A History of Agriculture in India v2.c53.s4: The Camel and the Arab Horse
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c53.s4
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The Camel and the Arab Horse
v2.c53.s4.1
The camel and the Arab horse have played as great a role in the phenomenal rise and spread of Islam as its social revolutionary programme of equality and fraternity. The development of the Arab horse by the Bedouins is the first great achievement in animal breeding of which there is any definite record. The safety of the owners hinged upon the speed and the endurance of their horses and, hence, they laid emphasis on these qualities in their breeding programmes and achieved them to a high degree. Peake and Fleure state that the famous breed of drought-resistant Arab horses was evolved in Nejd, the central oasis of Arabia, about the close of the fourth century. The Arab horse proved a formidable weapon of warfare and the cavalry charges of the Arabs broke up the armies of Iran, Egypt, Byzantium, Spain and the Hindu India.
v2.c53.s4.2
The camel is essentially a desert-dweller and came into its own only when the Afrasian steppe land had dried up. The figure of a camel has been found in a First Dynasty tomb in Egypt. The camel appeared in Mesopotamia about 1000 B.C. However, it was many centuries later that the camel achieved any importance. It was about the fourth century that the camel began to be used as a ship of the desert. The peculiar structure of its stomach with devices for storing water and gobbled-up food enables the camel to pass many days without food and water. With the use of the camel the deserts no longer remained a barrier against human intercourse. The mastery over the camel stimulated intercourse between China, Iran, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Arabia and Europe, and promoted trade. Trade has played a great role in the diffusion of culture and interchange of ideas. A trader acquires a broader outlook and sheds local prejudices by meeting people with different customs. Trade sharpens the critical faculty and thus opens the gates of knowledge and progress.
v2.c53.s4.3
How the animals and plants which form a part of a people's environment affect their economic and social life is also interesting. As the wealth of a desert nomad consists of camels, horses, sheep, goats and date-palms, the mathematical apportionment of shares among parents, brothers, sisters, daughters, etc., is peculiarly suitable for such communities. This shows how suitable Islamic law of inheritance is for desert nomads. On the other hand, the exclusion of females from inheritance to maintain the solidarity of the village community was peculiarly suitable for the peasants of the Hindu India.