The Elephant in the dark, and other writings on the diffusion of Sufi ideas in the West

In a darkened room a group of men once sought to examine an elephant. Taking hold of a different part - an ear, a leg, the tail - each one mistook his particular part for the whole. In the darkness, each of the men became convinced that the elephant was the object he himself had felt - a fan, a rope, a pillar - and so on. With this ancient fable, first described by the Sufi Master Jalaluddin Rumi, Idries Shah presents the Sufi perspective that Christianity and Islam stem from one, inner, origin.Based on Shah's celebrated Geneva University lectures, this book dazzles with the breadth of its scholarship, and the profound depth of its message. In a world riven by cultural and religious differences, The Elephant in the Dark offers fresh thinking, hope, and the ability to look at what we think we know in new ways.… (more)