By Umer Nangiana

As part of The Hunt: Princely Pursuits in Islamic Lands exhibition currently on show, the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) has collaborated with Al Ghannas to organise a showcase of some of the region’s finest hawks and greyhounds, the Falcons and Salukis.
To be held at MIA Park today, the event will feature demonstrations of falcons and salukis and these exquisite animals in action. The audience will also learn about their use in hunting, their care and their continuing importance in the life of modern Qatar.
Al Gannas is the Qatari cultural association dedicated to promoting traditional Arabic hunting, representing Arab hunters in the international and regional contests, organising events and encouraging research and studies in the field.
Hawks are named among the most intelligent birds. They have four types of colour receptors in the eye. These give birds the ability to perceive not only the visible range but also the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, and other adaptations allow for the detection of polarised light or magnetic fields.
This is due to the many photoreceptors in the retina (up to 1,000,000 per square mm for Buteo type of hawks, against 200,000 for humans), an exceptional number of nerves connecting these receptors to the brain, and an indented fovea, which magnifies the central portion of the visual field.
The Saluki is a dog that was historically bred in the Fertile Crescent where agriculture originated. The Salukis are classed as sighthounds and have their typical deep-chested, long legged body. Although they are an independent breed that needs patient training, they are gentle and affectionate with their owners.
The name of the breed first appeared in writing in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and probably derived from Saluqiyyah, which is the Arabic form of Seleucia.
The Arabic word Saluqi is an adjective describing a person or a thing from a place named Saluq. According to Arab tradition, Saluq was an ancient town in Yemen not far from modern Ta’izz and the Arabs associate this town with the origin of the breed.
However, there were in antiquity several other places from which the adjective saluqi might have been derived: Saluq in Armenia, and three towns called Saluqiyah, one near Selifke (Turkey), another near Antioch (Turkey) and third near Baghdad (Iraq).
The latter was the capital of the Seleucid Empire (312BC - 65AD) and the adjective saluqi may have been derived by the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula from the similar sounding word for Seleucid used in the Aramaic and Syriac languages spoken there by the various peoples of that part of Mesopotamia, but there is no irrefutable evidence.
The Hunt: Princely Pursuits in Islamic Lands exhibition is running until January 9, 2016 and showcases the lifestyle, power and bravery of royal hunters as this exhibition draws on highlights from the collections of Qatari and Turkish museums to explore and celebrate the sport of hunting, as well as the related activities of polo, feasting and fighting, all of which feature richly in Islamic art.