Shah argued that human beings, while capable of the most sublime capacities, choose to live on a plane far below their potential. Most approaches to spirituality are actually disguised consumerism, he insisted, and the would-be seekers must face up to the sobering prospect of tackling their own assumptions and having to first learn how to learn. Emphasising that Sufism is not static but always adapts to the current time, place and people, he often framed his teaching in Western psychological terms. In his writings, Shah presented Sufism as a universal form of wisdom that predates Islam. ‘Critically, and almost alone, he said that it was possible to divorce the essence of Sufi philosophy from what he insisted were secondary accretions of culture and religion.’ ‘Idries Shah did some revolutionary things,’ writes his daughter Saira Shah, in the introduction to The Idries Shah Anthology (published exclusively by The Idries Shah Foundation).
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