Another great collection of wisdom in Sufi story form :-)

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Product Description

A mysterious chest is buried unopened. A wondrous caravan brings fortune to a simple cobbler. An outcast princess creates a new life in the wilderness. Some of the 78 tales in this remarkable book first appeared in print over a thousand years ago, others are medieval classics. Yet, each has a special relevance for us in the 21st century. All are told with Idries Shah's distinctive wit and grace and the author's own commentary notes.

Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of fable, legend or folklore.

They stand comparison in wit, construction and piquancy with the finest stories of any culture, yet their true function as Sufi teaching stories is so little known in the modern world that no technical or popular term exist to describe them. For centuries, dervish masters have instructed their disciples by means of these tales, which are held to convey powers of increasing perception unknown to the ordinary man.

These are teaching stories in the Sufi tradition. Those who probe beyond the surface will find multiple meanings to challenge assumptions and foster new ways of thinking and perceiving.

Sold all over the world in many languages, this is deservedly a classic and an essential reading for anyone interested in Sufi thought, the significance and history of tales, or simply superb entertainment.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47076 in Books
• Published on: 1993-10-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

The Observer
"... challenges our intellectual assumptions at almost every point."

Professor Robert E. Ornstein, Ph.D., Psychology Today, July 1973
"... a collection of diamonds ... incredibly well-crafted, multifaceted ... likely to endure in the manner of the Koran and the Bible."

Kirkus Review, November 5, 1969
"... equal, and sometimes surpass, in relevance, piquancy and humour, the best of the spiritual and ethical teachers of the West ..."

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Customer Reviews

Excellent stories for young adults
I used one of these stories called the Magic Horse in an inner city summer camp in July 2007 in the hopes that the various situations and imagery of a short, fairly simple story would inspire kids to write impressions and reflections in their daily journals about similar situations they might have experienced in their own lives. The level of interest was exciting. For example, many of the kids showed an instinctive and clear understanding of the difference between a "marvelous fish" which makes people ooh and ah and which brings instant fame to its inventor vs the "magic horse" which is somewhat plain visually, unable to automatically draw kudos, etc. but which has the capability to take its owner to his "heart's desire", magically, sensing its owner's inner wishes. The range of reflections on how there might be a "magic horse" and a "wondrous fish" in the lives of these youngsters was tremendously varied, and the story seems to have gotten under their skin in a nice positive way. They'll have many years to plumb its depths and that of other similar stories in this amazing collection. I was tempted to "tart up" the story when I first presented it, to make sure it made a good impression, but happily figured out I didn't have to. The story spoke perfectly well for itself.

A delightful collection of Aesop like tales
My favorite stories in this wonderful anthology are: "The Dervish and the Grammarian" and "Three Pieces of Advise." In the former a dervish is trying to help a grammarian who is stuck. The grammarian gets hung up on correcting the dervish's grammar. Finally, the dervish gives up. The latter I came across previously in Ellen Frankel's Jewish folktales. The dervish version is a bit more explicit, or pedantic: A bird offers to give a man three pieces of valuable advice in exchange for its freedom: "Do not regret the loss of anything no matter how valuable it was" and "Never believe anything contrary to common sense without proof." The bird then informs the man that it contains a large jewel that the man will not be getting. The bird then tells the man that he has already wasted the wisdom by believing that such a small bird could contain a huge jewel and by lammenting its loss.

Worth it for the origin of the "Bottle Genie" story alone
When I have kids, and when they are old enough to like stories, I'm going to read them these stories. Of course, these stories are far grander and deeper than children's stories, but the surface is where one starts.