Aswārān

(Horse-riding). The Iranian lands, in the course of their long history, have been the source of major advances in the techniques of equitation. The Parthian cataphractaries (horsemen clad in coats of mail) with their arched saddle-bows prefigured the heavy cavalry of later times (R. Ghirshman, “La selle en Iran,” Iranica Antiqua 10, 1973, pp. 94-107). Moreover Iran was always an important channel of cultural contact between East and West. Thus the stirrup, invented in Central Asia, became known to the Arabs after they had invaded Iran in the seventh century (A. D. H. Bivar, “The Stirrup and Its Origins,” Oriental Arts I, 2, 1955, pp. 61-65; L. White Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change, Oxford, 1962, chap. 1 ). In the Saljuq period, three great Near Eastern equestrian traditions flourished side by side in Iran: That of the Iranians who rode stallions, that of the Arabs who rode mares, and that of the Turks who rode geldings (M. Kretschmar, Pferd und Reiter im Orient. Untersuchungen zur Reiterkultur Vorderasiens in der Seldschukenzeit, Hildesheim and New York, 1980).

Mainly from the thirteenth century onward, we have evidence that the principal suppliers of saddle-horses and cavalrymen were tribes who practiced “vertical” nomadism on horseback, in contrast with the Bedouin Arabs who migrated “horizontally” on camelback (X. de Planhol, Les fondements géographiques de l’histoire de l’Islam, Paris, 1968). Under the Qajars, each tribe was required to place at the government’s, or more often the provincial governor’s, disposal a contingent of armed horsemen proportionate to its strength (A. K. S. Lambton, Landlord and Peasant in Persia, Oxford, 1953); thus Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Farmānfarmā, when governor of Fārs, maintained a permanent force of 1000 cavalrymen and could call up 20,000 in case of need. The tribes likewise supplied horses for the royal stable (peygāh) and stud farm (qoroq or qūrūq), either as obligatory tax-payments or as no less obligatory gifts. No khan could obtain an audience with the shah unless he first sent a troop of horses which might amount to several hundred (G. R. Garthwaite, Khans and Shahs. A Documentary Analysis of the Bakhtiyari in Iran, Cambridge, 1983). The royal stables and stud farms met not only the needs of the shah and his court but also those of the permanent cavalry (rekābī) force, the postal relay services, etc. To maintain the thousands of state-owned horses and the necessary installations such as stables (ṭawīla) and riding-schools (meydān), large staffs with many different skills were required; the amīr-e āḵor, under whose authority they came, was a very important person. It is noteworthy that Iranian breeders developed a flourishing export of riding-horses to India, mainly be sea (P. K. Gode, “Some References to Persian Horses in Indian Literature from A.D. 1500 to A.D. 1800,” Poona Orientalist 11, 1-2, 1946, pp. 1-17).

A modern count gave the total number of horses in Afghanistan as approximately 400,000, of which 35,000 belonged to nomads; almost 300,000 were in the northern region from Badaḵšān to Jūzǰān inclusive (Kabul, Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, 1967). For Iran, the total number is considerably less; 320,000 according to an estimate by the F.A.O. (Rome, 1961). Conditions today are very different from those in the first decade of the twentieth century when the Baḵtīārī tribe alone could mobilize 25,000 horsemen (Ḥāǰǰ ʿAlī-qolī Khan Sardār Asʿad Baḵtīārī, Tārīḵ-eBaḵtīārī, Tehran, 1333/1914, repr. 1361 Š./1982). Even so, most of Iran’s stock of horses still belongs to tribes, principally those of Khorasan (Torkman) and Baluchistan in the east and those of the Zagros in the west. Iranian riding-horses are mainly of two types: Torkman horses (the commonest breed being named Āqqāl Teka) suitable for riding in relatively flat country, and Iranian horses (particularly the Lori breed) which have broader backs and are sure-footed in mountainous country; the Lori breed is often cros