A good many of the anecdotes relating to the khoja tell how he often feigned death, from the day his wife taught him how to distinguish a dead person from a living one. She had informed him that it was a very easy matter, for a dead person always had cold feet and cold hands.

On his way to the mountains one day for wood he felt that both his feet and hands were cold and concluded that he must be a dead man. Dismounting from his ass he lay down on the ground, but wolves soon appeared on the scene, and would have devoured both the ass and the khoja, were it not for the holy man's vigorous defence of himself and his property. So vigorous was this defence that, by the time the pack had been driven off, the hands and feet of the khoja had become so warm that he concluded he must be alive after all.

On another occasion while the khoja was traversing a desolate plain which had the reputation of being haunted by brigands, he suddenly saw a number of horsemen riding towards him. Overcome by terror, the holy man immediately rushed into a cemetery close by, took off his clothes, entered a tomb, and lay down. The horsemen had perceived him, however, and, riding up to the tomb, one of them asked him in a loud voice what he was doing there.

"As you can see for yourselves," the khoja immediately answered, "I am one of the dead belonging to this graveyard, and I have just come in from a walk."

When the khoja made his last will he specially requested that he should be placed in an old tomb. Asked why he made such a strange request, he replied: "When the angels come to question me, I shall tell them that I and my tomb are very old, – and that, owing to extreme old age, I myself am as deaf as the tomb-stone."

After taking a short cut through a graveyard one day the khoja fell into an ancient tomb, and, wishing to experience the feelings of the dead, he made for a while no effort to rise, but lay still where he had fallen. He lay there with his mind concentrated on eternity, when the sudden tinkling of bells disturbed the solemnity of the graveyard and nearly scared the life out of the khoja, who suddenly jumped up in great alarm under the impression that the bells which he heard announced the Day of Judgment.

As a matter of fact the sound proceeded from the little ornamental bells attached to the loads and the harness of a passing caravan of camels. The sudden appearance of the khoja from the tomb frightened the whole caravan, making the timid beasts rush hither and thither in great confusion, with the result that the men in charge of the caravan experienced much annoyance and loss of time.

As soon as they had quieted the camels, however, they turned angrily on the innocent cause of all this trouble and beat him black and blue with their sticks. Nor did they stop even when the khoja assured them that he was a dead man and had merely come out for a walk.

With tears in his eyes the poor khoja ran home after this drubbing, and when his wife asked him where he had been, "Peace, woman," he replied tartly, "I have been both dead and in the tomb."

Not to be silenced even by this reply, his wife then asked what there was to be seen in the other world, whereunto the khoja answered: "It is both comfortable and pleasant in the other world, but one thing you must not do, –you must not frighten the camels. If you do, the cameldrivers will beat you."