 First edition cover | |
| Author | Tahir Shah |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Tahir Shah (photos) |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Gondwanaland, India, Africa, Latin America |
| Genre | Travel |
| Published | April 1995 Octagon Press |
| Pages | 360 pp. |
| ISBN | 978-0863040290 |
| OCLC | 47719962 |
| Preceded by | The Middle East Bedside Book |
| Followed by | Sorcerer's Apprentice (book) |
Beyond the Devil's Teeth is a travel book by Anglo-Afghan author, Tahir Shah. The text was published in April 1995 by Octagon Press.
Forty-five million years ago, Gondwanaland [1] split apart to form India, Africa and South America. Spellbound by the ancient myth of the Gonds who inhabited a fragment of the supercontinent, Tahir Shah decided to follow their path through India and Pakistan, to Uganda and Rwanda, Kenya and Liberia, before crossing the Atlantic Ocean for Brazil, and the Patagonian glaciers.
Roughing it for most of the journey, Shah shared his travels and his tales with a mix of eccentric and entertaining characters, from Osman and Prideep, Mumbai's answer to Laurel and Hardy, to Oswaldo Rodiguez Oswaldo, a well-turned-out Patagonian.
Beyond the Devil's Teeth was Shah's first mainstream travel book. Although received well by the critics, it is less crafted as his later works, such as The Caliph's House and In Arabian Nights . In a note on his own website, [2] Shah describes how he set up his own agency called Worldwide Media Limited—and masqueraded as an agent called William Watkins—in order to sell the book: it was a ruse that worked. The book sold to the distinguished British publisher Weidenfeld and Nicolson, and paved the way for a host of other works.
Idries Shah, also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi and by the pen name Arkon Daraul, was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies, and also a leading thinker of the 20th century.
Sorcerer's Apprentice is a travel book by Anglo-Afghan author, Tahir Shah.
The Devil Wears Prada is a 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger about a young woman who is hired as a personal assistant to a powerful fashion magazine editor, a job that becomes nightmarish as she struggles to keep up with her boss's grueling schedule and demeaning demands. It spent six months on the New York Times bestseller list and became the basis for the 2006 film of the same name, starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Emily Blunt. The novel is considered by many to be an example of the "chick lit" genre.
The Qalandariyyah, Qalandaris, Qalandars or Kalandars are wandering ascetic Sufi dervishes. The term covers a variety of sects, not centrally organized and may not be connected to a specific tariqat. One was founded by Qalandar Yusuf al-Andalusi of Andalusia, Spain. They were mostly in Iran, Central Asia, India and Pakistan.
Tahir Shah is a British author, journalist and documentary maker of Afghan-Indian descent. He lives in Casablanca, Morocco.
Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah was an Indian-Afghan author and diplomat descended from the Sadaat of Paghman. Educated in India, he came to Britain as a young man to continue his education in Edinburgh, where he married a young Scotswoman.
"The Book of Time", originally released as "Le Livre du Temps", is a French children's fantasy novel trilogy written by Guillaume Prévost and first published in France by Gallimard Jeunesse. The first book of the series, La Pierre Sculptée, was released in February 2006; the final book was released in November 2008. The trilogy follows fourteen-year-old Sam Faulkner as he travels through time and around the world via a strange statue and some unusual coins with holes in them to find his missing father.
Amina Shah, later known as Amina Maxwell-Hudson, was a British anthologiser of Sufi stories and folk tales, and was for many years the Chairperson of the College of Storytellers. She was the sister of the Sufi writers Idries Shah and Omar Ali-Shah, and the daughter of Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah and Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah. Her nephew is the travel writer and documentary filmmaker Tahir Shah; her nieces, Safia Shah and the writer and documentary filmmaker Saira Shah.
In Search of King Solomon's Mines is a travel book by Anglo-Afghan author, Tahir Shah.
In Arabian Nights is a travel book by Anglo-Afghan author Tahir Shah illustrated by Laetitia Bermejo. which takes up where his previous book The Caliph's House leaves off, recounting, among much else, events at Dar Khalifa, the Caliph's House, in Casablanca where the Shah family have taken up residence.
The Caliph's House is a travel book by Anglo-Afghan author, Tahir Shah.
Trail of Feathers is a travel book by Anglo-Afghan author, Tahir Shah. It is set in Peru and the Upper Amazon.
House of the Tiger King is a travel journal in which Anglo-Afghan author Tahir Shah recounts his search for the legendary Inca city Paititi. The book was first published by John Murray in 2004. Its title is a translation of a Machiguenga name for Paititi.
The Sufis is one of the best known books on Sufism by the writer Idries Shah. First published in 1964 with an introduction by Robert Graves, it introduced Sufi ideas to the West in a format acceptable to non-specialists at a time when the study of Sufism had largely become the reserve of Orientalists.
The Way of the Sufi was the best-selling follow-up introduction to Sufism by the writer Idries Shah after the publication of his first book on the subject, The Sufis. Whereas The Sufis eschewed academic norms such as footnotes and an index, The Way of the Sufi provided a full section of notes and a bibliography at the end of its first chapter, entitled "The Study of Sufism in the West".
First published in 1971, Thinkers of the East was one of several books of Eastern practical philosophy study materials selected and arranged by Idries Shah for a contemporary readership.
Octagon Press was a cross-cultural publishing house based in London, UK. It was founded in 1960 by Sufi teacher, Idries Shah to establish the historical and cultural context for his ideas. The company ceased trading in 2014.
The Shattariyya are members of a Sufi mystical tariqah that originated in Persia in the fifteenth century C.E. and developed, completed and codified in India. Later secondary branches were taken to Hejaz and Indonesia. The word Shattar, which means "lightning-quick", "speed", "rapidity", or "fast-goer" shows a system of spiritual practices that lead to a state of "completion", but the name derives from its founder, Sheikh Sirajuddin Abdullah Shattar.
Timbuctoo is the fictional account of the illiterate American sailor Robert Adams' true life journey to Timbuktu, and his arrival in Regency London. The novel is written by Anglo-Afghan author, filmmaker, and adventurer Tahir Shah. It was released on July 5, 2012 by Secretum Mundi Publishing.
Scorpion Soup is a limited edition collection of stories by the travel writer and novelist Tahir Shah. The book was released on June 8, 2013 by Secretum Mundi Publishing.