Cleverest Man In The World - Nasreddin Hodja
At the time of the Hodja, some clever and educated men were searching for an intelligent man, who could answer their three questions.
They traveled through the whole world and then came to Akshehir. They asked:
"Who is most intelligent man in this town?"
Of course the people of the town brought the Hodja to the three men and they began to ask.
"First question: Where is the central point of the world?"
The Hodja's donkey was with him. So he pointed to his donkey.
"Where the front legs of my donkey are, there is the middle point of the world."
"How can you prove that?" asked one of the men.
"If you don't believe, you can measure it", the Hodja said.
Measuring did not seem a good idea to them, so they went on to the next question.
"How many stars are on the sky?"
The Hodja replied without hesitation:
"As many as the hairs on my donkey's mane."
The three men laughed.
"If you don't believe it," said the Hodja. "you can count them."
The foreigners understood that they couldn't get a correct reply and one of them asked:
"Can you say how many hairs are in your donkey's mane?"
"Oh, yes", said the Hodja. "There are exactly the same number of hairs as you have in your beard. Now don't tell me, that you don't believe that because I can prove it by pulling one hair from your beard and one from the donkey's mane. When we pull each hair out one after the other, you can see at the end that there are the same number of hairs."
The three men went back to their country and told everyone that the cleverest man in the world lived in Akshehir.
Balance Of The World - Nasreddin Hodja
Someone asked:
"Hodja Effendi, why do people go to different directions, when they leave their houses in the morning?"
The Hodja answered without hesitation:
"If all of them would go to the same direction, this would throw off the balance of the world!"
A Forty Year Old Wine - Nasreddin Hodja
One day, a neighbor said to the Hodja:
Have you a wine that is forty years old?
Yes I have, replied the Hodja.
Can you give me a little, asked the neighbor.
"If I gave a little to everybody asking for it", said the Hodja, "It would not be forty years old!"
Days Of A Month - Nasreddin Hodja
In Ramazan, a special month for Moslems, the Hodja began it by putting a stone in a cup, to know which day it was. So, every morning he put a stone into the cup without knowing that one of his friends put a handful of stones in it, to play a trick on him.
A few days later a man asked the Hodja: "Hodja Effendi, how many days have passed since we started Ramazan?",
The Hodja told him to wait for a minute, ran to his cup, counted the stones, came back and said:
"Up to today 45 days of Ramazan have passed."
"But Hodja", said the man. "There are only 30 days in a month. How is it possible?"
"Oh, be satisfied with that", said the Hodja. "If you had counted the stones in the cup you would have seen, that it is the hundredandtwentieth day of Ramazan."
Easy Method Of The Birth - Nasreddin Hodja
In the village a woman was giving birth to her child and as it was a difficult birth the relatives waited for many hours. So they sent for the Hodja.
He came, listened to their story and went away. He returned in a few moments with a toy that made a squeaking sound. They asked him why and he said:
"Because the child will hear the "voice" of the toy and will very quickly come out to play."
Eat My Fur Coat - Nasreddin Hodja
The Hodja was invited out to dinner. He went in his old clothes and nobody was interested in him. When he found a few minutes to spare, he rushed home and collected his fur coat.
When he came back, he was treated with great respect. Everybody wanted to speak to him.
When they sat down for dinner he said: "Eat, fur coat, eat!"
And he explained to the curious people:
"If this regard is for my coat, it must eat also."
Empty House - Nasreddin Hodja
One night the wife of the Hodja said:
"Effendi, I heard somebody walking on the roof. I am sure that it's a thief who wants to enter the house."
But the Hodja didn't care about it.
"First let him find something to steal. If he finds it, it will be easier to take it from his hands."