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On 30 January 2010, Anglo-Afghan New York Times
best-selling author Tahir Shah (the son of the famous
Sufi writer Idries Shah) gave a talk on his books
followed by a book-signing.
Born into a distinguished Afghani family that had
their ancestral home not far from Kabul, Tahir Shah was
educated at Bryanston School, in Dorset, England, and at
universities in London, Nairobi and in the US. He left
London for Morocco in 2003 where he lives in Casablanca
with his wife and their two children. He is the author
of more than a dozen books, including In Search of King
Solomon's Mines, House of the Tiger King, The Caliph's
House (which was rated by TIME magazine as one of the
top ten books of the year), and most recently In Arabian
Nights, which focuses the role traditional stories play
in eastern societies. Tahir is also a documentary maker,
with several noted documentary films. And as well as
writing and film making, he writes screen material and
recently co-wrote Journey to Mecca, an IMAX film
charting the first journey made by Ibn Battuta, the
great Muslim explorer, to Mecca for the Hajj in 1325.
Tahir Shah is also a champion of what he calls "the
East-West Bridge", and he devotes a lot of time and
energy into establishing and promoting a "cultural
bridge" made up by those who, like him, are both from
the East and from the West....believing passionately
that people such as he, have a responsibility to "show
the East to the West, and the West to the East,
highlighting the common cultural heritage of the two,
and working towards a common goal.
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