Tales of the Dervishes

Idries Shah

• Publisher: ISF Publishing
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781784790776
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Philosophy

Although enormously attractive as sheer entertainment, Dervish tales were never presented merely on the level of a 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 terms exist to describe them. The material in Tales of the Dervishes is the result of a thousand years of development, during which Dervish masters used these and other teaching stories to instruct their disciples. The tales are held to convey powers of increasing perception unknown to the ordinary man.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• The Three Fishes
• The Food of Paradise
• When the Waters Were Changed
• The Tale of the Sands
• The Blind Ones and the Matter of the Elephant
• The Dog, the Stick and the Sufi
• How to Catch Monkeys
• The Ancient Coffer of Nuri Bey
• The Three Truths
• The Sultan Who Became an Exile
• The Story of Fire
• The Ogre and the Sufi
• The Merchant and the Christian Dervish
• The Golden Fortune
• The Candlestick of Iron
• Strike on This Spot
• Why the Clay Birds Flew Away
• The Gnat Namouss and the Elephant
• The Idiot, the Wise Man and the Jug
• The Wayward Princess
• The Bequest
• The Oath
• The Idiot in the Great City
• The Founding of a Tradition
• Fatima the Spinner and the Tent
• The Gates of Paradise
• The Man Who Was Aware of Death
• The Man Who Was Easily Angered
• The Dog and the Donkey
• Carrying Shoes
• The Man Who Walked on Water
• The Ant and the Dragonfly
• The Story of Tea
• The King Who Decided to Be Generous
• The Cure of Human Blood
• The Dam
• The Three Dervishes
• The Four Magic Treasures
• The Dreams and the Loaf of Bread
• Bread and Jewels
• The Limitations of Dogma
• The Fisherman and the Genie
• The Time, the Place and the People
• The Parable of the Three Domains
• Valuable—and Worthless
• The Bird and the Egg
• Three Pieces of Advice
• The Mountain Path
• The Snake and the Peacock
• The Water of Paradise
• The Horseman and the Snake
• Isa and the Doubters
• In the Street of the Perfume-Sellers
• The Parable of the Greedy Sons
• The Nature of Discipleship
• The Initiation of Malik Dinar
• The Idiot and the Browsing Camel
• The Three Jeweled Rings
• The Man with the Inexplicable Life
• The Man Whose Time Was Wrong
• Maruf the Cobbler
• Wisdom for Sale
• The King and the Poor Boy
• The Three Teachers and the Muleteers
• Bayazid and the Selfish Man
• The People Who Attain
• Wayfarer, Strangeness and Savetime
• Timur Agha and the Speech of Animals
• The Indian Bird
• When Death Came to Baghdad
• The Grammarian and the Dervish
• The Dervish and the Princess
• The Increasing of Necessity
• The Man Who Looked Only at the Obvious
• How Knowledge Was Earned
• The Lamp Shop
• The Chariot
• The Lame Man and the Blind Man
• The Servants and the House
• The Generous Man
• The Host and the Guests
• The King’s Son
• Appendix
• A Request