8

EASTERN THOUGHT

EASTERN THOUGHT SUFI STUDIES

First Among Sufis The Life and Thought of al-Adawiyya WIDAD EL-SAKKAKINI
Thanks be to God, says the 14th century author in his introduction, who has delivered us from all useless and superfluous talk True to his word A Glossary of Sufi Technical Terms is both concise, and brimming with ideas. It provides explanations of the concepts and terminology used in Sufi works. It is an invaluable work of reference, which may also be read as a continuous text. Both the annotated translation and the original Arabic are presented in this edition.
HARDBACK ISBN

The Commanding Self

IDRIES SHAH

0 863040 32 2

25.50

85 PAGES 332 PAGES The Commanding Self, in Sufic terminology, is that mixture of the primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, which inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding. This book was described by Shah as the key to understanding his entire corpus of work. While complete in itself as an anthology of hitherto unpublished work, it serves to illustrate and amplify Idries Shahs preceding books on the Sufi Way. In its introduction, he writes, Thousands of books and monographs have been written on Sufism and the Sufis, almost all of them from the point of view of other ways of thinking. The result has been chaos in the literature, and confusion in the reader. Over the centuries, some of the worlds most eminent scholars have fallen into the trap of trying to examine, access or consider the Sufi phenomenon through a set of culture-bound preconceptions.
HARDBACK PAPERBACK ISBN ISBN

Madame Sakkakini, a major contemporary novelist and scholar, here provides an impressionistic account of the life and work of Rabia, the extraordinary Sufi woman saint. Born into eighth century Basra, Rabia became an ascetic, before passing beyond this stage to that of Sufi and reputed miracle worker. She was one of the first to point out that religion, correctly understood, is not to be confused with emotionality.
HARDBACK ISBN

Knowing How to Know

IDRIES SHAH

0 900860 45 6

11.50

A Glossary of Sufi Technical Terms Abd al-Razzaq Al-Qashani TRANSLATED BY DR. NABIL SAFWAT,
DAVID PENDLEBURY REVISED & EDITED BY

343 PAGES Contemporary esoteric systems almost always play on the desire of mankind to seek or acquire knowledge. All but universally neglected in such systems are the often unrecognized barriers which prevent knowledge and understanding. Before learning can take place, certain conditions and basic factors must be in place; in the individual or the group. Building on the foundations laid in Learning How to Learn and The Commanding Self, Idries Shah in Knowing How to Know illuminates those factors. Like an ultra-violet light shone onto the petals of flowers, it reveals concealed patterns, normally invisible to our customary modes of thought.
HARDBACK PAPERBACK ISBN ISBN

0 863040 66 7 0 863040 70 5

15.95 8.95

328 PAGES Required reading in Sufi circles for the last six and a half centuries, this is the only readily accessible version of this key work in a Western language.

0 863040 72 1 0 863040 76 4

16.50 9.50

EASTERN THOUGHT

Learning How to Learn

IDRIES SHAH

Oriental Mysticism Nasafis Remotest Aim PRESENTED BY E. H. PALMER

The Sufis

IDRIES SHAH

302 PAGES 100 CONVERSATIONS WITH IDRIES SHAH Condensed from over three million words, these conversations involve housewives and cabinet ministers, professors and assemblyline workers, on the subject of how traditional psychology can illuminate current human, social and spiritual problems. More than a hundred tales and extracts from Sufi lore, ranging from the eighth century Hasan of Basra, to the modern Afghan poet Khalilullah Khalili, are woven into Shahs narratives of how and why the Sufis learn, what they learn: and how spiritual understanding develops and deteriorates in all societies.
HARDBACK

403 PAGES 84 PAGES Dedicated to Napoleon III of France, Professor Palmers systematisation of various Sufi materials has been regarded as essential reading in its subject for many years. The author makes a genuine attempt brave for its time to present an overview of Sufi doctrine without inserting critical interference of his own. As well as cataloguing the doctrines professed by those he calls the philosopher poets of the East, this book contains an important glossary of Sufi terms, which is indispensable for students seeking to read classical Persian poetry.
HARDBACK ISBN

