The Mulla Nasrudin Tales

In a Naqshbandi Circle

RAOUL SIMAC

(1967)

IT HAS TRULY been said that ancient traditional teachings which

we—for want of a better term—call religious, especially in the

East, can be projected in forms which many people would not

recognize as 'religious' in our present-day sense at all.

Psychology, self-development, social adjustments, the cultivation

of certain arts and modes of thinking: these all form parts

of the Order of the Naqshbandi, whose members are found

throughout the Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Indian and Malayan

worlds. The Order was founded in the fourteenth century in

Bukhara, and its chief centres have generally been in Central Asia

since that time.

While the Sufis, or Dervishes, are generally regarded as

religious enthusiasts on the pattern of Western monastic communities, or else as individual poets or wanderers, this seems to

be because only certain forms of their activities have become

generally known.

I recently spent three months with a Naqshbandi circle in

Pakistan, whose members refused to have any ideological contact

with the overtly religious clerics, and entry to whose private

deliberations and exercises was difficult.

An important part of the studies was the consideration of the

Mullah-Nasreddin corpus of literature, generally regarded by

people in Pakistan as a series of jokes.

The use to which the tales of Nasreddin are put in Sufi circles,

however, shows that the intention of the teachers is to develop

in students a form of thinking which is different from customary

patterns. The emphasis upon faith, discipline and ritual, generally

regarded as essential in religious formulation in the world of

Islam, 'is the concern of other specialists'. I was most impressed

by these techniques. Whether or not they have any spiritual

validity as a part of a way to universal truth, the application of

this study-system has undeniable effects upon those taking part.

They seem to suffer from little sectarian bias, and in fact insist

that different religions are external shapes within which, from

time to time, eternal truths have been preached and 'made to

work within man'.

This outline is intended to describe some of the stories used

in this system, and the interpretation put upon them by the

teachers.

The first story is when Nasreddin falls from his roof on to a

man in the street. The man's neck is broken, but the Mullah is

not hurt. The teaching is: 'This goes against expected cause

and effect. Similarly, there is a system of understanding in the

world which you can attach yourself to when you can realize

that cause and effect need not enter into it.'

In the second story of the series, Nasreddin is made to say:

'I never tell the truth'. The explanations include: 'If this is true,

he is lying, if it is untrue, he does tell the truth. Note that by

wordplay we can arrive at anything, but this can never be truth'.

In the third story, the Mullah illustrates that man tries to

improve on his knowledge, his techniques, his capacities in life,

but he may lack other basic knowledge without which he is in

fact doing harm. Nasreddin finds a hawk with a curved beak and

talons. He has only seen pigeons before, so he thinks that this

bird is deformed. He cuts its claws and beak until they are

straight. 'This', goes the moral, 'is what you try to do with

metaphysical teaching. You try to fit it into preconceptions. If

you realize this, you will truly start to learn'.

Certain levels of human understanding cannot be attained, it

is claimed, until the brain can work in more than one way. This

is the equivalent of the result of what is in some systems a

'mystical illumination' process; but the Naqshbandis appear to

hold that the brain is prepared by degrees without this illumination

being as violent an experience as in other methods.

The problem of time and of justice and injustice is illustrated

by the contention that, whereas ordinary man believes that

reward and punishment follow actions, these Sufis hold that

there is a different time-system at work concurrently. In other

words, something that seems to follow something else may in

fact precede it in another time-system which is in fact with us.

This principle is illustrated by the tale of the bath-house.

Mullah Nasreddin visits a bath-house, where the man in charge treats him badly, getting a gold piece for his pains. On the next visit, the man waits on the Mullah hand and foot; but he only gets a copper coin. 'This coin', says the Mullah, 'is for the treatment which you gave me the first time. You have already had the gold coin which was payment for the second visit'.

These dervishes believe very strongly in this dogma: a man

may be given great advantages, for instance, which he must

regard as 'payment for something which he has to do'. The

converse may also be true.

If the Naqshbandis seem to be projecting an image of a series

of experiences of an invisible world parallel to ours, they also

stress strongly the need to be aware of the real events in this

time-system. In the story of the cloak, Nasreddin is admitted to

a certain feast because the doorkeepers are impressed by the regal

garb which he has assumed for the purpose. He comments upon

this by feeding some of the food to his cloak: 'You got me in,

here is your share', he says to it. The teaching underlying this

is given thus: 'Make sure that you realize the true cause and

effect situation when you are in one. Do not mistake one thing

for another.'

Self-deception and unfounded assumptions are held by this

circle to prevent the attainment of higher knowledge. There is

a tale which is used to illustrate this. Nasreddin says: 'The king

addressed me'. Everyone is impressed, because they assume that

something important must have been said. In fact, however, the

king had only said: 'Get out of my way!' In this story the

assumption is laid bare. So is the self-deception, because the

listener deceives himself into thinking that something important

must have happened. In real life, man does not carry his thinking

through to a point where he will see that he deceives himself:

in this case by feeling interested that he knows someone who

has been spoken to by a king.

Things are actually happening in the world, and especially

among the human race, which cannot be explained and which

have to be experienced—so runs the Naqshbandi creed. One

day, Mullah Nasreddin saw some people approaching. Fearing

that they might be robbers, he ran away and lay down in an open

grave nearby. The travellers, their curiousity aroused by this

strange behaviour, crowded around him and asked him why he

was there. His answer illustrates the impossibility of answering

some questions: 'You are here because of me, and I am here

because of you."

But the Naqshbandis teach in many different ways, in addition

to this Nasreddin-joke system. Whom they teach, and by what

method, will depend upon factors which they say have to be

decided by the teacher. For this reason they are often accused

of not sticking to one formula: they have no dogmas, 'only

objectives', as one teacher put it.

When I enquired into this aspect of the teaching, which was

quite new to me, I was told this joke as an answer: Nasreddin

went into a shop. He said to the shopkeeper: 'Have you flour?'

'Yes'. 'And milk, and sugar, and honey?' 'Yes'. Then, for

Heaven's sake, why don't you make sweetmeats?'

The moral, of course, was that a man may have certain things

and may need certain other things. But what each man has and

what he needs will vary, according to his individuality and other

factors.