Customer Reviews

The World of the Sufi

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This is a fascinating book, with contributions by many outstanding thinkers including Peter Brent and Doris Lessing. Starting with an instructive introduction by Idries Shah, it's a real smorgasbord of unusual and entertaining information, with everything from humorous Mulla Nasrudin tales, to an essay on the Sufi influence on the formation of Sikhism. Sections deal with the Classical Tradition of the Sufi, Humour and the Sufi, Sufism in Eastern Religion, Therapy and the Sufi, The Practice of the Sufi, and Current Study Materials. A must read for anyone interested in the Sufis.

I'm glad Octagon Press has re-issued THE WORLD OF THE SUFI, because my copy is the original 1979 hardback, and it is disintigrating from overuse.

I heard one of the authors, the late Peter Brent, when he lectured once at Arizona State University. And I have become personally acquainted here in Colorado with another contributer, Leonard Lewin, whose essay is actually a review of another fasinating book, SUFI STUDIES: EAST AND WEST. Brent and others have their own books on the market, and I've read two of his, plus some by other essayists in THE WORLD OF THE SUFI: David Penlebury, Doris Lessing, and Arthur Deikman, all intensely interesting.

That's the way many Sufi books work. One is led into labirynths of people, ideas and practices. Reading THE WORLD OF THE SUFI is intrinsically a spiritual exercise and more. One becomes more informed about this world and the "other" and with a piqued curiosity.