Tales of the Dervishes

This anthology, presented in the dervish manner, contains stories drawn from the repertories of dervish masters going back more than a thousand years in Europe, the Middle East and the Islamic World. Tales of the Dervishes is one of Idries Shah’s cornerstone collections of Sufi tales, fables and legends. For centuries dervish masters have instructed their disciples with these Teaching Stories which are also said to increase perception and knowledge, and provide a better understanding of the human condition. Shah spent years travelling in three continents to collect and compare the oral and manuscript versions of these remarkable parables—culled from Turkish, Persian and Arabic sources. Their true function, beyond sheer entertainment, as a metaphorical teaching instrument is so little-known in the modern world, that no popular terms exist to describe them. Tales of the Dervishes offers a valuable postscript to each story, providing a brief account of its origin, use, and place in the tradition of Sufism.