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LOS SUFIES
Idries Shah's definitive work, The Sufis, completely overturned Western misconceptions of Sufism, revealing a great spiritual and psychological tradition encompassing many of the world's greatest thinkers: Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Ibn El-Arabi, Al-Ghazzali, Saadi, Attar, Francis of Assisi and many others.
The astonishing impact of Sufism on the development of Western civilization from the seventh century is traced through the work of Roger Bacon, John of the Cross, Raymond Lully, Chaucer and others. Many of the greatest traditions, ideas and discoveries of the West are traced to the teachings and writings of Sufi masters working centuries ago.
But The Sufis is far more than an historical account.
In the tradition of the great Sufi classics, the deeper appeal of this remarkable book is in its ability to function as an active instrument of instruction, in a way that is so clearly relevant to our time and culture.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1964
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About the author
Idries Shah
246 books426 followersIdries Shah (Persian: ادریس شاه), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي), was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen critically acclaimed books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.
Born in India, the descendant of a family of Afghan nobles, Shah grew up mainly in England. His early writings centred on magic and witchcraft. In 1960 he established a publishing house, Octagon Press, producing translations of Sufi classics as well as titles of his own. His most seminal work was The Sufis, which appeared in 1964 and was well received internationally. In 1965, Shah founded the Institute for Cultural Research, a London-based educational charity devoted to the study of human behaviour and culture. A similar organisation, the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge (ISHK), exists in the United States, under the directorship of Stanford University psychology professor Robert Ornstein, whom Shah appointed as his deputy in the U.S.
In his writings, Shah presented Sufism as a universal form of wisdom that predated Islam. Emphasising that Sufism was not static but always adapted itself to the current time, place and people, he framed his teaching in Western psychological terms. Shah made extensive use of traditional teaching stories and parables, texts that contained multiple layers of meaning designed to trigger insight and self-reflection in the reader. He is perhaps best known for his collections of humorous Mulla Nasrudin stories.
Shah was at times criticised by orientalists who questioned his credentials and background. His role in the controversy surrounding a new translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published by his friend Robert Graves and his older brother Omar Ali-Shah, came in for particular scrutiny. However, he also had many notable defenders, chief among them the novelist Doris Lessing. Shah came to be recognised as a spokesman for Sufism in the West and lectured as a visiting professor at a number of Western universities. His works have played a significant part in presenting Sufism as a secular, individualistic form of spiritual wisdom.
Idries Shah's books on Sufism achieved considerable critical acclaim. He was the subject of a BBC documentary ("One Pair of Eyes") in 1969, and two of his works (The Way of the Sufi and Reflections) were chosen as "Outstanding Book of the Year" by the BBC's "The Critics" programme. Among other honours, Shah won six first prizes at the UNESCO World Book Year in 1973, and the Islamic scholar James Kritzeck, commenting on Shah's Tales of the Dervishes, said that it was "beautifully translated".
The reception of Shah's movement was also marked by much controversy. Some orientalists were hostile, in part because Shah presented classical Sufi writings as tools for self-development to be used by contemporary people, rather than as objects of historical study. L. P. Elwell-Sutton from Edinburgh University, Shah's fiercest critic, described his books as "trivial", replete with errors of fact, slovenly and inaccurate translations and even misspellings of Oriental names and words – "a muddle of platitudes, irrelevancies and plain mumbo-jumbo", adding for good measure that Shah had "a remarkable opinion of his own importance". Expressing amusement and amazement at the "sycophantic manner" of Shah's interlocutors in a BBC radio interview, Elwell-Sutton concluded that some Western intellectuals were "so desperate to find answers to the questions that baffle them, that, confronted with wisdom from 'the mysterious East,' they abandon their critical faculties and submit to brainwashing of the crudest kind". To Elwell-Sutton, Shah's Sufism belonged to the realm of "Pseudo-Sufism", "centred not on God but on man."
Doris Lessing, one of Shah's greatest defenders,stated in a 1981 interview: "I found Sufism as taught by Idries Shah, which claim
Born in India, the descendant of a family of Afghan nobles, Shah grew up mainly in England. His early writings centred on magic and witchcraft. In 1960 he established a publishing house, Octagon Press, producing translations of Sufi classics as well as titles of his own. His most seminal work was The Sufis, which appeared in 1964 and was well received internationally. In 1965, Shah founded the Institute for Cultural Research, a London-based educational charity devoted to the study of human behaviour and culture. A similar organisation, the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge (ISHK), exists in the United States, under the directorship of Stanford University psychology professor Robert Ornstein, whom Shah appointed as his deputy in the U.S.
In his writings, Shah presented Sufism as a universal form of wisdom that predated Islam. Emphasising that Sufism was not static but always adapted itself to the current time, place and people, he framed his teaching in Western psychological terms. Shah made extensive use of traditional teaching stories and parables, texts that contained multiple layers of meaning designed to trigger insight and self-reflection in the reader. He is perhaps best known for his collections of humorous Mulla Nasrudin stories.
Shah was at times criticised by orientalists who questioned his credentials and background. His role in the controversy surrounding a new translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, published by his friend Robert Graves and his older brother Omar Ali-Shah, came in for particular scrutiny. However, he also had many notable defenders, chief among them the novelist Doris Lessing. Shah came to be recognised as a spokesman for Sufism in the West and lectured as a visiting professor at a number of Western universities. His works have played a significant part in presenting Sufism as a secular, individualistic form of spiritual wisdom.
Idries Shah's books on Sufism achieved considerable critical acclaim. He was the subject of a BBC documentary ("One Pair of Eyes") in 1969, and two of his works (The Way of the Sufi and Reflections) were chosen as "Outstanding Book of the Year" by the BBC's "The Critics" programme. Among other honours, Shah won six first prizes at the UNESCO World Book Year in 1973, and the Islamic scholar James Kritzeck, commenting on Shah's Tales of the Dervishes, said that it was "beautifully translated".
The reception of Shah's movement was also marked by much controversy. Some orientalists were hostile, in part because Shah presented classical Sufi writings as tools for self-development to be used by contemporary people, rather than as objects of historical study. L. P. Elwell-Sutton from Edinburgh University, Shah's fiercest critic, described his books as "trivial", replete with errors of fact, slovenly and inaccurate translations and even misspellings of Oriental names and words – "a muddle of platitudes, irrelevancies and plain mumbo-jumbo", adding for good measure that Shah had "a remarkable opinion of his own importance". Expressing amusement and amazement at the "sycophantic manner" of Shah's interlocutors in a BBC radio interview, Elwell-Sutton concluded that some Western intellectuals were "so desperate to find answers to the questions that baffle them, that, confronted with wisdom from 'the mysterious East,' they abandon their critical faculties and submit to brainwashing of the crudest kind". To Elwell-Sutton, Shah's Sufism belonged to the realm of "Pseudo-Sufism", "centred not on God but on man."
Doris Lessing, one of Shah's greatest defenders,stated in a 1981 interview: "I found Sufism as taught by Idries Shah, which claim
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December 23, 2018
I do not recommend this book or this author anymore. Avoid him, in fact.
Without going into details but I have discovered far better, clearer, more closer to the source and available authors since (when referring to the English/French languages that is) namely Letters of a Sufi Master by Sheikh Darqawi, Faouzi Skali, Abdal Hakim Murad, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Roger Du Pasquier - among others.
There is a certain smell of someone who doesn't not speak out of lived experience, but rather of papers and of specific "romantic" or sentimental interpretations. And God knows best.
However, I am thankful for his exposition of Nasrudin jokes (Juha in North Africa, Nasrudin in asia minor and to the east) - which some of them, are indeed deep.
Without going into details but I have discovered far better, clearer, more closer to the source and available authors since (when referring to the English/French languages that is) namely Letters of a Sufi Master by Sheikh Darqawi, Faouzi Skali, Abdal Hakim Murad, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Roger Du Pasquier - among others.
There is a certain smell of someone who doesn't not speak out of lived experience, but rather of papers and of specific "romantic" or sentimental interpretations. And God knows best.
However, I am thankful for his exposition of Nasrudin jokes (Juha in North Africa, Nasrudin in asia minor and to the east) - which some of them, are indeed deep.
January 2, 2017
This is one of the few books I can say definitively changed my life for the better. I remember reading it in university, when I was in the firm grip of western analytic philosophy. I picked up Shah's book and immediately started dissecting it as I would any other academic text. But I'd gone camping alone on an isolated beach and, as I read the first chapter it was as if something in me -- something obscuring, like wearing someone else's glasses -- fell away. I realized, at once, that every philosophical tool I'd ever been trained to use in university wasn't right for this book. The more I read, the more clear-headed I felt. I could see the dim outline of something important emerge from the text, something I'd felt was there all along in life, but couldn't approach, unless I changed my thinking, refined what was useful in me. This book was the first step in doing just that.
October 14, 2014
The prodigious Work of the Sufis:
The Sufis by Idries Shah offers a wide overview of the historical development of the Sufi Way, through the works of individual masters (many of whom were highly successful polymaths), schools and orders, and through a whole host of fields in which they were engaged or through which their work was projected, such as religion, ethics, learning, science, the arts, traditional psychology and (not least) humour. Though it came to maturity in the classical Islamic era, the Sufi Way (which may be thought of in part as the esoteric heart of [exoteric] religion), it is said to have been a vital "yeast" or leaven in societies since time immemorial.
The Sufis shows the extraordinary and largely unknown or unsuspected influence and shaping of society, of what some term the "Ancient Teachings" or the "Secret Doctrine", not only in the East but also gradually diffusing throughout Medieval Christondom, a process which continues to this day, being re-presented as ever in accordance with the needs of time, place and people.
There's little point in reading out a list of the many topics covered by the chapters in the book, but suffice it to say that the Sufis influenced or were behind a great many of our institutions, or that these institutions are relics of previously dynamic Sufic operations. At random, then, we can see this Sufic influence in our poetry; literature; mythology; magic; alchemy; freemasonry; and in the Troubadour movement (with the concept of chivalry, romantic love and hence much modern music that has come along in its wake).