*PAPERBACK

ISBN

ISBN

0 900860 59 6 0 140195 13 0

15.95 9.99

0 900860 34 0

10.95

Neglected Aspects of Sufi Study

IDRIES SHAH

Seeker After Truth

IDRIES SHAH

When it first appeared in 1964, The Sufis was welcomed as the definitive work on the subject: rich in scope, clearly explaining the traditions and philosophy of the Sufis to a Western audience for the first time. In the four decades since its release, the book has been translated into more than a dozen languages, and has found a wide readership in both East and West. It is used as a text in scores of leading universities around the world, and the material contained within it has been applied by psychologists and physicists, by school teachers, lawyers, social workers, and by ordinary members of the public. Ted Hughes wrote of it: An astonishing book. The Sufis must be the biggest society of sensible men on earth; and Doris Lessing said of it: I had waited my entire life to read this book. Perhaps the best introduction to the body of Shahs work, the most comprehensively informative. And one is immediately forced to use ones mind in a new way. The New York Times A seminal book of the century. The Washington Post
HARDBACK PAPERBACK ISBN ISBN

0 863040 20 9 0 863040 74 8

19.95 11.50

214 PAGES 71 PAGES Based on lectures delivered by Idries Shah in the United States, this slim volume encompasses a multitude of themes, which had scarcely impinged upon Western consciousness before. Some such as the disabling effect of emotion, assumptions and social conditioning feed into and have sometimes triggered contemporary psychological research. However, the book goes much further than this, providing a succinct and informative overview of Sufi practice.
HARDBACK ISBN

A treasure house of teaching materials, assembled in the Sufi manner, Seeker After Truth contains both traditional tales and stories gleaned from contemporary sources, and snippets of table talk, discussions and teachings, letters and lectures by Idries Shah. Taken together, it constitutes a handbook of materials designed to provoke a different kind of thought. Unlike anything our society has produced in its capacity to shock us into seeing ourselves as others see us, both personally and as a society. Literary Review
HARDBACK PAPERBACK ISBN ISBN

0 863040 78 0

10.95

*THIS

EDITION IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR RESALE

0 863040 62 4 0 863040 12 8

15.95 8.95

10

EASTERN THOUGHT

Sufi Thought and Action

INTRODUCTION BY IDRIES SHAH

A Veiled Gazelle
IDRIES SHAH

The World of the Sufi

BY IDRIES SHAH

ASSEMBLED & INTRODUCED

272 PAGES Previously published only as separate essays, Sufi Thought and Action assembled and introduced by Idries Shah covers an extraordinary diversity of Sufi ideas and activities in many countries and cultures. Included in the volume are papers on Sufi Principles and Learning Methods; Ritual, Initiation and Secrets in Sufi Circles; and Key Concepts in Sufi Understanding. The volume stands as a clear and simple handbook to many facets of Sufi study and thought. Shahs introduction begins, The object of Sufi spiritual teaching can be expressed as: to help to refine the individuals consciousness so that it may reach the Radiances of Truth, from which one is cut off by ordinary activities of the world.
PAPERBACK ISBN

103 PAGES 307 PAGES A Veiled Gazelle, as the great mystic Ibn Arabi explains in his Interpreter of Desires, is a subtlety, an organ of higher perception. Sufi experientialists refer to the activation of these centres of awareness as the awakening of real knowledge of Truth beyond form. A Veiled Gazelle considers the symbolic and instrumental employment of its literature in Sufi studies. Seldom didactic, and never meant only as entertainment, such works are regarded as some of the worlds greatest and most important writing.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 58 8

