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The Idries Shah Anthology
The Idries Shah Anthology is a special collection of previously published work by Idries Shah, and was edited by Saira Shah. This title includes an Introduction by Saira Shah, as well as comments and annotations throughout the text. Each chapter includes a selection from the works of Idries Shah on topics such as Sufism, Nasrudin, fables, poetry, proverbs, and teaching stories. It includes methods of the masters and themes for study and contemplation. This new compilation of excerpts from the classic texts of Idries Shah will leave you with a new perspective on his work. From the In his writing about Sufism, Idries Shah did some revolutionary things. Critically, and almost alone, he said that it was possible to divorce the essence of Sufi philosophy from what he insisted were secondary accretions of islamic culture and religion. Moreover, he said, in making this material available to the West, you could not only do this, you must do it. This is because, he believed, you can only absorb materials that are designed for your own time and place. Sufism as an essence may be 'truth without form' but, in order to penetrate into the human mind, it must be delivered in a package shaped to fit the receiving culture. 'When something new enters a culture, there is a period where, like a new object being thrown into the chimpanzee pen at a zoo, all the chimps rush over to touch it, throw it on the floor, fight over it and so on, ' he once told me. 'We must wait until the dust settles; only then will people be in a position to assess this material.' My father died in 1996 and the dust is settling fast. He leaves a body of work behind and, on this work alone, he believed, he should and would be judged. This anthology is intended to provide a basic sample of his work, an essential reader, to allow people to do exactly what he would have wished them to to think for themselves and to make up their own minds. -- From the Editor's Note, by Saira Shah
- GenresSpirituality
410 pages, Hardcover
Published March 1, 2019
9 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Idries Shah
409 books436 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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April 8, 2026
"None attains to the Degree of Truth until a thousand honest people have testified that he is a heretic".
– Junaid of Baghdad
“Angels are the powers hidden in the faculties and organs of man”.
Ibn Arabi
“ in cell and cloister, monastery and synagogue, one lies In dread of hell: one dreams of paradise. But none that know the divine secrets Has sown his heart with such like fantasies”
Omar Khayyam
When oppression exists, even the bird dies in its nest.
Do you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first.
Across Idries Shah’s Sufi narratives, what first appears as a collection of moral anecdotes gradually reveals itself as a unified philosophical system concerned with the mechanics of human perception, ego, and transformation. These stories are not designed to instruct in a conventional ethical sense, but to disrupt the reader’s habitual assumptions about knowledge, virtue, and spiritual reality. At the center of this body of work lies a consistent thesis: human beings do not lack truth itself, but are instead trapped within distorted systems of self-perception that prevent them from recognizing it. Reality is not hidden; it is misread. The obstacle is not external but internal, embedded in the structure of the observing self. This idea is vividly illustrated in the story of the dog and the water. The dog, dying of thirst, is unable to drink because it mistakes its own reflection for another being. Only when survival overrides fear does it act, breaking the illusion. The metaphor is clear: the greatest barrier between the seeker and truth is the mind’s projection of itself onto reality.
he shows that the Sufi esoteric transmission link of the Asian Khajagan (‘Masters’) was the same as that used by Western mystical writers. He cites as teachers in the Sufi transmission such names as Plato, Hippocrates, Pythagoras and Hermes Trismegistos.
“What people call belief may be caused by conditioning… and, as such, is not spiritual at all.” That line alone reframes everything. It makes you pause—not to reject what you believe, but to wonder whether you ever chose it. And then there is this quiet, recurring lesson beneath many of the parables: that we are constantly clinging to what cannot last. We suffer not because things change— but because we expect them not to. The Sufi perspective doesn’t try to “fix” the world. It asks you to see it as it is: fluid, unstable, always shifting. And once you see that, something in you begins to loosen. Tie two birds together, and they will not be able to fly— even though they now have four wings. You may fill your time with countless things, but if you miss the one task meant for you, all of it is wasted. New organs of perception come into being as a result of necessity. Increase your necessity, and your perception will grow. Life is like a clear mirror, and the self we cling to is often no more than dust upon it. What appears to be truth may only be a worldly distortion of a deeper Reality.
