Theos-Talk Archives (March 2003 Message tt00066)

Hi all of you,

Here is part 6 of the article "The Sufi Tradition" by Elizabeth Hall on Idries Shah.

Article originally published in Psychology Today, July 1975
Copyright Elizabeth Hall





The last part is a biographical sketch of Idries Shah. My opinion is, that it is not the best version I have seen. The last sentence must according to me somehow be wrong or faulthy.


Part 6 - with about 2 pages:

AT HOME IN
EAST AND WEST
A Sketch of Idries Shah


The English countryside is an unlikely place to meet a direct 
descendant of Mohammed, a man described in Who's Who in the Arab 
World as His Sublime Highness the Sayid Idries el-Hashimi, leader of 
the Sufi community. But there, no more than an hour from London, 
lives Idries Shah on a 50-acre estate that once belonged to the 
family of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts.

Shah, a witty, urbane man whose family palaces are in Afghanistan, 
was born in Simla, India in 1924. As was his father before him, Shah 
is advisor to several monarchs and heads of state-purely in an 
unofficial capacity. It was his father, the Sirdar Iqbal Ali Shah, 
who first suggested the partition of Pakistan. And his grandfather 
dissatisfied with both eastern and western education built a school 
for his grandson. The curriculum included working for a year on a 
farm.

Whether it was this unique education, heredity, opportunity or 
Sufism, Shah became a remarkable man. He has written nearly a score 
of books, invented a device for the negative ionization of air, 
written and produced a prize-winning film, established a printing 
house, and now directs a textile company, a ceramics company, an 
electronics company, and the Institute for Cultural Research.

Shah was a founding member of the Club of Rome and while he retains 
his membership, he did not attend last fall's gathering in
Berlin. 
The criticism that followed the publication of Limits of Growth, a 
controversial report commissioned by the club, taught him that his 
father's refusal to join any organization was wise. The report 
forecast a worldwide collapse unless population and industrial growth 
halted and Shah was accused of being a prophet of doom.

It was not fear of controversy that disturbed Shah. When he leans 
forward to describe how his books were taken from Persian university 
students and burned, his smile is genuine. Nationalistic officials 
touched off the ritual pyre because Shah states plainly that Sufism 
is not an ancient Persian religion.

After an initial flurry of resentment when Shah and his Cultural 
Institute first occupied Langton House, the local residents came to 
accept the inhabitants as English. Over a grilled sole at the pub, 
Shah reported that the pub keeper once told him that, as master of 
Langton House, the Indian-born Afghan was the village squire. Shah 
objected, pointing out that there was a larger estate in the village 
and that its master was the squire. "Oh, no," replied the
pub keeper, "he can't be the squire, he's an
Irishman."

The house at Langton Green draws visitors, pupils, and would-be 
pupils from all over. Their ranks include poet Ted Hughes, novelist 
Alan Sillitoe, zoologist Desmond Morris, and psychologist Robert 
Ornstein. His best-known pupil, novelist Doris Lessing, has written 
of Shah's work for publications as varied as Vogue, the American 
Scholar, and The Guardian.

One opens Shah's door and steps into an English home decorated in
a Middle-Eastern fashion. Oriental rugs cover the floor; sheep, 
leopard and antelope skins are thrown across the couches; and the 
soft tapestries on the walls contrast with the brass tabletops and 
trays. 
Shah has deliberately combined hard and soft objects in order to 
modify the room's acoustic qualities and produce certain
harmonious resonances. It is a thing done mostly by
"old-fashioned" people in the East, but he finds it
satisfying.

Every Sunday there is buffet lunch for guests in the Elephant, a 
dining room that was once the estate stable. Connected to the 
Elephant by a walkway is a large conservatory. Inside, flowers bloom, 
vines grow, and guests can reach up from their lounge chairs to pluck 
grapes. Outside the glass walls, icy rain drips off bare branches 
onto the bleak autumn landscape.
It is a long journey from Afghanistan to the county of Kent. The East 
regards Shah as a hometown boy who made good in the wicked West and 
would like to see him act as their political propagandist. This he 
refuses to do. Shah's greatest fear is that world tensions will 
sharpen to until he is forced to choose between East and West. Until 
then, he is equally at home in both worlds.

--Elizabeth Hall








Part 4 of 6 follows shortly. 

from
Sufilight with peace and love...



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