He answered, “The one who is away, until he returns, and the one who is sick, until he is well, and the youngest one, until he grows up.”
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Once upon a time, in a small country far, far away (in the province of Al-Hada in The High Yemen to be exact) there lived a prosperous farmer who owned many terraces from which he worked a comfortable living for himself and his family. Over the years, three sons were born to his young wife, Shaharazad, and the prosperous farmer whose name was Ahmed decided to name each one of them Ahmed after himself. (Don’t laugh, George Foreman named all five of his sons “George”.) “It wouldn’t be fair to call just one of them George”; And Lawrence Eagleberger named his three sons Lawrence. “Partly out of vanity”, he said, “and partly to confuse the IRS.
As it happened, Haj Ahmed (the elder) one day was watering his donkey at the trough under the kitchen window and chanced to overhear his wife talking to her sister. He paid scant attention to their gossip until his wife began to whisper, at which point Haj Ahmed climbed up on the trough to better hear whatever was interesting enough to warrant secrecy. “YA LATIF!” (Good God Almighty!) He could hardly keep his balance. Shaharazad was confessing to her sister that one of the young Ahmeds was not the son of the Haj. Haj Ahmed strained to hear the details but the wind was blowing, the donkey was braying and masons were busy chipping stone into blocks for the new “mufraj” that Haj Ahmed was adding to the top to his house. He never learned which of the three Ahmeds belonged to someone else, nor who that someone else was.
Haj Ahmed cursed his bad luck and wished that he could have been anywhere else. However, as a man graced with a kind heart, an even temperament and no small intellect, Haj Ahmed decided to “Chew on it”, (if you know what I mean), before taking drastic action. By sundown he had decided that he had in fact been lucky not to have learned which Ahmed was which since he loved all three of them and in fact he loved his wife too, so he counted his blessings and did his best to forget what he had heard.
Haj Ahmed took the secret to his grave, but the consequences were not buried as easily as the old man’s bones. Although his heirs never learned why, his Last Will and Testament read: “Give half of my land to Ahmed and the other half to Ahmed and Ahmed gets nothing!”
Well, what would you do in this situation? The Ahmeds had no idea either. They chewed on it for several days until their qat plantation was severely deforested; and then Allah provided an answer in the guise of a traveler whom they met in the “souk”. The traveler spoke of a sage that he had met in a small village, which he said was a long day’s walk to the north side of the mountain. (Khowlan) The sage, he said, would surely find a solution to the three Ahmeds’ dilemma (or was that trilemma?).
“There is no majesty and there is no might save in Allah the Glorious, the Great!”, cried the three Ahmeds, and they resolved to set out for Khowlan at dawn.
There was a great deal of excitement and anticipation the next morning as the Ahmeds strode off to the north. They walked with a spring in their steps and engaged in lively conversation and time passed quickly. The sun was barely above the eastern mountains when the Ahmeds spied camel tracks on the road, leading in their direction. “That camel is carrying salt”, said the first Ahmed. “That camel is blind in one eye”, said the second. “And that camel has had his tail cut off”, said the third Ahmed.
Indeed, before long they overtook a camel, heavily laden with salt, blind in one eye and tailless.
“How did you know he was carrying salt?” the first Ahmed was asked. To which he replied, “I could tell by the depth of the tracks that she was carrying something heavier than a man. What’s more likely than salt?”
“And how did you know that she was blind in one eye?”, the others asked the second.
“Because only the young tender branches on the right side of the trail have been browsed, meaning she must not be able to see those on the left”, he said simply.
“And how did you know she didn’t have a tail?”, the third was asked.
“Anyone could see that her droppings were clumped together rather than spread along the trail”, he said, “meaning that she must not have a tail to swish them as they fall.”
Congratulating each other on their observations the Ahmeds forged on and by that afternoon they came to Khowlan and were shown the house of the sage where they were of course warmly welcomed.
In those days in the High Yemen, it was customary to invite guests for a grand meal in the evening, rather than at noon as the Yemenites do today. As the sage’s wife laid the evening repast on the floor of the “Diwan”, he listened to the Ahmeds’ problem, nodding and pulling his beard. Shortly after they had begun to eat, the sage was called for some “important business”; a ruse he had arranged with his wife, so that the Ahmeds would be alone while they ate and he could listen at the door and try to learn something to help his solve the mystery of the will.
As soon as the old man left the room, the first Ahmed said, “The lamb that we have been served has drunk the milk of a dog!”
“Yes, and the woman who cooked it is menstruating!”, said the second brother.
“And what’s more, that grey bearded gentleman is a Bastard!” cried the third.
The sage had heard enough! He ran downstairs to his shepherd and asked, “What lamb did you kill for our dinner today?”
“The poor one whose mother died and I have been raising on the dog’s milk”, he said.
Next the old man went to the kitchen and asked his wife if she was menstruating, to which she replied that indeed her period had begun that afternoon.
Finally the sage confronted his mother and begged her for the truth about his genealogy. He got the answer he feared, but at the same time knew the solution to the Ahmeds’ puzzle.
Returning to the “Diwan”, the sage finished the meal with the Ahmeds, and as a freshly filled “bouri” was brought for the “Mada’a” he announced that he had the solution the Ahmeds sought. Without saying why, he declared that the first Ahmed should get half of his father’s possessions, that the second Ahmed should get the other half and finally that the third Ahmed would get “the breeze”. The lucky Ahmeds who shared the inheritance quickly agreed to the proposal and surprisingly the third Ahmed also agreed without asking for an explanation. He asked only that the sage’s verdict be in writing; and his request was easily granted.
Back in Al-Hada, Ahmeds one and two divided their father’s fields and other holdings and set about the usual work of ploughing, planting and harvesting, while their wives and children tended the goats, sheep and chickens. I looked like a very good year.
Their unfortunate brother, the third Ahmed, had little to do and no means of support save the charity of his tribe and an occasional odd job. that is until harvest time. After the villagers had gathered their grain and carried it to the threshing floor, and had broken the chaff from the seeds, they began to winnow their bounty in the breeze. But as each villager would raise a basket of grain, Ahmed3 would beat his arm with a long cane, spilling the load and spoiling the effort. The villagers, none too happy, demanded an explanation; upon which Ahmed number three produced the verdict of the Sage, which stated clearly that he “got the breeze”.
The was no arguing with the third Ahmed, so the villagers turned to his two brothers and prevailed upon them (an offer they presumably couldn’t refuse) to allot a third of their inheritance each to their dear brother, a request which all three Ahmeds agreed to. And, of course, they all lived happily ever after.
