The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin [Hardcover]

Idries Shah (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1983

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 humor 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"(Nasrudin's) antics are parallels of the mind's workings ..." -- The Observer, January 19, 1969

"... an invitation to knowledge lies behind a smiling mask of almost childlike simplicity." -- Clarin, November 11, 1976

"... deliberately created ... to outwit ... the patterns of conditioned thinking which form the prison in which we all live." -- Doris Lessing, The New York Times Book Review, May 7, 1971

"Undebased wisdom, a kind of addendum to language, joining people together, a kind of extension of the proverbial." -- Geoffrey Grigson, Country Life, November 21, 1968

About the Author

As the urgency of our global situation becomes apparent, more and more readers are turning to the books of Idries Shah (1924-1996) as a way to train new capacities and new ways of thinking. Shah has been described as "the most significant worker adapting classical spiritual thought to the modern world." His lively, contemporary books have sold over 15 million copies in 12 languages worldwide and have been awarded many prizes. They have been reviewed by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Times, The Tribune, The Telegraph, and numerous other international journals and newspapers.

"The most interesting books in the English language." Saturday Review

"A major psychological and cultural event of our time." Psychology Today

"One is immediately forced to use one's mind in a new way." New York Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 169 pages
• Publisher: Octagon Press, Limited (June 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0863040233
• ISBN-13: 978-0863040238
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,686,452 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much more than entertainment., August 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin (Compass) (Paperback)

Each one of Idries Shah's three delightful Nasrudin books - The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin, the Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin and the Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin - is not only the perfect gift for any thinking person with a sense of humor, but a fitting antidote to the stress, pressure and confusion of modern life. For beyond the laughter lie deeper levels of meaning that reveal themselves at their own pace and can help broaden our perception and increase our understanding. The bite-sized jokes center around Mulla Nasrudin, an age-old Middle Eastern teaching figure whose antics mirror those of the human mind as he juggles the roles of wise man, fool and our own self. Calling these jokes "perfectly designed models for isolating and holding distortions of the mind which so often pass for reasonable behavior," author Idries Shah notes that they have been used for centuries by the Sufis as teaching exercises. Other specialists - from physicists to psychologists - have employed them to illustrate concepts that defy more straightforward explanations. I've not seen anything like them anywhere else.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that is a teacher, March 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin (Compass) (Paperback)

I read this book many years ago wondering, 'What on earth do these tales mean?' I searched for meanings and morals in the jokes and situations the Mulla finds himself in. Only recently, upon rereading it, I saw what Shah has pointed out several times. The stories help pinpoint certain habits of mind including certain glitches in the thinking process that invalidate one's conclusions and ideas. Beyond that, I have found, upon examining these tales, a way of using the mind that avoids the glitches, the ditches, and the pitfalls to which human thought is often susceptible to. Do I recommend this book? Absolutely. It not only has shown my mind to me, it has shown the way to what my mind can become. The book is a teacher, a teacher that shows what's wrong, and in so doing, what may be the right way of using the mind and oneself.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Moslem answer to Yogi Berra?, October 2, 2004

By 

Neal J. Pollock (VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin (Compass) (Paperback)

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.