10.50

Assembled by Idries Shah, The World of the Sufi is a comprehensive collection of learned essays and papers on the subject of Sufi thought. One of the books attractions is the way that it considers central questions and areas of study from different angles. Sufi literature, the use of humour, and Sufi communities in various cultural settings, are some of the many subjects discussed. In addition, experts in their fields comment on areas such as Sufism and Psychiatry, Indian Thought and the Sufis, and Therapy and the Sufi. Among the books contributors are Idries Shah, Doris Lessing, Peter Brent and Dr. Arthur J. Deikman.
HARDBACK PAPERBACK ISBN ISBN

0 863040 51 9

10.50

0 900860 66 9 0 863040 85 3

14.95 9.95

EASTERN THOUGHT

11

CLASSICS

TRANSLATED BY CLAUD FIELD

The Alchemy of Happiness AL-GHAZZALI

as both to accord with orthodox religion of the Islamic persuasion, and also to maintain concepts which are rarely emphasised in formal religion.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 75 8

17.50

The Book of Ecstasy The Halnama of Arifi TRANSLATED BY R. S. GREENSHIELDS

His Bostan, The Orchard, is one of the greatest of all Sufi Classics. Together with his Gulistan, it is regarded as a supreme accomplishment of Sufi thought. It contains a richness of material and beauty of poetry which are almost unparalleled. The Bostan is a mine of proverbs, quotations and practical wisdom. It contains moralistic aphorisms and teaching stories, and is recognized by eminent Sufis as concealing the whole range of the deepest Sufi knowledge which can be committed to writing.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 863040 34 9

15.95

122 PAGES The influence of Al-Ghazzali upon Christian and Islamic thinkers of the Middle Ages is becoming more and more widely documented. Known as The Proof of Islam, Al-Ghazzali finally won acceptance for Sufism in Islam; his methods of argument and analysis are much discussed in both East and West. Indeed, some Arab scholars maintain that Al-Ghazzali was one of the very purest Muslims who ever lived. The Alchemy of Happiness is Al-Ghazzalis own abridgement of his masterwork, The Revival of Religious Sciences.
HARDBACK ISBN

A Fool of God:The Mystical Verse of Baba Tahir TRANSLATED BY E. HERON-ALLEN

58 PAGES The long-standing Sufi tradition of using suitable imagery to project experiences and teaching, has naturally caused great confusion among literal thinkers, particularly in the West. The great Arifi of Herat produced a cosmological tour-de-force and literary sensation by writing his great mystical poem entirely in terms of the game of polo. This important work, written in just two weeks and cherished for centuries as a classic, is presented here with the Persian text and an explanatory introduction. Much of its interest is referred to in the conclusion of a Dervish master, that it is really the book of the fallacies of raw expectation of the limitations of meditation alone, and of the incompleteness of excitement.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 863040 81 0

11.95

72 PAGES One of the earliest Sufi poets in Persian, Baba Tahir is famous for his use of rustic dialects rather than polished style in his expression of mystical love-poetry. He is one of the four great pioneers of the quatrain (the others were Abu Said, Ansari and Omar Khayyam), and his songs are still widely sung and revered in Central Asia. Known as The Naked, because of his disdain for outward show, Baba Tahir was visited by Sultan Tughrul Beg. Subsequently, it is believed that he granted the Sultan victory over his enemies, so long as the ruler upheld justice. Perhaps for this reason, the recitation of his work is imagined by some to grant the hearts desire to an honest man.
HARDBACK ISBN

Al-Muqaddasi: Revelation of the Secrets of the Birds and Flowers

TRANSLATED BY IRENE HOARE & DARYA GALY EDITED BY DENISE WINN

0 900860 74 X

9.95

The Bostan of Saadi Saadi of Shiraz

HUSSAIN, BARLAS

TRANSLATED BY MIRZA AQIL

0 900860 70 7

10.95

73 PAGES Consisting of four different manuscripts, published in 19th century Paris, in Arabic and French, this book is reputedly the finalisation of a corpus of material which had been begun in far earlier times. It contains a number of Sufi technical phrases, and shows how certain varieties of Sufi literature were projected in such a way

225 PAGES A pupil of the eminent Sufi Sheikh Shahabuddin Suhrawardi, Saadi of Shiraz has influenced European literature, and his works are studied in both East and West.

