Dear Kat,

For much more of the Nasruddin (spellings of his name are legion and widely varied in English) corpus of stories, many of them originally teaching stories from the Sufic tradition, check out the diverse and delightful works of Idries Shah, particularly several collections of the tales published by E.P. Dutton in the early 60s. (The versions I have do indeed have some lovely and whimsical illustrations between their covers.)

Happy - and enlightening - reading to all!

P.S. There is a tradition in the Middle East that once someone has told a story of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin, at least a half a dozen more must follow...so here's my contribution to the colloquy:

"Nasrudin was a master of the answer which corresponds to the mentality or the intentions of the speaker.

"Once, someone taking him for an idiot, asked:

'Why do some people walk in one direction and others in the opposite direction?'

"Nasrudin at once said:

'Well, if they all walked on the same part of the earth, it would become overweighted and turn upside down!'"