The Sultan and the Crazy Water

An Eastern Tale often retold by the Theologian and Iconographer Photis Kontoglu

THE SULTAN and the CRAZY WATER

Once upon a time there was a Sultan who was good and just. The Sultan had a Vizier (chief adviser)  who was equally good and just. The Vizier also happened to be an astrologer. One day the Vizier told the Sultan that he had seen a sign in the heavens. It was going to rain "fools water", and whosoever drinks of the water will become foolish.

All the people in the land will drink of the fools water and they will become crazy. They will lose their ability to properly reason. They will no longer have a good sense of anything. They will not be able to tell right from wrong, or truth from falsehood, or justice from injustice.

When the Sultan heard this he turned to the Vizier and said, "Since everybody will lose their minds, we must take care not to lose ours, for otherwise how will we
make judgments that are just?" The Vizier agreed and suggested that the Sultan order the good water that they now drank to be collected and stored in special reservoirs. They wouldn't drink from the ruined water and wouldn't make foolish and unjust judgments but rather just ones, as they were obliged to. And that's what happened.

A little while later, it really did rain. And the rain really was fools water just like the Vizier said it would be. And the people really did become foolish and lost their minds. The poor things no longer had any idea of what was happening to them. They thought that falsehood was truth, that good was bad, and injustice was justice. However, the Sultan and the Vizier drank only from the good water which they had stored away. So they did not lose their reasoning but rather judged everybody with justice and righteousness. However, the people took this the wrong way as they could no longer understand correct judgement. They shouted in protest that they were bring wronged. That they were victims and being misjudged. There was almost a revolution.

Sometime later, when they had seen more than enough, the Sultan and the Vizier began to lose their courage. The Sultan said to the Vizier, "Those poor people have lost their minds and they see everything around them wrongly. If we carry on like this they will surely kill us because we want to judge correctly and with justice. Therefore my dear Vizier, let us throw away the good water and drink the crazy water. We will become crazy like them and then they'll understand us and love us again."

So, they also drank from the crazy water. They too lost their minds and started to make crazy and unjust judgments, and all the people were happy and congratulated the Sultan for his wisdom..



Kontoglu also commented "Let us not throw away the small amount of water that we have still kept in the reservoir of tradition. Let us rather drink from this good water, and let us call others to drink from it... Let them drink and be refreshed by the water that flows from the rock, from our good and immortal water, from the "water of life."