Why? What do you mean, why?

by Mary Jackson (November 2011)

The Spectator:

Volunteers are needed to see if it is true whether the sun makes people take a cloak off quicker than the wind. Does an ant, which has assiduously gathered food over the summer, really react so badly when a lazy grasshopper asks for a bite to eat? Does a cockerel, offered a gemstone, throw it aside and ask for corn?

Finally, the question of the intelligence of crows is not yet settled, science or no science. In The Fox and the Crow, the crow sits on a branch eating cheese. But, subjected to the intense flattery of a fox, the crow sings and drops the cheese. The cunning fox promptly devours the cheese. This is a call for conference papers: would that really happen?

No moral at all, and no lessons learned, but I bet it happened in real life at least once.

Reported by Ahmad and al-Haakim. The latter declared the hadith as sound and az-Zahabi and an-Nasaa`i agreed with him on this. The narration here is that of a-Nasaa`i.

Hardly worth the wait for that third one. I prefer the Python version: three? Nothing. No third thing.

both dangerous and dull. Most things in life – think of accountancy versus lion-taming – are one or the other, but Islam manages to be both.

To comment on this article, please click here.

here. What do you mean, why?

If you have enjoyed this article, and would like to read other articles by Mary Jackson, please click here.