When it first appeared in 1964, The Sufis was welcomed as the decisive work on the subject of Sufi thought....

The Way of the Sufi presents an unparalleled cross-section of material from Sufi schools, Sufi teachings, and classical writings as a basic course of Sufi study. The author begins with the outward aspects of the teaching most likely to puzzle the student coming fresh to the subject. He considers...

Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, Dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of a fable, legend, or folklore....

Caravan of Dreams distills the essence of Eastern thought in a feast of Sufi stories, sayings, poems, and allegories collected by one of the world's leading experts in Oriental philosophy and Sufism. Idries Shah builds up a complete picture of a single consciousness, relating Eastern mythology...

Condensed from more than three million words, these conversations involve housewives and cabinet ministers, professors and assembly-line workers, on the subject of how traditional psychology can illuminate current human, social, and spiritual problems....

In a darkened room, a group of men once sought to examine an elephant. Taking hold of a different part - an ear, a leg, the tail - each one mistook his particular part for the whole. In the darkness each of the men became convinced that the elephant was the object he had felt - a fan, a rope, a...

The Commanding Self, in Sufic terminology, is that mixture of the primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, which inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding. This audiobook was described by Shah as the key to understanding his entire corpus of work. While complete in...

Nasrudin is the greatest of all Arab folk heroes, and is found across the Islamic World, from Morocco to Pakistan, and beyond. He is said to have been the wisest fool who ever lived - that is if he ever did live at all. Stories of Nasrudin’s many incarnations are studied by Sufis for their...

In December of 1979, Soviet tanks rolled across the borders of Afghanistan, beginning a period of barbaric aggression that triggered a turning point in modern history. Idries Shah's brilliant novel chronicles the courageous 10-year resistance of the Afghan people....

How can it be that the same story is found in Scotland and also in pre-Columbian America? What can account for the durability and persistence of tales? Was the tale of Aladdin and his wondrous lamp really taken from Wales (where it has been found) to the ancient East and, if so, when and by whom?...

As with all of his works, The Magic Monastery is rich in thought-provoking material, and can be listened to and enjoyed at many levels....

A serious, yet entertaining, look at the impediments in current thought which prevent certain forms of understanding between people. The title story was made into an award-winning film....

In Idries Shah's Wisdom of the Idiots, the "idiots" are Sufis, called this because their wisdom penetrates to a depth which renders it inaccessible to the merely intelligent or academically knowledgeable. The stories of the Sufis are tools prepared for a specific purpose. On this level the...

"Perfectly designed models for isolating and holding distortions of the mind which so often pass for reasonable behavior." (Idries Shah) Today we find Idries Shah in a high-level physics report, illustrating phenomena that can't be described in ordinary technical terms. He appears in psychology...

A Veiled Gazelle considers the symbolic and instrumental employment of its literature in Sufi studies. Seldom didactic, and never meant only as entertainment, such works are regarded as some of the world’s greatest and most important writing....

Previously published only as separate essays, Sufi Thought and Action - assembled and introduced by Idries Shah - covers an extraordinary diversity of Sufi ideas and activities in many countries and cultures....

Many countries claim Nasrudin as a native, although few have gone so far as Turkey in exhibiting a "grave" of the wisest fool who ever lived, and holding an annual Nasrudin Festival. He is the greatest, most intriguing, character of folklore found in any Eastern land...

The "perfuming of a scorpion", referred to by the great Sufi teacher Bahaudin, symbolizes hypocrisy and self-deception: both in the individual and in institutions. In A Perfumed Scorpion, Idries Shah directs attention to both the perfume and the scorpion - the overlay and the reality - in...

Read by David Ault, this unabridged recording of Idries Shah's Reflections is a collection of Sufi fables, aphorisms, and statements that challenge the conditioned mind....

A treasure house of teaching materials, assembled in the Sufi manner. Seeker After Truth contains both traditional tales and stories gleaned from contemporary sources, and snippets of table talk, discussions and teachings, letters, and lectures by Idries Shah. Taken together, it constitutes a...