He explains that learning is not the accumulation of answers, but the dissolution of the certainty that one already possesses them. The obstacle is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge. The mind that is full cannot be taught; the mind that has been emptied — whether by doubt, failure,— becomes capable of receiving something beyond itself. In this way, the path is not opened by intelligence alone, but by a radical undoing of what one takes to be understanding.
In The Saint and the Sinner, drawn from the works of Idries Shah, we are presented with a deceptively simple narrative that unfolds into a profound psychological and spiritual critique of human intention. At first glance, the moral framework appears familiar: a sinful gambler and a devout ascetic stand at opposite ends of the ethical spectrum. Yet Shah dismantles this binary with quiet precision. The dervish, who dedicates twenty years to marking the gambler’s sins with stones, is revealed not as a figure of compassion, but as one subtly indulging in self-righteousness. His outward piety conceals an inward corruption—an attachment to superiority masked as virtue. The gambler, on the other hand, retains an acute awareness of his own shortcomings. Each encounter with the dervish awakens not resentment, but a longing for goodness. This inward humility—fragile, unrefined, yet sincere—becomes the axis upon which the entire story turns. The climax delivers a striking inversion: the “saint” is condemned, while the “sinner” is redeemed. The tale suggests that spiritual worth is not measured by visible actions, but by the hidden movements of the heart. Intention, not performance, becomes the true locus of judgment. One of the most compelling insights lies in the angel’s explanation: the dervish “placed those stones for himself, not for the gambler.” In this single line, Shah exposes a universal human tendency—the transformation of moral action into a vehicle for self-validation.
To be wise, you do not have to be obsessed by being “good” or “generous”. You are obliged to do what is necessary.’
If you pray, and feel satisfaction at having prayed, your action has made you worse. In such circumstances, cease to pray until you have learned how to be really humble.
the story of The two Gurus represent a mind saturated with techniques, rituals, and inherited forms, yet detached from immediate reality. In their pursuit of transcendence, they overlook the simplest truth: the disciple’s need is not spiritual refinement, but basic nourishment.
The tragedy lies in substitution — where symbols replace substance, and methods replace understanding. What is presented as a path to liberation becomes, instead, a mechanism of blindness. The more elaborate the practices, the further they drift from what is essential.
The disciple’s final words reveal the central paradox: while the teachers sought to elevate him beyond the material, he remained bound by an unmet, fundamental need. Their “wisdom” failed, the story suggests that true understanding is not measured by the sophistication of methods, but by the ability to perceive what is real, immediate, and necessary. Without this, even the most sacred knowledge becomes a form of ignorance.
Escape
“Q: I WANT to get away from ‘things of this world’, and as a result I have immersed myself in the study of all kinds of books on occultism and experiential religion. I feel that I am on the way to ‘finding myself’, and wonder whether you would agree with me that this is the right thing to do?
Have you ever heard of the man who jumped into a river to get away from the rain? Books on occultism and religion will merely make you think of such things in a ‘worldly’ way, if you are a worldly person. What you have to learn is how to find the unworldly in everything. Can you do that? Obviously not, or you would not have asked the question. It is not the immersion alone, as you call it; it is very much a question of who or what is being immersed. Some things are cleaned by immersion; others merely become waterlogged”
Some of the quotes:
“When we are gone, do not look for our tomb in earth, but find it in the hearts of people.” – Mevlana Rumi
“Only sweet-voiced birds are imprisoned. Owls are not kept in cages.”
“Throughout the long night a man wept At the bedside of a sick man. When day dawned the visitor was dead – And the patient was alive”.
“Make no friendship with an elephant-keeper If you have no room to entertain an elephant”.
