Camels refuse to have sexual intercourse with their dams, even when forced; for once a camel driver, who was in want of a male camel, veiled the dam and introduced her young to her. When the covering fell off in the act of copulation, he finished what he was about, and soon after bit the camel driver to death.
-Book of Animals, Aristotle
The camel is malevolent, extremely spiteful, and bitter. It has a long retentive memory and forgets nothing. It will look for an opportunity to be alone with someone who has beaten or maltreated it to take revenge on him, and when the chance comes it will not spare him. It is like a despicable man who does not spare the other when he gains the upper hand. It is said that among all the beasts of burden it is the one most like the Arab in character.
-Book of the Characteristics of Animals, anonymous 13th C. Arabic manuscript
I once heard Abdullah curse a camel he was trying to unhobble that was thrashing dangerously about him. Ummak!, Ummak!, Ummak! Your Mother! That even made it into the film, un-subtitled. But I never heard him or any other drover drop the Mother of all F bombs on one of their camels. That would have gone too far, because despite being fed up with ibl near the end of the trail, they realized they weren’t going anywhere alone.
They told me of having seen their friends bitten, kicked, pinned to the ground and suffocated to death by camels with their necks. Yet I would not call any of the Kababish despicable, vengeful, or bitter. They laughed more often than cursed when their herd acted badly. They thought camels more intelligent and more noble than bagar, cows, and they a more intelligent and noble tribe than the Baggara, cattle breeders. Camels certainly they never called mother f***ers, although when angry they might call out someone else’s mother.