It happened once upon a time that the ruler of the land where Mullah Nasruddin was living wanted to prevent fights and violence, and so he ordered that no one could have a knife. Of course, this made life difficult for everyone, since a knife is a very useful implement.  People use it more to cut onions than to attack their neighbours! But the ruler had made a law and his soldiers were busy enforcing it, searching everyone and looking for dangerous offenders. When the soldiers stopped Mullah Nasruddin, they found that, in spite of his dignified turban, he was carrying an enormous knife.

“Why do you have this?” demanded the soldiers in astonishment.

“Because I am a Mullah,” replied the Mullah..

“A mullah!  But a mullah is supposed to be a man of learning.  You should work with books, not with knives!”

“I use the knife,” said the Mullah, “to scratch out the errors in the books.”

“Such a big knife?” scoffed the soldiers, “To scratch the errors out of books?”

“It is obvious,” replied the Mullah, “that you  cannot read.  If you could, you would know that this knife is scarcely big enough for most books!”