Once, the Mullah ...

One of our ‘permanent house guests’ is Mullah Nasruddin. My husband Taba comes from the Azerbaijani part of Iran, where most people seem to possess an inexhaustible repertoire of Mullah stories. Taba is known to have a story that begins with “Once, the Mullah …” for almost any occasion, and they all seem so apt; there seems to be a Nasruddin story for every event or mood!

Hundreds of stories about Mullah Nasruddin are enjoyed throughout the world; some are from ancient days, some are still being created. Many cultures claim him as their own, though the names he is known by sound different, and spellings in the written versions vary. Iranians and Azerbaijanis, as well as Indians know this wise-fool as Mullah Nasruddin or Naseeruddin, while Turks and Greeks call him Hoja Nasreddin, and Kazakhs have Koja Nasreddin. In Arab countries he is Juha or Goha

Nasruddin is a wonderful example of the wise fool, his words often carrying a peculiar ‘afterthought’ kind of logic. Our laughter at these stories reflects our deeper recognition of his truth, which may be upside down and backwards, but in the end actually makes sense.

Once the Mullah was asked by a local farmer whether his olive trees would bear olives that year. "Oh yes, they will," said Mullah Nasruddin.
"How do you know?"
"I just know, that is all."
Later the same man saw Nasruddin leading his donkey along the seashore, looking for driftwood. "There is no wood here, Mullah, I have looked," he called out. But hours later the same man saw Nasruddin making his way home, tired out, still without fuel.
"You are a man of perception, who can tell whether an olive tree will bear or not. Why can't you tell whether there is wood at the seashore?"
"I know what must be," said Nasrudin, "but I do not know what may be."

Though characterized by humor, Nasruddin stories deal with issues fundamental to human nature. Themes include those like rank, hierarchy and privilege, social injustice, ignorance, arrogance, narrow-mindedness and self-centeredness. Though most of the stories are set in 13th century chai-khanehs or teahouses, in public baths, caravanserai and market places, Mullah's observations about human nature are so insightful and told so cleverly that they have the power to entertain and teach those of us from very different times, different places and cultures.

Once, the Mullah felt it was time to visit a Turkish bath.
The high-ceilinged chambers and washrooms were swarming with people glad to escape the heat outside.As his clothes were old and shabby, Nasruddin was handed a worn, soiled towel, a tiny scrap of soap - and then ignored.
Still, on his way out, he left a generous tip - a gold coin.
The following week when he went to the bath again, he was treated like a pasha; big soft clean towels, special soap at the soaking pools, an enervating massage with scented oil.
On his way out, he threw a small copper coin to the attendants.
They rushed after him: "Why master, didn't you like the service? The last time you were here you gave us a gold coin."
"Ah, but the gold was for this time, my good men,” The Mullah genially explained. “The copper is for my last visit."

Storytellers conjured up a Nasruddin to fit their needs and purposes. You will find a bumbling Mullah we can simply laugh at, or one that gets the better of the rich and powerful, or a wise Mullah who nudges our awareness, though in peculiar ways, and awakens and teaches us.

Once, the Mullah was invited by the people of the city to deliver a sermon.
He began by asking "Do you know what I am going to say?" The audience replied "No, sir, we don’t."
Gathering up his robes around him in annoyance, he declared: "I have no desire to speak to people who don't even know what I will be talking about." And he left.
The people felt embarrassed and called him back again the next day. This time when he asked the same question, the people quickly chorused, "Yes, yes, we do!" at which Nasruddin snapped, "Well, since you already know what I am going to say, I won't waste any more of your time and mine." And again he walked off.
Now the people were really perplexed, in fact, some were thoroughly annoyed; so they worked on a new strategy. They decided to invite the Mullah to speak again the following week. This time too, he asked the very same question - "Do you know what I am going to say?"
The people had planned their response, and so half of them answered "Yes!" while the other half replied, just as strongly, "No!"
This time, they were sure, they had him.
Mullah Nasruddin looked slowly around the room: "Those of you who know what I am going to say, can tell it to the other half who don’t…" and swept out once again.

