Knowledge in the Turban

One day a letter arrived in the village from a faraway city. The villager who received it could not read. When he saw Nasreddin Hodja with his big turban, he ran over: "Hodja, you're a learned man. Will you read me this letter?"

The Hodja took the letter and opened it. But the letter was written in another language, in a script the Hodja had never learned. The Hodja looked this way and that but could not recognise the letters. "My boy, I can't read this letter," he said.

The villager was cross: "What do you mean, you can't read it, Hodja? You have such a big turban on your head! With a turban that big, where is your knowledge?"

The Hodja did not get angry at all. He took the turban off his head and put it on the villager's head: "Here, my boy. If knowledge is in the turban, then go ahead, you read it now!"

The villager stood there with the turban on. He looked at the letter, but of course he could not read it either. The people around laughed. The villager was embarrassed: "You're right, Hodja. Knowledge isn't in the turban."

The Hodja took back his turban: "My boy, a turban doesn't make a man learned, and a robe doesn't make a man a sultan. A person's worth is not in what's on his head but in what's inside it. And know this too: there's no shame in saying you don't know something. The shame is in pretending to know when you don't."

Then the Hodja and the villager went to the caravanserai together. There they found a merchant who knew that language. The merchant read the letter: the villager's son in the faraway city was safe and well and would soon be coming home. The villager kissed the Hodja's hand with joy. "You see, my boy?" said the Hodja. "I said I didn't know, and we found someone who did. If we'd just put the turban on your head, we'd still be waiting."