The Sufis, a modern classic that has been translated into over two dozen languages, has attracted the praise of such famous authors as Robert Graves, Ted Hughes, J.D. Salinger, and Doris Lessing.

Idries Shah’s The Sufis is the most authoritative book about Sufism ever produced for a modern audience. This definitive work explores an immemorial wisdom tradition best-known for its connections with Islam, but which both predates and goes beyond it.

Sufis espouse a mystical teaching and way of life that have had an immeasurable, though little-known, impact on East and West for thousands of years. Core to this 'practical philosophy' is the cultivation of intuition and experience as a guide to life — rather than overreliance upon logic and the intellect. Its members believe that theirs is the secret tradition behind all religious and philosophical systems.

Shah’s remarkable book includes accounts of the lives and work of the best-known Sufi masters, encompassing many of the world's greatest thinkers, including the Eastern luminaries: Jalaluddin Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Ibn Arabi, Al-Ghazzali, Saadi Shirazi, and Farid Al-Din Attar.

Many of the greatest traditions, ideas and discoveries of the West are connected to the teachings and writings of Sufi savants working centuries ago. The astonishing impact of Sufism on the development of Western civilization, especially from the seventh century onwards, is traced through the work of Roger Bacon, St. John of the Cross, Raymond Lully, The Templars, Rosicrucians, Chaucer, Sir Richard Francis Burton, and others.

But more than a history, The Sufis is a dynamic book of instruction for modern times, reflecting the idea that living Sufism is never a static artefact of the past, but adapts to the current time, place and people.

‘A seminal book of the century, even a watershed... In our reference books Sufis are likely to be described as Islamic mystics; at best as “the inner truth of Islam”. But this book explains that Sufism predates both Islam and Christianity, and that it is a mistake to equate it with any particular culture or phase of a culture.’

Doris Lessing, The Washington Post

‘This book is not addressed to intellectuals or other orthodox thinkers or to anyone who will fail to recognise it at once as addressed to himself.’

Robert Graves

‘The Sufis must be the biggest society of sensible people ever to have been on earth.’

Ted Hughes

‘[Sufi stories] offer a working blueprint of the mind.’

Robert Ornstein, author of The Psychology of Consciousness & The Evolution of Consciousness

The Situation xi
Preface xiii
The Islanders — A Fable 1
The Background : I The Travellers and the Grapes
The Background : II The Elephant in the Dark
The Subtleties of Mulla Nasrudin
Sheikh Saadi of Shiraz
Fariduddin Attar, the Chemist
Our Master Jalaluddin Rumi
Ibn el-Arabi: The Greatest Sheikh
El-Ghazali of Persia
Omar Khayyam
The Secret Language : I The Coalmen
The Secret Language : II The Builders
The Secret Language : III The Philosopher’s Stone
Mysteries in the West: I Strange Rites
Mysteries in the West: II The Chivalric Circle
Mysteries in the West: III The Head of Wisdom
Mysteries in the West: IV Francis of Assisi
Mysteries in the West: V The Secret Doctrine
The Higher Law
The Book of the Dervishes
The Dervish Orders
Seeker After Knowledge
The Creed of Love
Miracles and Magic
The Teacher, the Teaching, the Taught
The Far East
Annotations
Appendix I: Esoteric Interpretation of the Qur’an
Appendix II: The Rapidness

In observing the Sufis by means of what are in fact derivations of Sufi techniques, we shall have to look at many things which may be important at first, but which will cease to have the same significance as we proceed. This technique can easily be illustrated. A child learns to read by mastering the alphabet. When he can read words he retains the knowledge of the letters, but reads whole words. If he were to concentrate upon letters, he would be severely handicapped by what was useful only at an earlier stage. Both words and letters should now have a more settled perspective. Thus the Sufic method.

The process is easier than it sounds, even if only because doing a thing may often be easier than describing it. I report a glimpse of Sufis in a circle (halka), the basic unit and very heart of active Sufism. A group of seekers is attracted to a teaching master, and attends his Thursday evening assembly. The first part of the proceedings is the less formal time, when questions are asked, and students received. On this occasion, a newcomer had just asked our teacher, the Agha, whether there was a basic urge toward mystical experience, shared by all humanity.

‘We have a word,’ replied the Agha, ‘which sums all this up. It describes what we are doing, and it summarises our way of thinking. Through it you will understand the very reason for our existence, and the reason why mankind is generally speaking at odds. The word is Anguruzuminabstafil.’ And he explained it in a traditional Sufi story.

Four men — a Persian, a Turk, an Arab, and a Greek — were standing in a village street. They were travelling companions, making for some distant place; but at this moment they were arguing over the spending of a single piece of money which was all that they had among them.

‘I want to buy angur,’ said the Persian.
‘I want uzum,’ said the Turk.
‘I want inab,’ said the Arab.
‘No!’ said the Greek, ‘we should buy stafil.’

