29 October 2005
BEIRUT: "You should know, my son, that in life, it is impossible to please everyone. So do not spend time worrying about what people think." So ancient Middle Eastern folk hero Goha the Wise Fool tells his boy in one of 15 tales printed in a new children's book published by Philomel Books last month - not bad advice at all coming from a character who is for the most part a sort of inspired simpleton.
Compiled by renowned translator Denys Johnson-Davies and illustrated with original artwork by Hany El Saed Ahmed and Hag Hamdy Mohamed Fattouh, a pair of tentmakers in Cairo's Sharia al-Khiyamiya (Street of the Tentmakers), "Goha The Wise Fool" is at once an entertaining, witty, surprising and beautiful book for anyone with an interest in folk tales and Middle Eastern culture.
To many in the Arab world Goha will be a familiar figure, though perhaps known by other names, while to people in the English-speaking world he will likely remind of such folk figures as Brer Rabbit or Anansi.
Probably originating in Anatolia around the 13th century as a wise man called Nasreddin Hodja - according to Arabist and Persian scholar Paul Lunde - whose many exploits and moral tales were recounted with joy by Turkish peasantry, Goha quickly spread in popularity through oral tellings into the Muslim world, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe.
The Persians knew him as "Mollah" while most people in Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, the Crimea, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Russia and the Ukraine still know him as Nasreddin. In Egypt, where Johnson-Davies' tales come from, he is of course Goha while in Sudan he is "Jawha," Algeria "Jeha" and Morocco "Jha."
Today children's books detailing Goha's many amusing moments - like the time his friends try to convince Goha that they are expected for dinner, so he turns the tables by selling their politely removed shoes to pay for the meal - are bought in souks from Cairo to Istanbul to Marrakesh. They often go under the title of the stories of "Hodja Nasr al-Din Effendi Goha," illustrating the transformation from Nasreddin into the Goha character.
Yet ultimately he is a beloved folk character of amusement and learning that children and adults anywhere in the world can relate to, a funny little man with his faithful donkey. And this latest printed incarnation captures that essential being of Goha perfectly.
Perhaps most praise must go to the illustrators for it is in their images that Goha comes to life and it is in the rich history of their art that we are transported to an ancient and instinctively attractive past.
From a small, stone stall in Cairo's old Islamic quarter just past the gate called Bab Zuwayla, Hag Hamdy and Hany Fattouh sat cross-legged for hours meticulously drawing and hand-sewing the colorful caricatures of Goha onto beige cloth.
Traditionally the pair (and their numerous colleagues) on Sharia al-Khiyamiya made huge tents used for weddings, funerals and religious holidays in, as an afterword in "Goha The Wise Fool" notes, "detailed geometric designs that resembled the wall and floor patterns of Cairo's medieval mosques." Today they spend more time sewing wall hangings, pillows, bedspreads and table covers in Islamic and Pharaonic patterns. But all the tentmakers have their own version of Goha - from fat Goha to skinny Goha, to Goha with a beard to Goha with a turban.
It is these rich creations full of comical energy that make the tales of Johnson-Davies come to life with an authenticity not often found in other Goha books, creating a work that will no doubt please more people than it offends, and give an insight into Middle Eastern culture for all to enjoy.
"Goha the Wise Fool," translated and compiled by Denys Johnson-Davies with artwork by Hag Hamdy & Hany, is published by Philomel Books, New York, and available at all good bookstores.
