Idries Shah

Sufis

Drawn from teachings of more than a hundred sages from three continents, Thinkers of the East is a book of enormous breadth and depth, the impact and vitality of which is characteristic of the Sufi emphasis on experience rather than theory.

Studies in Experientialism

Thinkers of the East

The appeal of Nasrudin is as universal and timeless as the truths he illustrates. This delightful collection of teaching stories in which Mulla Nasrudin is the main actor is both an outstanding anthology of humor and a book of Sufi wisdom. Here are stories by the Sufi masters Rumi, Jami, and Attar, plus others collected by Idries Shah from the Persian, Afghan, Turkish, and Arabic cultures.

The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin

The Way of the Sufi (Penguin Arkana)

An apple falls into a hole while the Farmer's Wife is gathering apples and tries to command a series of animals, people, and inanimate objects to retrieve the apple for her.

However, the Farmer's Wife never says "please" and declares each animal, person, and object to be naughty, which my little reader noticed right away.   My little reader found the Farmer's Wife to be an uninteresting character, and that made the book not fun.


Additionally, there is repetitive incorrect grammar and unnecessary run-on sentences.  (By run-on's, I do not mean the sentences with the multiple "because" clauses, which were fine.)   The book editor simply did a poor job.

The Farmer's Wife

The Way of the Sufi

Books of the Sorcerers

The Secret Lore of Magic

The Natives Are Restless chronicles some of the amazing, amusing, and thought-provoking adventures of the Afghan traveller and writer, Idries Shah, among members of what he calls the 'English tribe'.It is an enthralling sequel to his bestselling Darkest England, the narrative illustrating his practised eye as an anthropologist. Shah observes how the English see themselves, and contrasts it with how the rest of the world views this eccentric island race. He also speculates on the likely continuing effect of Englishness on the future development of global society, offering unsuspecting parallels between English attitudes and Oriental wisdom.

Natives are Restless

The Way of the Sufi presents an unparalleled cross-section of material from Sufi schools, teachings and classical writings, as a basic course of Sufi study. The author begins with the outward aspects of the teaching most likely to puzzle the student coming fresh to the subject. He considers various attitudes to Sufi ideas, and evidence of their absorption into medieval Christianity, Hinduism, Jewish mysticism and modern philosophical teachings. The greater part of the book illuminates aspects of Sufi activity and practice relevant to the contemporary world.

Way of the Sufi

Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, Dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of a fable, legend or folklore. They stand comparison in wit, construction and piquancy with the finest stories of any culture, yet their true function as Sufi teaching stories is so little-known in the modern world, that no technical or popular terms exist to describe them. The material in Tales of the Dervishes is the result of a thousand years of development, during which Dervish masters used these and other teaching stories to instruct their disciples. The tales are held to convey powers of increasing perception unknown to the ordinary man.

Tales of the Dervishes

A man tricks a young fox into believing that he will give him a chicken. However, the fox gets trapped, but through his ingenuity and perseverance he manages to escape. This story can inspire children to face challenges and to overcome and, sometimes, make use of obstacles in their path.

The Old Woman and the Eagle/La Senora Y El Aguila

A Sufi teaching tale of a chicken that has learned to speak as people do and spreads an alarming warning, which causes the townspeople to panic without first considering the messenger.

The Silly Chicken / El Pollo Bobo

The 'perfuming of a scorpion', referred to by the great Sufi teacher Bahaudin, symbolizes hypocrisy and self-deception: both in the individual and in institutions.

A Perfumed Scorpion

First published in 1957, The Secret Lore of Magic contains within it a series of major source-books of magical arts. Many of them translated into English for the first time, these works are annotated and fully illustrated. The book's title in itself signalled the fact that the bulk of material in this bibliographical study had never been published openly before. Together with Oriental Magic which appeared in the preceding year, it provided a complete survey of fundamental magical literature, and thus a comprehensive reference system for psychologists, ethnologists and others interested in the rise and development of human beliefs. Both books also introduced the general reader to dependable information about what was a shadowy and confusing subject.