“ A scorpion was asked: ‘Why do you not come out in winter?’ It said: ‘What treatment do I get in summer, that I should go out in winter as well?’
“A raindrop, dripping from a cloud, Was ashamed when it saw the sea. ‘Who am I where there is a sea?’ it said. When it saw itself with the eye of humility, A shell nurtured it in its embrace and it becomes a pearl.”
“Crack the heart of any atom: from its midst you will see a sun shining. If you give all you have to Love, I’ll be called a Pagan if you suffer a molecule of loss. The soul passed through the fire of Love will let you see the soul transmuted. If you escape the narrowness of dimensions, and will see the ‘time of what is placeless’, you will what has never been heard, and you will see what has never been seen; Until they deliver you to a place where you will see ‘a world’ and ‘worlds’ as one. You shall love Unity with heart and soul; until, with the true eye, you will see Unity..”
“The souls were all arrayed in line. The world was presented to their sight. Nine out of ten of the souls ran towards it. Then paradise was presented to the remaining souls. Out of these, nine out of ten ran towards it. Then hell was shown to the remaining souls. Nine out of ten of them ran away from it in horror. Then there were only a few souls, those who were affected by nothing at all. They had not been attracted by the earth or by paradise, nor had they feared hell. The Celestial Voice spoke to these survivors, saying: ‘Idiot souls, what is it that you want?’ The souls answered in unison: ‘You who know all know that it is You whom we desire, and that we do not desire to leave Your Presence.’ The voice said to them: ‘Desire of Us is perilous, causes hardship and innumerable perils.’ The souls answered him: ‘We will gladly experience anything for the sake of being with You, and lose everything in order that we may gain everything.’
– Junaid of Baghdad
“Angels are the powers hidden in the faculties and organs of man”.
Ibn Arabi
“ in cell and cloister, monastery and synagogue, one lies In dread of hell: one dreams of paradise. But none that know the divine secrets Has sown his heart with such like fantasies”
Omar Khayyam
When oppression exists, even the bird dies in its nest.
Do you think you love your Creator? Love your fellow-creature first.
Across Idries Shah’s Sufi narratives, what first appears as a collection of moral anecdotes gradually reveals itself as a unified philosophical system concerned with the mechanics of human perception, ego, and transformation. These stories are not designed to instruct in a conventional ethical sense, but to disrupt the reader’s habitual assumptions about knowledge, virtue, and spiritual reality. At the center of this body of work lies a consistent thesis: human beings do not lack truth itself, but are instead trapped within distorted systems of self-perception that prevent them from recognizing it. Reality is not hidden; it is misread. The obstacle is not external but internal, embedded in the structure of the observing self. This idea is vividly illustrated in the story of the dog and the water. The dog, dying of thirst, is unable to drink because it mistakes its own reflection for another being. Only when survival overrides fear does it act, breaking the illusion. The metaphor is clear: the greatest barrier between the seeker and truth is the mind’s projection of itself onto reality.
he shows that the Sufi esoteric transmission link of the Asian Khajagan (‘Masters’) was the same as that used by Western mystical writers. He cites as teachers in the Sufi transmission such names as Plato, Hippocrates, Pythagoras and Hermes Trismegistos.
“What people call belief may be caused by conditioning… and, as such, is not spiritual at all.” That line alone reframes everything. It makes you pause—not to reject what you believe, but to wonder whether you ever chose it. And then there is this quiet, recurring lesson beneath many of the parables: that we are constantly clinging to what cannot last. We suffer not because things change— but because we expect them not to. The Sufi perspective doesn’t try to “fix” the world. It asks you to see it as it is: fluid, unstable, always shifting. And once you see that, something in you begins to loosen. Tie two birds together, and they will not be able to fly— even though they now have four wings. You may fill your time with countless things, but if you miss the one task meant for you, all of it is wasted. New organs of perception come into being as a result of necessity. Increase your necessity, and your perception will grow. Life is like a clear mirror, and the self we cling to is often no more than dust upon it. What appears to be truth may only be a worldly distortion of a deeper Reality.
