Sign up to our emails and be the first to know about new releases, special offers and more.
Become a Readings Member to make your shopping experience even easier. Sign in or sign up for free!
Hello Readings Member! Go to the member centre to view your orders, change your details, or view your lists, or sign out.
Australian Book Retailer of the Year 2021
Idries Shah
Evenings with Idries Shah collected by R. Easterling and Kamil Hafiz.
The Sufis have been using carefully constructed stories for teaching purposes for thousands of years. Though on the surface…
Available to order, ships in 7-14 daysAvailable to order
How can it be that the same story is found in Scotland and also in Pre-Columbian America? What can account for the durability and persistence of tales? Was the tale…
Caravan of Dreams distills the essence of Eastern thought in a feast of stories, sayings, poems and allegories, collected by one of the world’s leading experts in Oriental philosophy.
When a poor fisherman discovers a priceless gold ring inside a fish, he can't believe his luck. He takes the ring to the king and is richly rewarded. His nosy…
How can a mere melon be crowned a king? All too easily, it seems, in a city where basic common sense is in short supply. Its people are willing to…
I sometimes wish that we would have some nicer food, and different things to eat, a wood-cutter's daughter tells her father one evening. Her simple request sparks a fantastical chain…
When three deaf men get into an argument, they have to call on the first passer-by to ask for help in resolving their conflict. This happens to be a little…
Available to order, ships in approx 2 weeksAvailable to order
A young man, wanting to find out how to become rich and happy, sets off on a journey to find a wise man. Along the way, he encounters a fish…
For more than 1,000 years this story has entertained children, helped foster the ability to examine their own assumptions and think for themselves.Part of a rich body of literature from…
In this humorous tale, a man greedily and impatiently hopes to acquire the skills and senses of an animal but ends up limiting his abilities rather than enhancing them.
When a little boy wakes up with a dry throat, the adults around him try remedies that only complicate matters and make the condition worse, ignoring what young readers will…
Believing that he loves his beautiful pet bird too much to set it free, a wealthy merchant discovers that animals are sometimes better at learning by example than humans are.
In his writing about Sufism, Idries Shah did some revolutionary things. Critically, and almost alone, he said that it was possible to divorce the essence of Sufi philosophy from what…
The commanding self in Sufi terminology is that mixture of primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, which inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding. The book serves to illustrate…
Primera publicaciaon: 1968 –Title page verso.
En La sabidur a de los idiotas, los idiotas son los Sufis, llamados as debido a que su sabidur a penetra a una profundidad que la transforma en inaccesible para…
The appeal of Nasrudin is as universal and timeless as the truths he illustrates. His stories are read by children, by scientists and scholars, and by followers of philosophy.
Mistaking his own reflection in a pool for another creature, a thirsty lion is too frightened to drink - until finally his thirst overcomes his fear. This story can help…
Previously published only as separate essays, Sufi Thought and Action - assembled and introduced by Idries Shah - covers an extraordinary diversity of Sufi ideas and activities in many countries…
In December of 1979, Soviet tanks rolled across the borders of Afghanistan, beginning a period of barbaric aggression that triggered a turning point in modern history. Idries Shahs brilliant novel…
According to the Sufis, human faculties, although perceptive, are limited: like a radio set, which can receive only certain electromagnetic waves and not other parts of this band. The inability…
‘Perhaps the best introduction to the body of Shah’s work, the most comprehensively informative. And one is immediately forced to use one’s mind in a new way.’- The New…
Presents a collection of traditional Sufi literature which offers spiritual guidance to individuals searching for greater understanding, clearer thinking, and a deeper meaning to their lives.
Mulla Nasrudin, the wise fool of Eastern folklore, holds a special place in Sufi studies. The Sufis, who believe that deep intuition is the only real guide to knowledge, use…
Thinkers of the East is a collection of anecdotes and ‘parables in action’ illustrating the eminently practical and lucid approach of Eastern Dervish teachers.
Distilled from the teachings of more…
remarkable conspectus of philosophical contacts between East and West through the ages. This important monograph constitutes the whole text of Idries Shah’s Seminar at Sussex University, fully annotated, indexed and…
A remarkable conspectus of philosophical contacts between East and West through the ages. This important monograph constitutes the whole text of Idries Shah’s Seminar at Sussex University, fully annotated, indexed…
What is Sufism?
The book follows the Sufi principle of ‘scatter’ in answering this unanswerable question.
It deliberately shies away from offering an ordered definition.
Instead, it throws out ideas.
…
First published in 1957, Destination Mecca was both an ambitious travel book and a work of ethnographic and cultural research. Shah documents a wide range of fascinating journeys, from his…
Assembled by Idries Shah, The World of the Sufi is a comprehensive collection of learned essays and papers on the subject of Sufi thought. One of the book’s attractions is…
Based on Shah’s celebrated Geneva University lectures, this book dazzles with the breadth of its scholarship, and the profound depth of its message. In a world riven by cultural and…
Oriental Magic is recognized as a brilliant study of how, what and why people think, in territories extending from North Africa to Japan. Profusely illustrated, the book is the product…
Small in size, but with a powerful punch, Idries Shah’s Reflections is a collection of fables, aphorisms, and statements that challenge the conditioned mind. The book confronts the reader with…
Many countries claim Nasrudin as a native, although few have gone so far as Turkey in exhibiting a ‘grave’ of the wisest fool who ever lived, and holding an annual…