Arts of the Arabian horse
With its concave face, arched neck and high tail carriage,
the Arabian horse has long been a favourite subject for artists. Yet it has also
played an important cultural role, not least in Arab ideas of chivalry and
horsemanship, writes David Tresilian
from: Al Ahram weekly,
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/615/cu4.htm
Further information on Mamluk Faris:
http://the-mamluk-faris.blogspot.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furusiyya
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/859/cu4.htm
Click to view caption |
Cavalaries heading to battle from an illuminated
manuscript of Al-Hariri's Maqamat,1237
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The Arabian horse, famous for its refined physical appearance, stamina and
endurance, as well as for its remarkably long memory, quick comprehension and
sociability, has long been a favourite of breeders worldwide, giving rise to
sub-types such as the half-Arabian and the Anglo-Arabian. However, in the Arab
world such horses have also traditionally played an important cultural role,
occupying a significant place not only in warfare but also in an aristocratic
ethic linking man and horse that can be compared to that of the knight in the
European Middle Ages.
It is this Arab tradition of al-furusiyya -- horsemanship, chivalry
and the mutual dependence of man and horse -- that forms the centrepiece of
Chevaux et Cavaliers arabes dans les arts d'Orient et d'Occident
(Horses and Knights in the Arts of East and West), an exhibition at the Institut
du monde arabe in Paris that opened last week, running until 30 March 2003.
Arab traditions of horsemanship began in the eighth century at the court of
the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad. However, it was under the Mamluks, the military
caste made up of former slaves that ruled Egypt, Syria and Palestine from 1250
until their defeat by the Ottoman Turks in 1517, that these traditions were
codified and set out in treatises dealing with the proper care of horses, their
role in warfare and in sport, and in the training in handling horses necessary
for a young man's entry to the ruling Mamluk caste. Many of these volumes, often
beautifully illustrated, are on display at the Paris exhibition, showing the
central and sometimes spectacular role played by horses.
As Shihab Al-Sarraf writes in the catalogue produced to accompany the
exhibition, these works of furusiyya, linking the 'ulum (science),
funun (arts) and adab (literature) of horsemanship, reinforced the
Mamluk conception of al-faris, the knight or horseman, bearer of a moral
code that linked virtues such as courage, valour, magnanimity and generosity and
that was expressed in courtly and military-style spectacles and competitions.
Al-Sarraf identifies the 9th century writer Ibn Akhi Hizam, based in Baghdad,
as the founder of this literature, producing two manuals for the use of knights
in the army of the Abbasid Caliph Al- Mutawakkil. These volumes, dealing with
the proper care of horses, riding techniques, the horse's role in warfare and in
spectacles such as archery and games that seem to have been a little like
mediaeval European jousting, served as models for later Egyptian Mamluk
treatises along similar lines, such as the works of Mohamed Ibn Isa Al-Aqsara'i,
Mohamed Ibn Yaqub Ibn Khazzam Al-Khuttali and Nasir Al-Din Ibn Tarabulusi.
Illustrated pages from Al-Aqsari's curiously named 14th century text,
Nihayat Al-su'l wa Al- Umniyya fi Ta'lim A'mal Al-Furusiyya (An End to the
Desire to know more of Exercises in Horsemanship) are on display at the
exhibition, taken from an illustrated copy made in 1371 by Ahmed Ibn Umar
Al-Misri and lent by the British Library in London. Various illustrations of
horse-games from a 15th century copy of Al- Khuttali's Kitab Al-Makhzun Fi
Jama' Al-Funun (Precious Book of all the Arts), lent by the Institute of
Oriental Studies in St Petersburg, are also displayed, as are pages from
Tarabulusi's 16th century work on military training and jousting.
Such works, produced in Egypt between the 14th and the 16th centuries, show
various horse- games, such as al-qabaq, in which the aim is to hit
targets with specially produced arrows while seated on a horse, al-tasrih
'ala al-suyuf 'ala al- bayd 'ala al-qabqab, horseback acrobatics standing
on a structure composed of swords and wooden eggs mounted on the horse's saddle,
and ramy al-faris, an exercise akin to jousting in which the aim is to
dislodge one's opponent with a lance while on horseback.
