The Sufis
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| Author | Idries Shah |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Renata Alvares |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Published | 1st of October 2014 |
| Publisher | ISF Publishing |
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Publication date
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1964-2014 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback & eBook). Audiobook |
| ISBN | (paperback edition) |
| OCLC | 222708997 |
| Preceded by | Destination Mecca |
| Followed by | The Way of the Sufi |
The Sufis is one of the best known books on Sufism by the writer Idries Shah. First published in 1964 with an introduction by Robert Graves, it introduced Sufi ideas to the West in a format acceptable to non-specialists at a time when the study of Sufism had largely become the reserve of Orientalists.
Shortly before he died, Shah stated that his books form a complete course that could fulfil the function he had fulfilled while alive. As such, The Sufis can be read as part of a whole course of study.
Eschewing a purely academic approach, Shah gave an overview of Sufi concepts, with potted biographies of some of the most important Sufis over the ages, including Rumi and Ibn al-Arabi, while simultaneously presenting the reader with Sufi teaching materials, such as traditional stories or the jokes from the Mullah Nasrudin corpus. The book also gave details of previously unsuspected Sufic influences on Western culture. According to Shah, the Freemasons, Cervantes, Western chivalry, alchemy and Saint Francis of Assisi, amongst others, were all influenced directly or indirectly by Sufis and Sufi ideas, often as a result of contact between East and West in the Middle Ages in places such as Spain or Sicily.
The book had a powerful impact on many thinkers and artists when it appeared, including the Nobel Prize winning author Doris Lessing, the poet Ted Hughes and the writer Geoffrey Grigson. Lessing described it as "the best introduction to the body of Shah's work", adding that by reading it one was "forced to use one's mind in a new way". Award-winning author Doris Lessing, writing in The Washington Post, described it as “a seminal book of the century, even a watershed.”
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