How can it be that the same story is found in Scotland and also in Pre-Columbian America? What can account for the durability and persistence of tales? Was the tale of Aladdin and his wondrous lamp really taken from Wales (where it has been found) to the ancient East and, if so, when and by whom? These questions and more are answered in Idries Shah's remarkable volume World Tales, which is subtitled "The extraordinary coincidence of stories told in all times, in all places." In his introduction, Shah remarks, "Working for thirty-five years among the written and oral sources of our world heritage in tales, one feels a truly living element in them which is startlingly evident when one isolates the 'basic' stories; the ones which tend to have traveled farthest, to have featured in the largest number of classical collections, to have inspired great writers of the past and present."

World Tales (Pocket Edition)

This story is about a very badly behaved man - how a young boy invents a plan to change his behavior - and, with the help of the other villagers, succeeds. The story brings children laughter and, at the same time, teaches them valuable lessons about conflict resolution, initiative and co-operation.

English-French Edition

The Man with Bad Manners -- L'Homme Aux Mauvaises Manières

How can it be that the same story is found in Scotland and also in Pre-Columbian America? What can account for the durability and persistence of tales? Was the tale of Aladdin and his wondrous lamp really taken from Wales (where it has been found) to the ancient East and, if so, when and by whom? These questions and more are answered in Idries Shah's remarkable volume World Tales, which is subtitled, 'The extraordinary coincidence of stories told in all times, in all places'. In his introduction, Shah remarks, 'Working for thirty-five years among the written and oral sources of our world heritage in tales, one feels a truly living element in them which is startlingly evident when one isolates the 'basic' stories; the ones which tend to have travelled farthest, to have featured in the largest number of classical collections, to have inspired great writers of the past and present'.

The Happiest Man in the World and Other Stories

World Tales II

Los Sufis es la mejor introduccion jamas escrita sobre la escuela filosofica y mistica tradicionalmente asociada con el mundo islamico.Potente, conciso e intensamente estimulante, resume mas de mil anos de pensamiento oriental - el producto de algunas de las mentes mas ilustres de toda la historia humana - en una sola obra, presentando ideas atemporales en un estilo fresco y contemporaneo.Cuando el libro se publico originalmente en ingles, en 1964, lanzo a su autor, Idries Shah, a la escena internacional, atrayendo la atencion de pensadores y escritores como J. D. Salinger, la Premio Nobel Doris Lessing, Ted Hughes, Claudio Naranjo y Robert Graves.Tambien introdujo al mundo occidental nuevos conceptos que ahora son comunes, como la importancia psicologica de la atencion y el humor, el uso de historias tradicionales como instrumentos de ensenanza (lo que Shah denomino "e;cuentos ensenantes"e;), y la deuda historica de Occidente con el Medio Oriente en materia cientifica, literaria y filosofica.Como introduccion a las muchas docenas de libros Sufis que Shah escribio despues, es insuperable: este mismo libro abre una ventana a una comunidad de gente (Los Sufis mismos) cuyo sistema de pensamiento y accion se ha enfocado durante mucho tiempo en el avance de la humanidad toda, y cuyas ideas sobre los individuos y la sociedad, su proposito y direccion, deben ser comprendidas y ponderadas... hoy mas que nunca.

Los Sufis

A boy seeks and eventually finds his own name - and also gives away an old dream he doesn't want - for a wonderful new dream. This is one of a series of illustrated books for children by Idries Shah, whose collections of narratives and Teaching-Stories have captivated the hearts and minds of people of all ages and from all walks of life.

English-Urdu Edition

The Boy Without a Name

As our world continues to shrink, we are being brought headlong into often explosive contact with other cultures and religions. Islam continues to be for many a mysterious and misunderstood force, alien to our own cultural values. Yet, in more ways than expected, Christianity and Islam share common ground. For centuries, Sufi thinkers have been linked to both religions in certain important ideas. But, like the elephant in the dark in Jalaludin Rumi's classic fable, these ideas are not grasped in full by seizing parts of the whole and arguing for or against their supposed Christian or Islamic derivation. From a series of lectures given by Idries Shah at Geneva University, The Elephant in the Dark shifts focus to more fruitful ground, tracing documented episodes of cooperation and understanding between Christians and Moslems over the past 1,400 years.

Idries Shah

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