He explains that learning is not the accumulation of answers, but the dissolution of the certainty that one already possesses them. The obstacle is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge. The mind that is full cannot be taught; the mind that has been emptied — whether by doubt, failure,— becomes capable of receiving something beyond itself. In this way, the path is not opened by intelligence alone, but by a radical undoing of what one takes to be understanding.
In The Saint and the Sinner, drawn from the works of Idries Shah, we are presented with a deceptively simple narrative that unfolds into a profound psychological and spiritual critique of human intention. At first glance, the moral framework appears familiar: a sinful gambler and a devout ascetic stand at opposite ends of the ethical spectrum. Yet Shah dismantles this binary with quiet precision. The dervish, who dedicates twenty years to marking the gambler’s sins with stones, is revealed not as a figure of compassion, but as one subtly indulging in self-righteousness. His outward piety conceals an inward corruption—an attachment to superiority masked as virtue. The gambler, on the other hand, retains an acute awareness of his own shortcomings. Each encounter with the dervish awakens not resentment, but a longing for goodness. This inward humility—fragile, unrefined, yet sincere—becomes the axis upon which the entire story turns. The climax delivers a striking inversion: the “saint” is condemned, while the “sinner” is redeemed. The tale suggests that spiritual worth is not measured by visible actions, but by the hidden movements of the heart. Intention, not performance, becomes the true locus of judgment. One of the most compelling insights lies in the angel’s explanation: the dervish “placed those stones for himself, not for the gambler.” In this single line, Shah exposes a universal human tendency—the transformation of moral action into a vehicle for self-validation.
To be wise, you do not have to be obsessed by being “good” or “generous”. You are obliged to do what is necessary.’
If you pray, and feel satisfaction at having prayed, your action has made you worse. In such circumstances, cease to pray until you have learned how to be really humble.
the story of The two Gurus represent a mind saturated with techniques, rituals, and inherited forms, yet detached from immediate reality. In their pursuit of transcendence, they overlook the simplest truth: the disciple’s need is not spiritual refinement, but basic nourishment.
The tragedy lies in substitution — where symbols replace substance, and methods replace understanding. What is presented as a path to liberation becomes, instead, a mechanism of blindness. The more elaborate the practices, the further they drift from what is essential.
The disciple’s final words reveal the central paradox: while the teachers sought to elevate him beyond the material, he remained bound by an unmet, fundamental need. Their “wisdom” failed, the story suggests that true understanding is not measured by the sophistication of methods, but by the ability to perceive what is real, immediate, and necessary. Without this, even the most sacred knowledge becomes a form of ignorance.
Escape
“Q: I WANT to get away from ‘things of this world’, and as a result I have immersed myself in the study of all kinds of books on occultism and experiential religion. I feel that I am on the way to ‘finding myself’, and wonder whether you would agree with me that this is the right thing to do?
Have you ever heard of the man who jumped into a river to get away from the rain? Books on occultism and religion will merely make you think of such things in a ‘worldly’ way, if you are a worldly person. What you have to learn is how to find the unworldly in everything. Can you do that? Obviously not, or you would not have asked the question. It is not the immersion alone, as you call it; it is very much a question of who or what is being immersed. Some things are cleaned by immersion; others merely become waterlogged”
Some of the quotes:
“When we are gone, do not look for our tomb in earth, but find it in the hearts of people.” – Mevlana Rumi
“Only sweet-voiced birds are imprisoned. Owls are not kept in cages.”
“Throughout the long night a man wept At the bedside of a sick man. When day dawned the visitor was dead – And the patient was alive”.
“Make no friendship with an elephant-keeper If you have no room to entertain an elephant”.
“ A scorpion was asked: ‘Why do you not come out in winter?’ It said: ‘What treatment do I get in summer, that I should go out in winter as well?’
