When in a tight corner think, act and pray. 7 LESSONS TO FREEDOM and 30 English lessons

WHEN IN A TIGHT CORNER PUT ON YOUR THINKING CAP!

BAD FAITH
Queen Shahrazad, exciting storyteller of the epic One Thousand and One Nights, related a series of stories about faith, trust and true friendship and our how our doubts can sour all relations. When lack of trust is stronger than faith then we make all manner of regretful actions.

FISHY SURPRISE
A poor fisherman had a bad fishing day. All he caught was a bottle.

When the fisherman opened the brass bottle out came a genie.

BOTTLED UP ANGER
This was an angry genie. The genie had been put in the bottle as a punishment for not following the accepted beliefs and standards of the times. He had been thrown into the middle of the sea.

WATERY GRAVEThe genie languished in the sea for hundreds of years.

FROM GRATITUDE TO HATE
Over the hundreds of years, he changed his feelings from one of gratitude for whoever found and released him from his watery prison to one of anger, revenge and death for the liberator.

MISPLACED ANGER
The fisherman was taken aback and pleaded for a pardon because he felt that the genie should feel gratitude.

LESSON IN GRATEFULNESSWhat we should feel and what we actually do feel are two different things. Sometimes when we should feel and express gratitude we don’t.

NEVER SAY DIE
The fisherman’s will to live was so strong that he thought he could outsmart the genie. He hatched a plan.

BACK TO SQUARE ONEThe fisherman wondered how the genie could be in such a bottle. The genie showed him how it could be, and as soon as the genie did the fisherman closed the lid.

ONCE BITTEN TWICE SHY
The fisherman refused to let the genie out again. All trust had broken down.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you - this means if someone helps you - be grateful. We should also continue to feel grateful.

TRUST IS OUT OF THE WINDOW
The genie lavished promises of benefits upon the fisherman but the fisherman remained unmoved – trust had broken down.

KING, SAGE AND ENEMY
We are like the Wezir of King Yunan and the sage of Duban opined the fisherman. Fascinated the genie wanted to know more.

DOWN ON HIS LUCKYou may have all the wealth in the world but if you don’t have health you can’t live a full life. The king suffered from leprosy and no medicine had been able to cure him.

NO IDLE BOAST
A great sage by the name of Duban said he could cure the king.  Not only that he would do it without any potion or ointment.

FOOLING A KING
Duban actually prepared a special stick with a handle with a hollow part in it, where he inserted medicine. He paired the stick with a ball and told the King to ride his horse and hit the ball with all his might. He hit so hard that he began to perspire. Afterwards the king went home and slept. When he awoke he was cured.

GREEN WITH ENVY
Everyone should have been happy for the king and his new found friendship but one of the king’s ministers (called Wezir in Arabic) was green with envy.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS WHO NEEDS ENEMIES
The Wezir advised the king that the sage was really his enemy but the king refused to believe this accusing the Wezir of envy.

THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON
King Solomon is considered to be one of the wisest kings in all history. King Yunan aspired to be as wise as this great king and felt he would regret the execution of the sage just as the man who killed his parrot.

SOWING THE SEEDS OF
We can either sow trust or lack of trust. A jealous merchant did not trust his wife so he bought a parrot to observe the goings-on when he was away on business. The parrot reported that his wife was having an affair.  When the wife realized that the parrot was the informer she hatched a plan to confuse the bird.

FIT OF ANGER
The merchant not knowing of this plan thought the bird was unreliable and in a fit of anger, he killed the bird. When he found out the truth subsequently he severely regretted killing the bird. Of course you know the lesson – when we do things in a state of anger we are often not thinking straight.

WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING
Sometimes it is so difficult to know who to trust. King Yunan’s minister told the story about a prince, a Wezir and a beautiful woman who was a Ghuleh. In Arabic a Ghuleh is a monster.

FOLLOWING ORDERS
This Wezir was ordered by the king to never let the prince out of his sight, but when the Wezir saw a great wild beast he encouraged the prince to ride after it.

TEMPTATION
While chasing the wild beast, the prince came upon a beautiful princess.

A TALL STORY
This damsel in distress told of a teary story as to how she had become separated from her attendants.

CROCODILE TEARSBeing a prince and a gentleman he wanted to help and placed her behind him on his horse. Along the way they passed a ruin and she asked if she could stop here for a while. She took a long  time, so the prince decided to see what was going on.

WHAT’S COOKINGHe overheard her tell others that she had brought a fat young man for dinner (their dinner!). The prince went back outside and was trembling with fear when the Ghuleh came out.

FALSE FRIENDS
“What’s wrong?”  She asked.

FRENEMYHe replied he had an enemy and was in a state of fear.

THROWING MONEY AT THE PROBLEM
“Would not money conciliate your enemy?” She asked.

A KING'S RANSOM AND A PRINCELY SUM
The prince denied that the enemy could be appeased in this way. She then suggested that he pray to God for aid against this oppressor.

