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Among the books on
my shelf, very few are dearer to me than
Idries Shah’s collections of the tales
of the Mad Mullah Nasrudin. Although the
figure of Nasrudin is ostensibly Sufite, in
fact (as Shah pointed out somewhere, although
I cannot find the reference at the moment)
the tales are of universal appeal.
In fact, tales of the
half-mad, half-wise prophet or priest are a
standard genre of the Middle East; Christians
and Jews rarely recognize that they have a
pair of these tales (at least these two -
maybe more) right in their Old Testament. The
Book of Jonah consists of two such tales
somewhat casually stitched together.
The works that Shah
collected are not true fables. But then,
neither are my stories, although they are
more or less cast in that mold.
I have produced a number of these quasi-fables, collected into Apocrphyal
Tales of the Mad Mullah. Here is one of them. If you would like others, send me $10 (see Contact
Information).
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