A father left 17 camels, as the inheritance for his three sons.
When the father passed away, his sons opened up the will.
The Will stated that THE ELDEST SON SHOULD GET HALF of 17 camels while THE MIDDLE SON SHOULD BE GIVEN 1/3RD (ONE-THIRD) & THE YOUNGEST SON SHOULD BE GIVEN 1/9TH (ONE-NINTH) of the 17 camels.
As it is not possible to divide 17 into half or 17 by 3 or 17 by 9, the three sons started to quarrel with each other and fight for who should gain an extra camel and lose a camel. As they continued to fight they spotted a wise woman and decided to go to this wise woman to see if she has any ideas.
The wise woman listened patiently about the Will.
The wise young woman, after giving some thought, brought one camel of her own and added the same to 17. That increased the total to 18 camels.
Now, she started reading the deceased father’s will.
Half of 18 = 9.
So she gave the eldest son 9 camels
1/3rd of 18 = 6.
So she gave the middle son 6 camels
1/9th of 18 = 2.
So she gave the youngest son 2 camels.
Now add this up: 9 plus 6 plus 2 is 17,
and this left one camel, which the wise woman took away.
There are many teachings of this story. First of all:
- To reach any solution of any problem the first step is to believe that there is a solution. Otherwise there won’t be any!
- Also the wise woman listened with patience to their problems, this shows that whatever one wants they may not get this straight away but they have to believe and try and figure out ways to settle this by possibly finding a common ground which everyone will agree to.