In defense of shepherds

Some people disparage herdsmen and call them simpletons: "Dumber than a shepherd of eighty [sheep]" is one thing they say, and "Don't go to the shepherd for advice" is another. But the virtues of the shepherd are indicated in hadith. "Never was there a prophet that did not tend a flock, and so did I," the Prophet said, God's blessings and peace be upon him, and: "God never sent a prophet that was not a shepherd. Moses and Aaron were shepherds, and I was sent as shepherd to my people."

[Al-Jahiz says that Ibn Kunasa said:] The owner of a herd of camels contracted a cameleer, saying: "You must tar their mange, and line their trough with clay, and locate strays and turn back runaways. And you must see to their milking without depriving the calves and drinking it all yourself."
      The cameleer said: "Fine, as long as your hands are with mine in extremes of heat and cold, and I am given a seat by the fire, and you say nothing bad about my mother."
     "Okay," said the herd owner, "you can have all that. But if you cheat me, what's the penalty?"
     "Swing your rod," the cameleer said, "and you might hit me, and you might not."

And then there was the boasting-match between two herdsmen. "By God," the first one said, "ever since my youth, I've had no rod but this one, and it's never broken!"
     "Profligate!" said the other. "My hand is the only rod I've ever owned."

A poet [al-Ra‘i al-Numayri] said:

      [So thin] his veins jut, he is gentle with the rod.
          Even in lean times you see his flock well cared for.

From Lectures of the Learned by al-Raghib al-Isbahani

Two recensions

A man described as ‘abāmā’ is a doltish simpleton. Jamīl said (meter: ṭawīl):

           This dolt has never joined a fight, or knelt a camel
               for its saddle as it strains against a tether.
           Herds are what he's busy at, pasture
               his eternal quest. His thoughts are of his nanny goats
           sired by a dusky buck, with horns that poke up
               from their skulls like pods of carob.
           His gut is big, and though his mind's a muddle,
               his eye is ever on the smallest kid, and long his rod.

       

Al-Aṣma‘ī said: A man who is ṭabāqā’ is without insight into what concerns him, as in the verse by Jamīl:

           This dullard's never joined a fight, or knelt a camel
               for its saddle as it strains against a tether.

This is the Basran recension of the verse as al-Aṣma‘ī recited it, and Abū ‘Ubayd reported that he said: "‘Ayāyā’ has the same meaning as ṭabāqā’, and is said of the male camel that won't mount a female." In his Book of Uncommon Words, Abū ‘Ubayd says: "A ṭabāqā’ is an impotent dullard."

From The Curtailed and the Prolonged by Abū ‘Alī al-Qālī