the people were formed by their hard life in the seclusion of the merciless desert. They had to protect themselves continually, were dependent on each other and had to be able to rely totally on their close companions. Whilst raiding (ghazus) was considered a matter of honour, and demanded a high degree of bravery and daring, theft and deception were considered dishonourable and led to hard punishments, or even to expulsion from the social group. These facts cannot be stated too often. Those who doubt the authenticity of the origins of the horses and camels, the details of which have been passed on by word of mouth, or those who question the outstanding memory of the Bedouin, should read objectively the reports quoted in the ASIL ARABIAN DOCUMENTATION, the authors of which were anything other than armchair adventurers and fantasticoes (see the works listed in the bibliography). And those who do not yet realise that the West owes great thanks to the knowledge and culture of the Arabs, should read the chapter "The influence of Arabic culture and science on the Occident", (see page 248) which we hope gets this point across in some detail.
Today there are many articles published in magazines which dismiss the reports of European travellers to the Orient as over-coloured blind enthusiasm. We should keep in mind that Arab authors wrote about the breeding of Arabian horses as long ago as the 9th century. There we can read confirmations of everything that the belittled European scientists and travellers describe in their reports.
We will begin the chapter about the Bedouin with a statement from the Swiss Asil Club member John Henry Mueller (deceased 1991), who, as an agent in the second world war, roamed with the Bedouin in the deserts of Saudi Arabia and wrote breathtaking reports about the last years of the Bedouin way of life. This is followed by well-put characterisations from T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), which are quoted in the foreword to "Travels in Arabia Deserta" by C.M. Doughty. As T.E. Lawrence candidly states, without the key to the true understanding of the soul of the Arabian people he would never have achieved his goals. This understanding was given to him by Doughty, who described his years of wandering and living with the Arabs in the desert interior with great stylistic talent and fanatical precision. Doughty, who was not a hippologist, was a great expert on Arabians. We include a series of typical Doughty quotations.
Next, we hear from Helmut von Moltke, again from M. v. Oppenheim and then from Erich Feigl who reports on the highly-esteemed Bohemian Alois Musil, also known as Musil of Arabia or Sheikh Musa (he was also a cousin of Robert Musil). Musil was a friend of Prince Thalal and the famous Emir Nuri Ibn Shalan. His ethnographic travel report about his beloved Ruala tribe, a marvel of ethnology, is as well-known and well-read in the USA as it is forgotten in Germany (Feigl).
We follow this with passages by E. von Nolde, and Mohammad Asad, who gives an impressive report about King Ibn Saud and Emir Ibn Musaad. Princess Lulua Al Sabah, an Arabian personality well acquainted with both the literature and the western and Arabian scenes, who is also a board member of the Asil Club, presented arguments in her answer to an article by Kees Mol which fit seamlessly into the other reports. Finally, we come back to John Henry Mueller and hope, with great confidence, to have convinced the reader that the Bedouin, the creator of the Asil Arabian horse, is trustworthy thanks to his great honesty and his outstanding memory.
W. Georg Olms (1999)
