Like any other scarce commodity, soldiers had to be imported from places where they were hungry, ferocious, and abundant. The historian Daniel Pipes notes that these fighters would of necessity hail from “marginal areas” with no strong tradition of central government. The inhabitants of such places were forced by dire conditions to protect themselves by grouping together and reinforcing the bonds of mutual trust…. Elaborate codes of honor and vigilante acts developed to ensure order. The total effect was to sharpen each person’s wits and military capacity. Raiding for booty and feuding were
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