In those days, in those far-off days, in olden times…there lived a famous sheikh. One morning, he woke up and declared he’d studied everything worth knowing. He’d nothing left to learn! That same afternoon the angel Gibra’il appeared to him disguised as a dervish.” “What’s a dervish?” “A humble seeker of truth,” replies Grandma. “Now the dervish and the sheikh walked to the shores of the Tigris. When they reached the river, they watched a swallow swoop down, scoop up water and fly away. The dervish said to his companion, ‘Tell me, did the river sink any lower when the bird drank from it?
...more