However, this book is no mere historical or academic exposition. If The Sufis appears scholarly, then that is only really of secondary importance. It comes over not only as an authoritative work but it clearly shows that the author is thoroughly familiar with the Sufi Way itself, having trodden that Path like Sufi mystics and action-philosophers before him, and having returned to help others along the Way. The work offers a detailed explanation of Sufi thought and action, scattered throughout the book, and together these points not only slowly build up a more-and-more coherent picture in the reader's mind but form a constellation of minor impacts designed to bypass the mind's censors, and "loosen up" prejudices and fixed thinking patterns.
As well as providing information, which has its place in preparatory studies, Shah's many books are primarily works designed to provoke and bring about change in the reader, initially perhaps at the level of opinion and belief, intellect and emotion (not least through the use of specialist teaching stories). But ultimately – if the studies are followed with sufficient dedication, and ideally with the help of a teacher – the studies bring about a succession of real and lasting changes in his or her actual being, through the activation of latent, subtle organs of higher perception. First, however, much groundwork and seed-planting has to be accomplished, what the Sufis call "learning how to learn" (which, it has to be said, also involves a lot of un-learning), before the real "self work" can begin in earnest.
Re-reading the work, I felt deeply saddened about the vicissitudes that the various genuine mystical traditions, their teachers, their followers (and folk in general) have gone through over the years; and about how different things could have been for future generations, not least here in the West, "if only ..." Over the years, we appear to have lost, squandered, misappropriated, twisted, discounted or rejected so much of inestimable worth and ended up in an almighty jam (with rampant materialism in the West and zealous extremism in the East). And at the same time, I'm thinking: "Hey, without Grace and without the folk in the traditions or favourably disposed to the traditions, and the struggles and sacrifice that they have been through, things could have been a whole lot worse." And for that, I will be eternally grateful.
In the end, I'm compelled to concede that I still can't find the words to do this work, The Sufis, anything like the justice that it so richly deserves, and can offer no better advice than to read (and re-read) the book yourself, and other books in the corpus. As Shah's son, Tahir has noted in his own book "In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams", shortly before he died Shah stated that his books form a complete course that could fulfil the function he had fulfilled while alive. As such, The Sufis can be read as part of a whole course of study.
The Sufis by Idries Shah offers a wide overview of the historical development of the Sufi Way, through the works of individual masters (many of whom were highly successful polymaths), schools and orders, and through a whole host of fields in which they were engaged or through which their work was projected, such as religion, ethics, learning, science, the arts, traditional psychology and (not least) humour. Though it came to maturity in the classical Islamic era, the Sufi Way (which may be thought of in part as the esoteric heart of [exoteric] religion), it is said to have been a vital "yeast" or leaven in societies since time immemorial.
The Sufis shows the extraordinary and largely unknown or unsuspected influence and shaping of society, of what some term the "Ancient Teachings" or the "Secret Doctrine", not only in the East but also gradually diffusing throughout Medieval Christondom, a process which continues to this day, being re-presented as ever in accordance with the needs of time, place and people.
There's little point in reading out a list of the many topics covered by the chapters in the book, but suffice it to say that the Sufis influenced or were behind a great many of our institutions, or that these institutions are relics of previously dynamic Sufic operations. At random, then, we can see this Sufic influence in our poetry; literature; mythology; magic; alchemy; freemasonry; and in the Troubadour movement (with the concept of chivalry, romantic love and hence much modern music that has come along in its wake).
However, this book is no mere historical or academic exposition. If The Sufis appears scholarly, then that is only really of secondary importance. It comes over not only as an authoritative work but it clearly shows that the author is thoroughly familiar with the Sufi Way itself, having trodden that Path like Sufi mystics and action-philosophers before him, and having returned to help others along the Way. The work offers a detailed explanation of Sufi thought and action, scattered throughout the book, and together these points not only slowly build up a more-and-more coherent picture in the reader's mind but form a constellation of minor impacts designed to bypass the mind's censors, and "loosen up" prejudices and fixed thinking patterns.
As well as providing information, which has its place in preparatory studies, Shah's many books are primarily works designed to provoke and bring about change in the reader, initially perhaps at the level of opinion and belief, intellect and emotion (not least through the use of specialist teaching stories). But ultimately – if the studies are followed with sufficient dedication, and ideally with the help of a teacher – the studies bring about a succession of real and lasting changes in his or her actual being, through the activation of latent, subtle organs of higher perception. First, however, much groundwork and seed-planting has to be accomplished, what the Sufis call "learning how to learn" (which, it has to be said, also involves a lot of un-learning), before the real "self work" can begin in earnest.
Re-reading the work, I felt deeply saddened about the vicissitudes that the various genuine mystical traditions, their teachers, their followers (and folk in general) have gone through over the years; and about how different things could have been for future generations, not least here in the West, "if only ..." Over the years, we appear to have lost, squandered, misappropriated, twisted, discounted or rejected so much of inestimable worth and ended up in an almighty jam (with rampant materialism in the West and zealous extremism in the East). And at the same time, I'm thinking: "Hey, without Grace and without the folk in the traditions or favourably disposed to the traditions, and the struggles and sacrifice that they have been through, things could have been a whole lot worse." And for that, I will be eternally grateful.
In the end, I'm compelled to concede that I still can't find the words to do this work, The Sufis, anything like the justice that it so richly deserves, and can offer no better advice than to read (and re-read) the book yourself, and other books in the corpus. As Shah's son, Tahir has noted in his own book "In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams", shortly before he died Shah stated that his books form a complete course that could fulfil the function he had fulfilled while alive. As such, The Sufis can be read as part of a whole course of study.
October 15, 2020
This is THE book on Sufism as explained to the Western world. I originally read it several years ago, and this book is timeless. I highly recommend it to anyone who is wondering what Sufism is all about.
November 29, 2014
“The Sufis often start from a nonreligious viewpoint” says Idries Shah towards the beginning of this book. Religions after all are nothing more than languages, paths, symbols, collections of forms pointing towards something so real that it is beyond form, yet so intimate that it permeates all. Sufism as a name is perhaps unfortunate just as naming divinity carries its own inherent limitations. When we attempt to name or define “God”, we immediately create a set of conceptions, assumptions that are colored by our environment. This idea of God is nothing more than a caricature. It can be no other way. To get beyond this, the Sufi might start by telling a person to “know their self”. The self is an idea or “place”, a conception that might be the most authentic mental location to begin the path. The attempt to know the self becomes a concept that begins to make it possible to strip away the institutionalization of religion in an effort towards realization, but it is only the first step, Shah would say.
The Sufi might then be said to be the person who wants to know the real…the real that is beyond form. Yet this simplistic idea doesn’t convey the full sense of what Shah is trying to say, and the very premise of the book is that it is only a means to bridge a gap between the intellectual and the form of knowledge that the Sufi comes to realize. Sufi writings can be difficult to penetrate precisely because they point to a knowledge that is beyond standard patterns of intellectual learning. Shah says that literature and intellectual ideas can only be preparatory work at best. To truly progress, a living teacher is required as guide on the path. The Western mind tends to become defensive towards the idea of a guide or master, but Shah would be the first to say that defensiveness is exactly the kind of patterned thinking to be overcome. It contains assumptions of what we mean by “teacher” and “path”.
Shah’s attempt at reducing patterned ideas comes in his emphasis of the wide variety of means in Sufic education. He incorporates much of this throughout the book, in his communication of alchemical ideas around numerology and linguistics, and ideas concerning psychology and philosophy and his emphasis on parables and stories. All have been influenced by this stream he calls Sufism, but this stream stretches much further back than is usually credited. As Sufism points to the truest reality, the truest being, the stream is as old as being itself.
In the Sufi ideal of everything coming from one source, Shah takes us through many known concepts, such as Freemasonry, magic, secret societies, even the Illuminati and shows us how these often dark conceptions are shells that have lost their essence. It’s an amazing insight into the nature of evil as conceived in the Islamic mind – in that evil is “not-God” and not a definite reality in itself. It is seen as a lack rather than a concrete existence. This is consistent with the idea of one truth, one reality, one being, one God. Islam as a form has become the primary vehicle of origination for the Sufi since the revelation to the Prophet Mohammad (s.a.w.), but it is not the only form.
The idea of the guide in current forms of Sufism stretches back as a spiritual lineage to the Prophet Mohammad (s.a.w.), and this concept of spiritual ancestry leads us to the realization that religious knowledge as a language, a set of forms, symbols is necessary to the Sufi. Religion is a path, and the destination is reached by remaining on the path. There is deep knowledge in religious traditions. They have remained and stood the test of time through the essence of truth contained past the dross of cultural and societal baggage. There is diversity thanks to the Real that is beyond form, and can only express itself in this world of form through diversity, hence the variety of religious paths.
For a mind accustomed to Western conditioning, this work is a wonderful introduction to Sufism, but operates on so many different levels thanks to the subject matter that it will likely be appreciated by many different seekers. It should though, be approached from a certain perspective: “In effect, this book is not addressed to intellectuals or other orthodox thinkers, or to anyone who will fail to recognize it at once as addressed to himself” – Robert Graves, preface.
The Sufi might then be said to be the person who wants to know the real…the real that is beyond form. Yet this simplistic idea doesn’t convey the full sense of what Shah is trying to say, and the very premise of the book is that it is only a means to bridge a gap between the intellectual and the form of knowledge that the Sufi comes to realize. Sufi writings can be difficult to penetrate precisely because they point to a knowledge that is beyond standard patterns of intellectual learning. Shah says that literature and intellectual ideas can only be preparatory work at best. To truly progress, a living teacher is required as guide on the path. The Western mind tends to become defensive towards the idea of a guide or master, but Shah would be the first to say that defensiveness is exactly the kind of patterned thinking to be overcome. It contains assumptions of what we mean by “teacher” and “path”.
