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Idries Shah was an Afghan-born Sufi scholar and
author whose writings have brought Sufism to
the attention of the West.

Among Shah's works are three volumes of Sufi
teaching stories that feature the mythological
Mulla Nasrudin - a wise fool whose humorous
exploits are the subject of thousands of stories.

These stories are more than just humorous.
Shah contends that a Nasrudin story, "may
be understood at any of many depths. There is
the joke, the moral - and the little extra which
brings the consciousness of the potential mystic
a little further on the way to realization.”

Shah's three volumes of mind-altering Nasrudin
stories include:

The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mullah Nasrudin
The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin, and
The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin –

Below is a sample of a Nasrudin story taken from
The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin