Either ride them or leave them alone.
-a hadith, or saying of the Prophet, as recorded by Ibn Hanbal, referring to the camels when he saw men sitting on them idly
To saddle a camel is no small task; it is rather like building a house.
-The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, by Chingiz Aitamov
On our midday breaks, KhairAllah insisted on unsaddling our camels so they could rest or roll or graze without a weight on their backs. I thought this was not necessary, since once we’d dismounted, most of the weight they carried was gone, and they didn’t roll anyway. Other camels were always taking a dust and sand bath, but not ours.
But KhairAllah was a trail boss, khabir, a word that means expert or informed one, and he knew best how to get his men and more importantly his camels up the trail to Egypt in one piece. So we did as he said, even if we had to rebuild our house after every siesta, when all we wanted to do was to go in and close the door and take a longer rest. That’s how hot and tired we were on the trail. You can imagine how the camels felt.