Ikbal Ali Shah, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetIkbal Ali Shah
Author, diplomat, savant
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Sardhana, Uttar Pradesh, India
About Ikbal Ali Shah
- Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah (Hindi: ????? ?????? ??? ???, Urdu: ????? ????? ??? ????, born 1894 in Sardhana, India, died 4 November 1969 in Tangier, Morocco) 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. Travelling widely, Ikbal Ali Shah undertook assignments for the British Foreign Office and became a publicist for a number of Eastern statesmen, penning biographies of Kemal Atatürk, the Aga Khan and others.
- His other writing includes lighter works such as travel narratives and tales of adventure, as well as more serious works on Sufism, Islam and Asian politics.
- He hoped that Sufism might "form a bridge between the Western and the Eastern ways of thinking"; familiar with both cultures, much of his life and writing was devoted to furthering greater cross-cultural understanding. Ikbal Ali Shah fathered three children, all of whom became notable writers themselves; his son Idries Shah became particularly well known and acclaimed as a writer and teacher of Sufism in the West.
- When Ikbal Ali Shah's wife died in 1960, he moved from Britain to Morocco, spending the last decade of his life in Tangier.
- He died in a road accident in Morocco, aged 75.
Read more at Wikipedia