Seeing with the Right Eyes: Review of Idries Shah Remembered

★★★★★ Tahir Shah (Ed), Idries Shah Remembered.

An Afterword to my own Reading

Like the Sufi mystical tradition that Idries Shah represents, champions, and exemplifies, Shah himself is so multi-faceted that he cannot simply be categorised or pigeon-holed, and perhaps dismissed. There's a tale in the book, containing an idea that crops up again and again, and which applies here: that of the elephant in the dark, an ancient tale that the Sufi Rumi reinterpreted. In this teaching tale, either several blind men are led into the presence of an elephant or sighted people are led to an elephant in the dark, a creature that they know nothing about. One feels its tusk and declares that it is a spear; another touches its ear and declares it a fan; a third is adamant that the tail is a rope; another that its belly is a barrel; and yet another that its sturdy legs are pillars. None of these men “see the whole picture”, the reality. This task of recognition is perhaps made all the more difficult because the externals of the Sufi teachings have throughout history been adapted to suit the current time, place, people, and circumstances, and the tradition's proponents have correspondingly adapted their methods in the face of necessity. Additionally, in Shah's own case, he went to some lengths to strip away cultural accretions around the precious gem or kernel that is Sufism, to the consternation of numerous Orientalists, religionists, and those wedded to exoteric tradition.

Sufis Say “Put Your Hands on Your Head”

It strikes me that there’s a game that Idries Shah used to play, and encourage us to play. It’s called “Sufis say ...” which has been handed down since time immemorial from murshid to murid (master to disciple). A contemporary form still exists in elite circles, where it is called “Shah says ...”

We may know it in a lesser, degenerate form, so we are told, by the name “Simon says ...”, a game now played by small children and fools.

The Legend of the Cake-Baking Islanders

or "The king who divined his fortune"

A king who was also an astrologer read in his stars that on a certain day and at a particular hour a calamity would overtake him. He therefore began to stockpile all manner of raw ingredients such as flour and eggs and milk and posted numerous guardians outside, stacking the materials from floor to ceiling until he could no longer leave the warehouse he had built-up. By this time he was beginning to have second thoughts about the whole matter, but he could no longer conceive of any means of escape.

Then one day a Sufi, passing by, looked in through one of the remaining small openings, took in the situation and called to the King:

'Friend, if you wish to escape, you must first of all use some of these provisions to bake me a cake.'

Be Still My Beating Heart: Cultivating Sakina

Well, what do I know, but it seems to me that what the writer, thinker and Sufi mystical exponent Idries Shah was doing was conducting an innovative (or should I say relatively unknown?) experiment in long-distance learning, knowing that most would have no physical contact with a Teacher, knowing that most would not convert to Islam. To re-hash what I've written about in the past, I think that working with the materials (both didactic materials and the teaching stories, which some ignore) works on the commanding self and delinquent or depraved nafs, and the self-accusatory nafs. And I sense that there is then sporadic, but increasingly reliable, activation of the inspired nafs.

However, there comes a point when looking back on the depraved nafs and self-accusatory nafs becomes counter-productive. Even at the stage of the inspired nafs, there is an element of pride involved in what one sees as ones own accomplishments, when in reality these are things which one is gifted. There needs to be a turn around.

The question is (and I think this is a gamble that Shah took) is whether working with the materials, and on ones self is sufficient to induce a self-sustaining reaction and open up the heart, the heart and other lataif, (latent organs of subtle perception), and allow one to come in contact with, and work with, something outside ones limited self; an inner guide, if you like, with whom one may engage in inner dialogue (and here there is common ground with Western esoterica, contemporary depth psychology (eg active imagination), and illuminationism (eg imaginal world, 'al am al-mithal)).

Nile Green’s “Fantastical” Hatchet Job About Ikbal and Idries Shah: Book Review

★☆☆☆☆ Nile Green's “fantastical” book, Empire's Son, Empire's Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah, about Ikbal Ali Shah and his son, the writer and thinker Idries Shah who helped establish the Sufi mystical tradition in the West, comes in the same ignoble tradition as James Moore and L.P. Elwell-Sutton's hatchet jobs, and they will hardly get a footnote in history. Had the author taken a less adversarial and scornful stance and been able to gain the confidence and cooperation of members of the Shah family that he evidently desired and sought, the work, and its sources, might have been greatly improved.

According to a recent and uninspiring review in the New York Times by Robyn Creswell, “Ikbal and Idries are tricky subjects for biography. They kept no diaries and left only scattered correspondence”. And yet Tahir Shah managed to collect and publish an 8-volume set of information to coincide with the centenary of his father, Idries Shah's birth, on 16 June 2024. So a great deal of interesting and useful material has been left out of this work.

The evidence appears very damning. However, with the sparse use of citations, it's difficult to tell where Nile Green's imaginative re-enactment and speculation delivered as statements of fact leave off and where hard evidence begins. This gives the illusion of intimate acquaintance.

The Sufi Mystics: Ancient Wisdom for Dire Modern Times

Just over fifty years ago, in 1964, the writer, thinker and Sufi teacher Idries Shah’s major work, The Sufis, was published. Writer and later winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007, Doris Lessing, writing in The Washington Post, described the work as “a seminal book of the century, even a watershed,” and the poet Ted Hughes wrote that “the Sufis must be the biggest society of sensible men on Earth.” Men and women, that would be. At the time of his death, in November 1996, Shah’s thirty-or-so books on travel, philosophy, psychology and spirituality had sold over 15 million copies in a dozen languages worldwide.

