Long time ago, in the distant lands of the Middle east, ruled a Sultan. He was a good ruler but his chief minister was greedy, cunning and Deceitful. In front of the Sultan, he pretended to be honest and fair but often tricked poor farmers to give their land away.

A man called Abdul, in need of money, went to see the chief minister. The chief minister knew Abdul owned a very large field. He struck a bargain with him. If Abdul found answers to his three questions, he would be granted a substantial amount of gold. And if he didn’t, his land would go to the chief minister and he would not get any gold. Simple-minded Abdul agreed.

Abdul has to find out where the centre of the earth is, the exact number of stars in the sky and exact number of hair in the chief –Minister’s beard. All the questions were sure weird and he had only twenty four hours to give in his answers.

Not far from Abdul’s home lived Nasruddin. He was witty, intelligent and helpful. Abdul went to him for help. Nasruddin offered to go to the palace to answer the Chief-minister’s questions. Abdul told him the whole thing. It was a frightening situation but Nisruddin seemed very confident and went off to the palace along with the donkey.

Nasruddin never went anywhere without his donkey!

The Sultan had many visitors that day. Nasruddin begged his pardon for bringing the donkey into the royal chamber. Then he told Sultan that he had come to answer the Chief-Minister’s questions.

In a loud clear voice, he told the gathering that the centre of the earth is under his donkey’s right foreleg. And if the chief-minister had doubts, he could measure the Earth to find its centre. The Sultan laughed heartily. The chief-minister challenged him to answer the second question. Nasruddin told him that the number of stars in the sky is the number of hair on his donkey’s body. Everybody had a good laugh. The answer to the third question , he said, lay in his donkey’s tail. The Sultan ordered him to honour his words and give the poor man his deserved share of gold