Shah’s attempt at reducing patterned ideas comes in his emphasis of the wide variety of means in Sufic education. He incorporates much of this throughout the book, in his communication of alchemical ideas around numerology and linguistics, and ideas concerning psychology and philosophy and his emphasis on parables and stories. All have been influenced by this stream he calls Sufism, but this stream stretches much further back than is usually credited. As Sufism points to the truest reality, the truest being, the stream is as old as being itself.
In the Sufi ideal of everything coming from one source, Shah takes us through many known concepts, such as Freemasonry, magic, secret societies, even the Illuminati and shows us how these often dark conceptions are shells that have lost their essence. It’s an amazing insight into the nature of evil as conceived in the Islamic mind – in that evil is “not-God” and not a definite reality in itself. It is seen as a lack rather than a concrete existence. This is consistent with the idea of one truth, one reality, one being, one God. Islam as a form has become the primary vehicle of origination for the Sufi since the revelation to the Prophet Mohammad (s.a.w.), but it is not the only form.
The idea of the guide in current forms of Sufism stretches back as a spiritual lineage to the Prophet Mohammad (s.a.w.), and this concept of spiritual ancestry leads us to the realization that religious knowledge as a language, a set of forms, symbols is necessary to the Sufi. Religion is a path, and the destination is reached by remaining on the path. There is deep knowledge in religious traditions. They have remained and stood the test of time through the essence of truth contained past the dross of cultural and societal baggage. There is diversity thanks to the Real that is beyond form, and can only express itself in this world of form through diversity, hence the variety of religious paths.
For a mind accustomed to Western conditioning, this work is a wonderful introduction to Sufism, but operates on so many different levels thanks to the subject matter that it will likely be appreciated by many different seekers. It should though, be approached from a certain perspective: “In effect, this book is not addressed to intellectuals or other orthodox thinkers, or to anyone who will fail to recognize it at once as addressed to himself” – Robert Graves, preface.
January 15, 2018
I loved this. I tend to love books that give me insight into words and the origins of phrases and organisations. At times I must admit that this did sound conspiratorial in places as Idries tried to link the origin of organisations like the Carboneri in Italy and the Freemasons and Knights Templar to Sufiism which I found a little dubious but the way he puts his arguments across it did sound reasonable in certain places. The book is one of the best I have read on the subject. It covers some of the great Sufi leaders of the past like Rumi, and Ghazali, Fariddun Attar and Ibn El Arabi and a really funny Sufi warrior called Nasrudin! His allegorical stories are beautifully and intellectually tinged with humour and comedy. Here are some of my favourite bits from the book:
• “Your problem is that what you call intellect is really a series of ideas which alternately take possession of your consciousness.”
• “One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked.
A voice asked: “Who is there?” He answered: “It is I.”
The voice said: “There is no room here for me and thee.”
The door was shut.
After a year of solitude and deprivation
this man returned to the door of the Beloved.
He knocked.
A voice from within asked: “Who is there?”
The man said: “It is Thou.”
The door was opened for him.”
• “To be in the world but not of it free from ambition, greed intellectual pride, blind obedience to custom or awe of persons higher in rank – that is the Sufis ideal.”
• “Like the bat the Sufi is asleep to things of the day – the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man finds all important and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment is a commonplaces of Sufi literature.”
• “A Sufi school comes into being like any other natural factor in order to flourish and disappear not to leave traces in mechanical ritual or anthropologically interesting survivals. The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted not to leave unaltered traces.”
• “Man is wrapping his net around himself. A lion bursts his cage asunder.”
• “Their real problem was that they assumed themselves able to formulate the questions and ignored the fact that the questions were every bit as important as the answers.”
• “A child learns to read by mastering the alphabet. When he can read words he retains the knowledge of the letters but reads whole words. If he were to concentrate upon letters he would be severely handicapped by what was useful only at an earlier stage. Both words and letters should now have a more settled perspective. Thus the Sufic method.”
• “Four men – a Persian a Turk an Arab and a Greek were standing in a village street. They were travelling companions making for some distance place but at this moment they were arguing over the spending of a single pieces of money which was all that they had among them. I want to buy an ANGUR said the Persian. I want UZUM said the Turk. I want INAB said the Arab. We should buy STAFIL said the Greek. Another traveller passing, a linguist, said give the coin to me. I undertake to satisfy the desires of all of you. At first they would not trust him. Ultimately they let him have the coin. He went to the shop of a fruit seller and bought four small bunches of grapes. This is my ANGUR said the Persian. This is my UZUM said the Turk. This is my INAB said the Arab. This is my STAFIL said the Greek. The grapes were shared out among them and each realised that the disharmony had been due to his faulty understanding of the language of the others. The travellers said the Aga are ordinary people of the world. The Sufi is the linguist.”
• “The totality of life cannot be understood so runs Sufi teaching if it is studied only through the methods which we use in everyday living.”
• “Nasruddin hammers away at the essential idea that mystical experience and enlightenment cannot come through a rearrangement of familiar ideas but through a recognition of the limitations of ordinary thinking, which serves only for mundane purposes.”
• “People sell talking parrots for huge sums. They never pause to compare the possible value of a thinking parrot.”
• “Attar died as he had lived. Teaching his last action was deliberately calculated to make a man think for himself. When the barbarians under Jhengiz Khan invaded Persia in 1220, Attar was seized, by now a man of one hundred and 10 years of age. One Mongol said do not kills this man, I will give a thousand pieces of silver as a ransom for him. Attar told his captor to hold out for he would get a better price from someone else. A little later another man offered only a quantity of straw for him. Sell me for the straw said Attar for hat is all that I am worth. And he was slain by the infuriated Mongol.”
• “Ecstatogenic methods – a phenomenal example of the method of scatter whereby a picture is built up by multiple impact to infuse into the mind the Sufi message.”
• “In order to approach the Sufi way the seeker must realise that he is largely a bundle of what are nowadays called conditionings – fixed ideas and prejudices automatic responses sometimes which have occurred through the training of others. Man is not as free as he thinks he is. The first step if for the individual to get away from thinking that he understand and really understand. But man has been taught that he can understand everything by the same processes – the processes of logic.”
• “The book of Sufis is not the darkness of letters it is the whiteness of a pure heart.”
• “Cease thought except for the creator of thought – thought for life is better than thought of bread. In the amplitude of Gods earth why have you fallen asleep in a prison? Abandon complicated thoughts in order to see the concealed answer. Be silent of speech to attain enduring speech. Pass life and world in order to see the life of the world.”
• “Participation in music and dancing under any other circumstances is says Ghazali, not only forbidden it is actually harmful to the aspirant. Modern psychology has not yet realised that there is a special function of sound for elevating consciousness.”
• “Abjad scheme: a fairly simple substitution cipher ….. Which is widely used in literature many people read it or at least look for it almost as a matter of course especially poets and writers. Each Arabic letter has a numerical equivalent … seek knowledge, even as far as china the phrase which is on all Sufi lips has more than a literal or even a figurative sense. This meaning is unlocked by analysing the se of the word china interpreted through the secret (Abjad) language. China is the code work for mind concentration, one of the Sufi practises, an essential prerequisite to Sufic development.”
• “The process by means of which a foreign word of phrase becomes adopted into another language is well established in literature and custom. There are numerous examples and the system has been named, being catalogued in dictionaries as Hobson-Jonson. The interminable religious chant in India “Ya Hassan Ya Hussain” is accepted in English under the sound Hobson-Jobson, an attempt by British soldiers to reproduce the chant.”
• “The sensual nature of music is here referred to as well as the mere emotional and limited intellectual value of music. These are dangers both because they may lead to sensuality and because through producing a taste for the secondary indulgence (music because one enjoys music) it veils the real usefulness of music which is to develop the consciousness.”
• “Your problem is that what you call intellect is really a series of ideas which alternately take possession of your consciousness.”
• “One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked.
A voice asked: “Who is there?” He answered: “It is I.”
The voice said: “There is no room here for me and thee.”
The door was shut.
After a year of solitude and deprivation
this man returned to the door of the Beloved.
He knocked.
A voice from within asked: “Who is there?”
The man said: “It is Thou.”
The door was opened for him.”
• “To be in the world but not of it free from ambition, greed intellectual pride, blind obedience to custom or awe of persons higher in rank – that is the Sufis ideal.”
• “Like the bat the Sufi is asleep to things of the day – the familiar struggle for existence which the ordinary man finds all important and vigilant while others are asleep. In other words, he keeps awake the spiritual attention dormant in others. That mankind sleeps in a nightmare of unfulfillment is a commonplaces of Sufi literature.”
• “A Sufi school comes into being like any other natural factor in order to flourish and disappear not to leave traces in mechanical ritual or anthropologically interesting survivals. The function of a nutrient is to become transmuted not to leave unaltered traces.”
• “Man is wrapping his net around himself. A lion bursts his cage asunder.”
• “Their real problem was that they assumed themselves able to formulate the questions and ignored the fact that the questions were every bit as important as the answers.”
• “A child learns to read by mastering the alphabet. When he can read words he retains the knowledge of the letters but reads whole words. If he were to concentrate upon letters he would be severely handicapped by what was useful only at an earlier stage. Both words and letters should now have a more settled perspective. Thus the Sufic method.”
• “Four men – a Persian a Turk an Arab and a Greek were standing in a village street. They were travelling companions making for some distance place but at this moment they were arguing over the spending of a single pieces of money which was all that they had among them. I want to buy an ANGUR said the Persian. I want UZUM said the Turk. I want INAB said the Arab. We should buy STAFIL said the Greek. Another traveller passing, a linguist, said give the coin to me. I undertake to satisfy the desires of all of you. At first they would not trust him. Ultimately they let him have the coin. He went to the shop of a fruit seller and bought four small bunches of grapes. This is my ANGUR said the Persian. This is my UZUM said the Turk. This is my INAB said the Arab. This is my STAFIL said the Greek. The grapes were shared out among them and each realised that the disharmony had been due to his faulty understanding of the language of the others. The travellers said the Aga are ordinary people of the world. The Sufi is the linguist.”
