Goha the Wise Fool, Denys Johnson-Davies, artwork by Hag Hamdy & Hany, New York: Philomel Books, 2005. pp40 This, the latest in a series of Goha books advertised for children but equally appreciated by grown-ups, has been met with a great deal of praise in the United States. Fifteen Goha tales, recounted by the renowned translator Denys Johnson-Davies, are here illustrated with artwork by two talented tentmakers from Cairo's Khayamiyya market. The combination is irresistible. Arabic oral folklore is rich with heroes who have put their swords at the service of religion, king and love. It seems, however, that it has only one anti-hero: Goha, a simpleton in appearance who cannot be taken seriously, but a figure whose crazy astuteness is impressive enough to sustain his unique status. Goha goes by many different names, but in Egypt he is best known by this name. Goha is generally considered a children's champion, since his reasoning and actions are closest to them, and his antics have delighted cohorts of young Turks, Greeks, Iranians, Azerbaijanis, Indians, Chinese, Hungarians, and North Africans, as well as Arabs. In other countries, Goha, or Hoga with the consonants inverted, probably as a hint of his inability to get things right, is called Hoja or Hoga Nasreddin, Koja Nasreddin, the hodja, the khodja, Mullah, Mullah Nasreddin, the mullah or the wise fool, but more importantly as soon as he is identified by his given name in a particular country any child on the street will immediately recognise him. However, Goha also has a more serious side, and he is often described as a Sufi sheikh disseminating Sufi wisdom among the populace. Reinforcing the Sufi connection is the collection of Mullah Nasreddin comic stories retold by Idries Shah under the title Les plaisanteries de l' incroyable Mulla Nasrudin, published in 1983 by Le Courrier du Livre. Shah, born in 1924 in the north of India, went to the school founded by his grandfather on Sufi principles. He studied Sufi philosophy and psychology and learned the techniques of teaching, learning and communication which constitute a specialisation of the science of man said to be disseminated by Sufism. At the same time, Shah studied western languages and philosophy and traveled extensively in the Middle East, Central Asia, South America and Europe. During his tenure as director of Studies at the Institute for Cultural Research in London, he published several works in which he showed by means of short stories the way Sufi thought operates. Mullah Nasrudin (or Goha) is one of Shah's special spokespersons, and in these stories the character, far from being foolish, is quick- witted, and manages to leave his interlocutor speechless with his special brand of logic: "The Mullah had taken on his functions as a magistrate and was presented with his first case. He listened attentively to the plaintiff, and, overwhelmed by his line of reasoning, declared that he was right. 'Not so fast,' the court clerk told him. 'You have not heard the defendant yet.' When the defendant presented his case, Nasrudin was equally overwhelmed by the second man's argument and told him that he was right. 'What now!' exclaimed the clerk. 'They cannot be both right!' Nasrudin hardly stopped to reflect. 'I think that you are right,' he told him, and departed." Goha's origins are unclear. Was he a real person or a legendary figure? At present, the general consensus is that he was born in a small village in Turkey in 1208 AD and died in 1284. The Turks, who claim the privilege of ownership, organise an International Nasreddin Hoja festival yearly between 5 and 10 July in the Turkish town where he was buried. As the hero of the younger generations Goha practices a child's mischievous behaviour, prone to act in ways considered stupid by grown-ups, but which end up making perfect sense. He is blessed with an elementary rationality that can transform any logical proposition, if taken to its limit, into an irresistible absurdity, one that is at once clever and funny. Goha goes into a shop to buy a pair of trousers, for example. At the last minute, he changes his mind and takes a coat for the same price. As he prepares to leave, the salesman reminds him that he has not paid for his purchase. "I returned the trousers which cost the same," says Goha. "But you did not pay for the trousers," protests the salesman. "Did you expect me to pay for something I did not want?" inquires the indignant Goha. On a more serious note, the French authors A Adès and A Josipovici produced a three- volume work ( Le livre de Goha le simple, Paris) in 1926 that narrates the romantic --and sexual--adventures of a young Goha in the manner of the Thousand and One Nights. Irresistible to women, Goha here roams the streets of the city with his loyal donkey during the day selling beans door to door, and at night he makes passionate love to the wives of notables. Usually, however, Goha is pictured as an older man, very poor, endowed with a wife, a son and a donkey, whose main troubles come from his useless attempts at eking out a living. If he ever chances to find some wealth, he is expected to lose it at once. Nevertheless, he remains content, thankful that nothing worse has happened to him. In other stories, Goha is a sort of favourite at court, appreciated by the ruler for his wit and his wisdom: "One day Mullah Nasrudin was sitting with the king who was particularly hungry," recounts Idries Shah. "His servants brought him aubergines beautifully prepared. The king loved them and ordered his cook to serve him the same dish at every meal. 'Don't you think aubergines are the best vegetable in the world?' asked the king. 'The very best, your majesty,' replied Nasrudin. Five days later, having been served aubergines for the tenth time, the king refused to eat them. 'Take them away, I hate them,' he told his servants. 'Don't you think that aubergines are particularly awful?' he asked Nasrudin 'They are horrid your majesty,' was the courtier's answer. 'What is the matter with you?' exploded the king. 'Last week you were claiming that they were the best vegetable ever!' Nasrudin did not stop to think. 'True,' he said. 'I may have said that, but I am the king's servant not the aubergines'!" It is said that as a child Goha had a reputation for captivating the attention of his schoolmates with his anecdotes. The schoolmaster could do nothing against the boy's magnetism, and, being a wise man himself, he jokingly threw a spell on Goha. "From now on, whatever degree of wisdom you reach in your life, your stories will make people laugh. They will never take you seriously," he said. The story does not say if the schoolmaster also predicted the universal appeal that his pupil's stories would obtain. So many proverbs and forms of repartee have been attributed to Goha that it would be futile today to try to sort out what, if anything, was said by him, or whether he was a real person or the product of popular wisdom. But, whether human or legend, it is obvious that if Goha did not exist, he would have had to have been invented. In the poor areas of the Middle East, he has been a balm on the injuries of the downtrodden, young and old, on whom he is modeled. His personality is so appealing that he is easily able to conquer all those who come across him, bridging the divide between countries. There have been entire collections of Goha's stories published in the United States, Russia and China, for example, and it is said that even at the height of the Cold War these countries, "which agreed on nothing else, shared a passion for the Mullah." Unlike some popular characters in the West, Goha has not yet been transformed into a fashion icon. The Barbie doll and her ilk today command an entire industry of clothes, accessories and children's furniture. Batman has a cape, and Pooh Bear comes with different sets of clothes. However, Goha has not even been used to advertise a brand of head gear, and his taqiet l'ekhfa (cap of invisibility) has never been seen on the shelves of a children's clothing store. Forever wise, Goha and his famous donkey have remained between the pages of books, and his few forays into the material world have been confined to more or less inspired illustrations. Among the books to which Goha has gained entry, however, is Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern Cooking, a blockbuster since its publication in 1968, and Roden has added Goha stories-- the ones she said delighted her as a child growing up in Egypt-- to her collection of recipes. These form a loose complement, almost an extra condiment, which might improve the taste of the dishes she describes. Her recipe for "Fried or Grilled Cheese," for example, which calls for rather salty cheese, is an occasion to usher in Goha: "As soon as Goha discovered that someone had stolen the piece of salted cheese from his lunch box, he ran to the fountain. 'What are you doing here?' asked a friend. "I am waiting for the one who stole my cheese. I always come here as soon as I have eaten some!" By Fayza Hassan