GOD’S WAYWhen there seems no humanely way out, God may find a way if we pray.

POWER PRAYER
The Prince raised his head towards heaven and said,

“O Thou who answerest the distressed when he prayeth to Thee, and dispellest evil, assist me, and cause mine enemy to depart from me; for Thou art able to do whatsoever Thou wilt!”

ANSWERED PRAYERAs soon a the Ghuleh heard the prayer she left him.

JUST DESERTS
The prince upon returning to his father informed him of the conduct of the Wezir who was executed.

7 LESSONS TO FREEDOM
1. Never lose hope – always think of plans of action when in a tight corner.
2. Anger is never a good emotion – it can make us forget the times when we should be grateful. The other sad thing about anger is that it may be misplaced. The fisherman wanted to help the genie and was the one who put him in the watery grave. Sometimes because we feel anger so much we lash out at the wrong person. This is called misplaced anger.
3. Bottled up anger also causes us to misplace our anger too. Bottled up anger is where we are getting angrier and angrier about something that we feel helpless that we can’t change. 
4. When someone helps us there should only be one emotion felt and that is gratitude.

5. When in a tight corner we should never say die!  There is a solution that we can think of.

6. There will be false friends along the way and working out who is friend and who is foe is going to be one of the toughest tests of life and sadly we sometimes make mistakes.

7. Prayer is our communication with God and God will  answer our prayers.

ENGLISH ENLARGEMENT
1. A tight corner  - we are in a place that is not good or we have a problem that is difficult to solve.
2. FISHY SURPRISE – if something is fishy then it just does not seem right.
3. BOTTLED UP ANGER  - we have a lot of anger that will come out sooner or later.
4. WATERY GRAVE -  a grave is the place the physical body is put when we die. |
5. MISPLACED ANGER – sometimes we direct our anger at some one who is not actually the cause of the anger.
6. NEVER SAY DIE – this is an expression to mean that we should never give up.

7. BACK TO SQUARE ONE – we have to go back to the beginning.
8. ONCE BITTEN TWICE SHY – imagine being bitten by an animal or an insect. It is painful and we don’t want to be bitten again. Thus as an expression we don’t want that bad experience again and we try to avoid it happening again.

9. TRUST IS OUT OF THE WINDOW – in olden times people would throw rubbish out of the window. When you throw something out of a window you don’t want that thing any more or you have lost that thing. Thus trust has also broken down in this particular situation.

10. DOWN ON HIS LUCK – most people should know this expression – at the moment you are experiencing a lack of luck.

11. NO IDLE BOAST – a boast is when you say you can do something. An idle boast is one that you really can’t do. So No Idle Boast means one that you can actually do.

12. FOOLING A KING – this means you can trick a king.

13. GREEN WITH ENVY – you really are so jealous and envious.

14. WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS WHO NEEDS ENEMIES – your friends are so bad that they are as bad as your enemies.

15. THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON – King Solomon is considered to be a very wise king. If you exercise the wisdom of Solomen then you are very wise. In the Quran he is said to be a prophet.  The Arabic name is Suleiman or Sulayman, also meaning peace.

16. SOWING THE SEEDS OF - if you sow seeds then you are starting to grow something. Sowing the seeds of doubt, for example.

17. FIT OF ANGER – a period of anger and during this time we often do things that we wil regret. This is a time when we don’t think straight (think sensibly).

18. WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING – something bad but it looks good and we may be fooled (tricked) by it.

19. Ghuleh – not English but Arabic and meaning a monster. Our princess was a wolf in lamb’s clothing.

20. FOLLOWING ORDERS – we must do what we are told.

21. A TALL STORY – a story that is not true.

22. Damsel in distress – a lady who needs help.

23. Crocodile tears – tears that are not real.

24.  Prince and gentleman – in fairy tales and stories – princes are usually well behaved, good mannered people – that is the definition of a gentleman too. A gentleman knows how to behave nicely.

25.  WHAT’S COOKING – what is being planned.

26. FALSE FRIENDS/FRIENEMY – sadly there are people who pretend to be friends but they are not.

27. THROWING MONEY AT THE PROBLEM – this is when we think money might help the situation.

28. Just Deserts – when we get what we deserve.

29. a ruin - a building that is falling down or is in a state of disrepair.

A ruin is a building that is not in perfect condition. Here is an example of a ruin - Hadleigh Castle, England, UK.

30. A KING'S RANSOM AND A PRINCELY SUM
A ransom is the amount of money you pay to get someone back after they have been kidnapped. To get back a king would cost a lot of money. In the same way if you pay a princely sum you pay a lot of money.  They are expressions to mean that you pay a lot of money. Another expression is - I had to pay an arm and a leg. As you know your arms and legs are valuable.

Pic credit: http://karenswhimsy.com/arabian-nights.htm