• “The totality of life cannot be understood so runs Sufi teaching if it is studied only through the methods which we use in everyday living.”
• “Nasruddin hammers away at the essential idea that mystical experience and enlightenment cannot come through a rearrangement of familiar ideas but through a recognition of the limitations of ordinary thinking, which serves only for mundane purposes.”
• “People sell talking parrots for huge sums. They never pause to compare the possible value of a thinking parrot.”
• “Attar died as he had lived. Teaching his last action was deliberately calculated to make a man think for himself. When the barbarians under Jhengiz Khan invaded Persia in 1220, Attar was seized, by now a man of one hundred and 10 years of age. One Mongol said do not kills this man, I will give a thousand pieces of silver as a ransom for him. Attar told his captor to hold out for he would get a better price from someone else. A little later another man offered only a quantity of straw for him. Sell me for the straw said Attar for hat is all that I am worth. And he was slain by the infuriated Mongol.”
• “Ecstatogenic methods – a phenomenal example of the method of scatter whereby a picture is built up by multiple impact to infuse into the mind the Sufi message.”
• “In order to approach the Sufi way the seeker must realise that he is largely a bundle of what are nowadays called conditionings – fixed ideas and prejudices automatic responses sometimes which have occurred through the training of others. Man is not as free as he thinks he is. The first step if for the individual to get away from thinking that he understand and really understand. But man has been taught that he can understand everything by the same processes – the processes of logic.”
• “The book of Sufis is not the darkness of letters it is the whiteness of a pure heart.”
• “Cease thought except for the creator of thought – thought for life is better than thought of bread. In the amplitude of Gods earth why have you fallen asleep in a prison? Abandon complicated thoughts in order to see the concealed answer. Be silent of speech to attain enduring speech. Pass life and world in order to see the life of the world.”
• “Participation in music and dancing under any other circumstances is says Ghazali, not only forbidden it is actually harmful to the aspirant. Modern psychology has not yet realised that there is a special function of sound for elevating consciousness.”
• “Abjad scheme: a fairly simple substitution cipher ….. Which is widely used in literature many people read it or at least look for it almost as a matter of course especially poets and writers. Each Arabic letter has a numerical equivalent … seek knowledge, even as far as china the phrase which is on all Sufi lips has more than a literal or even a figurative sense. This meaning is unlocked by analysing the se of the word china interpreted through the secret (Abjad) language. China is the code work for mind concentration, one of the Sufi practises, an essential prerequisite to Sufic development.”
• “The process by means of which a foreign word of phrase becomes adopted into another language is well established in literature and custom. There are numerous examples and the system has been named, being catalogued in dictionaries as Hobson-Jonson. The interminable religious chant in India “Ya Hassan Ya Hussain” is accepted in English under the sound Hobson-Jobson, an attempt by British soldiers to reproduce the chant.”
• “The sensual nature of music is here referred to as well as the mere emotional and limited intellectual value of music. These are dangers both because they may lead to sensuality and because through producing a taste for the secondary indulgence (music because one enjoys music) it veils the real usefulness of music which is to develop the consciousness.”
June 24, 2015
Common sense, straight thinking and evolution are not typically associated with religion or spirituality. But it’s scattered throughout this 50th anniversary edition of The Sufis by Idries Shah. Not simply Islamic mystics or “hairy-footed metaphysicians”, the Sufis and their teachings took many forms to suit the time, place and people. Surprisingly, their many insights anticipate current social scientific research. Shah’s groundbreaking book has an uncanny atmosphere: mysterious and yet curiously familiar. It’s filled with major historical figures and “secret” societies who were influenced by these remarkable people. It solves ancient lingering puzzles, only to introduce new deeper ones: not for amusement, but as something to work through or grow through. The Sufis adapted themselves to prevailing circumstances throughout history. Could their ancient practical philosophy help us make the necessary changes to solve today's seemingly intractable problems; and even help us go beyond?
February 27, 2017
الكتاب ممتع و شيق في بدايته ، به الكثير من المعلومات عن الصوفية و كذلك عدد من أهم أقطابها ، أيضًا يضم في رحابه الكثير من المعلومات عن ارتباط الصوفية بالماسونية ، الأدب الإسباني و تأثيرها على أوروبا بشكل عام ، كذلك علاقة الصوفية بالكابالا و السحر ، لكن يعيبه تكرار المعلومات في الكثير من الصفحات مما أدى إلى شعوري بالملل أحيانا ، كما أن هناك بعض الفقرات شعرت أنها غير مكتملة ، كذلك المعلومات عن أهم الشخصيات الصوفية ، سطحية و لا تقدم الجديد في ذلك المجال . عامة يُعد الكتاب مفيد بالنسبة لمن يرغب في التعرف على الصوفية ، سيفتح له الباب و من بعدها يمكنه البحث في كتب أخرى إن أراد التعمق في الصوفية
May 13, 2015
THE SUFIS by IDRIES SHAH
This year (2014) marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of "The Sufis" by Idries Shah -- an event which seems to have clarified a good many puzzles regarding this group of people. A new 50th anniversary edition has just been released by ISF Publishing (http://www.idriesshahfoundation.org/b...).
In some ways it seems superfluous to attempt a review of the book. The best thing is to get it and read it. And perhaps reread it, as it includes materials that seem to have meanings that are not obvious all at once.
The modern tone (and its psychological insight) is set at the outset with the tale called 'The Islanders.' And while the material presented includes many moods the book continues with an underlying tone that is upbeat, constructively challenging, energizing.
The book includes at least a thousand and one facts, many of them of compelling interest, such as the details of the cultural debt different regions of the world owe to the Sufis -- including the West, India, and China. Or the exposition of cipher systems used by esoteric organizations. The presentation of data in many of these areas indicates a familiarity with an immense amount of historical, cultural, and esoteric material -- a familiarity also hugely in evidence in the author's prior work "Oriental Magic." The book appears to be extremely valuable just as a presentation of historical information. But it presents this information without allowing these secondary phenomena to overwhelm what the Sufis regard as the primary matter: the Sufi knowledge and how to approach it. Because the book seems to contain indications of how Sufi study should be approached in order to learn what it has to teach. The Sufis appear to be saying that what it has to teach exists beyond both simple intellectualism and simple emotion, and has to do with love, work, experience, generosity, and a truth that is beyond ordinary appearances.
The book appears to contain some of the "nutrient" that it mentions in the Preface.
"The Sufis" is a beautiful book. It is art: but art not just in the service of pleasure or stimulation (useful and necessary as these things are). In the service, rather, of trying to teach and learn something worthwhile.
It is a book that is well worth the effort and time needed to read it.
This year (2014) marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of "The Sufis" by Idries Shah -- an event which seems to have clarified a good many puzzles regarding this group of people. A new 50th anniversary edition has just been released by ISF Publishing (http://www.idriesshahfoundation.org/b...).
In some ways it seems superfluous to attempt a review of the book. The best thing is to get it and read it. And perhaps reread it, as it includes materials that seem to have meanings that are not obvious all at once.
The modern tone (and its psychological insight) is set at the outset with the tale called 'The Islanders.' And while the material presented includes many moods the book continues with an underlying tone that is upbeat, constructively challenging, energizing.
The book includes at least a thousand and one facts, many of them of compelling interest, such as the details of the cultural debt different regions of the world owe to the Sufis -- including the West, India, and China. Or the exposition of cipher systems used by esoteric organizations. The presentation of data in many of these areas indicates a familiarity with an immense amount of historical, cultural, and esoteric material -- a familiarity also hugely in evidence in the author's prior work "Oriental Magic." The book appears to be extremely valuable just as a presentation of historical information. But it presents this information without allowing these secondary phenomena to overwhelm what the Sufis regard as the primary matter: the Sufi knowledge and how to approach it. Because the book seems to contain indications of how Sufi study should be approached in order to learn what it has to teach. The Sufis appear to be saying that what it has to teach exists beyond both simple intellectualism and simple emotion, and has to do with love, work, experience, generosity, and a truth that is beyond ordinary appearances.
The book appears to contain some of the "nutrient" that it mentions in the Preface.
"The Sufis" is a beautiful book. It is art: but art not just in the service of pleasure or stimulation (useful and necessary as these things are). In the service, rather, of trying to teach and learn something worthwhile.
It is a book that is well worth the effort and time needed to read it.
October 10, 2014
Shah's first book, now 50 years old and republished, new jacket, new font, available as a PoD, and soon to be issued as an ebook.
It's challenging to review a book in which the author states, ''... All descriptions are useless distortions of the facts. ...'' but anyway.
Within its covers Shah introduces the reader to Sufism, which some take to mean 'Islamic mysticism' yet the author opines, that while many of its leading lights have been members of the Muslim faith, metaphysics actually precedes religion and controversially, that religions are the cultural husks, the detritus of mystics and their communities. However this is just one thread, from a book that comprehensively addresses the reader from numerous angles, always asking that we question and question our questioning, that we examine, turn over, absorb, and ponder.
And although many may say, after fifty years, that it has lost some of its relevance, to others it seems most pertinent - most pertinent to the rise of theological fascism in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, for it asserts that the Sufic strain has always been one of tolerance and cooperation, between individuals and cultures, and has much to say on how an individual mind or society, can escape pedants, bullies, fanatics and tyrants, religious or secular.
It's challenging to review a book in which the author states, ''... All descriptions are useless distortions of the facts. ...'' but anyway.
Within its covers Shah introduces the reader to Sufism, which some take to mean 'Islamic mysticism' yet the author opines, that while many of its leading lights have been members of the Muslim faith, metaphysics actually precedes religion and controversially, that religions are the cultural husks, the detritus of mystics and their communities. However this is just one thread, from a book that comprehensively addresses the reader from numerous angles, always asking that we question and question our questioning, that we examine, turn over, absorb, and ponder.