Sometimes you meet a bold subversive Mulla who makes fun of unjust power and fanaticism, a wily Mulla who gets the better of others even when he messes up, one who cannot resist making fun of pomposity and rank.

Once the Mullah had invited a self-important visiting scholar to his house for a meal. Arriving at Nasruddin's house, he knocked and knocked. No answer. He peered in through the windows. There was no-one there. The scholar waited and waited, becoming angrier and angrier. “Doesn't he realize who I am?" the scholar thundered as he stomped around Nasruddin's courtyard.
After a good amount of waiting, he became so angry he grabbed a piece of charcoal he found in the yard, and scrawled the words “Stupid Fool” on Mulla’s door before he left.
Nasruddin returned way past lunch time, and suddenly remembered the meeting.
He rushed back to the marketplace shouting for the scholar, and found him in a tea shop.
"Oh, I am so sorry, please forgive me, I had forgotten about our appointment, but remembered when I saw your name written on my door."

Among my favorite Mulla stories are those that highlight an ‘obvious’ truth which is usually overlooked, and show an unexpected angle which challenges our assumptions and makes us examine them afresh. In fact, the older Mulla stories communicate an almost mystic awareness. The twists and flips in Mulla stories, by disrupting our usual linear cause-and-effect analytic thought patterns, toss us into the intuitive ‘field of the possible’, in which learning happens.

Mullah Nasruddin, as guest of Tamerlane’s court spent his days dressed in pure silk robes, sitting and eating at the royal table. Royal advisers actually sought his advice while the powerful laughed heartily at the bite of his jokes, and in appreciation, they also showered him with gold coins.A party of young noble princes at the court, rich and brave, though not particularly experienced, turned to the old Mullah one day to demand: "Now tell us Seeker of the Truth, from all that you must know; how many grains of sand make a heap?"
"I do not know, blue-blooded princes.""Why, then will you care to tell us, Respected Dervish, this simple thing: Why can you see in a mirror your right and left eye and ear reversed in the reflection, but not your face up side down?"
"If only I knew, noble offspring of lordly fathers.""Then tell us at the least, Honorable Sheikh, what is the meaning of life?"
"This I only know, that I do not know, splendid princes."At this, the noblemen exclaimed: "You don't know this, and don't know that! Why then are you, old ignoramus, fed and dressed and honored at the royal tables?”
"Actually, noble masters", replied Mullah, "I am dressed in silk and fed with good food and paid in gold only for the little that I do know. If I were to be rewarded for what I don't know, all the treasuries of the world put together would not be sufficient."

The Mullah Nasruddin stories will last as long as there is learning -- and laughter.

May the Mullah stories journey us to insight and wisdom through laughter.
Marguerite Theophil

Told by generation after generation, the traditional stories
projected the deepest wishes of the folk,
generalized diverse characters into a few types,
selected the incidents that would most strikingly illustrate
what heroes and heroines, witches, enchanters, giants and dwarfs,
the haughty, the envious and the unfaithful were capable of.
As in work long thought about and lived with, the stories
have something which the most brilliant improvisations are without –
depth, fullness, a mysterious relation of parts.
We can think upon them, reflect over them…
~ Padraic Colum

Scheherazade and the Everafter

"One Thousand Nights and a Night," more familiar as “The Arabian Nights”, brought the unforgettable Scheherazade into our lives.

The frame story has Shahriar, a king so shocked by his wife's infidelity, he has her killed. Believing all women to be equally unfaithful, he takes a new wife every night, who is executed at dawn. This continues for some time, until the wazir's daughter Scheherazade, sickened by this, comes up with an ingenious plan, volunteering to become Shahriar's next wife.

Each night, Scheherazade spends many hours “beguiling the night" with a tale that always breaks off before dawn at a key point of the tale, ensuring that the king keeps her around a little bit longer to hear a little bit more.

The stories-within-stories have that special quality that can only come to tellings that have passed through many voices in many lands - India, Persia and several Arab lands. There are love stories, tragedies, comedies, burlesques, poems, mixed in with historical accounts and religious legends. Their essential quality is the interweaving of unusual, extraordinary and supernatural threads into the fabric of everyday life, in a world in which people often suffer but come out all right in the end.

