Poetry ξ Religion

"When God was going to create the horse, he said to the south wind: From you I am going to create a being to the honour of my saints, to the humiliation of my enemies, as a grace to those who obey my rules. The south wind said: Do so, my Lord! Then God took a handful of the south wind and created the horse. He said: Your name be Arabian, good deeds be tied to your forelocks and prey to your back; it be up to you to ease the struggle for subsistence. I have made your master your friend, I have favoured you first of all beasts of burden, I have endowed you with the power to fly without wings, be it on attack or in retreat. On your back I shall place men who glorify me and rejoice in my praise. And when the horse had touched the ground with his feet the Lord said: You shall humiliate any idolator by your neigh which shall resound in their ears and shall fill their hearts with fear. And when the Lord had shown to Adam all the things he had created, he said" Choose of my creatures whom you like, and he chose the horse. Then the Lord spoke and said: You have chosen your honour and your children's honour which will last for aeons and aeons." All traditions with regard to the horse are drawn up in a similar fashion, and as the Arab takes in the love of this noble beast with his mother's milk, so to speak, and is bound to it by religion, there is hardly any difference between his attachment to his family and his attachment to his horse.

Löffler (1860)

Wounded Warrior

"Content to wait alone,
Amid the weedy grass,
Her bloodied coat aware
Of breezes as they pass,
Silver mare hangs silent
Her battered noble head,
And wonders in her heart
If she will soon be dead.

No! The blood that courses
So slowly through her veins
Will surely be quickened
And spring to life again.

She will feel the pounding
Beneath her feet once more,
Surging up the mountain,
Inspired by that call
Of far-distant trumpet
Which none but she can hear.

Heart enflamed with passion,
Abandoning all fear
By thought of His bright face,
The one she holds so dear.

Mane and tail a-streaming,
We see her in her flight,
Vanishing in glory....
The everlasting light
Of God's transcendent throne.
She gallops home, home, home!"

copyright J. Rattei 2001

The Golden Ode of Labid

"Well have I my tribe served, brought them aid and armament,
Slept, my mare's reins round me, night-long their sentinel;
Ridden forth at day-dawn, climbed the high-heaped sand ridges
Hard by the foes' marches, dun-red the slopes of them;
Watched till the red dipped hand-like in obscurity
Til the night lay curtained, shrouding our weaknesses;
And I came down riding, my mare's neck held loftily
as a palm fruit-laden: woe to the gatherer!
Swift was she, an ostrich; galloped she how wrathfully,
from her side the sweat streamed, lightening the ribs of her;
Strained on her her saddle; dripped with wet the neck of her;
the white foam-flakes wreathing, edging the girth of her;
Thrusteth her neck forward, shaketh her reins galloping;
flieth as the doves fly bound for the water-springs."

If you question one of the old Arabic patriarchs, famous for their wisdom, experience and hospitality, they will tell you;

"Sidi-Aomar, the Prophet's companion, has said: "Love horses and look after them; for they deserve your tenderness; treat them as you do your children; nourish them as you do friends of the family, and blanket them with care. For the love of God, do not be negligent for you will regret it in this life and the next."

"On slender horses of noble breed The riders, as light as falcons' young,
Dashing through divided dust With prey and booty."

el-Monachchal el Jesehkori

"Look when a painter would surpass the life In liming out a well-proportion'd steed,
His art with nature's workmanship at strife, As if the dead the living should exceed:
So did this horse excel a common one. In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone.
Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong, Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide: Look what a horse should have he did not lack, Save a proud rider on so proud a back."

Shakespeare (1593)

To this they add one of their Prophet's words: "Each grain of barley given to your horse
will be worth an indulgence to you in the other world." Furthermore Mohammed told his disciples: "Above all my recommendation is to devote great care to the broodmares: their backs are seats of honour, and their bellies are inexhaustible treasures."

Ammon (1834)

During the ninth century A.D., poems by the celebrated Al Mutannabbi had earned their place and were quoted near and far by the Arab poets as they recited at the pretentious courts of caliphs and kings. This panegyric to Kafur, the black eunuch ruler of Egypt whose court Al Mutannabbi joined for a time, is of note, particularly the last four lines:

"And many a day like the night of lovers I have ridden through, watching the sun when it should set,
my eyes fixed on the ears of a bright-blazed horse which was as if a star of the night remained between its eyes, having a superfluity of skin on its body which came and went over a broad breast; I cleaved with it in the darkness, drawing close to its reigns so that it rebelled, and at times slackening them so it played, felling with it any wild beast I followed, and dismounting from it and it the same as when I mounted. Fine steeds, like true friends, are few, even if to the eye of the inexperienced they are many; if you have seen nothing but the beauty of their markings and limbs, their true beauty is hidden from you."

(Trans. By A. J. Arberry)

"My horse is the champion of all steeds. He is blue like a pigeon in the shadow
And his black mane and tail are undulant. He endures hunger and thirst and can see a great distance.

He is a very great drinker of the Arabic air. He is the terror of the enemy in combat.
At the moment of firing rifles Mebrouk is the great pride of the country."

Daumas (1853)

"A mare long of body, short of hair, whose spirit is unfailing, compactly and firmly built, slender as a staff, that has borne no foal, A bay, with her back strongly knit: as-Sarih and Jafil, her sires, have lifted her line to the best of strains. She is one of those steeds of race that stretched themselves fully in their gallop, springing and light of foot, pressing on in her eagerness: her longing is the far-extended desert, plain giving unto pain. She turns her cheeks briskly to right and left, though her gallop has lasted long, as an adversary vehement in his contention casts his hands this way and that. And if that which was withheld of the reins is restored to her, she lets herself go at full speed like the darting flight of a sand-grouse which hawks pursue. A mare kept always close to the tent, never has she been bestridden except for a foray nor have foals ever tugged at her teats. When she has been fined down by training, she is like a young gazelle fed on hullab, with her muscles and upper parts firmly knit, and her lower limbs made nimble and light. And in truth she has ever been to me a precious possession, born and brought up in our tents: of all possessions that which has been born and bred with one's people is the most precious. And I will keep her as my own so long as there is a presser for the olive, and so long as a man, barefoot or shod, wanders on the face of the earth."

(Trans. By Sir Charles Lyall)

Biblical researchers have often observed that the book of Job shows familiarity with Egypt; for instance, it describes the Nile, with its canals and strange animals such as the crocodile and the hippopotamus, both sacred to Set, and contains as well an affectionate observation of the desert and its creatures. The chargers of Egyptian pharaohs were favored subjects of the Old Testament prophets, and Job's inspiring and immortal tribute to the Arabian horse is the classic appraisal of the desert steed's character:

"Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?
Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is terrible.
He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men.
He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the sword.
The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield.
He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.
He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting."

(Job 39:19-25)

Al Adiyat: (The Chargers)
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful...

"By the snorting chargers
Running swiftly to the battle
By the strikers of fire
Dashing their hoofs against the stones
By the dawn raiders
Making sudden incursion on the enemy
Blazing a trail of dust
And cleaving forthwith the adverse host
Verily, man is ungrateful
Unto his Lord;
And he bears witness thereof by his deeds;
For violent is he
In his love of wealth."

(Sura 100)