00:00
Harun, the weaver of cotton, lived in old Mombasa. Mombasa of many hundreds of years ago, on the shores of East Africa by the Indian Ocean. It was a lovely town.
00:23
Harun lived in a shady, narrow, winding street. Harun, every morning, took out his loom and his materials from his shop and sat in the shade of his house and wove his cotton. He wove very well.
00:53
People liked his cotton, and Harun watched passers-by. He heard interesting things from some people who stopped, and he heard sounds from the market: Traders shouting their wares. People making bargains. Donkey carts coming and going.
01:22
One day, as he was sitting in the shade of his tree, Harun felt something was different. Ah! He realised there were no sounds coming from the market. Not a single sound. There was an eerie silence
02:00
With each rebuff came an itching frustration. Complaining to himself, he said: “It’s only hair! Everyone has it. Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen?” And with this thought, he collided with the most magnificent head of hair he had ever seen.
02:30
A kaleidoscope of rainbow blacks. Blue-black. Red-black. Yellow-black. A halo of curls and coils, of twists and twirls. A gleaming, spherical mass sat on the head of a young boy. “Oh! Sorry, sir!” Parcels scattered. They picked them up.
- Storyteller
- Kanchan Shah
- Recording date
- 30 Jul 2026
- Location / community
- Mombasa, East Africa
- Duration
- 09:39
- Card label / subtitle
- A tale of wisdom overcoming might
- Themes
- Community, Elders & Wisdom, Morals & Lessons, Trickery & Wit
- Language / dialect
- English
- Cultural / community context
Set in old Mombasa on the East African coast, this story follows Harun, a cotton weaver who uses wisdom and courage to defeat a threatening jinn.
Jinn are supernatural beings found in Islamic tradition and in stories told across regions influenced by Islamic culture, including the East African coast. The story evokes Mombasa’s historic trading environment through its market, cotton weaving, traders, donkey carts and proximity to the Indian Ocean.
The story closes with the moral:
“Pride in might lasts for a while, but wisdom goes on forever.”
The recording does not identify the story’s original source or specific cultural tradition, so the description should not make a more precise attribution without confirmation from Kanchan.
- Archive permission
- Consent given by Kamchan Ramila
10 Sep 2026, 10:53