“A raindrop, dripping from a cloud, Was ashamed when it saw the sea. ‘Who am I where there is a sea?’ it said. When it saw itself with the eye of humility, A shell nurtured it in its embrace and it becomes a pearl.”
“Crack the heart of any atom: from its midst you will see a sun shining. If you give all you have to Love, I’ll be called a Pagan if you suffer a molecule of loss. The soul passed through the fire of Love will let you see the soul transmuted. If you escape the narrowness of dimensions, and will see the ‘time of what is placeless’, you will what has never been heard, and you will see what has never been seen; Until they deliver you to a place where you will see ‘a world’ and ‘worlds’ as one. You shall love Unity with heart and soul; until, with the true eye, you will see Unity..”
“The souls were all arrayed in line. The world was presented to their sight. Nine out of ten of the souls ran towards it. Then paradise was presented to the remaining souls. Out of these, nine out of ten ran towards it. Then hell was shown to the remaining souls. Nine out of ten of them ran away from it in horror. Then there were only a few souls, those who were affected by nothing at all. They had not been attracted by the earth or by paradise, nor had they feared hell. The Celestial Voice spoke to these survivors, saying: ‘Idiot souls, what is it that you want?’ The souls answered in unison: ‘You who know all know that it is You whom we desire, and that we do not desire to leave Your Presence.’ The voice said to them: ‘Desire of Us is perilous, causes hardship and innumerable perils.’ The souls answered him: ‘We will gladly experience anything for the sake of being with You, and lose everything in order that we may gain everything.’
April 4, 2020
This beautiful anthology by Idries Shah’s daughter Saira is a masterful introduction to his vast body of work and a fresh perspective on Sufism. It contains chapters on the jokester sage Mulla Nasrudin, poetry, proverbs, teaching stories and more. Shah “argued that human beings, while capable of the most sublime capacities, choose to live on a plan far below their potential. Chained by the commanding self – a mixture of laziness, greed, fear and prejudice – they are driven on, harnessed and shackled by their own nature, fleeing from truth, from the exaltation and beauty that should be theirs.” Highly Recommended!
March 15, 2019
The Idries Shah Anthology is a lovely object, with attractively coloured boards and a bookmark ribbon. The 356 pages are designed to be an 'essential reader', introducing the inquirer to a rich sample of Shah's vast output, providing those new to Sufism with a solid grounding in the study of the thing itself (rather than being a book 'about' Sufism). I think that for someone more familiar with Shah corpus the anthology makes a fine 'desert island' book with enough in it to repay years of study and contemplation. The content is of a scope and variety that gives a good sense of the modes of thinking and behaviour necessary for the Sufi enterprise. This is, of course, only my opinion – to comment with authority about the effectiveness of the selection in conveying Sufi knowledge is above my pay grade!
In the book are sayings of the Prophet, longer traditional teaching tales, some of the short and pithy Mulla Nasrudin instructional 'jokes', short essays on various important factors, writing from classical Sufi masters, themes for contemplation and even some travelogue. All of this has the aim of urging the reader into a more expansive and flexible way of thinking and acting. As with any Sufi material it will repay reading, re-reading, mulling over and, most of all, actually putting some of the ideas into use in your own life.
In the book are sayings of the Prophet, longer traditional teaching tales, some of the short and pithy Mulla Nasrudin instructional 'jokes', short essays on various important factors, writing from classical Sufi masters, themes for contemplation and even some travelogue. All of this has the aim of urging the reader into a more expansive and flexible way of thinking and acting. As with any Sufi material it will repay reading, re-reading, mulling over and, most of all, actually putting some of the ideas into use in your own life.
April 22, 2019
One of the challenges in learning about the work of Idries Shah is where to choose among the large number of his books that are available. That decision is made a lot easier with the publication of the Idries Shah Anthology. The anthology comes in at a substantial 350 pages or so and it’s a generous selection from a wide number of his books, including The Sufis, Learning How to Learn, Reflections, Thinkers of the East and a number of his other volumes.