12

EASTERN THOUGHT

FOUR SUFI CLASSICS Salaman and Absal, by Jami

TRANSLATED BY EDWARD FITZGERALD

The Niche for Lights, by Al-Ghazzali TRANSLATED BY W. H. T. GAIRDNER The Way of the Seeker, by Hakim Sanai
TRANSLATED & ABRIDGED BY DAVID PENDLEBURY BY DAVID PENDLEBURY TRANSLATED & ABRIDGED

secondary meaning. This tension between the two levels, can lead to the ability to see further ranges of significance, until the stage may be reached when we find understanding beyond verbalisation.
PAPERBACK ISBN

The Sacred Knowledge The Altaf al-Quds of Shah Waliullah TRANSLATED BY G. N. JALBANI

0 863040 69 1

9.95

REVISED & EDITED BY DAVID PENDLEBURY

The Abode of Spring, by Jami

The Mystical and Visionary Treatises of Suhrawardi TRANSLATED BY W. M. THACKSTON, JR.

103 PAGES The Sacred Knowledge is regarded as a fundamental text in both East and West by students of Sufi thought. Through Professor Jalbanis rendering, the book shows how the 18th century mystic of Delhi discharged his task. In Waliullahs own words, The purpose behind writing this discourse is that only those problems pertaining to perception and the mystical unveiling are mentioned.
HARDBACK ISBN

118 PAGES Sheikh Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi, the great illuminist philosopher and mystic of the 12th century, evoked such opposition and hatred in the orthodox of his time that he was put to death, at their insistence, by order of Saladins nephew, in 1191. He became known thereafter as the Murdered Sheikh. In addition to his monumental exposition, The Wisdom of Illumination, and other major works, he left a number of smaller treatises which form an important part of the Sufi heritage. Nine of these treatises, dealing with the initiation of the aspirant into the spiritual realm, are here presented in English, with an introduction by the translator, W. M. Thackston.
HARDBACK ISBN

222 PAGES These four classical expositions give a cross-section of traditional Sufi instruction materials studied in Dervish schools. Together they cover the major approaches to the Sufis: the allegorical, the interpretive, the psychological and the literary.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 93 6

13.95

The Secret Garden of Mahmud Shabistari

0 900860 69 3

16.50

TRANSLATED BY JOHNSON PASHA

The Gulistan of Saadi Saadi of Shiraz

INTRODUCTION BY IDRIES SHAH

0 900860 92 8 Out of Print

86 PAGES Written by a little-known Persian sage of the 13th century, The Secret Garden rapidly became, and has remained ever since, one of the very greatest classics of spirituality in the East. Five centuries after it was written, two travellers introduced it to the West. This version was translated by Johnson Pasha during the 19th century, from a text prepared for the Aga Khan. Shabistaris ideas, which can be usefully applied to our own contemporary problems, are employed daily by psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists alike.
PAPERBACK ISBN

243 PAGES The Gulistan, or Rose Garden, of Saadi of Shiraz is one of the best known and celebrated books written in the Persian language. In his introduction, Idries Shah says, Like all Sufi materials, Saadis Rose Garden contains information, and is formulated, to gain acceptance in the culture in which it is projected and is an instrument of enlightenment and experience. Among Sufis, reading Saadi undoubtedly produces insights. In Sufi school usage, first the exterior meaning is absorbed, then the

