40 Million BCE. Camelids first appear in North America. 2.5 Million BCE. Camelids reach Asia by the Bering Sea land bridge. 4000 BCE. Dromedaries first domesticated in Arabia. 656 CE. The Battle of the Camel. 2002 CE. The first camel beauty contest in UAE.
-Timeline of the Camel, in Camel, Robert Irwin
I don’t know which fact KhairAllah would find more incredible, that camels originated in Amreeka, or that rich Emiratis give big bucks to the most beautiful. For someone who laughed out loud when I told him Americans put camels in zoos, for someone accustomed to appraising their value by how much meat they carry, I guess he’d call one an example of nomadic cognitive dissonance and the other an example of Arab cultural decadence. After 6,000 years of him and his forefathers herding camels, has it only come to this?