One key to how the book might be approached is through the Editorial Note by Saira Shah (Shah’s daughter) at the beginning. She gives a succinct overview of her father’s work and its purpose. “He argued that human beings, while capable of the most sublime capacities, choose to live on a plan far below their potential. Chained by the commanding self – a mixture of laziness, greed, fear and prejudice – they are driven on, harnessed and shackled by their own nature, fleeing from truth, from the exaltation and beauty that should be theirs.”
That’s a powerful observation and it’s backed up by an abundance of stories and anecdotes from Sufi masters like Rumi as well as Shah’s own observations from his experiences. Without a doubt, it’s the best introduction to Shah and Sufism available.
One key to how the book might be approached is through the Editorial Note by Saira Shah (Shah’s daughter) at the beginning. She gives a succinct overview of her father’s work and its purpose. “He argued that human beings, while capable of the most sublime capacities, choose to live on a plan far below their potential. Chained by the commanding self – a mixture of laziness, greed, fear and prejudice – they are driven on, harnessed and shackled by their own nature, fleeing from truth, from the exaltation and beauty that should be theirs.”
That’s a powerful observation and it’s backed up by an abundance of stories and anecdotes from Sufi masters like Rumi as well as Shah’s own observations from his experiences. Without a doubt, it’s the best introduction to Shah and Sufism available.
Read
July 10, 2019I find a dose of sanity any time I read Idries Shah.
And Lord knows, we need a little more (a lot more)
sanity in our lives and in our thinking, in these
amazing times in which we live. The Idries Shah
Anthology is made up of selections from a number
of the many amazing books by Idries Shah. And
for amazing times, how about some amazing reading?
I can humbly yet highly recommend anything by
Idries Shah; and picking up The Idries Shah Anthology
might well inspire further exploration into the work
of this unique author.
And Lord knows, we need a little more (a lot more)
sanity in our lives and in our thinking, in these
amazing times in which we live. The Idries Shah
Anthology is made up of selections from a number
of the many amazing books by Idries Shah. And
for amazing times, how about some amazing reading?
I can humbly yet highly recommend anything by
Idries Shah; and picking up The Idries Shah Anthology
might well inspire further exploration into the work
of this unique author.
Read
April 19, 2020Accessible Sufism
As all anthologies this one is not intended to be a substitute for reading the source material. Edited by Shah's older daughter Saira Shah it gives it to you on a silver platter. Her father's own twenty plus books can seem rather daunting, especially for a newcomer to contemporary Sufism. A way in was needed and here it is! It gives a taste.
As all anthologies this one is not intended to be a substitute for reading the source material. Edited by Shah's older daughter Saira Shah it gives it to you on a silver platter. Her father's own twenty plus books can seem rather daunting, especially for a newcomer to contemporary Sufism. A way in was needed and here it is! It gives a taste.
February 4, 2025
Idries Shah Anthology
The Sayed Idries Shah was a Master at all levels: as a writer, as a Teacher, as a communicator, as a Story teller, as a man with vast knowledge and an inspiring sense of humour, live in front of his followers and in all the Mulla Nasrudin books he wrote, still classics all over the world and beyond, provoking immediate laughter in solitude or reading it to friends and family.
This Postumus Anthology, specially compiled by his elder daughter, with her Editor’s Note writing: ‘Sufis say that we are constantly bombarded by the spiritual impulse’, ‘the source of being’ that without this permeating us, we would simply not exist.
In a beautifully presented hardcover, the Anthology starts with the Tale of the Sands and follows with The Subtleties of Mulla Nasrudin; great Fables, Poetry, Proverbs and Aphorisms, Teaching stories, Teachings of the Classics, Methods of the Masters, Themes for Study and Contemplation, Topics, Table talk and Travel writing.
