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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 398.220956
EAN num: 9780140193572
ISBN number: 014019357X
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 224
Printing Date: July 01, 1993
Publishing house: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Sale Popularity Level: 205874
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Product Description:
Today we find him in a high-level physics report, illustrating phenomena that can't be described in ordinary technical terms. He appears in psychology textbooks, illuminating the workings of the mind in a way no straightforward explanation can.
In three definitive volumes (The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin, The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin, and The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin) Idries Shah takes us to the very heart of this mysterious mentor, the Mulla Nasrudin. Skillful contemporary retellings of hundreds of collected stories and sayings bring the unmistakable - often backhanded - wisdom, wit and charm of the timeless jokester to life.
The Mulla and his stories appear in literature and oral traditions from the Middle East to Greece, Russia, France - even China. Many nations claim Nasrudin as a native son, but nobody really knows who he was or where he came from.
According to a legend dating from at least the 13th century, Nasrudin was snatched as a schoolboy from the clutches of the 'Old Villain' - the crude system of thought that ensnares man - to carry through the ages the message of how to escape. He was chosen because he could make people laugh, and humour has a way of slipping through the cracks of the most rigid thinking habits.
Acclaimed as humorous masterpieces, as collections of the finest jokes, as priceless gift books, and for hundreds 'enchanted tales', this folklore figure's antics have also been divined as 'mirroring the antics of the mind'. The jokes are, as Idries Shah notes, 'perfectly designed models for isolating and holding distortions of the mind which so often pass for reasonable behavior'. Therefore they have a double use: when the jokes have been enjoyed, their psychological significance starts to sink in.
In fact, for many centuries they have been studied in Sufi circles for their hidden wisdom. They are used as teaching exercises, in part to momentarily 'freeze' situations in which states of mind can be recognized. The key to the philosophic significance of the Nasrudin jokes is given in Idries Shah's book 'The Sufis' and a complete system of mystical training based upon them was described in the Hibbert Journal.
In these delightful volumes, Shah not only gives the Mulla a proper vehicle for our times, he proves that the centuries-old stories and quips of Nasrudin are still some of the funniest jokes in the world.
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Rated by buyers 
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In the introduction to the book, the curse placed upon Nasrudin as a child by his teacher is related. Caught talking in class, holding all of his classmates enthralled with his stories, Nasrudin and his listeners received the eternal curse that no one from then on could hear one of his stories without hearing seven.
I could not put down this book. As usual I tried to browse,and tried to go back and forth among my usual half dozen books, but I could not put this book down. The ancient curse still holds. I had to read it all and all over again, taking notes and paraphrasing. Elsewhere a reviewer complains about the translation. So, hey, what's the big deal? REWRITE IT ALREADY!
Some of these stories were stolen directly by Henny Youngman and Milton Berle for their famous one liners (I am NOT making this up!). You can even uncover the source of Mark Twain's famous quip about the reports of his death being greatly exagerrated. Or do we all share the same source, with jokes about wives, donkeys, thieves and other work? Many of these brief stories remind me of the apophthegmes of the early Catholic Desert monks in Egypt and the absurdities related about them with great seriousness. Unfortunately in English we most often find them through BEnedicta Ward and The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Cistercian studies 59). I prefer Solesmes's Dom Lucien Regnault's five volume collection, no longer in print. Other reviewers find an element of the Zen Koans here. Whatever they are, you cannot put this book down.
At very first I found the elaborate cartoony pen and ink line illustrations by Richard Williams and Errol Le Cain offensive and even dare I say sacreligious (actually I do not dare to spell it!). But then I checked the copyright page and discovered they come from the original 1968 edition, and they became comprehensible within their historical context. We forty years later will never see the likes of this again. These were done by sheer human talent, without the aid of computers, with only a page and a stain. Amazing, and frequently incorporating the intricate scrolls of a Persian rug or mosque filligrees.
For this body of universal tales comes from the Sufi mystic branch of Islam. Nevertheless it could be often Il poverello Saint Francis of Assissi here riding a donkey in rags and disturbing everyone's accustomed and unjust modes of thinking. In this way it does serve as a Zen koan, to break us out of superficial and unhealthy thought patterns, to liberate us to the ground of all truth. And it is very funny stuff, which you cannot put down, and some of which you have heard on stage in old vaudeville and talk shows.
Look beyond your preconceptions. For your own enjoyment, and enlightenment, find this book today. With Nasrudin we would have no more ideological nor cultural nor genocidal nor religious wars for resources. We would all together be too darn busy listening and laughing to his great stories. It's a curse his teacher placed upon us all, long long ago!
For example:
Nasrudin was at a loose end. His wife told him to go for a walk. He started up the road, and continued walking for two days. Finally he met a man walking in the opposite direction. "When you arrive at my house," he said to him, "go in and ask my wife if I have gone far enough, or if she says I must walk further."
Rather reads like the Tao of Pooh, as well, no?
Also here is the origin of the Seven with one blow story.
Rated by buyers -
An impoverished madman who often rode his donkey backwards, yet brutal kings dared not take offense when he spoke against them. And though all these stories can't be directly true, he was real.
This is in contrast to the master of the Hasshishans "assasins" who in his day commanded kings by fear. Yet in another age he will be forgotten, but likely Nasruding will have endured. "The works of the mighty and powerful are cast down and forgotten, but the works of a beggar shall be enshrined forevermore".
Anyone reading about this man might check out "The Thief and the Cobbler" on YouTube and look it up on Wikipedia. Originally, he was going to be the star of the movie, made about him and he has a cameo in the very first part. The "Mullah Nasrudin" script is awesome.
Rated by buyers 
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This is a collection of Sufi (Islamic mystics) teaching stories. Shah is famous for his many collections of them. I've read 10 of his books. They are invariably entertaining. The Sufi masters are referred to as idiots--they can appear as such to the uninitiated. Reminds one of some of the Hasidic and Elijah stories, Yogi Berra's quips, Tibetan Buddhists masters of Crazy Wisdom, and the Peter Sellers movie "Being There." It's sometimes hard to tell if the protagonist knows what he's doing or not. Some of the stories are easily understood by the reader; some are more like Zen koans. I found this book among the best of the ones I've read of his. You might also try his "Wisdom of the Idiots" or "The Dermis Probe." The latter is Shah's term for the dilemma of the 3 blind men differing over their descriptions of an elephant.
Rated by buyers -
What an incredible book! If you really want to understand what it means to be caught between the esoteric and exoteric traditions, I suggest you read this....
Rated by buyers -
The trend during the last few years towards stories about stupid people brought us such non-classics (but entertaining reads) as "The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said", "The Darwin Awards", and others. But what few people know is that such stories were circulating 1000 years ago in the Sufi storytelling tradition.
These stories are the equivalent of our "Urban Legends". Oddly enough, as I read this, I wish that I could view the world in such simple ways as the Mulla Nasrudin, who is the character in all these stories. His views, often twisted, very often completely at odds with his surroundings, are also very pragmatic, and make perfect sense in his mind.
These stories are tremendous fun, and rather thought-provoking.
Enjoy!
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