And although many may say, after fifty years, that it has lost some of its relevance, to others it seems most pertinent - most pertinent to the rise of theological fascism in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, for it asserts that the Sufic strain has always been one of tolerance and cooperation, between individuals and cultures, and has much to say on how an individual mind or society, can escape pedants, bullies, fanatics and tyrants, religious or secular.
August 22, 2024
After Doris Lessing’s death, The Guardian published an article about the contents of her library. One of her bookshelves held many works by Idries Shah, an author I hadn’t heard of before. I stand in awe of Lessing's sharp mind, and since she seemed to be a fan of his, I decided to add this book to my TBR.
Here’s what Lessing said about it:
This is not an easy read (the points Shah makes are often very elusive), but it’s an enlightening one, and I can now see why Lessing felt as she did.
Here’s what Lessing said about it:
"I met Idries Shah because of The Sufis, which seemed to me the most surprising book I had read, and yet it was as if I had been waiting to read just that book all my life.""The Sufis" is a very interesting read. It explores Sufism, the mystical side of Islam, including its practices and philosophy, while also tracing how it spread into Europe through Spain and Italy. Shah sheds light on alchemy, the troubadours, chivalric stories, witchcraft, and other medieval practices, as well as Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and other (more or less secret) organizations and movements. He posits that these are remnants of the Saracen influence in Europe, originating from Sufism but losing some of the Sufi essence due to the conditions in which they were propagated.
This is not an easy read (the points Shah makes are often very elusive), but it’s an enlightening one, and I can now see why Lessing felt as she did.
April 15, 2024
قراءة ثانية لنفس الكتاب محاولة لتعويض نواقص وعيوب القراءة الاولي:
للمرة الثانية يقع ايضا نفس ما وقع في القراءة الأولي
قرأت نفس الفصول وأهملت نفس ما أهملته في القراءة الأولي
قمت بوضع خطوط أكثر وعلامات أكثر قليلا عن المرة الأولي
لكن في لنهاية يبقي الرأي الأول كما هو:
............................................
الكتاب يقع في 600 صفحة، ظننت حينما بداته أنني ساقرأ شيء جديد عن الصوفية إلا أنني للأسف لم أجد الجديد، . الكتاب يبدأ بحكاية رمزية عن الصوفية باعتبارهم ملاك الحقيقة دون غيرهم، وان نسيان الناس للحقيقة الصوفية لا يعني انتفاء وجودها.
ووتحدث عن الصوفية الغربية.
قدم الكتاب سيرة لعدد من أهم أقطاب الصوفية
الكتاب به الكثير من الغرائب، كالعلاقة بين الصوفية والماسونية.
اهتم المؤلف بالنفاذ إلي رمزية قصص وحكايات الصوفية ومن أشهر أصحاب القصص التي شرحها، الشهير (جحا)، فالكاتب يري أن وراء الظاهر للقصص أمور رمزية خفية هي المقصودة.
ل��ن الكتاب كان ممل بشدة، فقدت الميل إلي أكماله ومواصلة قراءته بعد المائة الأولي من صفحاته،.
للمرة الثانية يقع ايضا نفس ما وقع في القراءة الأولي
قرأت نفس الفصول وأهملت نفس ما أهملته في القراءة الأولي
قمت بوضع خطوط أكثر وعلامات أكثر قليلا عن المرة الأولي
لكن في لنهاية يبقي الرأي الأول كما هو:
............................................
الكتاب يقع في 600 صفحة، ظننت حينما بداته أنني ساقرأ شيء جديد عن الصوفية إلا أنني للأسف لم أجد الجديد، . الكتاب يبدأ بحكاية رمزية عن الصوفية باعتبارهم ملاك الحقيقة دون غيرهم، وان نسيان الناس للحقيقة الصوفية لا يعني انتفاء وجودها.
ووتحدث عن الصوفية الغربية.
قدم الكتاب سيرة لعدد من أهم أقطاب الصوفية
الكتاب به الكثير من الغرائب، كالعلاقة بين الصوفية والماسونية.
اهتم المؤلف بالنفاذ إلي رمزية قصص وحكايات الصوفية ومن أشهر أصحاب القصص التي شرحها، الشهير (جحا)، فالكاتب يري أن وراء الظاهر للقصص أمور رمزية خفية هي المقصودة.
ل��ن الكتاب كان ممل بشدة، فقدت الميل إلي أكماله ومواصلة قراءته بعد المائة الأولي من صفحاته،.
March 11, 2019
There are many, many books about Sufis and Sufism. But 'The Sufis,' by Idries Shah, is by far the most penetrating and authoritative work. Though it looks at influential Sufi figures from Islam’s golden age, the book’s scope is timeless. One of the themes and contentions running through Shah’s work which differentiates it from all the others on the subject is that Sufism, though well-known for its association with Islam, actually antedates Islam and monotheistic religion, and reaches back to antiquity and far beyond. One of the most remarkable books you will ever read.
September 21, 2018
amazing read for everyone wjo to understand the way of the sufis and the better side and part of islam
March 6, 2025
A compass, of learning and teaching, impossible to encompass. A book that both by passes and contains the intellect. A book that has changed the way the world looks at the world. It has certainly changed the way I look out from the 'prison bars,' containing within itself, a myriad twinkling stars, ready to shine a millimetre further at each reading. I remember the impact it had on me in the early seventies. Attention initially caught by the 'Derelict Organizations.' .... 'Since it is this outer shell which is most easily perceptible to the ordinary man, we have to use it to point to something deeper.'
So that was what Chivalry was about, The Legends of the Grail, Elenour of Aquitaine, The Troubadours and Harlequins that had captured a puzzled imagination. Richard Coeur de Lion, around whom there was a strange coalition of stories. And who was Geoffrey of Anjou, with his Broom for a favour or symbol? Past puzzles, on the way to being elucidated, did not end there. Those breath taking cathedrals with their soaring cadences of stone, the strange gargoyles, stared at with unholy relief, medieval guilds and their closed membership. Names like Pythagoras, Anaxagoras and Socrates rang bells. A touched on explanation for Shakespeare's unequalled body of work in the English language made instant sense. The fog that was Alchemy Witches and the Freemasons cleared, so did some of the mists of the Illuminists previously mixed with tares. That was what the Philosopher's stone signified. How the Franciscans had become the Spanish Inquisition. Then there were Speaking Heads or Black Heads and the vilified history of the Templers. Puzzles that had more or less been banished as unknowable, or to the dustbin of someone else's fevered imagination. Here was Sir Richard Francis Burton, and The Kasidah that entranced: caught by the rhythms of the English language and the haunting refrain. Of course there is much more to 'The Sufis than the above. I am describing the first tremendous blow. A lantern in the darkness of the detritus left in the West, a solid account, neither cranky or cultish. Ted Hughes, I think, referred to forlorn mysteries come to life. More or less unfamiliar names like Sheikh Saadi, Fakriduddin Attar the Chemist, Our Master Rumi, Ibn El Arabi, El Ghazali, became, over years, familiar. 'The secret book wisdom of illumination states that the philosophy is identical with the inner teachings of all the ancients; the Greeks the Persians the Egyptians and is the science of Light and the deepest truth, through whose exercise man can attain to a status about which he can normally only dream.'... 'In many cases they 'scholars' have faithfully recorded the Sufi's own reiteration that the way of the Sufi cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.' Intended repetition: 'The secret book wisdom of illumination states that the philosophy is identical with the inner teachings of all the ancients; the Greeks the Persians the Egyptians and is the science of Light and the deepest truth, through whose exercise man can attain to a status about which he can normally only dream.'... 'In many cases they 'scholars' have faithfully recorded the Sufi's own reiteration that the way of the Sufi cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.'
So that was what Chivalry was about, The Legends of the Grail, Elenour of Aquitaine, The Troubadours and Harlequins that had captured a puzzled imagination. Richard Coeur de Lion, around whom there was a strange coalition of stories. And who was Geoffrey of Anjou, with his Broom for a favour or symbol? Past puzzles, on the way to being elucidated, did not end there. Those breath taking cathedrals with their soaring cadences of stone, the strange gargoyles, stared at with unholy relief, medieval guilds and their closed membership. Names like Pythagoras, Anaxagoras and Socrates rang bells. A touched on explanation for Shakespeare's unequalled body of work in the English language made instant sense. The fog that was Alchemy Witches and the Freemasons cleared, so did some of the mists of the Illuminists previously mixed with tares. That was what the Philosopher's stone signified. How the Franciscans had become the Spanish Inquisition. Then there were Speaking Heads or Black Heads and the vilified history of the Templers. Puzzles that had more or less been banished as unknowable, or to the dustbin of someone else's fevered imagination. Here was Sir Richard Francis Burton, and The Kasidah that entranced: caught by the rhythms of the English language and the haunting refrain. Of course there is much more to 'The Sufis than the above. I am describing the first tremendous blow. A lantern in the darkness of the detritus left in the West, a solid account, neither cranky or cultish. Ted Hughes, I think, referred to forlorn mysteries come to life. More or less unfamiliar names like Sheikh Saadi, Fakriduddin Attar the Chemist, Our Master Rumi, Ibn El Arabi, El Ghazali, became, over years, familiar. 'The secret book wisdom of illumination states that the philosophy is identical with the inner teachings of all the ancients; the Greeks the Persians the Egyptians and is the science of Light and the deepest truth, through whose exercise man can attain to a status about which he can normally only dream.'... 'In many cases they 'scholars' have faithfully recorded the Sufi's own reiteration that the way of the Sufi cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.' Intended repetition: 'The secret book wisdom of illumination states that the philosophy is identical with the inner teachings of all the ancients; the Greeks the Persians the Egyptians and is the science of Light and the deepest truth, through whose exercise man can attain to a status about which he can normally only dream.'... 'In many cases they 'scholars' have faithfully recorded the Sufi's own reiteration that the way of the Sufi cannot be understood by means of the intellect or by ordinary book learning.'