0 863040 19 5

10.95

EASTERN THOUGHT

13

Teachings of Hafiz

TRANSLATED BY GERTRUDE BELL

The Treatise of the Pool

OBADYAH MAIMONIDES TRANSLATED BY DR. PAUL FENTON

The Walled Garden of Truth The Hadiqa

HAKIM SANAI BY DAVID PENDLEBURY TRANSLATED & ABRIDGED

186 PAGES 146 PAGES Hafiz of Shiraz was widely regarded as an infidel in his day. Today he is recognized in the East, not only for the excellence of his poetry, but also as a Sufi illuminate. His major work, The Diwan (from which these teachings are taken), is found in pride of place in the homes of the devout. In the West, Hafiz a contemporary of Dante is admired for his love-poetry; Goethe, among others, acknowledges his influence. Hafizs work stands not only as an unparalleled teaching instrument, but as a monument in Eastern literature. His poetry appeals at its overt level, while containing those ingredients that enable the soul of the Seeker to perceive itself.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 63 Out of Print

The Teachings of Rumi: The Masnavi

JALALUDDIN RUMI E. H. WHINFIELD TRANSLATED & ABRIDGED BY

The Treatise of the Pool is a remarkable, previously unpublished, Sufi text by the grandson of the celebrated philosopher Moses Maimonides. A translation of AlMaqala al-Hawdiyya which is housed in Oxfords Bodleian Library, the manuscript is a rare and valuable work from a thirteenth century Jewish Sufi. In his foreword, Dr Fenton notes that: Due perhaps to the persistence of family tradition, Obadyahs doctrine exhibits many analogies with, and may perhaps elucidate obscurities in, the system of his illustrious forebear. At the same time it is certainly not without intrinsic value in itself, since Obadyahs philosophical preoccupations differ markedly from those of his grandfather. To be sure, his system, couched in a peculiar Judeo-Arabic idiom, is permeated with a philosophical mysticism that owes much to the influence of Sufism.
HARDBACK ISBN

77 PAGES Continuously studied as a classic of Sufi literature for eight hundred years, The Hadiqa, or The Walled Garden of Truth, is one of Sanais most important works. The book is composed in such a manner as to give several readings for many passages. This affects a shift in the perceptions analogous to a change in focus on one and the same object.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 35 9

11.50

0 900860 87 1

16.95

330 PAGES Forty-three years in the writing, The Masnavi was Rumis greatest work, and one of the most important books in the study of Sufi ideas. Of Rumi, Professor A. J. Arberry remarked, It can well be argued that he is the supreme mystical poet of all mankind; and of The Masnavi, Idries Shah says, To the Sufi, if not to anyone else, this book speaks from a different dimension, yet a dimension which is in a way within the deepest self.
PAPERBACK ISBN

0 863040 67 5

9.95

14

HUMANITIES

HUMANITIES FOLKLORE
AMINA SHAH

Arabian Fairy Tales

books depth is based upon the inner thread woven through the tales, which mirror the antics of the human mind on its way through life.
HARDBACK ISBN

Tales From the Bazaars

AMINA SHAH

0 900860 86 3

16.50

The Book of the Book

IDRIES SHAH

327 PAGES 212 PAGES Beautiful princesses and terrifying Jinn, Caliphs rich beyond dreams, monsters and ragged beggars, wise Dervishes and talismans: all are found in abundance in this treasury of tales of adventure, enchantment and strange patterns of fate. Amina Shah gathered the thirty-three stories while on travels through Arab lands, from Moroccos Atlas mountains to the ancient cities of Iraq. Descended from an Afghan family of writers and savants, Amina Shah is internationally recognized as a leading expert on folklore and the indigenous cultures of the Arab World.
PAPERBACK ISBN

272 PAGES Used for more than seven hundred years as a teaching story, The Book of the Book is one of the most compelling and astonishing texts ever to emerge from the Orient. Its central premise is the simple phrase: When you realize the difference between the container and the content, you will have knowledge. When the book first appeared in English thirty-five years ago, its printers questioned how it could be a book, as did reviewers, scholars, and people who paid money to buy it. The Book of the Book is now in its seventh impression, and is studied at university level, appreciated by all for its simple brilliance. An extraordinary psychological test, in that it predicts the complete range of possible responses to itself. The Sunday Telegraph
HARDBACK ISBN

