Anecdotes of Mullah Nasrudin

These anecdotes of Mullah Nasruddin were sent by  rose red  from Australia. The Mullah's stories are famous in Tajikistan and Turkey, especially in Iran and our whole country.

Many stories and legends exist about Mullah Nasruddin and his anecdotes, which play a very important part in the traditional verbal literature and in the social and lingual interaction. These anecdotes show the oriental sense of humour. The person Mullah is probably a highly historical figure, a figure of fun and a figure of wisdom and light fiction. There are very different variant legends about him.

The figure of Mullah came maybe into dating back to the Middle Ages. He is supposed to having lived between the 12th and the 13th century, so he lived in the time, when Seljuken ruled in Khorasan. Khorasan (how the current western territory of Afghanistan in the Middle Ages was called) nowadays is a province of Iran with Meshed as its capital. Many people believed, that Sultan Alauddin Jahansuz (burner of the world) from the Seljuk-Dynasty has been a nasty contemporary of Mullah.

In Europe Mullah can be compared with the german Till Eulenspiegel. The oldest manuscript of Mullah was found in 1571. Here he was called Khoja or Efendi. The famous man of humour lived in the fictions in many countries and he was born and buried in many cities of Turkey. One of his graves in Turkey  is a place of pilgrimage. Everybody who came to his grave bursted out laughing. In the door of his monument a very big lock is installed, but the other sides around the monument are open.   

The anecdotes of him imply exactly many funny and serious situations of life. They show the ambiguity of human social interaction in history and the present time. Young and old  tell these anecdotes at their leisure. So they are transferred from generation to generation among the people, therefore many various versions of the stories are existing. Fact is, that somehow his stories give pleasure for today’s people and information about the social-cultural aspects about the people of that time. It’s interesting that the anecdotes of Mullah have played the part of release like weeping and tears did in classical tragedy. Remember Afghans say that laughter is the salt of life.  

The burglar

A thief went to Nasrudin's house and carried away almost  all the possessions of the mullah to his own home. While Nasrudin had been watching from the street. After a few minutes Nasrudin took up a blanket, followed him, went in to his house, lay down and pretended to go to sleep. The thief asked Mullah, "who are you? And what are you doing in my house?" Mullah replied, "we were moving house, weren't we?"  .

Chair or egg

One day Mullah was sitting on chair in a crossway and was enjoying his meal which was egg. A Man was crossing the cross way saw Mullah that he is sitting on chair and enjoying his meal he find it really interesting and went to ask mullah. O Mullah are you sitting on chair and eating egg? Mullah looked at him and said why should I sit on egg and eat the chair.

Not so difficult

The Mullah's neighbour wanted to borrow his cloth-line. Nasrudin said "sorry, I am using it'. Drying flour!'

The neighbour said, 'how on earth can you dry flour on a cloths-line?' Mullah replied, 'it is less difficult than you think when you do not want to lend it'.

Thankful not to loose myself

One day there was news in every corner of the town about the Mullah's donkey which he lost it. When his neighbours heard the news they got sad and decided to go to mullah's house and help him to find his donkey. So they came to mullah's house  and they saw that mullah is very happy and very thankful from god! They find it very interesting and asked mullah: " Mullah aren't you sad about loses of your donkey?" Mullah laughed and said I am happier because god helped me that I was not riding it other wise I was lost as well.

Old graves for new

"when I die' said Nasrudin, 'have me buried in an old grave. 'why?' asked his relatives.

'Because when Munkir  and Nakir, recording angels of good and bad actions, come, I will be able to wave them on, saying that this grave has been counted and entered for punishment already.'

Anachronism

 "why are you sitting at the crossroad mullah?"  " one day something will happen here, and a crowd will gather. When that comes about , I may not be able to get close enough- so I am putting my time now .

Why ask me/

Nasrudin was riding along one day when his donkey took fright at something in its path and started to bolt. As he sped past them at an unaccustomed pace some countrymen called out: 'where are you going, o Nasrudin, so fast?' 'Mullah shouted, don't ask me ask my donkey!'

The reason

The mullah went to see a rich man to earn some money from him. He asked the man to give him some money.

The man said why you need money?

Mullah said I want to buy an elephant so that is why I need money!

The man said if you don't have enough money how you are going to look after the elephant?

Mullah said I came here to get money not advice!