Another traveller passing, a linguist, said, ‘Give the coin to me. I undertake to satisfy the desires of all of you.’

At first they would not trust him. Ultimately they let him have the coin. He went to the shop of a fruit seller and bought four small bunches of grapes.

‘This is my angur,’ said the Persian.
‘But this is what I call uzum,’ said the Turk.
‘You have brought me inab,’ said the Arab.
‘No!’ said the Greek, ‘this in my language is stafil.’

The grapes were shared out among them, and each realised that the disharmony had been due to his faulty understanding of the language of the others.

‘The travellers,’ said the Agha, ‘are the ordinary people of the world. The linguist is the Sufi. People know that they want something, because there is an inner need existing in them. They may give it different names, but it is the same thing. Those who call it religion have different names for it, and even different ideas as to what it might be. Those who call it ambition try to find its scope in different ways. But it is only when a linguist appears, someone who knows what they really mean, that they can stop the struggling and get on with the eating of the grapes.’

The group of travellers which he had been describing, he continued, were more advanced than most, in that they actually had a positive idea of what they wanted, even though they could not communicate it. It is far more common for the individual to be at an earlier stage of aspiration than he thinks. He wants something but does not know what it is — though he may think that he knows.

The Sufic way of thinking is particularly appropriate in a world of mass communication, when every effort is directed toward making people believe that they want or need certain things; that they should believe certain things; that they should as a consequence do certain things that their manipulators want them to do.

The Sufi speaks of wine, the product of the grape, and its secret potential, as his means of attaining ‘inebriation’. The grape is seen as the raw form of the wine. Grapes, then, mean ordinary religion; while wine is the real essence of the fruit.

The travellers are therefore seen to be four ordinary people, differing in religion. The Sufi shows them that the basis of their religions is in fact the same. He does not, however, offer them wine, the essence, which is the inner doctrine waiting to be produced and used in mysticism, a field far more developed than mere organised religion. That is a further stage. But the Sufi’s role as a servant of humanity is brought out by the fact that, although he is operating on a higher level, he helps the formal religionist as far as he can, by showing him the fundamental identity of religious faith. He might, of course, have gone on to a discussion of the merits of wine; but what the travellers wanted was grapes, and grapes they were given.

When the wrangling over smaller issues subsides, according to the Sufi, the greater teaching may be imparted. Meanwhile, some sort of primary lesson has been given.

The basic urge toward mysticism is never, in the unaltered man, clear enough to be recognised for what it is.

Rumi, in his version of this story (Mathnawi, Bk. II) alludes to the Sufi training system when he says that the grapes, pressed together, produce one juice — the wine of Sufism. The Sufis often start from a nonreligious viewpoint. The answer, they say, is within the mind of mankind. It has to be liberated, so that by self-knowledge the intuition becomes the guide to human fulfilment. The other way, the way of training, suppresses and stills the intuition. Humanity is turned into a conditioned animal by non-Sufi systems, while being told that it is free and creative, has a choice of thought and action.

The Sufi is an individual who believes that by practising alternate detachment and identification with life, he becomes free. He is a mystic because he believes that he can become attuned to the purpose of all life. He is a practical man because he believes that this process must take place within normal society. And he must serve humanity because he is a part of it...

In order to succeed in this endeavour, he must follow the methods which have been devised by earlier masters, methods for slipping through the complex of training which makes most people prisoners of their environment and of the effect of their experiences. The exercises of the Sufis have been developed through the interaction of two things — intuition and the changing aspects of human life. Different methods will suggest themselves intuitively in different societies and at various times. This is not inconsistent, because real intuition is itself always consistent.

The Sufi life can be lived at any time, in any place. It does not require withdrawal from the world, or organised movements, or dogma. It is coterminous with the existence of humanity. It cannot, therefore, accurately be termed an Eastern system. It has profoundly influenced both the East and the very bases of the Western civilisation in which many of us live — the mixture of Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Near Eastern or Mediterranean heritage commonly called ‘Western’.

Mankind, according to the Sufis, is infinitely perfectible. The perfection comes about through attunement with the whole of existence. Physical and spiritual life meet, but only when there is a complete balance between them. Systems which teach withdrawal from the world are regarded as unbalanced.

From The Sufis by Idries Shah
Copyright © The Estate of Idries Shah

Idries Shah was born in India in 1924 into an aristocratic Afghan family. He was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition and is considered one of the leading thinkers of the 20th century.

Shah devoted his life to collecting, translating and adapting key works of Sufi classical literature for the needs of the West. Called by some 'practical philosophy' - these works represent centuries of Sufi and Islamic thought aimed at developing human potential. His best-known works include the seminal book The Sufis, several collections of teaching stories featuring the ‘wise fool’ Nasrudin, Reflections and Knowing How to Know.

Shah's corpus - over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and cultural studies - have been translated into two dozen languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. They are regarded as an important bridge between the cultures of East and West.