Is the definitive book for our time: essential to the Sufi way of thinking is that books and teachings are for a time and a stage in culture, and must be superseded. This was remarkable for a book at such an angle to our materialist western ideas. Had a preface by Robert Graves, and attracted attention from some distinguished people, among them Ted Hughes and Geoffrey Grigson. For one thing he was a friend, and often an adviser, of scientists. (1964) - he challenged some pretty stereotyped ideas about what a mystic should be. He was a Sufi exemplar and teacher, that is to say, a mystic, but right from the first of his books where he began to describe the Sufi outlook. It is not easy to sum up the life of as multifaceted a man as Idries Shah, who died last winter, and particularly not his literary achievements which covered such a range of subjects and disciplines, amounting to a kind of map of Sufi living, learning and thinking. The Sufis and Idries Shah The Sufis and Idries Shah
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