Talk:Ikbal Ali Shah

message: 89.240.41.43 added the following unsourced opinion to Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah: "Moore’s allegations, however, form part of a scathing and vitriolic attack on Idries Shah, and are unfounded, overblown and based entirely on hearsay (and it is highly questionable whether they should even appear here). As the son of an Indian Prince, it is by no means certain that Ikbal Ali Shah ever intended to become a doctor, and his attendance at Edinburgh University can be seen as consonant with a pattern in his family of experiencing Higher Education without feeling obliged to complete it.
"Ikbal Ali Shah acted as an adviser and confidante to numerous Eastern leaders, such as President Attaturk of Turkey, King Amanullah Shah of Afghanistan, King Zog of Albania, King Fuad I of Egypt, and King Ibn Saud, and published a number of biographies of such statesmen. It is said that his influence on Attatürk prevented the Turkish leader from siding with Hitler and Mussolini.
"Amongst Sufis he was considered to be the ‘teacher of the Age’ (Sahib-i-Zaman) and the person responsible for the ‘translation’ of the Sufi Way for the modern West." EricT (talk) 16:20, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No source, no inclusion. Also consider WP:SPS, WP:QUEST, WP:SELFQUEST. Jayen466 20:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moore 

message: This source has information on the subject that could be incorporated: http://www.serendipity.li/more/lessing_shah.htm Jayen466 12:32, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lessing 

message: The pen names of Ikbal Ali Shah would add a significant number of books to the list supplied.
For example, Sheikh Ahmad Abdullah and John Grant are both authors of Fighting Through which is generally thought to have been written by Ikbal Ali Shah.
--Wool Bridge (talk) 17:41, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sources? Jayen466 18:03, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Have a look at the list of books here, Jayen. EricT (talk) 21:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pen Names 

message: ::"When he (Iqbal Ali Shah) tried to compromise..."
Unless the nature of this trial can be substantiated in detail,i.e.
why, how, when, where etc this allegation can not be cited as fact.
Moore himself does not cite his sources for this, nor about the meat scandal for that matter. His allegations are build in such a manner that they appeal superficially ( anything can be read into the Foreign office communications...)
::The tenacity of the defence for Moore's "debunking" is exemplary for a frame of mind often critisized with acid irony by both Iqbal Ali and Idries Shah.
:::The review that accepted Moore's expertise also accepted what he had to say about "Islamic Sufism" ( re "innocuous popularisation" )... 
:::Sayyed Iqbal Ali Shah writing in september 1933 thus ended his introduction to "Islamic Sufism":
:::"In the progress of this book, I have been greatly assisted and advised by such scholars as professor Reynold Nicholson, the late professor Thomas Walker Arnold (...) the Islamic-Laureate Sir Muhammad Iqbal (...) to each and all my heartfelt and gratefull acknowledgement (...)"
:::Muhammad Iqbal is cited in the opening of Chapter VII:The spritual expieriences ( about The Secrets of the Self ).
:::Wikipedia informs us that in 1933 Muhammad Iqbal was invited to Afghanistan to help with the founding of the Kabul University...
:::So far the superficial mention of something of the nature of "Islamic Sufism". A more complete judgement can only be given by those who read the book in the context of the studies illuminated therein by the author.
:::The date (september 1933) is significant for any state of the art review of Sufi studies such as they actually progressed among those who thought them worth pursueing.
:::I think many of the parrots envying Moore's feathers would be surprised to find a brilliancy of colour outside their area of dispute.
::::Lunarian (talk) 11:47, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Ramsay MacDonald

message: ::"Towards Sufism, Ikbal's stance was ambivalent. He did write one inoccuous popularisation Islamic Sufism"
::This is a much celebrated point of scholarship hailed by many a superficial expert.
::The source is James Moore
::Sayyed Hossein Nasr described Islamic Sufism as: "A discussion of Sufism by a contemporary Sufi although some of the references to Western concepts and ideas are inacurate and many misleading for a Westerner not acquainted with Sufism" in  Ideals and Realities of Islam, first published in 1966.
::It follows then that Sayyed Hossein Nasr accepted Ikbal Ali Shah as a Sufi whose references to the Sufi Way were consistent even if they were problematic to students with an unapropriate background.
::He gave Islamic Sufism as a suggestion for further reading appended to the chapter: "The Tariqah, the spiritual path and its Quranic roots"
::Why should such an introduction be given to an "innocuous popularisation" that one rather associates with general accessebillity ?
::In his same form of debunking James Moore writes on Doris Lessing: "...lacking any indegenous Sufic expierience, she has set her judgement against that of profound thinkers like professor Sayed Hossein Nasr."
::In fact she seems to concurr with the Sayyed, who does not think Ali Shah's stance on Sufism ambivalent.
::And her long time acquaintance with the Shah family thus could be the very Sufic expierience denied her by the (by Wikipedia) much honoured scholar James Moore.
::Again this inconsitancy from a scholarly point of view reflects on the accuracy of the private details expounded by...a learned charlatan ?
:::Lunarian (talk) 11:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Islamic Sufism