Tales From the Bazaars is a treasury of traditional folklore by Amina Shah, herself widely regarded as one of the greatest storytellers of the twentieth century. The collection is compiled from many of Aminas favourite folktales, gathered from Turkey and Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan and India, from Europe and the Americas. The scope of the stories presented is quite extraordinary in itself, and is all the more unusual in that each tale in the book was collected by Amina from a verbal source. Among the stories are The Tale of Hatim Tai; The King, the Dog and the Golden Bowl; The Shahs Ring and The Magic Talisman.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 863040 48 9

8.95

0 863040 84 5

14.95

The Assemblies of Al-Hariri

RETOLD BY AMINA SHAH

Tales of Afghanistan
AMINA SHAH

0 900860 12 X

15.50

267 PAGES Since the time of the First Crusade, tales of Abu Zaid of Saruj have been read, admired, imitated and praised, from Spain to the Hindu Kush. Al-Hariri of Basra (1054-1122) is variously described as a silk-merchant, and a high official of the Seljuk monarch Malik Shah. He was the author of The Assemblies, regarded for eight centuries as the greatest treasure in Arabic after the Quran. The adventures of the astonishing rogue Abu Zaid are, on one level, entertaining in their own right. But this

115 PAGES Rivalling the magical narratives of her other books, Amina Shahs Tales of Afghanistan is simple, elegant, and impossible to forget. Its tales, collected on Aminas own travels in Afghanistan, are still told in teahouses and caravanserais, as they have been for a thousand years. Such stories form a powerful folklore, unique to Afghanistan, the result of centuries of being the crossroads of Central Asia. The volume contains such gems as The Leopard and the Jinn; The Amir Who was a Beggar; The Tailor and the Dev and The Well of Everlasting Life.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 94 4

11.95

HUMANITIES

15

Tales of the Dervishes

IDRIES SHAH

World Tales
IDRIES SHAH

The Elephant in the Dark

IDRIES SHAH

RELIGION

222 PAGES Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, Dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of a fable, legend or folklore. They stand comparison in wit, construction and piquancy with the finest stories of any culture, yet their true function as Sufi teaching stories is so littleknown in the modern world, that no technical or popular terms exist to describe them. The material in Tales of the Dervishes is the result of a thousand years of development, during which Dervish masters used these and other teaching stories to instruct their disciples. The tales are held to convey powers of increasing perception unknown to the ordinary man.
HARDBACK ISBN

410 PAGES How can it be that the same story is found in Scotland and also in Pre-Columbian America? What can account for the durability and persistence of tales? Was the tale of Aladdin and his wondrous lamp really taken from Wales (where it has been found) to the ancient East and, if so, when and by whom? These questions and more are answered in Idries Shahs remarkable volume World Tales, which is subtitled, The extraordinary coincidence of stories told in all times, in all places. In his introduction, Shah remarks, Working for thirty-five years among the written and oral sources of our world heritage in tales, one feels a truly living element in them which is startlingly evident when one isolates the basic stories; the ones which tend to have travelled farthest, to have featured in the largest number of classical collections, to have inspired great writers of the past and present.
HARDBACK ISBN

76 PAGES A group of men sought to examine an elephant in a dark room. Each took hold of a different part an ear, the tail, a leg. Each mistook his particular part for the whole and became convinced that an elephant was a fan, a rope, a pillar and so on. With this seven hundred year old fable by the Sufi giant Jalaluddin Rumi, Idries Shah presents the Sufi perspective that Christianity and Islam stem from one, inner, origin. Based on his celebrated Geneva University lectures, this book dazzles with the breadth of its scholarship and the depth of its ideas.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 47 2

15.50

0 900860 36 7

10.95

The Tale of the Four Dervishes

RETOLD BY AMINA SHAH

0 863040 36 5

14.50

The Nature of Religious Man EDITED BY PROF. D. B. FRY

148 PAGES 219 PAGES When the great thirteenth century Sufi teacher Nizamuddin Awliyya was ill, this allegory was recited to him by his disciple Amir Khusru, the eminent Persian poet. On his recovery, Nizamuddin placed a benediction on the book, and it is widely believed that the recitation of this story will restore the health of the ailing. The allegorical dimensions it contains are part of a teaching-system intended to prepare the mind for spiritual development.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 44 8