By the time 1001 nights are up, Scheherazade has given birth to three sons, and the king, convinced of her faithfulness and impacted by her brilliance, makes her queen, revoking his decree. Meanwhile he has learnt a lot about life – the good and bad, the ups and downs.

Scheherazade was not only a fictional character but also the key as the "frame" story around the numerous tales; what we in India would call a “sutradhar”, implying a connector. Scheherazade is indeed about connection. In many ways.

This connection is enduring, not just between story and story in her tellings, but in the many stories written years later, including many today.

Anthony O’Neill’s “Scheherazade” focuses on the world of Baghdad under the rule of Haroun al-Rashid, highlighting a motley crew of seven chosen to rescue Scheherazade from a fate worse than death.

In Penelope Lively’s short narrative, “The Five Thousand and One Nights” we meet Scheherazade today, driving the king mad with her renditions of stories reminiscent of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters; he is bored silly and longs for the ‘old style’ stories she once enchanted him with!

In one of the stories in his “Chimera, “reworkings of traditional myths and stories, John Barth presents the story of the Arabian Nights from the perspective of Dunyazade, Scheherazade's younger sister.

Crafting imaginative sequels, Edgar Allan Poe in “The Thousand-And-Second Tale Of Scheherazade” and Joseph Roth in his “Scheherazade in Vienna, The Tale of the 1002nd Night'' (that has less to do with Scheherazade, and more with intricacies of storytelling), emulate the book’s early translators -- it may come as a surprise that several of the more familiar stories, like Aladdin and Ali Baba were, in fact, inserted only in the 18th century by Antoine Galland.

Again, this connection is enduring, not just between story and story, but in the way we see – and understand - Scheherazade today.

To re-look at Scheherazade anew is to see a woman's life before male-centered customs and interpretations consigned girls and women to second-class citizenship. In a translation by Husain Haddawy from a 14th-century Syrian manuscript,we are told she is a woman who “… had read the books of literature, philosophy and medicine. She knew poetry by heart, and studied historical reports, and was acquainted with the sayings of men and the maxims of sages and kings. She was intelligent, knowledgeable, wise and refined."

Fatima Mernissi’s, whose earlier work pointed out how differently those in the East and the West regarded Scheherazade, later wrote “Scheherazade Goes West”, a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of the Western female trapped in an invisible socio-cultural harem.

In “When Dreams Travel”, Gita Hariharan allows us a glimpse of the two sisters grown old in the ‘ever after’ that most stories end with, leaving us to wonder, imagine about the everafter place where anything that anyone can imagine is at least as true as all that went before.

Marilyn Jurich's “Scheherazade's Sisters” reminds us of fables, myths, stories of clever and self-sufficient women who demonstrate initiative and courage, turning obstacles into triumphs. She sees them as tricksters in female form, calling them trickstars. The trickstar exposes hypocrisies and stupidities in the social establishment and introduces new ways of seeing and being. Through the trickstar's efforts, the "system" is circumvented or foiled, often enlightened, and usually improved.

Azar Nafisi, while a university professor in Tehran, collected six of her brightest female students in Tehran and began study of a multivolume version of Scheherazade's stories. She saw in the fictional heroine, "who made her world as she talked about it," a woman who used her courage, erudition and wit to face down her own likely death and who, in the process, transformed a kingdom and a king.

The stories Scheherazade wove together hold modern-day writers, and us, in her spell. Not only do her stories enthrall and transport us, but she is a timeless example of a seemingly ‘weaker’ story character who outwitted authority and conventional power – in the most unexpected of ways.

For Scheherazade the choice was between imagination and cruel injustice, between death and story. Through her stories she saved her own life, the life of her people, and the life of the sultan too; without her he would go on being a monster.

Story has the power to transform the monster in us all.

