The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965 Page: 305
574 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Origin and Development of the Arabian Horse
the Rules or decisions of the AHC Registry."4 It seems somehow
unreal that the ancestor of both the Arabian and the Thorough-
bred is no longer considered eligible for registration in the Unit-
ed States. It has been a recognized breed for more than 3,500
years; the Moroccan Stud Book is the oldest in the world. On
performance, the Barbary Arabian competes, no quarter asked,
in open competition; and a twelve-year-old girl, riding in her
first show, jumped a stallion to second place in a major show in
the fall of 1962.
The terms, "Arabian," "Barb," and "Libyan," are often con-
fused. Arabian, at present, generally refers to the Arabian penin-
sula-or Saudi Arabia. Barbary, according to the medieval Arab
historian Ibn Khaldoun, was derived from an Arabic word de-
scribing the speech of the inhabitants of North Africa. A lion,
for example, berberes when it utters its series of soft syllabic
grunts." Libya was the Greek name for all of North Africa from
the west bank of the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean. Barb and Arab
have been used interchangeably for centuries to describe a single
breed of horses. It is the same breed which the ancients called
the Libyan horse. The weight of the evidence indicates that this
breed originated in North Africa and that it was recognized as
a pure breed of unrivalled excellence at least 1,500 years before
it was introduced into Arabia.
The British archeologist, Sir William Ridgeway, in perhaps
the best reasoned and documented history to be found in the
literature of the horse, placed the origin of the presently-called
Arabian horse in North Africa." The fixation in the nineteenth
century on Arabia as the original home is not an Arab idea, ac-
cording to Major General W. Tweedie, long-time British Consul-
General in the Middle-East, but was originated by the French
naturalist, Buffon, and by William Scawen Blunt and Lady Anne
'International Arabian Horse Association to L. B. B., July 3, 1963 (MS. in pos-
session of writer).
Ibn Khaldoun, Histoire des berberes et des dynasties Musulmanes de l'Afrique
septentrionales (3 vols.; Paris, 1925), I, 168.
6William Ridgeway, The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse
(Cambridge, 1905); Elmer S. Riggs, "The Geological History and Evolution of
the Horse," Geology Leaflet 13 (Chicago, 1932; Field Museum of Natural History);
Basil Tozer, The Horse in History (London, 19o8), 17; Roger Pocock, Horses (Lon-
don, 1917), 129 ff.305
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 68, July 1964 - April, 1965, periodical, 1965; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101198/m1/373/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.