Mullah Nasruddin (Nasreddin Hock),
the eight-centuries-old "wise fool" character originating from Turkey and the Levant, is the subject of thousands of funny, wise tales, jokes, and anecdotes told across the Middle and Far East, and retold today around the world.
Carefully chosen from beloved authentic sources, these pithy stories and folk tales are certain to bring readers a smile, nod, or chuckle of self-recognition on every page.
More than one hundred of Mullah Nasruddin's most enduring, endearing stories, gathered and retold here by an award-winning author, will amuse, illuminate, and captivate folks of all ages with the Mullah's ageless, unique humor and universal humanitv.
Genre: HUMOR / Topic / Cultural, Ethnic & RegionalMore than 300 copies sold
Softcover Best Sellers Rank: #728,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) ~ #1,910 in Folklore & Mythology Studies ~ #14,924 in Humor (Books)
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The smuggler
Time and time again, Mullah Nasruddin passed from Persia to Greece on donkey-back. Each time he carried two bales of hay and trudged back without them.
On every border crossing, Daoud, the customs guard, checked Nasruddin from turban to toes but could not find any contraband. He was confident that the Mullah had hidden something in his cargo that he was smuggling as he crossed the border heading south.
Once, the guard even made the Mullah take down the hay from his donkey’s back, and then repeatedly poked the bales with a pitchfork. Confounded, Daoud found nothing amiss.
“What business do you have outside of the country, Nasruddin?” he asked.
“Among the many things I do for work these days, I am a smuggler.”
Despite this confession, and Daoud’s best efforts searching the Mullah and his hay, he could never find anything illicit, or even vaguely incriminating.
Years later, much more prosperous, Nasruddin was traveling in Egypt, where he happened to run into his old friend Daoud, the customs officer, who had also retired and was on vacation. They agreed to take a cup of tea together and catch up on old times.
“Now that we are out of the jurisdiction of Persia and Greece,” whispered Daoud, “living here in the lap of luxury, please, Nasruddin effendi, tell me at long last: what were the contraband items you were hiding, as you passed on donkeyback through customs, that we could never detect?”
Nasruddin answered, “What was it, Daoud effendi, you ask, that I was smuggling all those many years that you never discovered, even though you continually subjected me to searches of my person and property?”
He smiled, sipped his tea, and said, “Donkeys.”
