Idries Shah Biography

Idries Shah was an author and teacher within the Sufi tradition who sought to present Sufism as a universal form of wisdom. His extensive body of work, spanning over three dozen books, explores themes of psychology, spirituality, and cultural studies. Shah employed traditional teaching stories and parables, texts designed with multiple layers of meaning to provoke insight and self-reflection in the reader. By framing Sufism in terms of Western psychology and adapting it to contemporary contexts, he significantly shaped its perception in the West.