Home - The Idries Shah Foundation

‘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.

IDRIES SHAH’S CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY IN THE WEST

Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Laureate for Peace 2014

Idries Shah claimed that, for a Western audience, Sufi ideas are better presented within psychology than religion. In a series of articles, his daughter, Saira Shah will take a look at his work in this context.

Happy New Year 2025 - A message from Saira Shah

I wanted to make this update a little bit more personal than we’ve done before. It seems important, in what would have been Idries Shah’s hundred and first year, to put my name beside my words to show that there is family continuity in all that we do.

A New Phase for ISF - Saira Shah

Find out how you can continue to support and partner with ISF as we continue our mission to grow a worldwide readership for Idries Shah’s works.

El-Ghazali of Persia

Muhammad el-Ghazali (1058-1111), known in Medieval Europe by the Latinized name 'Algazel', was a polymathic scholar, teacher, philosopher, theologian and Sufi mystic. His writing and ideas appear frequently in Idries Shah's works.

Celebrating The Sufis at 60 - the 20th century’s most influential book on Sufism

The publication of The Sufis in 1964 was a watershed for the development of Sufi philosophy in the West. It remains a dynamic book of instruction for modern times.

Warning from The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin

The appeal of Nasrudin is as universal and timeless as the truths he illustrates. His stories are read, enjoyed and shared by children, scientists, scholars and followers of philosophy the world over. Idries Shah assembled perhaps the largest collection of Nasrudin’s trials and tribulations from sources across North Africa, Turkey, the Middle East and Central Asia. Gradually, these are being absorbed into Western culture. Some are no longer identified as Nasrudin stories at all!

Today’s story is taken from one of Shah’s four collections of infectious Nasrudin stories. ‘The Sufis, who believe that deep intuition is the only real guide to knowledge, use these stories almost like exercises,’ wrote Shah. ‘But [they] concur… that everyone can do with the Nasrudin tales what people have done through the centuries – enjoy them.’