October 19, 2014
A massive book in terms of ideas and insight, impossible to reduce the content to soundbites in a short review . I first read this book back in the late seventies and it had a major influence on me. It was a a real gem in a time of peculiar cults and superficial views of spirituality. The book is an experience to read and reread and does lead to glimpses of a different way of seeing and experiencing the world. It clearly has a place now in a time perhaps even more full of pointless distractions and depressing nihilistic views of humanity. Reading 'The Sufis' could lead into a whole new world of ideas and viewpoints and at the very least will make a person think about things afresh.
February 28, 2019
The Sufis are the extraordinary people who have guided, and are still guiding, the evolution of human consciousness. They do not preach or evangelise but, through books such as these, and through living exemplars, they offer an opportunity for self development that is in harmony with the development of mankind.
August 15, 2020
I have read The Sufis by Idries Shah, 1924-1996, many times since the first time 1996 in my ongoing self bettering work. It was thanks to Doris Lessing, who I also admire immensely, that I found my way to Idries Shah. Sufism is not accessible through ordinary rational and logical thinking and so it can not be understood just by reading books but they can serve as a bridge leading from the ordinary, attenuated or embryonic human consciousness into greater perception and realization, writes Idries Shah. So I keep on reading
The Sufis is a book about Sufism from an inside perspective and when it first came out in the west 1964 there were no other books like it. What was written about Sufism was written by scholars and orientalists from an outside perspective
The Sufis records Sufism´s influence on human society in Asia, Europe, India, Japan and China mainly from the 7:th century and onwards but Sufism is part of human history right from its beginning. Some periods, like ours, it has been able to work more in the open than others. Important sufis like Rumi,Ibn el Arabi,Saadi of Shiraz, Ghazali, Khayyam and many others are presented
Shah also stresses the necessity for the seeker to find a guide. But to find the right one is a task with many pitfalls
Starting in 2014 The Idries Shah foundation will relaunch the work of Idries Shah, both in printed form and as eBooks.
The Sufis is a book about Sufism from an inside perspective and when it first came out in the west 1964 there were no other books like it. What was written about Sufism was written by scholars and orientalists from an outside perspective
The Sufis records Sufism´s influence on human society in Asia, Europe, India, Japan and China mainly from the 7:th century and onwards but Sufism is part of human history right from its beginning. Some periods, like ours, it has been able to work more in the open than others. Important sufis like Rumi,Ibn el Arabi,Saadi of Shiraz, Ghazali, Khayyam and many others are presented
Shah also stresses the necessity for the seeker to find a guide. But to find the right one is a task with many pitfalls
Starting in 2014 The Idries Shah foundation will relaunch the work of Idries Shah, both in printed form and as eBooks.
April 30, 2016
ليست مراجعة وإنما ملاحظاتي على الكتاب
- يحذر الكاتب من البداية بإنه مالم يكن القارئ صوفياً فلن يفهم الكتاب!!
- الكتاب يقدم ربط تاريخي لجميع الحركات او الجماعات "الصوفية" في العالم
- كثير كثير من التطويل والاسهاب احسست بالملل بعض الأحيان
- شيء من فلسفة وفكر الصوفية
- ركز على اللغة الرمزية للصوفيين وشرح بعض طرق التشفير
- وصف. لطريقة دخول "السالك" اي التلميذ الى جماعة صوفية والمراحل التي يمر بها
-خصص بعض الفصول لاهم الشخصيات الصوفية. لم تقدم جديداً بالنسبة لي
-في مواقع كثيرة من الكتاب المعلومات غير مكتملة ومقطوعة
- يحذر الكاتب من البداية بإنه مالم يكن القارئ صوفياً فلن يفهم الكتاب!!
- الكتاب يقدم ربط تاريخي لجميع الحركات او الجماعات "الصوفية" في العالم
- كثير كثير من التطويل والاسهاب احسست بالملل بعض الأحيان
- شيء من فلسفة وفكر الصوفية
- ركز على اللغة الرمزية للصوفيين وشرح بعض طرق التشفير
- وصف. لطريقة دخول "السالك" اي التلميذ الى جماعة صوفية والمراحل التي يمر بها
-خصص بعض الفصول لاهم الشخصيات الصوفية. لم تقدم جديداً بالنسبة لي
-في مواقع كثيرة من الكتاب المعلومات غير مكتملة ومقطوعة
July 17, 2023
Idries Shah's 'Sufis' makes a sincere attempt to introduce Sufism alongside some misconceptions that have traveled along with the concept. Read the complete review here https://wp.me/p6rxcY-jO
February 29, 2020
On one hand this book has an interesting discussion of the mystical tradition of Sufism and explains some of its thought provoking points of views as well as an engaging series of short biographies of some of its most representative personalities. As long as it stays within the realm of explaining Sufi thought and practice this book is somewhat enlightening however what follows after these expositions is a masterpiece of mental gymnastics.
After some profound reading on Sufism the author makes the unwise decision to try and show the intellectual, mystical and spiritual superiority of Sufism by painting it as the source and inspiration of a myriad of Western traditions, persons and institutions such as : the Masons, alchemy, the witch cult in Western Europe, the chivalric Orders of the middle ages, the troubadours, the Knights Templar, St. Francis of Assisi, occultism and high magic in the middle ages. Not even other eastern traditions are safe from Mr. Shah's hunger to claim for Sufism the inspiration behind Zen Buddhism, Indian Mysticism and Sikhism.
The bulk of the book therefore is composed of ever more contrived and tenuous methods of linking Sufism in one way or another with all these different elements, sometimes by ways so complicated and obtuse such as cyphers that must be rearranged multiple times and then read backwards just to come up with a single word which he then claims is an undeniable link to Sufism. It becomes tiresome to read chapter after chapter of overreaching conclusions particularly taking in account the "Jan-Fishan Khan" manuscript controversy where the author and his brother failed to produce proof of a manuscript they claimed contained an ancient sufi poem by Omar Khayyam (who has his own chapter in this book, go figure) that had been in their family's possession for 800 years and of which they had published a supposedly genuine translation, now considered to have been a hoax.
Skepticism towards all of Shah's historical tenuous links aside this book still only works half way in explaining Sufism as by the end after hundreds of pages of probably unsourced connections between numerous subjects and Shah's grandiose vision of Sufism you still don't end up with a very clear or even organized picture of the system. Can't say I reccomend reading anything from the section Mysteries in the West forwards.
After some profound reading on Sufism the author makes the unwise decision to try and show the intellectual, mystical and spiritual superiority of Sufism by painting it as the source and inspiration of a myriad of Western traditions, persons and institutions such as : the Masons, alchemy, the witch cult in Western Europe, the chivalric Orders of the middle ages, the troubadours, the Knights Templar, St. Francis of Assisi, occultism and high magic in the middle ages. Not even other eastern traditions are safe from Mr. Shah's hunger to claim for Sufism the inspiration behind Zen Buddhism, Indian Mysticism and Sikhism.
The bulk of the book therefore is composed of ever more contrived and tenuous methods of linking Sufism in one way or another with all these different elements, sometimes by ways so complicated and obtuse such as cyphers that must be rearranged multiple times and then read backwards just to come up with a single word which he then claims is an undeniable link to Sufism. It becomes tiresome to read chapter after chapter of overreaching conclusions particularly taking in account the "Jan-Fishan Khan" manuscript controversy where the author and his brother failed to produce proof of a manuscript they claimed contained an ancient sufi poem by Omar Khayyam (who has his own chapter in this book, go figure) that had been in their family's possession for 800 years and of which they had published a supposedly genuine translation, now considered to have been a hoax.
Skepticism towards all of Shah's historical tenuous links aside this book still only works half way in explaining Sufism as by the end after hundreds of pages of probably unsourced connections between numerous subjects and Shah's grandiose vision of Sufism you still don't end up with a very clear or even organized picture of the system. Can't say I reccomend reading anything from the section Mysteries in the West forwards.
April 15, 2013
The book review has it wrong. It describes Sufis as "A unique and little-known religion..." Sufism is an outgrowth of Islam. I'm not conversant enough with either to say that Sufism is to Islam as Buddhism is to Hinduism, but the historical connection is there.
As for the book, I read it in 1977 and remembered it for the Nasrudin stories. I bought it recently, and as I started reading it, I realized all the wisdom thyat I remembered must have been in the Nasrudin stories. Outside of those, as much as I got through before putting it back on the shelf, it's just Shah going on about the superiority and elite nature of Sufism. He doesn't tell you anything that would make you want to follow that path — unless you're driven to be one of the elite. Of course, you can't even take this path if you so choose. So elite is it, that you'll be asked to join if the Sufis notice you and think you are worthy.
Contrast that with Christ who said "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
As for the book, I read it in 1977 and remembered it for the Nasrudin stories. I bought it recently, and as I started reading it, I realized all the wisdom thyat I remembered must have been in the Nasrudin stories. Outside of those, as much as I got through before putting it back on the shelf, it's just Shah going on about the superiority and elite nature of Sufism. He doesn't tell you anything that would make you want to follow that path — unless you're driven to be one of the elite. Of course, you can't even take this path if you so choose. So elite is it, that you'll be asked to join if the Sufis notice you and think you are worthy.
Contrast that with Christ who said "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
March 25, 2021
Approach this remarkable book with an open, attentive mind, and the information it contains can begin to change a life. First published in 1964 by preeminent *Sufi, Idries Shah, scion of a distinguished Afghan family, dedicated to exposition in the West of 'the secret tradition' or 'science of man', the reader may find themselves, imperceptively, turning in the direction it leads.
First, inwards towards one's true self, the journey where all first encounter the 'commanding self', the transient personality – amalgam of false assumptions, conditioned responses, of hidden cultural and emotional biases – a lifetime of inherited and 'caught' virus-like mental baggage all carry. It blocks acquisition of this higher, non-sequential form of esoteric learning: holistic rather than linear, reliably intuitive, focused to develop the hidden powers of the right hemisphere of the cerebral cortex. In brief, more advanced, informed patterns of thinking: individual alertness and accuracy, responding to our increasingly fraught, uncontrolled life situation.
