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James Moore - Neo Sufism: The Case of Idries Shah
James Moore - Neo Sufism: The Case of Idries Shah
Religion Today
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To cite this article: James Moore (1986) Neo‐Sufism: The case of Idries Shah, Religion Today, 3:3, 4-8, DOI:
10.1080/13537908608580605
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2
A 'classic* study of Hebrew Christianity, written by 1975. In the same month of the same year, The
a Hebrew Christian Biblical scholar is Jacob Jocz's Fellowship of Christian Testimony to the Jews
The Jewish People in the Time of Christ, London: adopted an eight point resolution rejecting
SPCK, 1954. A earlier work by Hugh Schonfield, who Messianic Judaism.
later defected from Hebrew Christianity, is also 'Reaction from the Jewish community has included
considered an important source in the movement: everything from a resolute refusal to comment to
The History of Jewish Christianity, London: the often violent and aggressive tactics of the
Duckworth, 1936. Jewish Defence League and the Lubavitcher
'Some of the opinions concerning the formation of a Hassidim. The movement has also elicited scholarly
Hebrew Christian church were culled by the . refutations by well known rabbis, such as Mark
International Missionary Council at the Budapest Tannenbaum. See 'Bitterness of "Messianic Jews"
and Warsaw Conferences (1927), and published in Dispute Intensifies', The Miami Herald, Friday,
the proceedings: The Christian Approach to the October 15, 1982, p. IOC.
Jew, 1927, pp. 109ff. "A Dream Come True', The Chosen People, April,
4
For the only studies conducted on the ABMJ see 1985, p. Iff.
Robert E. Blumstock, 'Fundamentalism, Prejudice, •Ron Csillag, 'York U Body Puts Off Vote on Jews for
and Missions to. Jews', Canadian Review of Sociology Jesus', The Canadian Jewish News, Jan. 30, 1986,
and Anthropology, Vol. 5, 1968, pp. 27-35; "Missions p. 14; 'Jews for Jesus Withdraws Application to
to Jews: Reduction of Inter-Group Tension', Council', The Canadian Jewish News, February 13,
Practical Anthropology, Vol. 14 (Jan.-Feb.), 1967, 1986, p. 25.
Downloaded by [McGill University Library] at 12:45 01 February 2015
pp. 37-43. 'For the only full length work on Messianic Judaism
'William E. Currie, Director of the American see David Rausch, Messianic Judaism: Its History,
Messianic Fellowship published his condemnatory Theology, and Polity, Toronto, New York: The
statement in 'Messianic' Judiasm Examined', Edwin Mellen Press, 1982.
American Messianic Fellowship Monthly, October,
4
religionists. If it is over-censorious to call him (as with the publication of his first books, which are
L.P. Elwell-Sutton has) a 'ruffian',7 it is preposterous important in indicating the voltage and orientation
to call him las Idries has) 'chief of the Hindu Kush of his mind, before he gained support from literary
Sufis.' The specific Sufic link claimed by Idries is agents and research assistants; and crucially
first defined and rendered remotely plausible in the important in situating him vis-a-vis Islam and
person of his grandfather Amjed Ali Shah, the self- Sufism, before he had furbished his 'Sufic' persona.
styled 'Nawab of Sardhana' and 'Naqshbundi Shah's first book Oriental Magic (Rider 1956) will
Pugmani'. The Naqshabandiyya' were an important survive, if at all, as the prototype of his recourse to
central Asian Sunni tariqa. associated with the antecedent writing, and of his pretensions as a
name of Baha' ad-Din Naqshband (AD 1318-1389). mystery figure. It finds him, 'at 32, primarily
Yet Amjed Ali's religious dedication is less well concerned with matters like 'Mungo' the ecto-
attested than his dissipation of the family's estates plasmic force, garters for distances, and Himalayan
at Sardhana near Delhi. leopard powder. Only.chapter" 7 The Fakirs and
Ikbal Ali Shah (1894-1969) - the son of Amjed Ali their Doctrines' approaches the Sufic theme, and it
and father of Idries settled in Britain before the first is replete with errors. His ensuing travel memoir
Wofld War, only to meet rebuffs. Behind his Destination Mecca (Rider 1957), although intrinsic-
compensatory inventions of private conversations ally slight, is certainly more important for its
with King George V, lay his failure at Edinburgh unconscious self-depiction.