May we learn to use story to heal and empower.
Marguerite Theophil

The traditional story is the product of a whole chain of tellers.
It gives us the distilled wisdom of the culture from which it springs,
filtered over many years of telling and retelling.
Examine a traditional story and you can see
the values of the culture that told it.
The story is shaped by the culture, and in turn,
the culture is shaped by the story.
~ Loren Niemi and Elizabeth Ellis

Meeting Simorgh

'Journey' stories that tell of a spiritual quest have always fascinated me.

As a little girl I used to beg my story-telling great grandmother to read me The Pilgrim’s Progress again and again. I would listen in wide-eyed wonder at the young man Christian’s efforts and tests, shuddering as I anticipated the moment where the character called Ignorance, who like Christian, had managed to overcome many obstacles and get right to the gate of the Celestial City, but could not produce the essential document for entry, was carried by the Shining Ones to a door in the side of the hill from where he was whooshed down back to the bottom.

When my Iranian husband gave me a translation of a favorite spiritual journey story, the Persian mystic Farid-ud din Attar’s Manteq at-tair or The Conference of The Birds, I came across another set of sometimes enchanting and sometimes maddeningly obscure stories-within-stories that would freight me on another journey of deep understanding of the difficulties and joys of the chosen path, of deep identification with the Divine Presence, of affirming that presence within myself and all around me.

In its basic outline, the book starts of as the birds of the world gather together to seek a king. The Hoopoe bird acts as the sheikh, the leader and guide, tells them they do have a king, the “Simorgh”, who lives far away across seven valleys, though “He is always near to us, though we live far away from his Transcendent majesty.”

The Hoopoe also serves as Attar’s ‘voice’ – aided in the Persian language by the absence of quotation marks, which at first is confusing for the reader; is it Attar or the Hoopoe speaking? Later you realize it doesn’t really matter.

The Hoopoe/Attar says at the outset: “Do not imagine that the way is short; vast seas and deserts lie before his court. Consider carefully before you start; the journey asks from you a lion’s heart. The road is long, the sea is deep – one flies buffeted by joy and then by sighs.”

At first, the birds, “…Effusively responded to his words. All praised the splendor of their distant king. All rose impatient to be on the wing.” But reflecting on the journey’s length, they already show their hesitation: “… Their ambitious strength dissolved; each bird according to his kind, felt flattered, but reluctantly declined”

The birds, “each according to his kind”…

It’s easy to be amused at the penetrating pictures Attar paints of each bird just through its excuse, showing us the seduction that holds back each one from taking the first step. Only when we turn the mirror in, towards ourselves – a picture of our own reluctance and ‘reasons’ to embark on a journey we profess to desire strongly is shown up, and the amusement gives way to discomfort.

The Nightingale claims he cannot leave his beloved rose. “It is for me she grows. What greater bliss could life provide me anywhere than this?” He is shown to be seduced by being needed.

The seduction of the Peacock is his knowledge of the familiar. He is fixated on the past, lost now, but still definitely more real to him than: “The king you praise; too unknown a goal. My inward gaze is fixed forever on that lovely land – there is the goal which I can understand.”

The Duck is seduced by her present comfort zone – the water, but cloaks this as her proud obedience to the rules of prayer and purity that the water helps ensure. She makes no distinction between the purity of her environment and her own – the one implies the other.

For the Partridge his form of seduction lies in his possessions, his jewels he cannot be parted from, as he claims they are eternal. He rationalizes it this way: “To yearn for something other than a jewel is to desire what dies – to be a fool.”

The Finch’s odd seduction is her excuse of smallness and unworthiness; “I do not deserve to see His face” (… and so I cannot go!). One by one, many more birds make their excuses – and decline.

All this, before the journey even begins.

During the journey itself, those who finally set out – the hundred thousand – voice their fears, their doubts, their hesitation. Many give up at various points of the journey, some early on, some much later. For each one, the Hoopoe has a string of stories. Reading or listening to these stories unfold, the realization is strengthened – the birds are really us, who claim to be Seekers, but find our various reasons and excuses to drop out along the way.

Surprisingly, it is more than half-way through the book that a bird asks how long the journey actually is, and the Hoopoe describes the seven {italic}Wadis {/italic}, meaning settlements, abodes, often translated as ‘valleys’, beginning with the Wadi of the Quest, going on to the Wadis of Love, of Insight into Mystery, of Fulfillment, then Desirelessness, followed surprisingly by that of Bewilderment, till at last you reach Annihilation or Absorption.

