Special Problems in the Study of Sufi Ideas

Shah, Idries

ISBN 10: 0900860219 ISBN 13: 9780900860218

Publisher: The Octagon Press, 1974

Synopsis

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 and with a bibliography and notes. It knits together the available knowledge about Sufi thought and literature in its passage through many deforming influences, such as the development of cults, the misinterpretation by literalist scholars, and the fallacious comparisons of committed "specialists".

About this title

About the Author

As the urgency of our global situation becomes apparent, more and more readers are turning to the books of writer Idries Shah as a way to train new capacities and new ways of thinking. Shah has been described as "the most significant worker adapting classical spiritual thought to the modern world." His lively contemporary books have sold more than 15 million copies in 12 languages worldwide. They have been reviewed positively by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Times (London), The Tribune, The Telegraph, and numerous other international journals and newspapers. "The most interesting books in the English language."

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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Now the name is important as an introduction to the ideas, as we shall see in a moment. Meanwhile let us look at its associations. The Sufis claim that a certain kind of mental and other activity can produce, under special conditions and with particular efforts, what is termed a higher working of the mind, leading to special perceptions whose apparatus is latent in the ordinary man. Sufism is therefore the transcending of ordinary limitations. (8) Not surprisingly, in consequence, the word Sufi has been linked by some with the Greek word for divine wisdom (sophia) and also with the Hebrew cabbalistic term Ain Sof ('the absolutely infinite'). It would not reduce the problems of the student at this stage to learn that it is said, with all the authority of the "Jewish Encyclopaedia," that Hebrew experts regard the Cabbala and the Hasidim, the Jewish mystics, as originating with Sufism or a tradition identical with it. (9) Neither would it encourage him to hear that, although the Sufis themselves claim that their knowledge has existed for thousands of years, they deny that it is derivative, affirming that it is an equivalence of the Hermetic, Pythagorean and Platonic streams. (10)
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8. Higher functions of the mind: e.g., cf. the Persian couplet, "Ba Murshid beshudi Insan / Be Murshid mandi Haiwan" ("With a Guide you may become a real man, without one you will remain an animal"); and Rumi: "From realm to realm man went, reaching his present reasoning, knowledgeable, robust state - forgetting earlier forms of intelligence. So, too, shall he pass beyond the current forms of perception ... There are a thousand other forms of Mind ..." and "The degree of necessity determines the development of organs in man ... therefore increase your necessity." (Mathnavi-i-Maanavi: Couplets of Inner Meaning).
9. Jewish Encyclopaedia, Vol. XI, pp. 579, 580, 581 et passim. Jewish sages regarded by Western scholars as following the Spanish Sufi schools include: Juda Halevi of Toledo, in his Cuzari; Moses ben Ezra of Granada; Josef ben Zadiq of Cordoba, in his Microcosmus; Samuel ben Tibbon; Simtob ben Falaquera.
10. Identity of Sufi ideas with ancient Egyptian, Pythagorean and Platonic schools noted, e.g. by M. A. Ubicini, Letters on Turkey (London, 1856).

Excerpted from Special Problems in the Study of Sufi Ideas by Idries Shah. Copyright © 1983. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Octagon Press
• Publication date: 1974
• ISBN 10: 0900860219
• ISBN 13: 9780900860218
• Binding: Staple Bound
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 45