How can I become a Member of Al Khamsa?
Al Khamsa Inc. does not have formal membership or dues. How YOU can support Al Khamsa, Inc.

What is an Al Khamsa Arabian Horse?
The horses of primary interest to Al Khamsa, which are called Al Khamsa Arabian Horses, are those horses in North America that can reasonably be assumed to descend entirely from Bedouin Arabian horses bred by horse breeding Bedouin tribes of the deserts of the Arabian peninsula without admixture from sources unacceptable to Al Khamsa. Al Khamsa reserves the right to determine which horses are called Al Khamsa Arabian Horses. Source: Al Khamsa Bylaws

In other words, any horse in North America, or with descent in North America, which Al Khamsa, Inc. believes, after study, to descend entirely from Arabian horses bred by the nomadic Bedouin horse-breeding tribes of the Arabian Peninsula is an Al Khamsa Arabian.

What is the Al Khamsa Roster?
The Roster is an index of those Al Khamsa Arabiansin North America that are believed to be capable of producing Al Khamsa Arabian foals or that have descendants believed to be capable of producing Al Khamsa Arabian foals. In other words, the Roster is a list of the Al Khamsa Arabians with lines still available for preservation breeding in North America.

How can I tell if my horse, or some of its ancestors, are Al Khamsa eligible?
In 2008, Al Khamsa published Al Khamsa Arabians III, with Pedigree Index and Progeny Listings on CD-ROM covering eligible horses, complete with all ancestors. If your horse was registered after the spring of 2007, it will not be there, but if all four grandparents appear on the CD, then your horse qualifies as an Al Khamsa Arabian.

A less detailed but more current version of this database is available without charge on this website, covering eligible horses through Arabian Horse Association #641810 and Canadian Arabian Horse Registry #46256 . Access the Online Roster.

You may now look on Arabian Datasource online for the Al Khamsa Marker or contact the Al Khamsa Business Office if you are in doubt (info@alkhamsa.org).

What are Foundation Horses?
Horses eligible for Al Khamsa have come to North America from a variety of sources and by way of many other countries. To simplify the understanding of the sometimes complex ancestry of our horses, the Foundation stock has been divided into groups designated "Ancestral Elements." An Ancestral Element refers to the country, stud farm, person, or group who imported or was primarily associated with the Foundation Horses within that group. Ancestral Elements do not necessarily conform to modern breeding programs. 
List of Al Khamsa Foundation Horses
See a full copy of the information sheet, "About Your Al Khamsa Arabian."
Order a pedigree certificate certifying your horse as Al Khamsa

What are Ancestral Elements? What is their purpose?
The Ancestral Element concept was developed for organizational efficiently, and to help people identify the bloodline history of the horses listed in the Al Khamsa books. Al Khamsa traces pedigrees back to their end ancestors and calls them Foundation Horses. These Foundation Horses left the Bedouin over a period of more than a century, acquired by people in Egypt, Europe and the Americas.

As of September, 2009, Al Khamsa Foundation Horses include 192 horses acquired by non-Bedouin people from more than 18 tribes between c1800 and 1966. In order to broadly identify the history of the Foundation Horses in any given living Al Khamsa horse, Al Khamsa decided to divide the Foundation Horses into divisions based on some common denominator such as the county, and farm, person, or the group who imported or was primarily associated with the Foundation Horses concerned. These divisions are called Ancestral Elements. Read more about Ancestral Elements.