Sufis (Sufism: neither religion nor cult; but kernel of the great monotheistic faiths) work to bypass this fake self – which engulfs man in a kind of amnesia, asleep to his origins and potential – helping the emergent true self to live daily life in all its fullness. Through a technique of 'nashr' or 'scatter', material is arranged to provide often-startling or intriguing impacts that escape the logical mind's blocking defences, enabling understanding beyond doubt to be absorbed unedited.
'The Sufis' exemplifies the technique, dropping seemingly throw-away, often revelatory statements or claims into a chapter, without reference, until picked up in a later section, or book, to be elaborated or quite differently presented.
By omitting an index, the two-fold technique of what Shah called the time-lag is, first, to have the reader search a work more dilligently for references; and second, delay full grasp of an idea, story or event, in its often multiple implications, consequences. This can aid one's realisation of something of surpassing importance, and integrate it into the mind of the evolving student.
Soon, the perceptive experience a turning outwards, to an intimation of the real world – of unity, oneness, of certainty. Normal, manifest experience is a blurred facsimile we daily assemble from fixed mental frames of reference: 'The bridge to the real', as Sufis describe this process. The potency of the material asserts itself in the regenerating mind, leading to objective reassessment of life. A fact noted in many reviews of 'The Sufis' and subsequent Shah works.
For this reviewer, first reading 'The Sufis' soon after publication was the opening of a door onto something like Keats's delight in his 'On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer' – "Much have I travelled in realms of gold" – preview of a greater, more richly promising world than one had imagined realisable.
It entered the mind, transforming the spirit as one read, presenting a vista of sublime, practical possibility – and urgent necessity – for self-realisation, in a voice at once recognised, without having heard it before, as utterly authentic.
The book became a revelatory guide; at each reading or reference search, some seeming new, previously missed, or now-intuitively understood sense travels from page to mind. This, the sign of a truly living work; one with an inner dynamic, that continues refining sensibilities of the reader over time.
Written in concise, gripping, jargon-free prose, never straying towards the easy emotional, 'The Sufis' introduced a world of classical yet timeless material, much of it never seen in the West. Only around the second decade of the 20th ceentury, with advances in electronic communication, plus recent emergence and vocabulary of modern psychology and psychiatry, did Sufis judge conditions right – their precept, 'time, place and people' – for more comprehension presentation in the West of their unique form of conscious human evolutionary science.
Such is the coherence of Shah's profound yet often humorous approach to the Sufi objective, the development of the human essence, that critics proclaim it an utterly relevant form of practical spirituality and learning, unlike any other.
'The Sufis' is now a textbook on leading university courses in many countries and languages. Described as Shah's master work, it is a key to his entire oeuvre, used by psychologists, physicists, teachers, lawyers, social workers, writers, among others. As mystic, teacher and poet Rumi said of one of his own works, there is 'In it what is in it' for each, whatever their stage of understanding.
In physiological and psychological terms, it is the unique animating spirit the reader breathes in each of Shah's subsequent works, so that the whole of his output may be understood, as he declared shortly before his death, as his bequest. 'A complete course in crucially relevant modern Sufism'.
(*In both West East, there are today many more imitation 'Sufi' teachers, groups and so-called 'orders' than genuine. Shah gave pointers. One being: 'The genuine always have the manner, dress, customs and language of the host country: never unfamiliar, or exotic. Avoid all those who give "ordinary people" the creeps!')
* *
Our Urgent Existential Context:
Why would one take up study of a very different form of learning at this perilous time?
The fate of our fragile little Spaceship Earth aboard which we travel precariously is in the balance, its key systems struggling to cope. The stark truth? We're flying blind! Ever shorter of fresh water, of clean air, of food to feed even half, let alone all, with shrinking space to produce more; disastrously polluted; unsustainably overcrowded.
Yet as population now in 2020 at 7.8 billion, races heedlessly towards a possible 10 billion* by 2050, far beyond Earth's finite carrying capacity, more people are added each month than were alive at the time of Christ. (*ref. 'The Population Bomb Revisted': Prof. Paul & Anne Ehrlich, Stanford University.) In just fifty-two years since publication of 'The Bomb' (the title, not the Ehrlichs' intended, but their publisher's) global population has more than doubled from 3.5 billion.
Hold in mind: we're contending not with simple growth, but with the ever-doubling speed of exponential growth, in population, consumption, and need.
Politicians, unable to face interacting realities of our dire global situation, seek refuge in short-termism, obfuscation, and worse. Ever-expanding wealth, power and authoritarianism of the very few, tilts us crazily away from the suffering and needs of the many, whose disappointment, anomie, or frustration, help fuel spreading unrest, and loss.
Mental and physical oppression inflicted on societies will not simply disappear. Fortunately, also inherent in our species is a natural urge to knowledge, freedom of thought and expression, which we must focus with greater ability and understanding than currently possessed in a 'critical mass' sufficient to overcome the walking-sleep default setting which inhibits us. It prevents us from seeing clearly, or from wanting to see and act appropriately to our most challenging needs.
Sufis work to develop what prescient writer and teacher Idries Shah stressed as 'The extra-dimensional cognition, central to our lives,' if we are to survive, and evolve. Yet, individual liberty comes about only if we understand the vital link between our own fate and that of society. Sufism is (shared) work, not theory!
'The Sufis', and a trove of further titles in careful sequence, uniquely explicate a means towards that liberation. The how, why and by whom the task, the adventure, may be attempted first demands in seekers the desire for knowledge, Truth, for its own sake. For the Change without which – we're lost.
Jude Moriarty
First, inwards towards one's true self, the journey where all first encounter the 'commanding self', the transient personality – amalgam of false assumptions, conditioned responses, of hidden cultural and emotional biases – a lifetime of inherited and 'caught' virus-like mental baggage all carry. It blocks acquisition of this higher, non-sequential form of esoteric learning: holistic rather than linear, reliably intuitive, focused to develop the hidden powers of the right hemisphere of the cerebral cortex. In brief, more advanced, informed patterns of thinking: individual alertness and accuracy, responding to our increasingly fraught, uncontrolled life situation.
Sufis (Sufism: neither religion nor cult; but kernel of the great monotheistic faiths) work to bypass this fake self – which engulfs man in a kind of amnesia, asleep to his origins and potential – helping the emergent true self to live daily life in all its fullness. Through a technique of 'nashr' or 'scatter', material is arranged to provide often-startling or intriguing impacts that escape the logical mind's blocking defences, enabling understanding beyond doubt to be absorbed unedited.
'The Sufis' exemplifies the technique, dropping seemingly throw-away, often revelatory statements or claims into a chapter, without reference, until picked up in a later section, or book, to be elaborated or quite differently presented.
By omitting an index, the two-fold technique of what Shah called the time-lag is, first, to have the reader search a work more dilligently for references; and second, delay full grasp of an idea, story or event, in its often multiple implications, consequences. This can aid one's realisation of something of surpassing importance, and integrate it into the mind of the evolving student.
Soon, the perceptive experience a turning outwards, to an intimation of the real world – of unity, oneness, of certainty. Normal, manifest experience is a blurred facsimile we daily assemble from fixed mental frames of reference: 'The bridge to the real', as Sufis describe this process. The potency of the material asserts itself in the regenerating mind, leading to objective reassessment of life. A fact noted in many reviews of 'The Sufis' and subsequent Shah works.
For this reviewer, first reading 'The Sufis' soon after publication was the opening of a door onto something like Keats's delight in his 'On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer' – "Much have I travelled in realms of gold" – preview of a greater, more richly promising world than one had imagined realisable.
It entered the mind, transforming the spirit as one read, presenting a vista of sublime, practical possibility – and urgent necessity – for self-realisation, in a voice at once recognised, without having heard it before, as utterly authentic.
The book became a revelatory guide; at each reading or reference search, some seeming new, previously missed, or now-intuitively understood sense travels from page to mind. This, the sign of a truly living work; one with an inner dynamic, that continues refining sensibilities of the reader over time.
Written in concise, gripping, jargon-free prose, never straying towards the easy emotional, 'The Sufis' introduced a world of classical yet timeless material, much of it never seen in the West. Only around the second decade of the 20th ceentury, with advances in electronic communication, plus recent emergence and vocabulary of modern psychology and psychiatry, did Sufis judge conditions right – their precept, 'time, place and people' – for more comprehension presentation in the West of their unique form of conscious human evolutionary science.
Such is the coherence of Shah's profound yet often humorous approach to the Sufi objective, the development of the human essence, that critics proclaim it an utterly relevant form of practical spirituality and learning, unlike any other.
'The Sufis' is now a textbook on leading university courses in many countries and languages. Described as Shah's master work, it is a key to his entire oeuvre, used by psychologists, physicists, teachers, lawyers, social workers, writers, among others. As mystic, teacher and poet Rumi said of one of his own works, there is 'In it what is in it' for each, whatever their stage of understanding.
In physiological and psychological terms, it is the unique animating spirit the reader breathes in each of Shah's subsequent works, so that the whole of his output may be understood, as he declared shortly before his death, as his bequest. 'A complete course in crucially relevant modern Sufism'.
(*In both West East, there are today many more imitation 'Sufi' teachers, groups and so-called 'orders' than genuine. Shah gave pointers. One being: 'The genuine always have the manner, dress, customs and language of the host country: never unfamiliar, or exotic. Avoid all those who give "ordinary people" the creeps!')
* *
Our Urgent Existential Context:
Why would one take up study of a very different form of learning at this perilous time?
The fate of our fragile little Spaceship Earth aboard which we travel precariously is in the balance, its key systems struggling to cope. The stark truth? We're flying blind! Ever shorter of fresh water, of clean air, of food to feed even half, let alone all, with shrinking space to produce more; disastrously polluted; unsustainably overcrowded.
