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The Idries Shah Foundation PRACTICAL WISDOM & PSYCHOLOGY The Exploits Of The Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin IDRIES SHAH The Smuggler “Time and again Nasrudin passed from Persia to Greece on donkey-back. Each time he had two panniers of straw, and trudged back without them. Every time the guard searched him for contraband. They never found any. ‘What are you carrying, Nasrudin?’ ‘I am a smuggler.’ Years later, more and more prosperous in appearance, Nasrudin moved to Egypt. One of the customs men met him there. “Tell me, Mulla, now that you are out of the jurisdiction of Greece and Persia, living here in such luxury — what was it that you were smuggling when we could never catch you?’ ‘Donkeys.’ Copyright © The Estate of Idries Shah

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The Idries Shah Foundation PRACTICAL WISDOM & PSYCHOLOGY The Exploits Of The Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin IDRIES SHAH The Smuggler “Time and again Nasrudin passed from Persia to Greece on donkey-back. Each time he had two panniers of straw, and trudged back without them. Every time the guard searched him for contraband. They never found any. ‘What are you carrying, Nasrudin?’ ‘I am a smuggler.’ Years later, more and more prosperous in appearance, Nasrudin moved to Egypt. One of the customs men met him there. “Tell me, Mulla, now that you are out of the jurisdiction of Greece and Persia, living here in such luxury — what was it that you were smuggling when we could never catch you?’ ‘Donkeys.’ Copyright © The Estate of Idries Shah
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Ruth Malan — Systems (ruthmalan@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 30-Mar-2025 21:14:56 JST Ruth Malan — Systems
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Aside on the System Seeing Journal Starter Kit: it is smuggling all manner of systems donkeys, in terms of the explicit areas of practice as well as the quotes as offers of “matter to think with.”
Still, it emphasizes models and diagramming, so this struck me earlier today:
“For systems practitioners then, modelling is core to the discipline — if you’re not modelling you’re not doing systems”
— Patrick Hoverstadt
The donkeys reference: https://idriesshahfoundation.org/pdfviewer/the-smuggler-from-the-exploits-of-the-incomparable-mulla-nasrudin/

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