''The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mullah Nasrudin'' is a book by the writer

Idries Shah Idries Shah (; hi, इदरीस शाह, ps, ادريس شاه, ur, ; 16 June 1924 – 23 November 1996), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el- Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي) and by the pen name Arko ...

, Article has moved and is now incorrectly dated 18 September 2011. based on lectures he delivered at the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centu ...

Visiting Professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

in 1972–73. The book is a collection of tales, none more than two pages and almost all less than a page long,Idries Shah, ''The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mullah Nasrudin'', ©1968, paperback edition by E.P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1971, Table of Contents about the folkloric character Mulla Nasrudin. Published by

Octagon Press Octagon Press was a cross-cultural publishing house based in London, UK. It was founded in 1960 by Sufism, Sufi teacher, Idries Shah to establish the historical and cultural context for his ideas. The company ceased trading in 2014. Description ...

in 1968, it was re-released in paperback,

ebook An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

and

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sc ...

editions by

The Idries Shah Foundation The Idries Shah Foundation (ISF) is an independent educational and cultural charity, set up by the family of the late thinker, writer, and teacher in the Sufi mystical tradition, Idries Shah, who wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging fr ...

in 2015.

Content

Part of a series of books, ''The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin'' is a collection of

teaching stories A teaching story is a narrative that has been deliberately created as a vehicle for the transmission of wisdom. The practice has been used in a number of religious and other traditions, though writer Idries Shah's use of it was in the context of Su ...

anecdote An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous ...

s and jokes drawn from Middle Eastern folklore and the

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...

tradition, which feature the

populist Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

ern philosopher and wise fool, Mulla

Nasrudin Nasreddin () or Nasreddin Hodja (other variants include: Mullah Nasreddin Hooja, Nasruddin Hodja, Mullah Nasruddin, Mullah Nasriddin, Khoja Nasriddin) (1208-1285) is a character in the folklore of the Muslim world from Arabia to Central Asi ...

. Thousands of stories have been written around this popular folk character over the centuries, since his purported birth in the 13th century.

Reception

Douglas Hill Douglas Arthur Hill (April 6, 1935 – June 21, 2007) was a Canadian science fiction author, editor and reviewer. He was born in Brandon, Manitoba, the son of a railroad engineer, and was raised in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. An avid science fic ...

, Literary Editor of the

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the ...

'' weekly magazine, wrote in 1969 that ''The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin'' contained “a great deal of timeless and universal wisdom made accessible and highly attractive with humour”, adding that “conventional responses and received frames of mind are challenged on every page.” In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', future Nobel Literature laureate

Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...

called ''The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin'' “perhaps the most shocking to our assumptions about ‘mysticism’” of Shah's books at the time. She said that this corpus of Nasrudin “jokes” was “deliberately created to inculcate Sufic thinking, to outwit The Old Villain, which is a name for the patterns of conditioned thinking which form the prison in which we all live.” In an earlier review in ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', Lessing said that most of the jokes in the book were new to the West while others could also be found in the written work of Sufis like

Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...

Attar Attar or Attoor ( ar, عطار, ) may refer to: People *Attar (name) *Fariduddin Attar, 12th-century Persian poet Places *Attar (Madhya Pradesh), the location of Attar railway station, Madhya Pradesh, India *Attar, Iran, a village in Razavi Kho ...

and

Jami Nūr ad-Dīn 'Abd ar-Rahmān Jāmī ( fa, نورالدین عبدالرحمن جامی; 7 November 1414 – 9 November 1492), also known as Mawlanā Nūr al-Dīn 'Abd al-Rahmān or Abd-Al-Rahmān Nur-Al-Din Muhammad Dashti, or simply as J ...

. She said that “ asrudin'santics are parallels of the mind's workings, designed to amuse the teahouses, but also for use on other levels”. As an example she refers to their use at an international scientific conference to illustrate problems in physics that were otherwise difficult or impossible to verbalise.

Collections of Mulla Nasrudin stories

* ''The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin'' (1966, 2015) * ''The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin'' (1968, 2015) * ''The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin'' (1973) Note: ISBNs refer to the original paperback editions, published by Octagon Press. For current ISBNs, see

References

External links

The Idries Shah Foundation official web site

ISF Publishing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin, The Sufi literature Sufi fiction Books by Idries Shah Middle Eastern folklore Comedy books 1968 books Nasreddin