Giant camel fair excites breeders in Saudi Arabia

A man with a bag of sugar draws a crowd of beauties at a camel market outside of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on March 1. PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE

This time of year, when the weather here is still cool and comfortable and the flowering plants and shrubs are everywhere, how better to spend a day than to be out in the desert with beautiful camels?

To be sure, the untrained eye might find it hard to appreciate such beauty. But here, camel aesthetics can be evaluated according to a series of precise and exacting standards.

"It's just like judging a beautiful girl," said Fowzan al-Madr, a camel breeder from the Kharj region southeast of Riyadh. "You look for big eyes, long lashes and a long neck -- maybe 39 or 40 inches."

As he spoke, Madr was surveying the offerings at Saudi Arabia's largest camel market, on the outskirts of Riyadh. The souq al-jamal, as the market is called in Arabic, sprawls over the open desert for so many acres that it is handy to have a car to drive from pen to pen.

The days are long past when camels were crucial to life, a chapter lost in increasing urbanization and technology. But there is still pleasure in raising them, as a touchpoint to history, sometimes for milk and meat, for racing and, yes, for their beauty.

CAMELINE BEAUTY

Camel beauty pageants, in which camels are judged on their looks and dressage, are held all over Saudi Arabia.

They have become so popular in recent years that a respected Saudi cleric recently issued a decree against them, saying that they encouraged pride.

The death in January of Mashoufan -- a male camel who earned celebrity status after winning first prize in a number of pageants and was said to be worth more than US$4.5 million -- was widely reported, and his owner received condolences from around the country.

Camel breeding is a multimillion dollar industry in Saudi Arabia, and late winter is an especially popular time for wealthy Saudi camel owners to arrange parties in the desert to spend time with their favorite camels.

"There's a lot of fun involved in owning camels," said Robert Lacey, a British biographer.

He is living in Saudi Arabia while updating his 1983 book, The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud.

PROPER ENTERTAINMENT

"You can go out for the day, two or three hours out of Riyadh, have lunch, play with the camels, have tea, say the sunset prayer in the desert," he said. "Camels are a gentleman's pastime, and this is how a gentleman entertains his friends. In a way, you're also re-enacting the pageant of your ancestors."

Ali bin Talal al-Johany, a former minister of telecommunications, owns a herd of 124 camels and keeps a large framed photograph of his prized bull, Musfer, in his home.

He explained that because Saudi Arabia has developed so quickly, camels had a great deal of symbolism for older Saudis, and owning them was a pleasurable way to feel connected with the past.

"My family always had a very strong relationship with the Bedouin, and the camels remind me of my childhood," Johany said of his passion, which began when the crown prince, Prince Sultan, sent him 15 camels as a gift. "Owning camels is a very sentimental thing for most of us."

Back at the souq al-jamal, Haza al-Shammari, a camel breeder from Ha'il in northern Saudi Arabia, agreed.

"Camels are just like humans," Shammari explained. "They love and hate just like humans. That's why you have to bring them up very gently."

"See this one?" he asked, pointing to a white female camel with long eyelashes and a calm gaze. "She isn't married yet, this one. She's still a virgin. Look at the black eyes, the soft fur. The fur is trimmed so it's short and clean, just like a girl going to a party."

Suddenly, Shammari grabbed the white camel's chin and kissed her square on the mouth.

"When you get to know the camels, you feel love for them. My camels are like my children, my family," he said.