A woman came out of her
house and saw 3 old Bedouin men with long white beards
sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them.
She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be
hungry. Please come in and have something to
eat."
"Is the man of the house home?", they asked.
"No", she replied. "He's out."
"Then we cannot come in", they replied,
"it's against our tradition to enter a house when
there is no man inside."
In the evening when her husband came home, she told him
what had happened. "Go tell them I am home and
invite them in!" The woman went out and invited the
men in.
"We do not go into a House together," they
replied.
One of the old men explained: "His name is
Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and
said pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I
am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss
with your husband which one of us you want in your
home."
The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her
husband was overjoyed. "How nice!!", he said.
"Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let
him come and fill our home with wealth!"
His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite
Success?"
Their daughter-in-law was listening from the other corner
of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion:
"Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home
will then be filled with love!
"Let us heed our daughter-in-law's advice,"
said the husband to his wife "Go out and invite Love
to be our guest."
The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which
one of you is Love? Please come in and be our
guest."
Love got up and started walking toward the house. The
other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady
asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why
are you coming in?"
The old men replied together: "If you had invited
Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed
out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go
with him.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The story goes that two Arab bedouins
were walking through the desert. During some point of the
journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the
other one in the face.
The bedouin who got slapped was hurt, but without
saying anything, wrote in the sand: "Today my best
friend slapped me in the face."
They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where
they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped
got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the
friend saved him.
After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a
stone: "Today my best friend saved my life."
The bedouin who had slapped and saved his best
friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in
the sand and now you write on a stone. Why?"
The other bedouin replied: "When someone hurts
us we should write it down in sand where winds of
forgiveness can erase it away. But when someone does
something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where
no wind can ever erase it."
From Raja G. Mattar
The ArabTale-teller by Vernet.Wallace
Collection,Manchester Sq.London.
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