Tales of the Dervishes: Teaching Stories of the Sufi Masters over the Past Thousand Years

I found "Tales of the Dervishes" by accident in a New York City bookstore. What caught my eye was the very striking red-on-white geometric design on its cover. I read the first story (about some fish) but didn't really understand it, so I went on to the second story, called "The Food of Paradise": "Yunus, the son of Adam, decided one day not only to cast his life in the balance of fate, but to seek the means and reason of the provision of goods for man. "`I am', he said to himself, `a man. As such I get a portion of the world's goods, every day. This portion comes to me by my own efforts, coupled with the efforts of others. By simplifying this process, I shall find the means by which sustenance comes to mankind, and learn something about how and why. I shall therefore adopt the religious way, which exhorts man to rely on almighty God for his sustenance. Rather than live in the world of confusion, where food and other things come apparently through society, I shall throw myself on the direct support of the Power that rules over all. The beggar depends upon intermediaries: charitable men and women who are subject to secondary impulses. They give goods or money because they have been trained to do so. I shall accept no indirect contribution.' "So saying, he walked into the countryside, throwing himself upon the support of invisible forces with the same resolution with which he had accepted the support of visible ones when he had been a teacher in a school." I was completely rapt. The situation was so striking, the question so basic, and the tale so direct and unmistakable in its intent, and told with such benevolence and good humor, that I gladly gave up the money I'd been saving for a good meal somewhere, in order to find out what happened to Yunus, son of Adam. I caught the bus, found a seat, and started again from the beginning, reading every sentence twice.... What are these tales? You'll enjoy the skill of the storyteller and the beautiful, unselfconscious English of the translator. The plots can be simple or intricate, surprising, contradictory, tragic or wildly funny. The characters are ordinary people with a typical mixture of strengths and weaknesses, together with wise fools, kings, mule-drivers, bakers, students, sages, married couples, tyrants, beautiful princesses and terrible ogres; the stories evoke a kind of fairy-tale realism which is used with skill and to great effect. But the tales aren't content to just amuse, but work subtly and in almost inexplicable ways to uncover and dislodge hidden prejudice and deepen the understanding. They won't all speak to you equally, some you'll puzzle over for a lifetime--I bought that book-store copy nearly forty years ago--but then there are the three or four or half dozen which speak to you directly and seem to have been written for you and no one else. "Tales of the Dervishes" is a remarkable book. I recommend it highly.

Tales of the Dervishes is just that, Sufi tales dating back almost 2000 years. Lovers of first-rate storytelling will find this collection especially enjoyable. These stories, many of them written by classical masters, have been masterfully retold by Shah in his usual elegant precise prose. However these engaging tales are also Sufi teaching-stories, specially constructed to impart and preserve Sufi concepts. Many of the stories in this collection are followed by brief comments by Shah adding historical perspective and/or insight to the particular purpose of the tale. As with everything Shah writes, these appealing stories keep delivering insights and entertainment even after many readings.

Most books that deal with metaphysics or consciousness are written by people who like to tell others what they have found. We get an individual interpretation magnified and glorified. There seems to be quite a market for such books, which I suppose must mean there is a taste for them. Tales of the Dervishes, a book which contains Teaching Stories from Sufi Masters, is very short on interpretation of Reality, or descriptions of Reality, or categorizations of Reality, and very long on the means to develope one's own perception and understanding. In these pages we find animals and Kings, beggars and fools, a princess, the water of life and many other familar characters and subjects. Watching themes develope and characters interact is like watching a map of human experience slowly develop. What emerges is that you have just been shown yourself.

The more I read these tales, the more I realize that they they do more than simply point the limitations of certain ways of thinking. They also point to alternative ways of approaching life and the experiences offered during a lifetime. Each time I read it, the book offers me new insights, always helping me move to fresh realizations. I cannot overemphasize how these tales have enabled me to focus and orient my mind so as to make it more receptive. The stories in this collection are thus not only enjoyable reads, they are valuable instruments as well. I strongly recommend this book.

I first read TALES OF THE DERVISHES thirty years ago, and I've been re-reading them ever since. My daughter preferred these ancient stories to the standard Western fairy tales at bedtime, asking me to read them to her over and over again, which delighted me because I too found them spellbinding. It's easy to understand why they've endured a thousand years because they are perhaps the most beautiful and intriguing examples of the storytelling art that I've ever encountered.