Below Are the Various Posts from 2006

It Only Hurts When I Laugh!

May 31, 2006

There is an old tragicomic character, whom Iranians know as Mullah Nasr-e-Din. He is a kind of buffoon that the ordinary people can immediately identify with, and is therefore perhaps the best loved character in Iranian literature and folklore. Thousands of stories are attached to him. (Incidentally he is also claimed by the Turks as their own. They call him by a slightly different name which I don’t recall right now. I believe the Arabs also lay claim to him, and god only knows maybe the Afghans and Indians too.)

He is the quintessential Muslim idiot. He is mock-pious, he is the eternal cuckold, he’s the perennial butt of everyone’s jokes, and pranks. He is supposed to be a simple man, as I said, to the point of idiocy. He is in fact, at heart a good man, but through his gullibility and simplicity, his entire life is made up of anecdotal episodes of personal failure and humiliation. He invites his best friend to make himself at home, only to have him sleep with his wife as soon as his back is turned, or offers another a helping hand, only to be robbed blind, and so on.

In all the countries that lay claim to his invention they see him as the comical face of the tragedy of everyday life. Whenever some misfortune befalls you, someone will have a comforting anecdote (antidote?) of Nasr-e-Din Khan for you, to let you know that there are worse things in life.

Anyway, enough preamble, one of my favourites goes something like this:

“A friend comes to visit the Mullah, and on reaching his door he hears screams of agony issue from his house. Worried he bangs on the door, and enters the house. Reaching the room where the screams are coming from he sees Nasr-e-Din sitting in the corner, on the floor with his trousers down. The Mullah is in the process of piercing his balls, viciously with a needle. as his screams subside his worried friend says “In God’s name man, what are doing?” Nasr-e-din looks up through tearful, bloodshot eyes to his friend and says “Ah, but it feels so good when I stop!”

Perhaps that resonates with you too!

Addendum

JUNE 1, 2006

In the post below, which was more based on my memory than any kind of research, it seems my guess or cloudy memory was half right.

Firstly for those who care about these things, the common spelling for the Mullah is Nasr Eddin, I spelt it in the way of Farsi. In Farsi the first name and the family name are connected by the vowel ‘e’, which is equivalent to ‘de’ and its variants in Latinate languages, or ‘of’ in English (normally associated with Irish of course, such as O’Reilly).

Secondly it seems that the Mullah is indeed claimed by the Afghans also, and is a folk hero, possibly based on an actual person, dating back to the 13th Century. There are meagre references to him online, yet he is still a rather large and important folkloric character, much like the tradition of the ‘Karayiozi’, the Greek clown, puppet figure or his equivalent, the English ‘Punch’.

Anyway, just thought I’d add a little cultural history to this post.

Addendum #2

JUNE 3, 2006

Now that I have started on this business of the Mullah, I’ve been checking back on his progeny, and find that the whole thing goes deeper and deeper. I grew up kind of aware of this fact, but had not looked into it before with an eye to research.

The Mullah, is widely regarded, it seems, as a member of that illustrious club of ancient and modern fool/sages that occur in practically every culture from every point of the compass. I drew a parallel between Nasr Eddin and Punch previously. But it seems I was being rather ungenerous with my similarity scope. He is firmly planted as one of the most wide ranging of Comic Sages, to have risen out of any culture. I did remember one thing correctly, that although his name changes according to region, his stories are pretty much exactly the same. Also that all the nations that lay claim to his invention are zealous in their belief. I remember personally certain heated arguments I witnessed as a child amongst scholarly types, as to who could rightly lay claim to him.

That aside though I think I may make a page dedicated to him. Meanwhile below is a link to a very interesting page about the roots of some pivotal Iranian literary landmarks, including our Mullah, that have seriously influenced the wide region that stretches from the borders of Europe to those of China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasreddin

The Secret of Life

JUNE 1, 2006

This one is for scarf

One sunny day Mullah Nasr Eddin was speaking to a group of villagers, who had asked him to tell them the secret of a good life and how they could lead such a life. He stood in the market place in front of the group and said that to tell them the secret of life he will illustrate it with the use of a jar.

He got hold of a large earthen vessel, which had a wide mouth and set it on the table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.

When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is this jar full?” The villagers answered in choir, “Yes.” Then he said, “Really?” He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the space between the big rocks.

Then he asked the men once more, “Is the jar full?” By this time they had already learned something and as they also knew Mullah and his tricks they were a little hesitant. “Probably not,” answered Mustafa. “Good!” he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel.

Once more he asked the question, “Is this jar full?” “No!” shouted the men. Once again he said, “Good.” Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim.

After this the good Mullah looked at the villagers gathered around him and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?” Ali raised his hand and said, “The point is, no matter how much you work, if you try really hard you can always do more!”

“No,” replied the Mullah, “that’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.”