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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 introduction:
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 do: to think for themselves and to make up their own minds.
- From the Editor's Note, by Saira Shah
About the author
Idries Shah spent much of his life collecting and publishing Sufi classical narratives and teaching stories from oral and written sources in the Middle East and Central Asia. The tales he retold especially for children are published by Hoopoe Books in beautifully illustrated editions and have been widely commended - by Western educators and psychologists, the U.S. Library of Congress, National Public Radio and other media - for their unique ability to foster social-emotional development, thinking skills and perception in children and adults alike. Told for centuries, these stories express universal themes from the cultures that produced them, showing how much we have in common and can learn from each other. As noted by reviewers, such stories are more than just entertaining; familiarity with them provokes flexibility of thought, since each one contains levels of meaning that unfold in accordance with an individual's experience and understanding.