Yet as population now in 2020 at 7.8 billion, races heedlessly towards a possible 10 billion* by 2050, far beyond Earth's finite carrying capacity, more people are added each month than were alive at the time of Christ. (*ref. 'The Population Bomb Revisted': Prof. Paul & Anne Ehrlich, Stanford University.) In just fifty-two years since publication of 'The Bomb' (the title, not the Ehrlichs' intended, but their publisher's) global population has more than doubled from 3.5 billion.
Hold in mind: we're contending not with simple growth, but with the ever-doubling speed of exponential growth, in population, consumption, and need.
Politicians, unable to face interacting realities of our dire global situation, seek refuge in short-termism, obfuscation, and worse. Ever-expanding wealth, power and authoritarianism of the very few, tilts us crazily away from the suffering and needs of the many, whose disappointment, anomie, or frustration, help fuel spreading unrest, and loss.
Mental and physical oppression inflicted on societies will not simply disappear. Fortunately, also inherent in our species is a natural urge to knowledge, freedom of thought and expression, which we must focus with greater ability and understanding than currently possessed in a 'critical mass' sufficient to overcome the walking-sleep default setting which inhibits us. It prevents us from seeing clearly, or from wanting to see and act appropriately to our most challenging needs.
Sufis work to develop what prescient writer and teacher Idries Shah stressed as 'The extra-dimensional cognition, central to our lives,' if we are to survive, and evolve. Yet, individual liberty comes about only if we understand the vital link between our own fate and that of society. Sufism is (shared) work, not theory!
'The Sufis', and a trove of further titles in careful sequence, uniquely explicate a means towards that liberation. The how, why and by whom the task, the adventure, may be attempted first demands in seekers the desire for knowledge, Truth, for its own sake. For the Change without which – we're lost.
Jude Moriarty
June 2, 2015
Until Idries Shah’s seminal book THE SUFIS was published more than a half-century ago, most people in the West knew next to nothing about the subject – and what little they did know was likely to be erroneous. THE SUFIS remedied that so effectively that it remains the definitive work on Sufism to this day, and the world into which it gives a tantalizing glimpse is one of unsuspected breadth, sophistication and relevance to the human condition. With deft scholarship and eloquent prose, Shah shows Sufism to be nothing like what one might expect – not a religious cult, nor a political movement, nor a collection of vague-minded idealists. Instead, it emerges as a body of men and women who see themselves as engaged in the practical task of unlocking the hidden potential of the human being and guiding it to completion, on both an individual and a societal level. The multiple ways in which they do this, they say, are not set by dogma but instead are tailored to local needs and conditions and thus vary from epoch to epoch and from culture to culture, as well as from individual to individual – something that has confused scholars no end and given rise to a great deal of misunderstanding. This has been exacerbated by a profusion of imitators, many of them well-meaning but misguided. Sufism seems to have achieved an understanding of the human mind that goes far beyond that of modern psychology, many of whose tenets – e.g., conditioning and the unconscious – it anticipated by centuries. Its influence on the world has been enormous, though not widely known. In the West alone, Sufism lies behind a host of diverse cultural heirlooms, ranging from Freemasonry to alchemy to the Kabala, and had a profound impact on such thinkers as Roger Bacon and St. Francis of Assisi. While many of these examples have been well-documented by individual scholars operating in various fields, the information has been scattered here and there like broken fragments. In THE SUFIS, Shah combines these fragments with a wealth of other information to form a picture of a fascinating society of people, still very much alive and kicking, that since ancient times has had a profound effect on mankind. A fitting introduction to Shah's many other excellent books, it’s one the reader is unlikely to ever forget. I know that I certainly won't.
April 23, 2024
Sufism. The picture painted in this book is that all religions owe Sufism a debt and science, society and culture are mainly misshapen descendants or bastardizations of them. Sufism is portrayed as this universal and perennial philosophy, but also strictly Islamic. The claims made in here made me feel skeptical of what I was reading, although Shah clearly is very knowledgeable about the topic. I was left feeling very ambivalent. For example, he would say different sects of Wicca were actually descended from Sufism with the proof being that they use terms the rhyme with Sufic terms. He claims that Sufism has influenced modern societies, with one example being that “We wear their clothes (shirt, belt, trousers)”, but ancient Germanic tribes that predate Islam also wore similar clothes. Much of the book felt like he was really stretching to prove how influential Sufism was. I don’t doubt there was more cross-pollination between cultures than is realized, but a lot of the proof he offers seemed less than ironclad.
The part of the book I enjoyed the most was the biographies and discussion of Muslim philosophers, poets and mystics. The explanations of the word play used in the original Arabic or Persian writing and the allegorical interpretations of various stories and symbols was well done.
The part of the book I enjoyed the most was the biographies and discussion of Muslim philosophers, poets and mystics. The explanations of the word play used in the original Arabic or Persian writing and the allegorical interpretations of various stories and symbols was well done.
April 6, 2025
الترجمة قتلت الكتاب ونزعت روحه، قد يبدو كلامي غريبا لأن البعض قد يرى أنه لا عيب في الترجمة وأنها واضحة، ولكن المشكلة تكمن في أن للمصطلح الصوفي خصوصية ليست لغيره، نعم يمكن ترجمة الكلمة من الإنجليزية للعربية بمترادفات من اللفظ، ولكن المصطلح لا يترجم إلا باللفظ المصطلح عليه.
قد من الله علي بأن قرأت أغلب النصوص الصوفية التي تناولها الكتاب، بالتالي فأنا أعلم النص الأصلي وصيغته ومنها ما هو بالعربية، ولكن المترجم لم يعد للنصوص الأصلية ولكن اكتفى بترجمة النص الإنجليزي للعربية.
المشكلة في أنه أخفق في مصطلحات قرآنية يعلمها الصغير والكبير، فليس مقبولا أن يترجم ( عين اليقين ) إلى (ذات الحقيقة) أو (علم اليقين) إلى (علم الحقيقة).
وليس مقبولا ترجمة (التواجد) بالوجود، وذلك لأن مصطلحات الوجد والتواجد والوجود متباينة في المصطلح الصوفي.
قد من الله علي بأن قرأت أغلب النصوص الصوفية التي تناولها الكتاب، بالتالي فأنا أعلم النص الأصلي وصيغته ومنها ما هو بالعربية، ولكن المترجم لم يعد للنصوص الأصلية ولكن اكتفى بترجمة النص الإنجليزي للعربية.
المشكلة في أنه أخفق في مصطلحات قرآنية يعلمها الصغير والكبير، فليس مقبولا أن يترجم ( عين اليقين ) إلى (ذات الحقيقة) أو (علم اليقين) إلى (علم الحقيقة).
وليس مقبولا ترجمة (التواجد) بالوجود، وذلك لأن مصطلحات الوجد والتواجد والوجود متباينة في المصطلح الصوفي.
July 23, 2014
I found this interesting, especially with the introduction by The Classicist R. Graves, but the Marx quote referring to religion as the opiate of the masses made me refuse to embrace this middle eastern mindset.
What also brought caution to approach the languages and cultures immediately south and east of the Mediterranean was an innate fear of foreigners, even if couscous tastes nice and Yury taught me how to write allahu akhbar in Farsi so it's not as scary.
What might help assuage my nerves associated with that study would be copying it out into another notebook, as those green and pastel notebooks make me tremble and my heart beat faster.
What also brought caution to approach the languages and cultures immediately south and east of the Mediterranean was an innate fear of foreigners, even if couscous tastes nice and Yury taught me how to write allahu akhbar in Farsi so it's not as scary.
What might help assuage my nerves associated with that study would be copying it out into another notebook, as those green and pastel notebooks make me tremble and my heart beat faster.
March 3, 2017
وقت طويل ..حتى تمكنت من اكمالهـ
الترجمة سيئة، وهناكـ اطالة في أجزاء كثيرة منهـ..
الصوفيون.. الماسونية... المنظمات السريّة.. كلهم مترابطون.. حتى وإن لم أفهم كيف ذلكـ.؟؟!!.. برابط قديم ؛ وقديم جدا!!!؟؟؟
أسوأ جزء.. أن على المريد أن يتبع شيخهـ الصوفي؛ اتباع أعمى..مهما فعل هذا الشيخ من منكرات؛ فكل مشايخ الصوفية هم سيدنا الخضر.. بالرغم من أن القصة تقول: أن سيدنا موسى، ورغم أن الله هو من أوصاهـ أن يتبع هذا الرجل العليم..مع ذلكـ، لم يمنع هذا سيدنا موسى، من استنكار أفعاله..ولم يرد أي لوم ، لسيدنا موسى على استنكاره!!!!؟؟..
الترجمة سيئة، وهناكـ اطالة في أجزاء كثيرة منهـ..
الصوفيون.. الماسونية... المنظمات السريّة.. كلهم مترابطون.. حتى وإن لم أفهم كيف ذلكـ.؟؟!!.. برابط قديم ؛ وقديم جدا!!!؟؟؟
أسوأ جزء.. أن على المريد أن يتبع شيخهـ الصوفي؛ اتباع أعمى..مهما فعل هذا الشيخ من منكرات؛ فكل مشايخ الصوفية هم سيدنا الخضر.. بالرغم من أن القصة تقول: أن سيدنا موسى، ورغم أن الله هو من أوصاهـ أن يتبع هذا الرجل العليم..مع ذلكـ، لم يمنع هذا سيدنا موسى، من استنكار أفعاله..ولم يرد أي لوم ، لسيدنا موسى على استنكاره!!!!؟؟..
June 28, 2012
Remember Socrates who used to say: “I only know that I know nothing.” The less one knows the easier it is to judge!??:) So, let me say this: I personally love to see Sufism as an organic and evolutionary school of practical philosophy directed by the Teacher of the Age – the most enlightened human being of any particular moment in time. Idries Shah must have been such a teacher. And The Sufis may well be an example of a book written by the Sufi Teacher of the Age. Go now, judge.
July 27, 2011
One of my favorite books by Idries Shah
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