When the FCI gave the Azawakh official recognition in 1981, the breed was referred to as the “Sloughi-Azawakh” possibly because at the time, the names of various sighthounds found throughout Africa and the Middle East were, in Arabic, called Sloughi, or sighthound. Different transliterations of Arabic into European languages confused matters that were already perplexing because the colloquial “Sloughi” and the classical “Saluki” were sometimes used interchangeably, and finally, there were those who even  thought the Azawakah was related to the Sloughi.

In 1986,  the FCI dropped the word, “Sloughi,” from the name, and the Azawakh was recognized in its own right, though throughout the world, it was known by various names including Bareeru, Hanshee, Idi, Oska, Rawondu, Tuareg Sloughi, Wulo, and of course, Azawakh, so named for the Azawakh valley (and which means “land of the north”).

By the time the FCI dropped “Sloughi” from the breed name, the Azawakh had made its American debut in the mid 1980s (though Azawakh had already appeared in Europe around 1970, the first ones arriving in former Yugoslavia and France), and the first US litter was whelped on October 31, 1987 (the first brindle litter not whelped until November 27, 1990.

Of all the breed’s names, however, we find the name given to it by tTuareg nomads in the Sahel region of Africa the most beautiful: Idii n’ Illeli, which translates to “sighthound of the free people.”

Image appears courtesy of Daoud Abdullah Abdullah