SHAH WORKS
A VEILED GAZELLE
Seeing How to See
Idries Shah The title, A Veiled Gazelle, is taken from this beautiful poem by 12th-Century mystic, Ibn Arabi. The 'gazelles' are extraordinary experiences and perceptions latent in ordinary man. 'Veiling' refers to the action of the subjective or 'commanding' self, which partly through indoctrination and partly through base aspirations prevents higher vision. This book is a remarkable working example of these instruments. And among the wondrous things is a veiled gazelle: A Divine Subtlety, veiled by a state of the Self, Referring to the States of those who know. Unable to explain their perceptions to others, they can only indicate them to whoever has started to feel something similar ...
Octagon Press, London, 1978
Also available on audiotape.
—ibn Arabi: 'The Interpreter of Desires' from A Veiled Gazelle © 1978 by The Estate of Idries Shah
Sufi poetry, literature, tales and activities are the instruments which, when employed with insight and prescription rather than automatically or obsessively, help in the relationship between Sufi and pupil, toward the removal of the veils.
—From the Introduction of A Veiled Gazelle © 1978 by The Estate of Idries Shah
UNSOLVED
Two worthies of the Land of Fools heard that someone called the Polite Man was visiting their capital.
Desiring to meet him, they went to the city's main square. Here they saw a stranger sitting on a bench.
'Do you think that it's him?' one asked the other.
'Why don't you go and ask him?'
The first man went up to the stranger and said:
'Excuse me, but are you the Polite Man?'
The stranger answered: 'If you do not leave me alone, I'll smash your face in!'
The enquirer went back to his companion. 'Well, was he the man we're looking for?'
'I don't know—he didn't tell me!'
—From A Veiled Gazelle © 1978 by The Estate of Idries Shah
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