''Tales of the Dervishes'' by
Idries Shah
Idries Shah (; hi, इदरीस शाह, ps, ادريس شاه, ur, ; 16 June 1924 – 23 November 1996), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el- Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي) and by the pen name Ark ...
was first published in 1967, and re-published and made available online for free by The
Idries Shah Foundation in October 2016.
Summary
''Tales of the Dervishes'' is a collection of stories, parables, legends and fables gathered from
classical Sufi texts and oral sources spanning a period from the 7th to the 20th centuries. An author's postscript to each story offers a brief account of its provenance,
use and place in Sufi tradition.
Reception
The
Islamic scholar
In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
James Kritzeck James Kritzeck (born July 6, 1930, St. Cloud, Minnesota) is an Islamic studies scholar who specialises in Islamic literature and its translation.
He was educated at Saint John's Abbey (1945-47), the University of Minnesota (BA, 1949), Princeton ...
, reviewing Shah's ''Tales of the Dervishes'' in ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...
'', said that it was "beautifully translated" and equipped "men and women to make good use of their lives."
In an essay on dervish tales he also discusses at length the value of the stories in this book. The
Stanford University professor
Robert E. Ornstein, writing in ''
Psychology Today'', called the book "... a collection of diamonds ... incredibly well-crafted, multifaceted ... likely to endure in the manner of the Koran and the Bible."
[''Tales of the Dervishes'': Editorial Reviews]
on ''amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...
'' ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' noted that the book "... challenges our intellectual assumptions at almost every point."
Desmond Morris
Desmond John Morris FLS ''hon. caus.'' (born 24 January 1928) is an English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter, as well as a popular author in human sociobiology. He is known for his 1967 book '' The Naked Ape'', and for his televis ...
, in ''The World of Books'' (''
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''), said that "For every decade we live, we will find another meaning in each story."
'' called it "An astonishingly generous and liberating book ... strikingly appropriate for our time and situation ... a jewel flung in the market-place."
, in his book "The Observing Self", uses tales from this work to illustrate the role of intuition in the human makeup and the idea that mysticism is an extension of natural psychological faculties.
used teaching tales from Shah's corpus as analogies of the habits of mind which prevented people from grasping the scientific method of
. Bortoft's ''