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A hundred years ago – on 16th June 1924 – Sayed Idries Shah was born in Shimla, India.
Idries Shah was born 100 years ago
Author: Lou Temlett
Sufi Studies: East and West Edited by Professor Rushbrook Williams
Sufi Studies: East and West contains a wealth of information about Sufis and their special practices from a diversity of cultures and viewpoints. In 1973, a major symposium was held in honor of Idries Shah’s work in the area of Sufi studies. This corresponded with the 700th anniversary of the death of the Persian Sufi … Read More
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.
Stunning New Children’s Books
ISF is incredibly proud to announce the publication of six new children’s books featuring teaching-stories selected from the works of Idries Shah. Edited by Safia Shah, these titles are illustrated in fresh, contemporary styles by award-winning illustrators from around the world, including Prashant Miranda and Zainab Faidhi. You can own all six titles in hardback … Read More
El-Ghazali’s ‘Alchemy of Happiness’
El-Ghazali’s ‘Alchemy of Happiness’ In 1980, Octagon Press, the publishing predecessor of ISF, first printed a short English translation of one of Abu Hamid el-Ghazali’s many writings entitled The Alchemy of Happiness (Kimiya’e Saadat). El-Ghazali wrote Alchemy as an abridgement for ordinary readers of his colossal masterwork, The Revival of Religious Sciences (Ihya Ulum al-Din). … Read More
El-Ghazali: The Practical Mystic
El-Ghazali: The Practical Mystic The twelfth-century philosopher and Sufi el-Ghazali quotes in his Book of Knowledge this line from el-Mutanabbi: ‘To the sick man, sweet water tastes bitter in the mouth.’ This could very well be taken as Ghazali’s motto. Eight hundred years before Pavlov, he pointed out and hammered home (often in engaging parables, … Read More
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.
Watch our animated ‘Tale of the Sands’
We all fear change and yet change is the very essence of life. How does a stream cross the mighty, desolate desert? Can it allow itself to change its very form to survive the journey?
Hand-Printed Idries Shah Teaching-Stories
Next year is the centenary of Idries Shah’s birth in 1924. To celebrate, we’re excited to announce the creation of five hundred hand-printed folios of Idries Shah’s best-loved teaching-stories. There are five stories in all and just 100 copies of each have been printed. Each is a Sufi classic tale collected and previously published by … Read More
Ibn El-Arabi: A Classical Sufi Master
Ibn El-Arabi: A Classical Sufi Master by Peter Brent Born into a Sufi family almost exactly a hundred years after El-Ghazali, almost exactly forty years before Rumi, Ibn el-Arabi, like them, displayed great gifts even in childhood. Brought up in the heyday of Arabic Spain (paradoxically, one of the most civilised societies in European history) … Read More