Medical School10 and - equally predictable - his What do we find?
ignominious treatment as a son-in-law." Charming Regrettably, we find a tourist who (Shah's own
and personable, Ikbal was a lifelong sufferer from words) 'had lived for years in the West*;1' a mind
Munchhausen's syndrome - a condition first diag- embarrassingly superficial and banal, lacking the
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nosed in 1929, when he tried to compromise the least resonance of religious feeling; a photographer
P.M. Ramsay Macdonald, and Foreign Office inves- obsessed with his Robot f/2.8 rapid action camera,
tigation revealed there 'was hardly a word of truth exultant at his furtive and sacreligious snapshots of
in his writings'.12 Towards Sufism Ikbal's stance the Kaaba; a materialist repelled by the 'unhygienic
was ambivalent, he did write one innocuous bodies' of the Muslim Brethren but intrigued by
popularisation Islamic Sufism (Rider & Co 1933). Mecca United football team; a man meeting his first
However he dipped his pen in the inkpot of Voltaire practising Sufis around the age of 30, only to find
when alluding to the Rifa'i, Mevlevi, and Ansariyya their sacred books unfamiliar
tariqas; and he positively applauded Mustafa These were the actual Dancing Dervishes -of the Bektashi
Kemal's abolition of the fez and the Turkish dervish Order- in action! I would have given anything to have had
orders on 2 September 1925. As to orthodox Islam, my camera with me."
Ikbal's conduct over the notorious halal meat Alike in his conflation of the Bektashi and Mevlevi
scandal in Buenos Aires in 1946, provoked the tariqas and in his voyeuristic reaction - the real
British Ambassador to describe him as 'a Idries Shah exposes himself.
swindler1.13
However powerful and unusual were the in-
fluences to which Idries Shah was innocently The opening of the 1960s found Shah veering
exposed in his formative years, they were hardly towards occultism, and acting as secretary-
Sufic. companion to Dr Gerald Gardner, Director of the
Museum of Magic and Witchcraft in the Isle of Man.
However a nouvelle orientalism was in the air
Idries Abutahir Shah was bom in Simla on 16 (articulated amongst others by Daisetz Suzuki, Pak
June 1924. Before long he was brought to England, Subuh and the Maharishil; and the Sufi niche was
where he grew up - a timid child - at 'Northdene', temptingly unfilled. 'People must have labels,' Shah
Brighton Road, Belmont, Sutton. His boyhood with concluded. The scramble is to get the right one and
his brother Omar Ali Shah was uneventful - though, then hold on to i t . . .'"Ascramblecertainly-forthe
even in Belmont, not entirely insulated from assiduous revisionism which yielded him his
pockets of inexcusable prejudice against Anglo- 'Grand Sheikh' label generated a corpus of pseudo-
Indians. In August 1940, when German bombing nymous literature, unparalleled in our century for
began in earnest, the family evacuated from its magnitude, coherence, and ignobility.
London to Oxford, where Idries's two or three Shah has conceded his own recourse to pen-
academically undistinguished years at the City of names (v. Reflections p.88), without divulging
Oxford High School," in New Inn Hall Street, details; many of his disciples emulate him. Giyen
evidently crowned and concluded his formal this obfuscation, it is problematic which of the
education. To the decade 1945 to 1955 Idries assigns score or more'queerly named authors stylistically
his Wanderjahre, assiduously cultivating the im- and thematically assignable to the 'Shah-School'"
pression of far-flung and audacious travels in Asia (eg Omar Michael Burke PhD, Arkon Daraul,20
as a 'student of Traditional Sufi sheikhs'. He may Rafael Lefort, Hadrat B.M. Dervish and so on) have
indeed have used his father's oriental contacts. independent physical existence? Pending investi-
Incongruously enough however, it was to Uruguay gation, it perhaps suffices that none show a scintilla
that he went in winter 1945, as secretary of his of independent philosophical existence. Shah-
father's halal meat mission; and to England that he School productions date from May I96021 and
returned in October 1946." All that is certain throughout them Shah receives - ostensibly from
apropos this period is that Shah has made por- disinterested third parties- intemperate praise: he
tentous and inherently improbable claims, without is 'Tariqa Grand Sheikh Idries Shah Saheb'; he is
elucidating (and indeed largely clouding) the 'Prince Idries Shah'; 'King Enoch'; The Presence';
biographical record. The Studious King"; the 'Incarnation of Ali': and
Our subject emerges somewhat from the shadows even the Qfitb or 'Axis'.
