‘A beacon of sanity in our age of polarity’*
The Idries Shah Foundation is a charity dedicated to publishing and disseminating the works and ideas of the writer and thinker Idries Shah — and to connecting ideas across disciplines, cultures and history to help bring about a deeper insight into human thought and behaviour. Besides publishing, we are also engaged in a wide range of charitable projects, from supporting education in deprived societies to collaborating with UNESCO to promote stories as the essence of culture.
*John Zada, Los Angeles Review of Books.




– Robert Ornstein, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University




40% off The Sufis
Hailed by Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, as ‘a seminal book of the century’, The Sufis is the most important modern book on Sufism. Eschewing a purely academic approach, Shah provides an overview of Sufi concepts – and explains that Sufism predates Islam and Christianity and should not be equated with any particular culture or phase of a culture. Special offer available from ISF Direct.
Explore more from the Idries Shah Library
All Idries Shah titles are available in hardback, paperback, ebook and as audio books. Recent new editions include a selection of illustrated teaching stories for children and The Idries Shah Anthology. Shah’s ground-breaking works on Sufi Studies and Traditional Psychology, including The Commanding Self, can be purchased as bundles.
The Tale of the Sands from Tales of the Dervishes
From the Idries Shah Sufi Studies and Middle Eastern Literature
Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, Dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of a fable, legend or folklore. They stand in comparison in wit, construction and piquancy with the finest stories of any culture, yet their true function as Sufi teaching stories is so little-known in the modern world, that no technical or popular terms exist to describe them. The material in Tales of the Dervishes is the result of a thousand years of development, during which Dervish masters used these and other teaching stories to instruct their disciples. The tales are held to convey powers of increasing perception unknown to the ordinary man.
‘For every decade we live, we will find another meaning in each story’ – Desmond Morris, BBC The World of Books
Latest from The Idries Shah Foundation
Find out about our latest projects and exciting publishing initiatives, read our blog – and listen to our popular podcast
Our Impact

Books for Afghans
We are distributing copies of our Dari translations to Afghans who have fled Afghanistan. 1,000 copies of our children’s books are being printed in the UK for immediate distribution. And 500 copies of our Nasrudin Dari editions are going to local councils, charities and military bases in the UK and USA.

UNESCO Collaboration
Thousands of children between the ages of 12 and 18 participated in the ISF-UNESCO’s short story competition. The theme ‘Once Upon a Time in My Future…’ drew entries from as far afield as Chile, Iran and Mongolia. The winners won bespoke medals, ipads and copies of our children’s books for their school libraries.

Taking Sufi Literature ‘Home’
The Idries Shah Foundation is making Idries Shah’s books available to readers in Asia and the Middle East, thereby ‘returning’ them to the societies that birthed much of the material he drew from. They are reaching refugees from Afghanistan and Iran – and now Turkish readers.