message: Reference 1 reads:
"Moore, James (1986). "Neo-Sufism: The Case of Idries Shah". Religion Today 3 (3). ; the author's website features a link, Pseudo-Sufism: the case of Idries Shah, to an online copy of the paper, which cites a "detailed and condemnatory report on Ikbal's integrity and veracity" in the Foreign Office records"
The current online copy which was at Geocities is now a deadlink as yahoo! have pulled the plug on their free Geocities web sites.
The first part of the article is here at gurdjieff-legacy.org, but I haven't changed the URL as another spam killing editor has been going through all the articles s/he can find at WP deleting such links, even deleting and orphaning a reference containing the URL at Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah (see edit diff) on the grounds that another editor has been adding such spam links and that the article is "pay per view" and not a reliable source, probably not realizing that the Moore article is seen as a reliable source and that the URL is just there to assist in editors' research and verifiability. Aren't most books "pay per view", and yet we still cite them? :) Esowteric+Talk 11:32, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:ELNO 6 says that we shouldn't link if the user has to pay or register to view the relevant content. At http://www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/40articles/neosufism.htm the full article is in fact available for free, and placed there by a legitimate publisher. I see no reason not to link there. --JN466 12:54, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moore reference deadlink 

message: I believe we should really move the page to "Ikbal Ali Shah". Sirdar is a title (it means commander, roughly), rather than part of the name. Where his books are cited by other writers, some use Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, others just use Ikbal Ali Shah. I think the latter is more compatible with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies). Obviously we can use and explain the Sirdar title in the text. Cf. General MacArthur. --JN466 12:58, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, leaving a redirect is standard for page moves. Quite a few of the mentions in bibliographies by other authors list his books under the name of Ikbal Ali Shah. --JN466 02:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

text: Sirdar does not mean 'commander' in Farsi. Commander is 'Sardar'. 'Sar' means 'Head'. 'Sirdar' is 'Keeper of secrets' from 'Sirr' meaning Secret.
--Wool Bridge (talk) 20:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Oxford English Dictionary: Sirdār [- Urdu sardār, f. Pers. sar head + dār possessor.] In India and other Eastern countries, a military chief, a leader or general of a force or army; also spec. in recent use, the British commander-in-chief of the Egyptian army. Cf. , . Sirr = secret is Arabic, not Farsi. JN466 21:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Page move proposal

message: Rushbrook Williams was a disciple of Ali Shah's son (I think; anyone have an RS?), who had a hand in publishing the book. Given how often we quote it, we owe it to our readers to make them aware of that connection. --JN466 02:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: [Bump] Anyone have a reliable source about Rushbrook Williams' connection? Esowteric+Talk 13:58, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

text: If Rushbrook Williams was a student of Ali Shah, then likewise we should point that out. The version of Sufi Studies East and West that Elwell-Sutton reviewed was by Octagon Press, according to the review. My first impression doesn't even name a publisher, only saying it was printed in "Tonbridge, Kent". The copyright holder is given as Sally Mallam (). Sally Mallam is the wife of Robert Ornstein, Shah's US deputy, as well as the illustrator of Idries Shah's children's books. There is no question that this symposium was organised by people who considered Shah their master. That should be made clear to the reader. --JN466 12:49, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

text: If Obama really said that, then there will probably be other sources reporting that too. If the only source reporting Obama saying "Jlburton is great" is a book published by Jlburton himself, then WP:SELFPUB kicks in. On the whole, I think that is sensible. --JN466 19:34, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

text: I've added a mention saying they were friends, based on p. 16 in Sufi Studies. I believe there was some controversy about the organisation of the symposium at the time (will see if I can locate more details); you have Elwell-Sutton's scathing review of it ("a strange galaxy of retired civil servants, army officers and politicians from both East and West, whose commission apparently was to rewrite in their own words selected handouts from the Master's publicity machine"), and the close involvement of Ornstein's wife (described here as the "head of the foundation which is the custodian of the works of Idriss Shaw") suggests that the project was managed by Shah's close associates. A symposium of this type gains credibility if the people organising it are peers, rather than students, of the person honoured. But be that as it may, the mention of Rushbrook Williams' and Ali Shah's personal friendship has already gone some way towards addressing the issue.  JN466 19:26, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Rushbrook Williams

message: Ikbal Ali Shah's grand daughter Safia Shah,  quotes the story 'Visions of a Recluse' in her book 'Afghan Caravan', 1990, saying that this experience, published in 1937 in the Book of Oriental Literature, referred to the Barbarians of the North descending on his country. It describes what could be the modern Soviet Army and Air force, devastating Afghanistan some 40 odd years later.
In Eastwards to Persia he ends the book, using the politest language, by predicting that the population of this country will seek new leaders if their tribal stuctures are destroyed. This is a fairly accurate prediction of the Iranian revolution, I guess.
--Wool Bridge (talk) 11:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prescient writings 

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