science

The Idries Shah Foundation

The Idries Shah Foundation is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Idries Shah Foundation rather than just read about it. In short: The Idries Shah Foundation (ISF) is an independent educational and cultural charity, set up by the family of the late thinker, writer, and teacher in the Sufi mystical tradition, Idries Shah, who wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies. Based in London, England, the charity is primarily for the study, dissemination of knowledge, and promotion…

Key takeaways

The Idries Shah Foundation belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Idries Shah Foundation to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Idries Shah Foundation from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Idries Shah Foundation (ISF) is an independent educational and cultural charity, set up by the family of the late thinker, writer, and teacher in the Sufi mystical tradition, Idries Shah, who wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies. Based in London, England, the charity is primarily for the study, dissemination of knowledge, and promotion of Sufi arts, literature, culture and heritage, with special focus on the published works of Idries Shah. Printed books, ebooks and audiobooks are being made available by the foundation's publishing arm, ISF Publishing.

Objective The charity's stated objective is “to promote tolerance and cultural understanding by the dissemination of contemporary Sufi ideas as widely as possible throughout the world.” It aims “to translate the works of Idries Shah into Eastern languages in order to help preserve Sufi ideas and values within the Islamic world, where they originated.”

Between 2015 and 2020, the foundation's publishing arm, ISF Publishing, plans to republish the complete corpus of Idries Shah in English. This includes print, eBook, and audio editions and, for the first time, American editions as well. The foundation is also working on releasing translations of Shah's publications in Oriental languages (including Arabic, Dari, Pashto, Urdu and Turkish). Translations into other Oriental and European languages are also underfoot. In addition, the foundation is committed to establishing an online archive of Idries Shah's manuscripts and associated material, as well as making Shah's publications available to libraries, schools and universities, in both East and West. The Idries Shah Foundation supersedes the earlier educational charity, The Institute for Cultural Research (ICR), which was originally set up by Idries Shah; and ISF Publishing supersedes his earlier educational book publishing company, Octagon Press. Operating in the United Kingdom and in Afghanistan, The Idries Shah Foundation's registered charity number in England and Wales is 1150876.

Officers Writer and journalist, Tarquin Hall was chief executive officer (CEO) of The Idries Shah Foundation for some time. With the successful completion of the re-publication of all of Idries Shah's books, and a streamlining of the charity's operations to ensure its long-term viability, Hall stepped-down as CEO in May 2024.

Children's Books for Afghanistan Project The main goal of the Institute's Children's Books for Afghanistan Project is to provide free illustrated editions of stories by Idries Shah in full colour to children in Afghanistan. Funds raised from the sale of the limited edition titles will be directed towards this project. Using the model that was established by the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge's American charity, Hoopoe Books, the Institute is developing this series of its own children's books, and has received funding to produce them.

History The Idries Shah Foundation was registered as a British charity on 18 February 2013. The founding trustees were Clare Maxwell-Hudson, Gillian Whitworth and Dr. Riad Kocache. (Clare Maxwell-Hudson and Gillian Whitworth had been involved in ICR). While involved in ISF, Idries Shah's three children – Saira Shah, Safia Shah and Tahir Shah – are not trustees. As owners of Shah's copyrights there would be a possible conflict of interest. 2014 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Idries Shah's first book on Sufism, The Sufis, which award-winning author Doris Lessing, writing in The Washington Post, describes as “a seminal book of the century, even a watershed.” New paperback and ebook editions of the work were published that year by the newly formed ISF Publishing, in association with The Idries Shah Foundation, to coincide with that event. Part of a wider initiative, The Idries Shah Foundation had begun to make available new paperback, ebook and audiobook editions of Shah's 35 or so main titles in English, along with translations into other Western and Eastern languages. In addition, as Idries Shah's books are re-published, they are being made available to read online – via the foundation's web site and also Google Books – free of charge. In 2014, The Idries Shah Foundation in partnership with Books With Wings also freely distributed 32,000 books by Idries Shah, together with related Eastern classics, to schools, universities and public libraries in Afghanistan.

UNESCO World Tales Short Story Competition In January 2020, a World Tales Short Story Competition was announced by UNESCO in collaboration with The Idries Shah Foundation, in which "young teenagers from all over the globe are invited to write about challenges of today and tomorrow in the format of a short story, and share their perspectives."

Reception

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Illustrations

The Idries Shah Foundation: Idries Shah — Idries Shah

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Idries Shah Foundation

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Idries Shah Foundation claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Idries Shah Foundation before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Idries Shah Foundation ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Idries Shah Foundation

In research: The Idries Shah Foundation appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Idries Shah Foundation in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Idries Shah Foundation is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom, British companies established in 2013, Cross-cultural studies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Idries Shah Foundation outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Idries Shah Foundation in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Idries Shah Foundation means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Idries Shah Foundation out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Idries Shah Foundation in simple terms?

Why does The Idries Shah Foundation matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Idries Shah Foundation?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Idries Shah Foundation.