5
Someone deeply impressed by the idealised Shah Gurdjieffian allusions, the hook had been tempt-
was the former Marxist Doris May Lessing ingly baited for him.
(b.1919) who, while writing The Golden Notebook, How Bennett took that bait; how the older man
underwent a sort of Damascene conversion. For 20 became persuaded that Shah had come direct from
years12 she has remained the spearhead of Shah's Gurdjieffs 'Sarmoung Monastery1 with a 'Declar-
defence, again and again pitting 'half-truth, irrel- ation of the People of The Tradition'; how Shah
evancy, double-think, misquotation and invention'23 pressed Bennett (The caravan is about to set out'2')
against the scholarship and deadly fairness of to give him Coombe Springs outright; how Bennett
Shah's redoubtable critic Laurence Elwell-Surton, agonised, and in January 19S6 complied; how Shah
Reader in Persian at Edinburgh University. Inno- promptly repudiated Bennett and sold the estab-
cent of any oriental tongue, she has plunged deep lishment for £100,000; how Coombe Springs with its
into debates^ which turn on a command of medi- sub-Goetheanum Djamichunatra"0 passed under
aeval Persian; lacking any indigenous Sufic experi- the bulldozers; how Shah with the proceeds
ence, she has set her judgement against that of founded The Society for Organising Unified
profound Sufi thinkers like Professor Seyyed Hossein Research in Cultural Education (SOURCE) and the
Nasr.24 Beyond all exasperation, it is impossible not Society for the Understanding of the Foundation of
to feel for the loyal Quixotic Mrs Lessing something Ideas (SUFI), and established himself at Langton
akin to regard. House, Langton Green, near Tunbridge Wells - all
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e
Beyond this ad hominem critique, inescapable as 6 Muhammad's line of course descends through his
an antidote to Shah's personality cult, what of his daughter Fatima and son-in-law Ali; of his two grandsons
work? Many people will enjoy his dervish anecdotes the elder was Hasan (whose progeny bear the title sharifi,
and Mulla Nasruddin stories (unaware how caval- not Husain (whose progeny bear the title sayyid). See
Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs (Macmillan A. Co 1953)
ierly they lean on unacknowledged and out-of-
p.440 n.8.
copyright sources)." But their spiritualising action
7 L.P. Elwell-Sutton, Letter 'Sufism and Pseudo-Sufism'
on middle-brow European readers is surely nil. Encounter, Dec. 1972, p.92. For the basis of this condem-
Plucked from their true cultural, linguistic, and nation see inter alia Sir John William Kaye, History of the
didactic contexts, and from the rich oral tradition Indian Mutiny 1857-58 (Vol.II) p. 145.
which gave them life, they have been ignobly 8 Idries Shah, The Sufis p.168
reduced to the level of The Hundred Best After- 9 Shah's claim to lead the Naqshbandi Order is baseless.
Dinner Stories'. And if they are truly exemplary For the historical background see J. Spencer Trimingham
tales', they are marvellously at variance with Shah's The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1971).
