Idries Shah - Wisdom of the Idiots

Books by Idries Shah

Sufi Studies and Middle Eastern Literature

The Sufis

Caravan of Dreams

The Way of the Sufi

Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching-stories Over a

Thousand Years

Sufi Thought and Action

Traditional Psychology,
Teaching Encounters and Narratives

Thinkers of the East: Studies in Experientialism

Wisdom of the Idiots

The Dermis Probe

Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality
in the Sufi Way

Knowing How to Know

The Magic Monastery: Analogical and Action Philosophy

Seeker After Truth

Observations

Evenings with Idries Shah

The Commanding Self

University Lectures

A Perfumed Scorpion (Institute for the Study of
Human Knowledge and California University)

Special Problems in the Study of Sufi Ideas
(Sussex University)

The Elephant in the Dark: Christianity,
Islam and the Sufis(Geneva University)

Neglected Aspects of Sufi Study: Beginning to Begin

(The New School for Social Research)

Letters and Lectures of Idries Shah

Current and Traditional Ideas

Reflections

The Book of the Book

A Veiled Gazelle: Seeing How to See

Special Illumination: The Sufi Use of Humour

The Mulla Nasrudin Corpus

The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin

The Subtleties of the Inimitable Mulla Nasrudin

The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin

The World of Nasrudin

Travel and Exploration

Destination Mecca

Studies in Minority Beliefs

The Secret Lore of Magic

Oriental Magic

Selected Folktales and Their Background

World Tales

A Novel

Kara Kush

Sociological Works

Darkest England

The Natives Are Restless

The Englishmans Handbook

Translated by Idries Shah

The Hundred Tales of Wisdom (Aflakis Munaqib)

Idries Shah

Copyright The Estate of Idries Shah

The right of the Estate of Idries Shah to be identified
as the owner of this work has been asserted by them in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved
Copyright throughout the world

ISBN 978-1-78479-036-3

First Published 1969

Published in this edition 2015

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photographic, by recording or any information storage or retrieval system or method now known or to be invented or adapted, without prior permission obtained in writing from the publisher, Octagon Press Ltd, except by a reviewer quoting brief passages in a review written for inclusion in a journal, magazine, newspaper, blog or broadcast.

Requests for permission to reprint, reproduce etc., to:

The Permissions Department

ISF Publishing

The Idries Shah Foundation

P. O. Box 71911

London NW2 9QA

United Kingdom

In association with The Idries Shah Foundation

The Idries Shah Foundation is a registered charity in the United Kingdom
Charity No. 1150876

Note:

Because what narrow thinkers imagine to be wisdom is often seen by the Sufis to be folly, the Sufis in contrast sometimes call themselves The Idiots.

By a happy chance, too, the Arabic word for Saint (wali) has the same numerical equivalent as the word for Idiot (balid).

So we have a double motive for regarding the Sufi great ones as our own Idiots.

This book contains some of their knowledge.

THERE WAS ONCE a woman who had heard of the Fruit of Heaven. She coveted it.

She asked a certain dervish, whom we shall call Sabar:

How can I find this fruit, so that I may attain to immediate knowledge?

You would be best advised to study with me, said the dervish. But if you will not do so, you will have to travel resolutely and at times restlessly throughout the world.

She left him and sought another, Arif the Wise One, and then found Hakim, the Sage, then Majzub the Mad, then Alim the Scientist, and many more

She passed thirty years in her search. Finally she came to a garden. There stood the Tree of Heaven, and from its branches hung the bright Fruit of Heaven.

Standing beside the Tree was Sabar, the First Dervish.

Why did you not tell me when we first met that you were the Custodian of the Fruit of Heaven? she asked him.

Because you would not then have believed me. Besides, the Tree produces fruit only once in thirty years and thirty days.

THE SUFIS, UNLIKE other mystics or supposed possessors of special knowledge, are reputed to be haughty. This hauteur, they themselves say, is only due to other peoples misunderstanding of their behaviour. A person, they say, who could make fire without rubbing sticks together and said so would appear haughty to someone who could not.

They are also reputed to be generous in the extreme. Their generosity, they say, is in things which really matter. Their open-handedness in material things is only a reflection of their generosity with wisdom.

People who want to study the Sufi way often practise generosity with goods, in an attempt to reach a greater form of generosity.

However that may be, there is an entertaining story told of three generous men of Arabia.

One day there was a dispute among the Arabs as to who was the most generous man alive. The arguments went on for days, and finally the candidates were by general agreement narrowed down to three.

Since the supporters of the three were on the point of coming to blows on the question, a committee was appointed to make the final decision. They decided that, as an eliminating test, a message should be sent to each of the three men, in the following terms:

Your friend Wais is in great need. He begs you to help him in a material manner.

Three representatives were dispatched, to seek out these men, to deliver the message, and to report the result.

The first messenger arrived at the house of the First Generous Man, and told him what the committee had commissioned him to say.

The First Generous Man said:

Dont bother me with such trifles just take anything that you want from what is mine, and give it to my friend Wais.

When this emissary returned, the assembled people thought that surely there could be no greater generosity than this and hauteur, too.

But the second messenger, when he had given his message, received this reply from the Second Generous Mans servant:

Since my master is very haughty indeed, I cannot disturb him with a message of any kind. But I will give you all that he has, and also a mortgage upon his immovable property.

The committee, when they received this message, imagined that surely this must be the most generous man in Arabia.

But they had not yet considered the result of the mission of the third messenger.

He arrived at the home of the Third Generous Man, who told him:

Just pack up all my belongings and take this note to the money-lender to liquidate all my property, and wait here a little, until someone should come to you from me.

Whereupon the Third Generous Man walked away.