The Clever Minister’s Daughter

a story from Syria...

A king once wanted to test the sharpness of his minister, the wazir who stood on his right. He said, “Here are three questions:

What is the most precious of all stones?

What is the sweetest of all sounds?

What, after God, gives us life?

Then he said, “Bring me the answers by tomorrow morning or I shall have your head.”

The minister went home, his face yellow as wax. His daughters came out to meet him, and said, “Are you ill, O my father?” “No,” said the minister, “but unless I find the answer to the king’s three questions by tomorrow morning, I shall die.” “You, who are the king’s first minister, who stands on his right, are frightened by three questions? Tell them to me; maybe I can find the answers.” And he told her. His daughter listened, then said, “It is not difficult. Tell the king: the most precious of all stones is the millstone, the sweetest of all sounds is the call to prayer, and the most life-giving after God is water.” And so with the help of his daughter, the minister escaped with his life.

          But the king wanted to challenge his wazir further. He gave him a tray made of gold that held a golden sculpted hen and her golden chicks, all pecking seeds of pearl. “Guess the worth of this golden hen with all her train, and you may keep it,” he said. “If you fail to find the answer, you lose it and your head.” The minister immediately went to repeat the king’s riddle to his daughter. “Don’t worry, Father,” she said. “when the king questions you, say,

More than the golden hen with all her train –

More than your minister with all his brain –

Is the worth of a shower of April rain.

Astonished at his minister’s wit, the king thought of a new way to trip him up. He gave the wazir a lamb and said, “Can you feed me a supper off this lamb and earn me money with this lamb, yet bring it back alive to me tomorrow morning?” This time the poor minister went home with the lamb in his arms and despair in his heart.

His daughter laughed to hear his troubles. She said, “Geld the lamb and I can do it easily.” When he had done so, she cut up the gelded parts and roasted them on a skewer over the fire. Next she sheared the lamb’s wool and sold it in the market for ten pennies. In the morning she sent her father off with the skewer of meat in one hand and the price of the wool in the other and the lamb trotting on the end of a rope behind him.

The king was impressed. “I shall not ask any questions again,” he said, “except this last. How did you find the answers to my riddles?” The minister felt some fear, but also pride. He confessed that it was not he but his daughter who had solved the riddles. The king gave a shout of delight and said, “That is the very woman I have been looking for to be my wife.”

And so the first minister continued to stand at the king’s right shoulder, and now he was also father of the queen.