The Sufis by Idries Shah - Understanding Sufism

First published in 1964, Idries Shahs definitive work, The Sufis, completely overturned Western misconceptions of Sufism, revealing a great spiritual and psychological tradition encompassing many of the worlds greatest thinkers: Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Ibn El-Arabi, Al-Ghazzali, Sadi, Attar, Francis of Assisi and many others.

The spiritual and psychological tradition of Sufism was regarded, before this pioneering book was published, as the preserve of ecstatic religionists and a small number of Oriental scholars, who treated it in the main as a minority cult.

The Sufis is the pivotal work which heralded the revelation of the astonishing richness and variety of Sufi thought and its contribution to human culture contained in Idries Shahs many books on the subject.

The astonishing impact of Sufism on the development of Western civilization from the seventh century is traced through the work of Roger Bacon, John of the Cross, Raymond Lully, and Chaucer. Many of the greatest traditions, ideas and discoveries of the West are traced to the teachings and writings of Sufi masters working centuries ago.

But The Sufis is far more than an historical account. In the tradition of the great Sufi classics, the deeper appeal of this remarkable book is in its ability to function as an active instrument of instruction, in a way that is so clearly relevant to our time and culture.

Today, studies in Sufism, notably through Shahs research and publication, are pursued in centers of higher learning throughout the world, in the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology, and many other areas of current human concern.

Understanding Sufism
This book is a stellar presentation about Sufism. It has really given me a comprehensive understanding of a topic that has long interested me as an aspect of mysticism without my feeling that I know much about it -- despite reading a fair amount. Most presentations are rather nonspecific, but Idries Shah makes a chapter of each of many specific issues to create a whole that gives me a really consistent picture of sufism. His analysis would, I think, appeal to someone with an analytic approach to things as well as to someone with a more "spiritual" approach as he shows how a person who truly understands sufism would use both at appropriate stages in his growth.

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