Hundreds of years ago, very few people could read and write, and there were also not many books available. The books that did exist were so expensive that they could sometimes cost as much as a house.

Kings were often uneducated as well, since they spent most of their time hunting and fighting; literacy was not their priority. One such king had four sons: Rayyan, Hamza, Ali and Ayan. The three older boys were sturdy, half-grown lads, while the youngest, Ayan, was a slender, fair-haired child.

One day, while the boys were with their mother, she showed them a wonderful book that had been gifted to them by a king from another country. She turned the pages and showed them the strange letters. She also showed them the beautiful pictures and explained how they had been drawn and painted.

The boys admired the book very much, for they had never seen anything like it before.

“But the best part of it is the story that it tells,” said their mother. “If only you could read, you might learn that story and enjoy it. Now, I am thinking of giving this book to one of you.”

“Will you give it to me, mother?” asked little Ayan.

“I will give it to the one who first learns to read it,” she answered.

“I am sure, I would rather have a good bow with arrows,” said Ali.

“And I would rather have a young falcon that has been trained to hunt,” said Hamza.

“If I were a priest or a scholar,” said Rayyan, “I would learn to read. But I am a prince, and it is foolish for princes to waste their time on such things.”

“But I would like to know the story that this book tells,” said Ayan.

A few weeks passed by. Then, one morning, Ayan went into his mother’s room with a smiling, joyous face.

“Mother,” he said, “will you let me see that beautiful book again?”

His mother unlocked her cabinet and took out the precious volume from its place of safekeeping. Ayan opened it carefully. Then he began with the first word on the first page and read the first story aloud without making a single mistake.

“Oh, my child, how did you learn to do that?” asked his mother in amazement.

“I asked a scholar to teach me,” said Ayan. “And every day since you showed me the book, he has given me a lesson. It was not easy to learn these letters and how they are put together to form words. So, when the scholar was confident that I could read, I ran to you to read the book.”

“How wonderful!” said his mother.

“How foolish!” said Rayyan.

“You will be a good scholar when you grow up,” said Ali with a sneer.

But his mother kissed him and gave him the beautiful book. “The prize is yours, Ayan,” she said. “I am sure that whether you grow up to be a scholar or a king, you will be a wise and noble man.”

And Ayan did grow up to become the wisest and noblest prince that the kingdom had ever known.

Published in Dawn, Young World, March 15th, 2025