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.

Celebrating World Storytelling Day

Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Laureate for Peace 2014

On World Storytelling Day, the Idries Shah Foundation is celebrating the eternal appeal and exploits of the incomparable, incredible and inimitable folk legend, Mulla Nasrudin.

With Sufi ideas under threat ISF is reseeding them through its translations project

‘In many Islamic countries, the Sufi outlook is increasingly under threat.’ ISF is working to renew this ancient tradition.

Winners of The Horrible Dib Dib Halloween Drawing Competition!

We’ve received entries from India and Pakistan, Japan, Germany, the United States. Even Iceland!

Explore the largest collection of Sufi literature and teaching-stories in the world

For over 40 years, Shah collected and published centuries of Sufi literature, and offered an interpretation of this invaluable resource uniquely framed for our time

We publish timeless, beautifully-illustrated stories for children

‘These stories…nurture a part of the mind that is unreachable in more direct ways...’
– Robert Ornstein, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University

Nasrudin is an international folk hero of medieval origin but timeless appeal. His role changes: sometimes he is the fool, sometimes the sage. He is courtier, beggar, physician, judge or teacher. Nasrudin is indefinable and therefore indestructible. Whether his anecdotes are studied for their hidden wisdom or enjoyed for their exhilarating humour, they will remain an incomparable delight. But as Idries Shah writes in The Sufis, the Nasrudin figure was devised as the pivot for a series of jokes used to illustrate the teaching of the Sufis.

Diversion 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.’