Camel: Al-Ba'ir (البعير) — The Camel Named After Its Dung, and the Camels That Spoke

A Name Nobody Would Choose for Himself

Imagine being named after your droppings. That is exactly what happened to the camel. “It is called ba'ir,” the book explains, “because it yab'aru” — produces dung. The Arabic grammarians even worked out the exact voweling of the verb with the delight of men who have nothing better to do. The word is generous, though: one name covers both the male and the female, and the Arabs lined the camel’s family up against the human one — the jamal is the man, the naqah is the woman, the qa'ud is the youth, the qalus is the maiden. A Bedouin once told his friends, “My ba'ir threw me” — and he meant his she-camel.

But the funniest detail comes from Mujahid, the early Qur'an commentator. Explaining Pharaoh’s herald crying “a camel’s load of grain” in the story of Joseph, he said the word ba'ir was meant — because some Arabs called even a donkey a ba'ir. The jurists loved this. If a man bequeaths “a ba'ir” in his will, does his heir get a she-camel too? Al-Shafi'i, al-Rafi'i, and al-Subki weighed in across the centuries, and the majority said yes — the female is included, though you could not argue about it the way scholars do without secretly enjoying it.

Take It by the Hump

The entry’s legal section gave me my favorite small ritual in the whole book. Two camels fall into a well, one on top of the other. A man stabs the upper one with the ritual cut — and the lower one is crushed to death by its weight before the knife reaches it. Ruling: the lower camel is forbidden meat, because the stabbing never touched it. Medieval law was precise about everything, even disasters at the bottom of a well.

And when you buy a camel — not inherit one, buy one — the Prophet’s reported advice (from Ibn 'Umar, in Abu Dawud, al-Nasa'i, and Ibn Majah) is to take it by the top of its hump, pray for blessing, and say: “O GOD, I ask You for its good and the good of its nature, and I seek refuge in You from its evil and the evil of its nature.” The entry adds one more line that made me laugh despite myself: “There is no camel but that a devil is on the top of its hump.” So mention GOD’s name when you climb up. You will want to be on good terms with whatever lives up there.

The Camel That Caught the Caravan

Before the Battle of Badr, Khallad ibn Rafi' and his brother rode out on a thin, exhausted camel. Near al-Rawha' the animal simply knelt and would not move. The two men made a vow: if they reached Badr, they would sacrifice it and give its meat to charity. Then the Prophet dismounted, performed ablution, spat into his ablution water, and had the men open the camel’s mouth. He poured the water in, then over its head, its neck, its withers, its hump, its rump, and its tail — and said, “O GOD, carry Rifa'a and Khallad.” The camel rose. The two men set out again and reached Badr with the front of the caravan. And at Badr they kept their word: the camel knelt, they sacrificed it, and the meat went in charity. I read that story twice. Promises to animals, in that world, were kept even when the animal was already lost.

The Camel That Testified in Court

This is the story the entry tells twice, from two chains of narration, and it is the wildest courtroom scene I have found in this book. A Bedouin led his camel by the halter through the crossroads of Medina — and a man stepped forward claiming the Bedouin had stolen the animal from him. The camel began to low and moan. The Prophet listened to its ragha' and haneen, really listened, the way you lean toward something that is trying to talk. Then he turned to the accuser and said: “Leave him. For the camel testifies against you that you are a liar.”

He asked the Bedouin what he had said when he first arrived that morning. The man answered with a prayer of such beauty that I will not paraphrase it: blessings and peace upon Muhammad “until no blessing remains, until no peace remains, until no mercy remains.” And the Prophet said: “GOD has made it plain to me. The camel speaks by His power — and the angels have filled the horizon of the sky.”

