Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching-stories of the Sufi Masters Over the Past Thousand YearsFrom the Blurb: Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, dervish tales are 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 exists to describe them. For centuries, dervish masters have instructed their disciples by means of these tales, which are held to contain powers of increasing perception unknown to the ordinary man. Some tales are meant to be told only to people who have received a certain mystical preparation; some are deliberately restricted in their currency to people of certain cultural traditions. Idries Shah spent many years travelling three continents to collect and compare oral versions of these remarkable stories. In one form or another, many of them have found their way into the literary traditions of both East and West. His anthology, presented in the dervish manner, contains stories drawn from the repertoires of dervish masters over a period of more than a thousand years. |
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Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching-stories of the Sufi Masters Over the Past ... Idries Shah No preview available - 1967 |
Common terms and phrases
Abdul Abdullah able animals Ansari answered appearance arrived asked Baghdad Bahaudin Bakhtiar Bayazid bird Bokhara bottle brought Bubububu bubububububububu Caliph called candlestick caravan caravanserai carpet century decided Deep Knowledge dervish died Dinar disciple donkey door DU DU DU Dun Dun Dun DUNDU elephant Fatima fish fisherman Food of Paradise gave Gesta Romanorum ghoul Gilan give gold Hakim Sanai halwa happened Hatim heard Jalaludin jewels Jinn journey Khidr Khorasan Khwajagan king knew known learned look magical Malamati Malik Maruf means merchant mind Mohammed Mojud Namouss Naqshbandi night once piece of advice princess Qadiri Qandahar realized ring Rumi sage Saif-Baba Saifulmuluk Samarkand Savetime Seeker Shah Sheikh Snake soon story strange stream Sufi Sufism Sultan tale talk teacher tell things thought Timur told took tradition travellers treasure truth trying walked Wazir wife wise Yunus