With three hundred and forty six pages, there is so much fascinating and enduring material that one can only admire Shah’s constancy, his sense of duty towards us and constant devotion to teaching.
The Sayed Idries Shah was a Master at all levels: as a writer, as a Teacher, as a communicator, as a Story teller, as a man with vast knowledge and an inspiring sense of humour, live in front of his followers and in all the Mulla Nasrudin books he wrote, still classics all over the world and beyond, provoking immediate laughter in solitude or reading it to friends and family.
This Postumus Anthology, specially compiled by his elder daughter, with her Editor’s Note writing: ‘Sufis say that we are constantly bombarded by the spiritual impulse’, ‘the source of being’ that without this permeating us, we would simply not exist.
In a beautifully presented hardcover, the Anthology starts with the Tale of the Sands and follows with The Subtleties of Mulla Nasrudin; great Fables, Poetry, Proverbs and Aphorisms, Teaching stories, Teachings of the Classics, Methods of the Masters, Themes for Study and Contemplation, Topics, Table talk and Travel writing.
With three hundred and forty six pages, there is so much fascinating and enduring material that one can only admire Shah’s constancy, his sense of duty towards us and constant devotion to teaching.
September 28, 2021
This anthology is a great introduction to Idries Shah's books, which literally changed my life when I first read them more than 30 years ago. He is the clearest and most sensible writer on spiritual and psychological matters that I have encountered. Examples: think for yourself instead of joining a cult; be a good person, not just because it is good, but because it is effective; work on being good at ordinary life before worrying about extraordinary capacities. Give this anthology 30 minutes and it may speak to you too.
August 6, 2023
Maybe I’m too stupid to understand Sufism. But this was a collection of anecdotes that have such simple messages that you have to be a child for it to be profound. I don’t even know why I finished this book.
October 15, 2020
This is a fantastic book. A must-read for all fans of Idries Shah. It's also a great option for new readers.
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December 29, 2024We are fortunate that Idries Shah has left in writing such a rich legacy of Sufi thought and ideas.
October 11, 2020
This book makes a great introduction to the writings of the centuries of wisdom from the many great thinkers that Idries Shah spent 30 years collecting in his many travels.
When I was living in England in the early 70s a friend gave me a copy of his book "The Sufis". Reading that book was a "eureka" moment for me. Everything that I questioned about beliefs, structures of society, humanities foibles, and not questioning enough our assumptions and aspirations, was brought up in this book.
His chapter on the ages old character of "Nasrudin the wise fool" was very enlightening and funny. Nasrudins' motto "If the world is right side up I would rather be upside down" is the game clincher for me.
Since then, I have enjoyed reading all his books as they became available. A number of them I have read several times and each time I see something that I missed in the earlier read. His books have a depth that seem to reveal more and more after some time to let the mind "percolate".
It's not often that books like this comes along, all I can say is it certainly has had a very positive impact on my life and I am certainly grateful of Shah's efforts to bring this ancient wisdom to our modern society.
I highly recommend this book.
When I was living in England in the early 70s a friend gave me a copy of his book "The Sufis". Reading that book was a "eureka" moment for me. Everything that I questioned about beliefs, structures of society, humanities foibles, and not questioning enough our assumptions and aspirations, was brought up in this book.
His chapter on the ages old character of "Nasrudin the wise fool" was very enlightening and funny. Nasrudins' motto "If the world is right side up I would rather be upside down" is the game clincher for me.
Since then, I have enjoyed reading all his books as they became available. A number of them I have read several times and each time I see something that I missed in the earlier read. His books have a depth that seem to reveal more and more after some time to let the mind "percolate".
It's not often that books like this comes along, all I can say is it certainly has had a very positive impact on my life and I am certainly grateful of Shah's efforts to bring this ancient wisdom to our modern society.
I highly recommend this book.
April 15, 2020
An admittedly well chosen sampler of what is a potentially self destructive psychology. Interesting enough in places and there's probably not much to lose by taking the risk of reading it .
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