Customer Reviews

In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

K.F. Zuzulo is the author of A Genie in the House of Saud: Zubis Rises
I thoroughly enjoyed Tahir Shah's previous book The Caliph's House and had anxiously awaited In Arabian Nights. I was not disappointed. Shah captures the Middle Eastern psyche and landscape and conveys both in lush and lyrical narrative. The starting point of his own harrowing captivity in a Pakistani torture cell layers another journey of contrasts on experiences that include such mystical figures as the djinn. In this case, who is worse? Shah's jailers or unseen cultural icons? This is a book that succeeds and enraptures on many levels. Captivating and enlightening!

Tahir Shah has done it again -- only better! Without sacrificing any of his usual madcap humor, he seeks out and illustrates for readers the qualities he finds most valuable in his adopted Moroccan homeland. He draws crucial distinctions between Islam and the counterfeit version fabricated by terrorists. Anyone interested in Morocco, Islam, Sufi teaching stories, or just some good laughs needs to read this riveting book.

Upon finishing the book two nights ago, and closing it with satisfaction, I was not quite sure what happened to me. All I knew is that the very next morning, I opened the book again. I am reading it over, because I want to make sure I did NOT MISS A SINGLE WORD!

If such a thing is possible, Tahir Shah has written a book even better than his previous ones (all of which are spectacular). 'In Arabian Nights' bursts with incidents, observations, and stories that will make you weep or laugh out loud. It is an account of his ongoing adventures in Morocco, complete with jinns, cobblers, "number one fans", blind storytellers, and much more, all written from the point of view of a very humble yet powerfully perceptive observer.

The writer's style of writing makes one feel the book is alive, reaching out to you. When I was done with this book, I didn't feel I had read a book at all, but had been connected to something breathing, living, and changing, and drawing me in.

This book is more than a book. It is never explicitly stated in so many words, but this book is an invitation. An invitation to what, you ask? That question can be answered only if you read it for yourself.

This book is wonderful. It's a reminder of what can be shared among friends, family, and strangers through the power of story telling. I especially enjoyed sharing in Tahir's journey toward listening to his heart, and what it might really mean to give someone the shirt off your back.
There's no cheaply earned laughs in this book-- it inspires one to find stories that are truly worthy of our children. It's an awesome book.

The late Idries Shah, a masterful storyteller and Tahir Shah's father, left us a most impressive corpus of literature on the subject of sufism: dozens of collections of teaching stories, commentaries, expositions of sufism, histories, traditional question and answer passages, Nasrudin tales and travel literature. All of this was carefully designed as a comprehensive introduction to sufism.
I greatly enjoyed Tahir Shah's 'the Caliph's House' for it's fastinating details and delightfully interwoven storylines, but with 'In Arabian Nights' there is even more. I can really feel that the torch has been passed from father to son - and most successfully at that.
'In Arabian Nights' is one of those books you will want to keep by your bedside...

Which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. I've read several of his other books, but this book officially cements Tahir Shah as my favorite author. Please let there be a "Volume 3"!!

In Arabian Nights: A caravan of Moroccan dreams, Tahir Shah - Mr. Shah continues from where he left off at The Caliph's House: A year in Casablanca ... and the result is as uneven as that book was. The plague that haunted Mr. Shah in Caliph's House strikes here as well: untied loose ends, veering off an account just as when it was becoming interesting, etc. The book is a journey about a story -- every person has a story that is close to his or her heart. Finding that story is the hard part. Mr. Shah does indeed find the story, but guess what? The reader has no idea what it was! One aspect that struck me -- put me off, really -- was the almost feverent view of the author that anything to do with the Oriental culture is far more superior to the Occidental one. Thus we are treated to many reasons why Oriental culture is better -- some that I can still recall are depths of friendship; the treatment of guests; deep in-depth knowledge of things, not the superficial "expert" label that everyone sports in the west; strict adherence to principles, etc. -- all things that the west can (and should) readily learn from the east. Brushed aside almost indifferently are the instances where the east can learn from the west: things like not marrying off young girls to old men, or learning to go to the police if oppressed. The one sided romantic view of Mr. Shah was almost too much to take, more so since it appears that his only mode of income was coming from the west through the sale of his book! Mr. Shah can be a great writer -- his earlier work, Sorcerer's Apprentice was simply marvelous. Chances are that I will still read his next novel, but this one was a bit disappointing. (March 2008).

"A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams" is the subtitle of this extraordinary book. Tahir Shah was brought up to understand that, when his father is dead, it will be his responsibility to keep alive and pass on the teaching with which he has been endowed. He knows it was not his father's intention that he should simply regurgitate what was written and told to him. What was required was much more subtle and needed his own journey of discovery through a state he calls "Morocco." He finds energy, wisdom and guidance in dreams, Sufi teaching stories, remembrance of time spent with his father and fragments of their conversations, as well as from the people he meets in everyday life. There are obstacles, like his own ambition, to be overcome; and qualities like a sense of selflessness, to be nurtured, before the baton can be passed on.
This is a liberating book, one that promotes creativity at a time when neuroscientists are beginning to realise the limitations of Consciousness. It is enhanced by Michael Greer's map and the ethereal, but detailed, internal illustrations of Laetitia Bermejo.

Tahir Shah describes the people, places, passions, and stories of Morocco as he lives and travels there. He is on a mission to collect and preserve the stories people tell as well as find his own story. He succeeds at both, and passes them along to us as well. Teaching and learning in that region of the world are accomplished by storytelling, and has been so for millenium. Think Jesus and Mohammed -- both great storytellers -- used it as a way of teaching.

I am looking forward to re-visiting Marrakesh and Casablanca, and to visiting Fez, Tangier and Chefchaoun. I wonder why he omitted Rabat; maybe he covered it in The Caliph's House. I am looking forward to that one now, too. Shah has a style of writing that I had to adjust and settle into, but when I did, I realized how it truly captured the pace of the Moroccan people and how authentic it felt.

First, if you haven't read The Caliph's House, do read that first. In Arabian Nights is the sequel and definitely should be read in the right order to fully appreciate his evolution of learning to live in Morocco. That said, In Arabian Nights is in a league all its own. Its the best travelogue I've ever read because he travels as many miles inward as he does across the country following an old Berber tradition of aiming to discover the story in his heart. The Moroccans he meets whereever he travels- the blind man who says "I have never had eyesight to hold me back" to the shoe cobbler whom he befriends to many, many more- challenge his way of thinking and being, and his curiosity, immense respect, and awe for the land, the Morrocan people, and their heritage in which he and his family now live is extraordinarily moving. This is also an open love letter to storytelling and a plea to not let this ancientest of ancient arts wither out. There are very few books where I get to the end and I want to go right back to the beginning and read it all over again but this was one of those rare ones.