12.95

In the modern world, the subject of religion assumes an ever-growing importance, despite a widely-held view to the contrary. On the one hand, there is the evidence of a strong impulse towards ecumenism on the part of the established religions, and on the other, the very widespread trend among individuals towards seeking out and following religious beliefs and practices of a much less formal and less organized kind. The Nature of Religious Man is the report of a major symposium organized by the Institute for Cultural Research, designed to bring together the realms of tradition and experience in many aspects of world religion.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 67 7

14.50

16

HUMANITIES

The Religion of the Sufis

TRANSLATED FROM THE DABISTAN BY INTRODUCTION BY IDRIES SHAH DAVID SHEA & ANTHONY TROYER

Sufism and the Islamic Tradition

SHAH WALIULLAH OF DELHI TRANSLATED BY PROF. J. N. JALBANI

HUMANITIES

Jorge-Luis Borges: Sources and Illumination PROF. GIOVANNA DE GARAYALDE

127 PAGES 87 PAGES The Religion of the Sufis presents that philosophical classic, The Dabistan, written by a Sufi scholar based in India three hundred years ago. Constantly quoted throughout the Middle East, and widely read ever since, The Dabistan gives an excellent insight into what Sufis of the time gave out as their teaching, and what scholars and others thought of them. It well vindicates its prefatory phrase: containing what has been reported by those who know what is manifest, and see what is concealed; as well as those who are attached to exterior forms, and by those who discern the inward meaning without hatred, enmity and scorn, and without taking a part for the one, or against the other side of the question.
HARDBACK ISBN

A great religious teacher of the 17th century, Shah Waliullah of Delhi distinguished himself as a major thinker from the age of fifteen. He returned to the essentials of Sufi experience in order to show that Sufism is a single discipline. Shah Waliullah is considered to be the bridge between the medieval and the modern in Islamic thought. Many of the subjects dealt with by him in these two treatises are closely studied today. These include: Stages of Being, The Perceptive Faculty, The Relation of the Abstract with the Universe, The Universal Soul, and The Scope of Man.
HARDBACK ISBN

174 PAGES Critics and general readers have for decades been excited, intrigued, baffled and entertained by the work of the great Argentinian writer Jorge-Luis Borges. In his books and stories, ranging across the traditions of the East and West, something elusive was constantly noted as appearing and vanishing: providing a sense of direction, only to disappear, as if some guiding principle was nudging the reader towards a perennial area of self-discovery. Professor de Garayalde, intrigued by correspondences between references in Borges work and current projections of ancient thought, produced the first report linking the Sage of the West with the thinkers of the Eastern tradition: about which Borges himself has said we must acquire what we can.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 81 2

12.00

0 900860 68 5

11.95

Selections From the Koran

0 900860 61 8

11.95

EDITED BY SIRDAR IKBAL ALI SHAH

94 PAGES In the light of todays gathering interest in Islam, this selection of Koranic excerpts, compiled by Afghan scholar and mystic Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, has never seemed so timely or so relevant. Ali Shah does not claim that the chosen verses represent the spirit of the Koran as a whole; rather, they are confined to excerpts which seemed to me to supply guidance on the problems of modern life. In this the collection succeeds admirably well with sections on such subjects as the treatment of women, inheritance, and the ministry of Jesus.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 900860 85 5

10.95

Cultural Encounters
& DAVID WADE

EDITED BY ROBERT CECIL

The Dermis Probe

IDRIES SHAH

Magic and Mystics of Java

NINA EPTON

HUMANITIES

17

191 PAGES 241 PAGES Cultural Encounters is a collection of essays on subjects as diverse as the classical literature of Georgia, the relationship between the Indian Guru and his disciples, and the influences that have made modern China what it is. It includes contributions from eminent authors such as Dr. Alexander King, Dr. Martin Holdgate, and Peter Brent on questions of ecology, population and energy, arguing that these are likely to exercise an increasing effect on human societies. Almost all the essays were delivered as public lectures, under the aegis of The Institute for Cultural Research in London.
HARDBACK ISBN