The She-Camel That Spoke Up for a Man

The second telling is even more dramatic. A man was dragged before the Prophet, accused by witnesses of stealing a she-camel. The order came: cut off his hand. As the man was led away, he kept repeating the same prayer of blessing on Muhammad. Then the she-camel spoke: “O Muhammad — he is innocent of stealing me.” The Prophet asked who would fetch the man, and seventy men of Badr leapt up at once. When they brought him back, he told the Prophet what he had said, and the Prophet said: “For that I saw the angels cutting through the streets of Medina, until they nearly came between me and you. You will come to the Bridge, and your face will shine brighter than the full moon.” In this book, a camel’s testimony outweighs human witnesses — and seventy warriors rush to honor the man it cleared.

The Camel That Was Set Free

The longest story in the entry (reported by Ibn Majah from Tamim al-Dari) is the one that stayed with me the longest. A camel came running up to the Prophet, stood at his head, and lowed. The Prophet told it to be still — “if you are truthful, you have your truthfulness” — and asked the companions what the camel was saying. It was an old camel, its owners decided. They were going to slaughter it and eat it. So it ran away and sought refuge with the Prophet.

Its owners arrived, furious: this is our camel, missing three days, found at your feet. And the Prophet told them what the camel had complained: it had grown up safe among them; they loaded it in summer to the pastures and in winter to the warm places; when it aged they made it a breeding stallion, and GOD gave them many camels from it. “Then this fertile year came, and you decided to slaughter it and eat its flesh.” They admitted it was all true.

“What reward,” the Prophet said, “is this for a faithful servant from its masters?” They promised they would never sell it or slaughter it. He answered, “You lie — it sought your help and you did not help it. I am worthier of mercy than you. GOD has taken mercy from the hearts of the hypocrites and placed it in the hearts of the believers.” Then he bought the camel from them for a hundred dirhams and said: “Go — you are free for the sake of GOD.”

The camel lowed four times at the Prophet’s head. After each of the first three, he said “Amen.” After the fourth, he wept. When the companions asked, he told them what the camel had said: “May GOD reward you, O Prophet, for Islam and the Qur'an” — Amen. “May GOD calm the fear of your community as you calmed my fear” — Amen. “May GOD protect the blood of your community from its enemies as you protected my blood” — Amen. “May GOD not set their might against one another” — and at this he wept. For he had asked this last one of his Lord himself, and been given the others, but refused this one: Gabriel had told him the end of his community would be by the sword. A freed camel, the book says, prayed for a nation — and its prayer was heard three times out of four.

Proverbs, and the Poet in the Howdah

The entry closes the way old Arabic books always close: with proverbs. “Lighter in dream than a camel.” “They are like a camel’s two knees” — perfectly equal, the way we say “neck and neck.” “Like the camel-driver with no camel” — the man who pretends to a trade he does not practice, which the Prophet put more sharply: “The one who feigns fullness from what was not given is like one wearing two garments of falsehood.” And there is the story of Abu Nuwas, the great wit, who met a woman in a howdah on a camel. She unveiled her face — beautiful beyond description — and asked his name. “Your face,” he said. “Then you are al-Hasan,” she answered. The whole book is like that: scholarship on one page, a punchline on the next.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why is the camel called “ba'ir”?

   Because it yab'aru — produces dung. That is the book’s own etymology: the camel is named for its droppings. The name is generous, though: one word covers male and female, and the Arabs mapped the camel’s family onto the human one — jamal for the man, naqah for the woman, qa'ud for the youth, qalus for the maiden.

2. Did a camel really testify in court?

   That is what the book reports, twice, with chains of narration. A camel lowed and moaned at the Medina crossroads while a man accused a Bedouin of theft; the Prophet listened and dismissed the accuser, saying the camel testified the man was lying. In the second report, a she-camel actually spoke — “he is innocent of stealing me” — clearing a man about to lose his hand.

3. What happened to the old camel that escaped slaughter?

   Per the entry’s longest report (Ibn Majah from Tamim al-Dari), the runaway camel complained to the Prophet of years of faithful service and a sudden death sentence. The Prophet bought it for a hundred dirhams and freed it “for the sake of GOD.” Its four lowings brought three “Amens” and one weeping — its prayer for the community was answered three times out of four.