These games, part of the training for any young Mamluk, would have been
performed chiefly at the Citadel overlooking Cairo, their aim being to build and
reinforce martial values of courage and competitiveness as part of the Mamluk
honour code. However, the Mamluks also constructed numerous hippodromes in Cairo
itself, building on a tradition carried forward from earlier times by their
Ayyubid predecessors, at least one of whom, the Emir Al-Salih Najm Al-Din Ayyub,
apparently excelled at polo.
According to Mamluk historians, members of the elite ruling caste would
descend one or two days a week for horse-games in the hippodromes they had
constructed in Cairo, such as Al- Maydan Al-Zahiri or Al-Maydan Al-Nasiri,
before sumptuous feasts and entertainment. These horse-games apparently also
served as popular entertainment. In addition, twice a year, in a tradition
started by the Mamluk Sultan Baybars in 1276, the mahmil, a procession of
pilgrims destined for Mecca, would start out from Cairo accompanied by Mamluk
knights mounted on horses wearing decorative armour and trappings, some examples
of which are also on display in the Paris exhibition.
While this material from Mamluk Egypt and from the Arab culture of
al-furusiyya that flourished with it makes up the heart of the exhibition,
Persian, Maghreb and later Ottoman and Arab materials relating to horses and
horsemanship are also on display. Some of these materials are of very high,
though perhaps incidental, interest, such as the illustrated pages from
Al-Qazwini's 13th century text Aja'ib Al- Makhluqat Wa Ghara'ib Al-Mawjudat
(The Marvels of Creation and the Curiosities of Existing Things) that have been
lent to the exhibition from St Petersburg, and the wonderful illustrations of
horses and knights from an 13th century Iraqi illustrated copy of Al-Hariri's
Maqamat (Scenes) showing episodes from this picaresque mediaeval Arab
narrative.
According to the exhibition catalogue, Al- Qazwini, inheritor of a
philosophical tradition that included Ibn Sina and Ibn Al-Arabi, wished to show
that "man, having been blessed with reason, a desire for knowledge and
consciousness that distinguishes him from animals, can find in everything that
exists the key to understanding creation and the place he occupies in it.
Everything that exists is a sign that, properly interpreted, can yield such
understanding." Within this large conception, Al-Qazwini describes the horse as
an animal deserving special praise, the Prophet Mohamed having owned five, nine
or 19 horses, according to different hadith, and being borne to Jerusalem
on the back of Buraq, a horse with wings.
In a final section the exhibition shows how the Arabian horse has been
treated by Western artists, notably in 19th century European orientalist
painting. French artists such as Delacroix and Géricault, discovering Arab
horses and horsemanship in the wake of Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in
1799, and of the later French invasion of Algeria in 1830, produced a series of
spectacular canvases for exhibition in the Paris salons, such as Delacroix's
Exercices militaries des Marocains (1832) and Le Kaid, chef marocain
(1837), as well as series of drawings, such as Géricault's Mamluck retenant
un cheval and Mamluck désarconné, showing scenes from battles
waged by Napoleon against the Mamluks in Egypt.
Unlike the somewhat matronly studies of horses done by the English painter
Stubbs in the 18th century, showing the horse as part of the settled, commercial
life of the country gentry, these images stress the energy and agility of the
Arabian horse, with its dished or concave face, large expressive eyes, arched
neck with clean throat latch, high tail carriage and fine muscling.
This unusual exhibition, drawing together material from over a thousand years
of equine history from across the Arab and Islamic world, together with 19th
century European visual commentary on it, successfully draws attention to an
intriguing subject, making connections with horse culture in the Turkic
countries and in Central Asia, where the horse has played a similar military
role, this time linked to nomadism. The 300-page catalogue accompanying the
exhibition, published by Gallimard, will be a work of reference on the subject
for years to come.
Chevaux et Cavaliers arabes dans les arts d'Orient et d'Occident,
Institut du Monde arabe, 1, rue des Fossés-Saint-Bernard, Paris, until 30 March
2003.
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