own example. For some cryptic pointers towards the authentic modem
silsila see'TheNaqshbandi Order A Preliminary Survey of
Idries Abutahir Shah and his Sufism await
its History and Significance' (Berkeley, California 1977)
judgements immeasurably beyond the competence
pp.123-52 by Hamid Algar, the world authority on this
of Religion Today, the judgement of history, if not tariqa. For Naqshbandi encroachment into certain con-
the judgement foretold in Surah LXXVIII. But some temporary political arenas, see, for example Turkish
provisional comment may be ventured without literature surrounding the National Salvation Party led by
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7
18 Ibid. p.11. 30 The nine-sided Djamichunatra (or Djameechoonatra) at
19'Shah-School'productions: a thematically and stylistic- Coombe Springs was designed and built by J.G. Bennett
ally homogeneous literary oeuvre eulogising Shah and/or and his pupils, notably a dozen architects led by Robert
his 'Sufism' - promulgated by Shah's Octagon Press. Four Whiffen: the building was begun on 23 March 1956,
categories emerge: completed on 29 October 1957, and demolished by
i overt writing by Shah eg The Sufis (New York: Doubleday 'developers' in 1966. For its inspiration see G.I. Gurdjieff
1964) Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson (RKP 1950) p.1160; for
ii pseudonymous writing reasonably ascribable to Shah Bennett's vision of it see his Witness (Hodder and
himself eg work by 'Arkon Daraul' (see Note 20) and by Stoughton 1962) p.323f and 348f; for further technical
'Rafael Lefort' (see Note 25). details see A.G.E. Blake A History of the Institute for the
iii overt writing by Shah's admirers eg Doris Lessing's if Comparative Study of History, Philosophy and the
you knew Sufi..." (The Guardian 8 Jan. 1975, p.12). Sciences Ltd and the Influences upon it (Daglingworth:
iv pseudonymous writing by Shah's admirers eg The privately circulated 1981) p.5; for Frank Lloyd Wrighfs
People of the Secret (Octagon Press 1983) by 'Ernest Scotf. aesthetic criticism see Anthony Bright Paul Stairway to
(Reputedly Edward Campbell former literary editor of The Subud (Coombe Springs Press 1965) p.116; and for its
Evening News). Given the peculiar motivation for this wanton destruction see Witness (revd ed 1975) p.362.
genre, there seems a persuasive case for detailed investi- 31 J.G. Bennett Witness (Turnstone, revd ed 1975) pp.355-
gative and stylometric research, to extend firm knowledge 62. Bennett's introduction to his limited edition of Witness
of authorship beyond Shah, his literary agent, and The (Coombe Springs Press 1971) had enthusiastically
Registrar of Public Lending Right. announced a forthcoming Bennett-Shah paper elaborating
20 Arkon Daraul, Secret Societies Yesterday and Today both men's motivation. This eludes researchers.
(Frederick Muller Ltd 1961). Material from Chap 5 The 32 Idries Shah, The Sufis (New York: Doubleday 1964)
Path of the Sufi' (giving a risible account of initiation into a p.166.
'Nakshbandi Lodge' in a country house in Sussex, all too 33 Ikbal Ali Shah, Westward to Mecca (H.F. A. G. Witherby
identifiable by the 'Arms of the Princes of Paghman' p.72) 1928) Chap IX 'Omar and Shakespeare', p.181. Cf p.184.
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is excerpted in Davidson's 'Symposium' promulgated by 34 Between 1968 and 1973 virtually every eminent Persicol-
Shah (see Note 211. ogist in Britain. America, and Iran, pronounced against
21
W. Foster, The Family of Hashim', Contemporary the 'Jan Fishan Khan MS' and the Graves-Shah 'trans-
Review (Vol.197, No.1132, May 1960) pp.269-71. A con- lation': none for it. Credit for first exposing the hoax goes
venient anthology of ensuing Shah-School productions in to UP. Elwell-Sutton for his 'The Omar Khayyam Puzzle'
the vigorously expansionist period Jan. 1961 -Dec. 1965, is (RCAJ Lv/2, June 1968. pp.167-79); credit for burying it to
Documents on Contemporary Dervish Communities ed J.C.E. Bowen for his 'The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam: A
Roy Weaver Davidson (SOURCE 1966). A more recent and Critical Assessment of Robert Graves' and Omar Ali Shah's
unintentionally piquant production is The Diffusion of Translation' (Iran: Journal of Persian Studies Vol.XI 1973,
Sufi Ideas in the West (more accurately subtitled An pp.63-73). Idries Shah went to ground throughout the
Anthology of New Writings by and about Idries Shah) ed L. debacle, but his major role became apparent with the
Lewin (Boulder, Colorado, Keysign Press 1972). publication of Between Moon and Moon: Selected Letters
22 See Paul Schlueter, 'Lessing and Sufism' a checklist of Robert Graves 1946-1972 ed Paul O'Prey (Hutchinson
compiled for the Doris Lessing Society: English Dept, Old 1984) pp.280-83.
Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23508, USA. 35 See O'Prey op. cit. p.281ff.
23 L.P. Elwell Sutton, Letter 'Sufism and Pseudo-Suflsm'36 Thanks to Shah and Bennett, the misconception of the
Encounter (Dec. 1972) p.91. preponderantly Sufic provenance of Gurdjieff's ideas has
24 See for example Nasr's review of Shah's The Sufis in now a tenacious hold in works of reference eg Encyclo-
Islamic Studies (1964). For their part Shah and his School paedia Britannica 15th ed (1985) Vol.5 of Micropaedia. For
display a patronising, even dismissive, attitude towards a more balanced - though somewhat superficial -analysis,
scholars like Arberry, Corbin. Massignon, Nicholson, and see James Webb. The Harmonious Circle (Thames and
Rice - while simultaneously leaning on their work. Hudson 1980) Part 3, Chap 1 'The Sources of the System'
25 The persistent rumour (and reasonable inference) that pp.499-543. It needs emphasis that Shah did not, as
Shah himself is 'Rafael Lefort' was first publicly bruited by mistakenly conveyed by Elwell-Sutton, fall heir to the
Nicholas Saunders in Alternative London (Nicholas mainstream Gurdjieff movement in Britain, which in fact
Saunders 1970) p. 109. under H.H. Lannes held fastidiously aloof.
26 Space precludes consideration of the complex literary,37 In Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson (RKP 1950) G.I.
historical, geographical, and etymological questions Gurdjieff gave high significance to the 'incomparable
posed by Gurdjieff's purported contact with a 'Sarmoung Mullah Nassr Eddin', the mediaeval wise fool of Turkish
Brotherhood' in Central Asia c.1899. Independent and folklore. Shah, in the expansionist year 1966 (see text),
trustworthy corroboration of the Order's existence is thus almost predictably published The Expleits of the Incom-
far lacking, and the self-serving exploitation of the name, parable Mulla Nasrudin (Jonathan Cape); this was shortly
both by the Shah-School and by Gary B. Chicoine the followed by Nasrudin's Pleasantries (1968), both books
egregiously self-styled 'Chief Sarmouni', hinders serious evidently aimed at capturing a specifically Gurdjieffian
investigation. readership and allegiance. In this Shah failed. By 1973,
27 The 11th-13th century Khwajagan Masters were protag-with publication of Nasrudin's Subtleties and the in-
onists both of the Naqshbandi and Yesevi tariqas. See corporation of Mulla Nasrudin Enterprises Ltd. proselytism
Trimingham op. cit. p.62ff, and Algar loc. cit. p,131-134. had become secondary to normal commercial motive.
For more problematical formulations see the work of Although, characteristically. Shah fails to specify the
Hasan Lutfi Shushud eg 'Masters of Wisdom in Central origin of his Nasrudin stories, their provenance is trans-
Asia' Systematics Vol. VI p.310 (Coombe Springs Press); parent to scholars familiar with the enormous out of
and J.G. Bennett. Gurdjieff: Making a New World copyright Nassr Eddin literature (dating back to 1837 in
(Turnstone Books 1973) Chap 2 'The Masters of Wisdom'; Turkish and 1857 in European languages). For an authori-
and J.G. Bennett The Masters of Wisdom (Turnstone tative review of this literature and of Nassr Eddin's
Books 1977). historicity, see Fehim Bajraktarevic's entry in Encyclo-
28 J.G. Bennett was fluent in 10 languages; his mathematicalpaedia of Islam Vol.3; pp.875-78.
paper (written with R.L. Brown and M.W. Thring) 'Unified
Field Theory in a Curvature-Free Five-Dimensional Mani-
fold' was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society
in July 1949; his major opus The Dramatic Universe
conveys despite its opacity -his colossal intellect. The views expressed in this article are those of the
29 Idries Shah q. J.G. Bennett. Witness (Turnstone, revd ed author and do not necessarily reflect those of the
19751 p.361. editor and the editorial board of Religion Today.