The Prophet's Hair

           I remember a story my grandmother used to tell me growing up. It was a great story because of the way she told it. I was of an age when everything I was told by an adult was truth and real. My grandma knew this and used it as an instrument to teach me. The story she used to tell me was about a farmer and went something like this...

        There once lived a prosperous farmer. The farmer grew apples and accrued an immense fortune. One day while digging around one of his trees he found a single gold coin. The next day overcome with his find he told his neighbor. His neighbor’s advice was to dig up the tree for surely there was more gold to be found. The neighbor offered to take any trees he wanted to depart with. Consumed with greed the farmer ripped up the tree and found yet another coin. Convinced of his good fortune he soon started to tear up every tree on his property giving them to his neighbor. He spent months digging spending much of his time and money. Finally, upon reaching his last tree, the first he had planted, it occurred to him that he had not found any gold since ripping up the first tree. He worked himself so hard he was left on the brink of death. Upon realizing his situation he went to his neighbor for help. When he sought out his neighbor he was astounded to find that his neighbor had become a prosperous apple farmer. He told his neighbor of his misfortune and inquired about his recent success. The man replied, “While you were busy pulling your trees up I was busy planting them. For I knew your fortune was not to be found in the ground but growing from your trees.”

            Not only was the story my grandma told me awesome, it had a moral to it. It was a parable that addressed greed and the disaster it can create. Salmon Rushdie’s short story, The Prophet’s Hair, reminded me of my grandmother’s story. Rushdie weaves a spectacular story that combines classic story telling techniques with a parables method for emphasizing a moral.

            Rushdie’s story begins with an extremely long, descriptive sentence. The sentence sets up the rest of the story by creating a picture in the readers head. In the first sentence he describes a character named Atta, “a young man upon whose cold pinked skin there lay, like a frost, the unmistakable sheen of wealth.” (35) The sentence does a wonderful job starting the spinning of a great story.

            Another story telling technique that Rushdie uses is embedded narrative. In the story a character named, Huma, the daughter of a rich money lender tells her own story, “Huma began her story,” (41) Huma’s telling provides the reader with further background into the plot of the story. The use of embedded narrative adds a certain spark to the tale. The reader feels as if they are listening to an old fairy tale.

            Rushdie also uses a narrative persona. The person telling the overall story seems to have their own style, “But before our story can properly be concluded, it is necessary to record…” (58) Rushdie gives the narrator his own fictional style. It seems as if the narrator is an old man spinning a yarn, a tall tale.

            Rushdie’s story also shares several morals, about greed, piety, and hypocrisy. The main character is a, “wealthy moneylender,” (41) named Hashim. He finds a sacred relic, a lock of the prophet Muhammad’s hair, he decides to keep it. He reasons that, “‘they say there are American millionaires who purchase stolen art masterpieces and hide them away they would know how I feel. I must, must have it!’” (44) Hashim knows that the relic was stolen but his greed keeps him from giving it back. Hashim also burns all the books in his house except for the Qur’an. He makes, “his family to read passages from this book (the Qur’an) for at least two hours a day.” (47) He becomes a pious man, but a hypocrite he preaches at his family even though he openly admits his past sins.  

                        Possessing the hair brings ruin to everyone it comes into contact with. The story conveys that greed is bad and will lead to ruin. When Hashim gets the glass vile his family is “shattered beyond all hope of repair.” (42) Everyone dies in the story except for one character, a thief’s wife.

            It was a lot of fun reading Rushdie’s story. He is a master story teller, using different techniques to tell a grand tale of greed and misfortune. The story communicates a worth while moral and does it masterfully. The story my grandmother used to tell me reminds me of this story by Rushdie. Both addressed the evil of greed and the ruin it can bring. It was awesome to remember my grandma’s story and there to be such a connection.