Though I have read commentaries describe this as the ultimate stopping place, Attar adds two further lines, which gives me the same sense of listening to the part of the other story, where Christian and Ignorance wait to be allowed in – or not. Attar says of the seventh station, “And there you are suspended, motionless, till you are drawn in, the impulse is not yours …”

The entire beautiful work is about individual effort as well as what we can call ‘Grace’, both being necessary for spiritual progress.

Coming back to our birds, though “a world of birds set out”, after years of difficult traveling, there remain just thirty at the end, “thirty exhausted, wretched, broken things.”

They linger, at times hopeful, at times hopeless, as time passes, till finally a herald arrives. Discouraging at first, he urges them to fly back, but their passion and persistence are so strong, he unlocks the guarded door to the innermost Light of Light and gives them a page, which, when read would make known the concealed meaning of their journey.

The “fateful page” reveals to them the powerful, disturbing truth that it was them – it is us- that has made every decision and action undertaken throughout history; they are –we are – therefore, responsible for each of them.

And then, for the thirty who remain:
“There in the Simorgh’s radiant face they saw themselves.
They were the Simorgh and the journey’s end.
They see the Simorgh – at themselves they stare …”

This significant moment is so potent in the Persian language, as si is the word for ‘thirty’, and morgh is bird(s). The si morgh see the Simorgh.

It does seem like the narrative is hurtling to a sense of identification of Creator and creation. After all, Attar did admire the mystic al-Hallaj, who shockingly declared, “An al haq.,” which translates “I am the Truth,” even “I am God.” But Attar draws back from this radical stance. His birds puzzle: “How is it true that ‘we’ is not distinguished here from ‘you’? They hear: “I am a mirror set before your eyes. And all who come to my splendor see themselves, their own, unique reality.” And, “It is yourselves you see and what you are. Who sees the Lord? It is himself each sees.”

The last two lines in the translation of Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis have Attar send us out on our own journeying with: “I have described the way. Now you must act. There is no more to say.”

May your journeying be full of adventure and meaning.
Marguerite Theophil

This invitation to wonder is contained within the stories of all cultures.
These are not just quaint tales of old
but maps of the journey of the soul into connection with the creative source of life.
These stories are intended to spark the imagination
and kindle the fire that needs no wood.
~ Tony Cuckson

Preparing to receive the Gift of Story

‘Teaching Stories’ is a term used for stories and anecdotes, particularly those that come to us from the Sufi tradition, that were created as vehicles for the transmission of Wisdom.

Now, knowledge is something we can quite easily get from these stories or texts, but wisdom – ah that is something else; and something that requires a kind of “slow-simmer yet known in a flash” state of openness of mind. Ordinary knowledge can come quickly; wisdom can be maddeningly slow. Little wonder then, that we often settle for the former.

Idries Shah, whose translations and commentaries on Sufi thought and Sufi stories made them accessible to English-language readers, wrote that Sufi teaching stories are works of art which are used to transmit to us a Higher knowledge. We cannot perceive this Higher Knowledge because we are not prepared for it; mostly settling for a lower level, ordinary knowledge. We don’t even really know what this ‘Higher’ might be, and in fact, many of us don’t even suspect its presence.

Through stories, the preparation we need can be developed, by not only reading or listening to the stories once, but by getting to know the stories - studying them and familiarizing ourselves with them. Yet paradoxically, this ‘effort’ is never enough to get to the layers of deep meaning in them.

We get close to the wisdom of these stories by “soaking in story” as the students of the old teachers were required to do, so that their inner meanings are slowly made known to us, as we need them.

