What camels
have going for them is their incredible ability to cope with short supplies
over long periods; they are thus economically efficient and low-maintenance.
What they have going against them is that their sensitive feet cannot cope with
cold or uneven terrain. Muhammad may have gone to the mountain, but his immediate
successors did no such thing, at least not to begin with, and throughout
Islamic history mountain ranges have proven – by chance or by design – to be
safe havens for those seeking to withstand pressure to convert, conform, or
cooperate more generally. On account of their relative inaccessibility,
mountains have helped locals as well as newcomers seeking refuge to retain
their religious traditions (Christians in northern Spain,
Anatolia, Armenia, Lebanon, and the Ethiopian highlands; and Zoroastrians and
other dualists in northern Iran), and their cultural traditions (Persian in
Iran, Berber in North Africa, Kurdish in northern Iraq), just as they were
exploited by those escaping the reach of the central authorities more generally
(Ismailis in Syria and northern Iran, Zaydis in Yemen, and the Taliban in
Afghanistan). It is not for nothing that Moroccan political authorities
referred to their mountainous regions as ‘siba’, [the lands of] rebellion.
Soviet and latterly American troops in Afghanistan learned these facts the hard
way; local Muslims have
known them all
along.
