the daughters

Nasrudin had two daughters. One was married to a farmer, the other to a brick-maker.
One day they both visited him.
The farmer’s wife said: ‘My husband has just finished sowing. If it rains, he will buy me a new dress’.
The other said: ‘I hope that it does not. My husband has just made a huge number of bricks, ready for firing. If it does not rain, he will buy me a new dress’.
‘One of you may be worth something’, said the Mulla, ‘but I could not say which’.

battle of the sexes

In the teahouse, people were talking about the relative numbers of the sexes.
‘Throughout the world’, said the baker, ‘men and women are equally balanced in numbers’.
‘On the contrary’, said Nasrudin, ‘there are about 10 percent men’.
‘How do you make that out’?
‘Ninety percent do what their wives tell them to do’.

why shouldn’t they mourn?

Nasrudin used to breed chickens and sell them to the local butcher.
One day he was half-absorbed in the problems of his chicken-run when he noticed a man passing, dressed in mourning.
‘Tell me’, said the Mulla, rushing to the fence, ‘why are you wearing those clothes’?
‘Because my parents are dead: this is how I mourn them’.
The next day passers-by saw each one of Nasrudin’s chickens with a black ribbon around its neck.
‘Mulla’, they cried, ‘why are those chickens wearing black ribbons’?
‘Their parents, as you may well imagine’, said the Mulla, ‘are dead. Why shouldn’t they mourn’?

the physician

A woman summoned the Mulla in his capacity as a physician, because she did nt feel well. When he arrived and tried to take her pulse, she was too shy, and covered her arm with her sleeve.
Nasrudin took a handkerchief from his pocket and laid it on the sleeve.
‘What are you doing, Mulla’?
‘Didn’t you know? A cotton pulse is always taken with a silken hand’?

maximum capacity

An ancient and valuable fragile Chinese vase had been found by the villagers. There was an argument in the teahouse as to its exact capacity.
During the wrangling, the Mulla entered. The people appealed to him for a ruling.
‘Simple’, said Nasrudin. ‘Bring the vase here, together with some sand’.
He had the vase filled with layer after layer of fine sand, packing it down with a mallet. Ultimately it burst.
‘There you are’, -he turned to the company triumphantly- ‘the maximum capacity has been reached. All you have to do now is to remove one grain of sand, and you will have have the precise amount needed to fill a container like this’.

how far is far enough?

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’n he said to him, ‘go in and ask my wife if I have gone far enough, or if she says that I must walk farther’.

the reward

Nasrudin had some good news for th King, and after a great deal of difficulty managed to gain an audience – although bt tradition every subject theoretically had the right of immediate access to the Court.

The King was pleased with what he had been told. ‘Choose your own reward’, he said.

‘Fifty lashes’, said Nasrudin.

Puzzled, the King ordered that Nasrudin be beaten.

When twenty-five strokes had been administered, Nasrudin called: ‘Stop’!

‘Now’, he said, ‘bring in my partner, and give him the other half of the reward. The chamberlain, Your Majesty, would not allow me to see you unless I would swear to give him exactly half of anything that I got as a result of my good news’.

Congratulations

 

‘Congratulate me!’ shouted Nasrudin to a neighbor. ‘I am a father.’

‘Congratulations! Is it a boy or a girl?’

“Yes! But how did you know?’

I believe you are right!

The Mulla was made a magistrate. During his first case the plaintiff argued so persuasively that he exclaimed: ‘I believe that you are right!’

The clerk of the Court begged him to restrain himself, for the defendant had not been heard yet.

Nasrudin was so carried away by the eloquence of the defendant that he cried out as soon as the man had finished his evidence: ‘I believe you are right!’

The clerk of the Court could not allow this.

‘Your honour, they cannot both be right.’

‘I believe you are right!’ said Nasrudin.

How far can you usefully be from the truth?

Nasrudin saw some tasty-looking ducks playing in a pool. When he tried to catch them they flew away.

He put some bread in the water and started to eat it.

Some people asked him what he was doing.

‘I am eating duck soup,’ said the Mulla.