Although others had come before Shah, such as the Sufi teacher Hazrat Inayat Khan, at the time Shah wrote his first work popularising the subject, the Sufi Way was largely unknown outside of specialist academic and Sufi circles. The closest many had come to Sufism would possibly be to have read the tales in One Thousand and One Nights, which were actually of Sufic origin and designed to surreptitiously convey certain teachings and survive through their popularity.

Many of Shah’s books have teaching tales scattered throughout them, or are collections of such tales, which have multiple layers of meaning that can be revealed like the layers of an onion, rather than the simple morals that we have become accustomed to in the West, via the likes of Aesop. Some, such as the tales of the folksy philosopher and wise fool, Nasrudin, use humour as a vehicle.

According to the Sufis, a wholly scholastic or logical approach to study, or closed thinking, is restrictive and ill-advised, and this is preserved in one of Nasrudin’s jokes:

Nasrudin, ferrying a pedant across a piece of rough water, said something ungrammatical to him. “Have you never studied grammar?” asked the scholar.
“No.”
“Then half of your life has been wasted.”
A few minutes later Nasrudin turned to the passenger. “Have you ever learned how to swim?”
“No. Why?”
“Then all your life is wasted—we are sinking!”

What the Sufis advocate instead, as correctives, are the development and use of perception and intuition, and learning a practical skill which they technically term “swimming”. One of the aims is to awaken what Shah terms our vestigial organs of higher perception, which will help us in our quest toward Truth.

The Sufis talk of finding a hidden treasure of inestimable worth, but since it is buried under a mountain of misbelief and conditioning, a lot of digging has to be undertaken first, a preliminary phase which Shah refers to as learning how to learn. To use an organic metaphor: first of all, the ground has to be cleared of dead wood, undergrowth and weeds before the seeds can be planted; then the seeds are watered and grow out of the ground, and into the air, to be warmed by the sun; and finally they come to fruition and may be harvested. The Sufi materials help clear the ground and scatter those seeds, in the mind and heart of the seeker, and the teacher provides the “water”.

Or, to put it another way (as the Sufis so often do), imagine a princess locked in a dungeon and placed under guard. That is our common plight. It is possible to use the Sufi stories to smuggle hidden messages to the princess, who represents our heart or a higher part of us, via those unsuspecting and greedy guards – guards who are equally a part of our own makeup. By establishing a common language and a secret dialogue, messages can in turn be smuggled out about the princess’ plight. To cut a long and involved story short, by such means, the princess can be freed from the dungeon and regain her rightful place.

The prodigious Work of the Sufis: Book review

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).

The Institute For Cultural Research and The Idries Shah Foundation

Many of you will know that the London-based The Institute For Cultural Research (ICR), founded by the writer, thinker and Sufi mystical teacher Idries Shah, has now suspended its activities.

A new organization, The Idries Shah Foundation, has now taken its place, and the foundation's publishing arm, ISF Publishing supersedes Octagon Press.

ICR, New Year 2012/2013:

Here is a copy of a statement sent out to members and friends of the ICR around New Year 2012/2013:

Dear Members and Friends of ICR,

As most of you know, ICR is working towards changing into The Idries Shah Foundation in the near future.

Since it transpires that charities law grinds exceedingly slowly, we will continue to operate as usual until the new Foundation is set up.

Three lectures are being planned for the spring of 2013, and will be held at King's College between the end of February to the middle of May.

The ICR AGM will take place a little later than usual next year, in order to maximise the chances of the new foundation being operational by the time we meet.

At the last AGM, Saira Shah set out the reasons for the change:

Idries Shah's successor

“A year before my father died, he sat me down in a quiet corner of his garden. We shared a pot of Darjeeling tea and listened to the sound of a pair of wood pigeons in a nearby tree. I poured a second cup of tea. As I was putting the strainer back on its holder, my father said: 'Some time soon I will not be here any more. My illness has reached another phase. I can feel it.'

“I sat there, touched with sadness. I didn't say anything because I could not think of anything appropriate to say.

“'When I am not here,' my father continued, 'some people we have always trusted will betray us. Beware of this. Others will stand forward as true friends, people who were in the shadows before. Many more will ask who I left as my successor. They will hound you, asking for a name. It is important that you tell them that my successor is my printed work. My books form a complete course, a Path, and they succeed when I cannot be there.'”

~ Tahir Shah, In Arabian Nights, New York: Bantam Dell. pp. 215-6. See: tahirshah.com.

There is now an official page for Idries Shah at Facebook, maintained by the Estate of Idries Shah, and you can follow @IdriesShah at Twitter. A new official web site, The Idries Shah Foundation, has now gone live, and there's a new article about The Idries Shah Foundation at Wikipedia.

See also:

• The Sufi Mystics: Ancient Wisdom for Dire Modern Times

• By Etienne de L'Amour ~ Google+

Sher Point Publications, UK: The story so far

I've been on-line for over twelve years now and for several years I hosted and ran my own web site, latterly Sher Point Publications, UK. Now, however, it's time to make changes in order to reclaim my life.

Where it all began

It all began after the death of the thinker, writer and Sufi teacher Idries Shah on 23 November 1996. At that time, many of the folk who'd been reading his books (in effect, unofficial students) were left wondering what to do next -- all the more so since no successor to Shah was forthcoming. This was long before Idries Shah's son, Tahir Shah wrote in his book In Arabian Nights that Shah had said that his books were to be his successor.