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 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
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.
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?
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
The following excerpt is from a lecture by Idries Shah about the Sufi use of stories. It is a good example of how he used stories in context, in this case to explain something of the role of stories themselves – Saira Shah, Editor, The Idries Shah Anthology THE TEACHING STORY by Idries Shah I … Read More
We’re sad to announce the passing of ISF’s friend, Aubrey Davis, the Canadian writer and master storyteller.
In 1978 Idries Shah published The Hundred Tales of Wisdom, subtitled, “Tales, anecdotes and narratives used in Sufi schools for the development of insights beyond ordinary perceptions.” The work is a pastiche of snippets and vignettes from the life of Jalaluddin Rumi, and a handful of certain important stories from Rumi’s own canon of written … Read More
We visit the tomb of the 13th century Afghan-born Sufi, Jalaluddin Rumi, in Konya, Turkey. Idries Shah drew extensively from his teaching, adapting Sufism — just as Rumi did — to his time and environment. Watch the video below or in Full HD on YouTube
The Meaning of Rumi’s Work by Peter Brent
Jalaluddin Rumi, whom Sufis call ‘The Master’ and Professor Fatemi entitles ‘The Light of Sufism’, was born in Balkh, now in Afghanistan, in 1207. His father was a famous scholar and theologian, so that Rumi’s early training was in the rigorously classical and logical modes.
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