In fact, here is a story that illustrates this period of ‘preparation’:

There was once a woman who had heard of the Fruit of Heaven, which when eaten would give the person immense and immediate knowledge. She desperately wanted to find this. So she sought out a wise dervish named Alef and asked him: “How can I find this fruit, so that I may attain to immediate knowledge?”
“I would advise you to study with me”, said the dervish, “But if you wish otherwise, you will have to travel resolutely and at times restlessly throughout the world.”
She left him and sought another sage, Wajid the Wise, and then found Salim the Sage, then later she went to Karim the Crazy, then she sought out Ali the Secretive, even Rahman the Elusive, and many more.
This way, she wandered thirty years in her search. Finally she came upon a beautiful garden, and there in the center stood the magnificent Tree of Heaven, and from its branches hung the luscious Fruit of Heaven.
Standing beside the Tree was Alef, the first dervish she had met and questioned.
“Why did you not tell me that you were the Custodian of the Fruit of Heaven when I first came to you?” she asked him.
“Because then you would not have believed me. Besides, the Tree produces fruit only once in thirty years and thirty days.”

Some stories give up their meanings to us more readily; others don’t. For the second kind, a process of preparation is required, that is not the same kind of preparation our education system teaches us these days. Here, to learn something, you may have often to be exposed to it many times, perhaps from different perspectives, and you also have to give it the kind of respectful attention which will enable you to learn. Here, you are expected to ‘be’ with the story. Hear it, read it, say it aloud many times. Truly enjoy it; be-friend it.

These stories were not listened to or read to be understood through the mind only, but to be absorbed into the very texture of our conscious and inner self. Teachers of these Traditions understood that sometimes, we learn by adopting and absorbing the experience directly, even without the participation of our logical, analytical minds. After multiple hearings or readings, these teaching stories not only seem to reside in one’s memory, their impact can manifest itself a long time after hearing them, and in a manner quite different from what we expect.

In general, in our hurry to ‘get it’, Shah points out that if a person feels he or she has ‘understood’ a story, then he has understood it only at the level where he stands at present moment, or understands the story at the level of his conditioning. If one decides “This is the meaning”, there is a very real chance of blocking any further, deeper impact of the story on one’s inner being.

Sufism acknowledges that people have different capacities to understand esoteric and mystical learning, and its writings and stories and poems usually have several layers so that different readers will learn at the level appropriate to them.

I experienced something like this when my husband and I have worked on some translations from the Persian to the English of the poems of the mystic Hafez. There are times when a translation seems to be ‘going well’, you have the rhythm, the nuances, but you stumble at a turn of phrase that can say two rather different things! Which way to go? You try to approach it logically, rationally, to make ‘sense’. Then in frustration you set it aside. But not really, because it bothers you, however vaguely. Then after a pause, you find the courage to go back to it – and suddenly, you break through to another layer, and what you wrote before is no longer what you ‘hear’ the poet now saying! This is always a magical, mystical moment.

And for these reasons, I do believe that in spite of bringing the Sufi mystics more easily within the grasp of thousands of people, and in spite of having some very beautiful and inspiring poems for those of us who do not know Persian or Arabic, the creators of the very popular ‘versions’ (note – these are most times not even translations from the original language; they are often versions culled from other English translations!) do a great injustice to themselves and their readers. Even if the books do sell in millions.

The original creators of these poems and stories did not want to give us a ‘pre-digested’ form of the learnings, nor really something our minds could easily relate to. They were intelligent enough to do so if they had wished to. They also respected the intelligence of their students. They wanted us to be with the story, be with the poetry, be with the teachings that would slowly and surely leach their wisdom into our lives. We claim we don’t have time to let this happen these days – and are that much the poorer for this.

Jalaludin Rumi’s beautiful poems have been likened to the honey that attracts the bee; but he embedded within them deeper ideas, declaring, “You get out of it what is in it for you.”

For those who wish to learn most fully from Story, it is important not to consider any ‘knowing’ or ‘understanding’ - no matter how significant it may seem, no matter how useful an insight it gives - as the final meaning. We need to remain always aware of the possibility of another angle of deeper insight, another understanding, which may appear as a result of holding ourselves gently and respectfully open to the manifold gifts these stories have to offer.

May you soak in Story to prepare you for deeper understanding of the stories and of yourself. Marguerite Theophil

When Stories nestle in the body,
soul comes forth.
~Deena Metzger