212 PAGES This extraordinary investigation into the magical beliefs and practices of a closed world is as entertaining as it is fascinating. Whether witnessing trance dances in a Javanese slum, searching for the invisible people, mingling with sultans and princesses or cross-questioning a medicine woman, the redoubtable author is never fazed. She also recounts Javanese beliefs that respect black magic and clairvoyance, and describes an intriguing encounter with a mystical sect, the Sumarah fraternity.
HARDBACK ISBN

A serious, yet entertaining, look at the impediments in current thought which prevent certain forms of understanding between people. The title story was made into an award-winning film with script by Idries Shah, and chosen as an Outstanding Film of the Year. The Dermis Probe comprises a collection of extracts from the written and oral tradition of Eastern thinkers. In his preface, Shah notes, In this book you can find illustrated some of the peculiarities of thought in the country which is todays world, seen by its inhabitants and by those who call themselves visitors.
HARDBACK PAPERBACK ISBN ISBN

0 900860 39 1

11.95

0 863040 50 0

17.00

0 900860 83 9 0 863040 45 4

14.50 8.95

Cultural Research

EDITED BY TAHIR SHAH

278 PAGES In a world shrunk by speedier travel, cultures impinge more readily upon alien cultures. Such impacts bring about change. The examples in this book show some societies declining as a result, some thriving, and something of the efforts to encompass the resulting complex situations within an international legal framework. Among the pieces included in Cultural Research are papers on Secret Societies in West Africa and on the native Ainu people of Japan, on the little-known pagan community of Nuristan, and the development of Londons East End. The book also includes a learned essay by Major John Glubb Pasha on his years in Arab lands.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 863040 64 0

24.50

18

HUMANITIES

The Magic Monastery

IDRIES SHAH

Oriental Magic
IDRIES SHAH

Reflections
IDRIES SHAH

208 PAGES Many of Idries Shahs books are comprised of tales and teaching stories taken from both written and oral sources, which illustrate the instructional methods employed by Eastern wise men for thousands of years. The Magic Monastery differs from its predecessors in that it contains not only traditional tales, mostly unpublished but also stories specially written by Shah to complete the book as a course in non-linear thinking. As with all of his works, The Magic Monastery is rich in thought-provoking material, and can be read and enjoyed at many levels. This instalment of Shahs contribution to our adult education is, like his others, remarkable for its precise response to the real and inner needs of our time. Book of the Year, The Observer
HARDBACK PAPERBACK ISBN ISBN

206 PAGES Oriental Magic is recognized as a brilliant study of how, what and why people think, in territories extending from North Africa to Japan. Profusely illustrated, the book is the product of years of research and fieldwork in a dozen different cultural regions. Its scholarly accuracy and genuine contribution to cultural understanding have made it a key text for anyone interested in informal beliefs, and esoteric practices. The work includes material on Indian alchemy, the Arabian Abjad system, on divination and talismanic charms, and it even contains an ancient Brahmin spell for immortality.
HARDBACK ISBN

147 PAGES Small in size, but with a powerful punch, Idries Shahs Reflections is a collection of fables, aphorisms, and statements that challenge the conditioned mind. The book confronts the reader with unaccustomed perspectives and ideas, in an attempt to set the mind free, to see how things really are. As the books foreword states, Do you imagine that fables exist only to amuse or to instruct, and are based upon fiction? The best ones are delineations of what happens in real life, in the community and in the individuals mental processes.
HARDBACK ISBN

0 863040 17 9

25.50

0 900860 07 3

10.50

0 900860 89 8 0 863040 58 6

14.95 8.95