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Shah was born into a distinguished family of Saadat (= Arabic plural of Sayyid) who had their ancestral home at Paghman, not far from Kabul.

His paternal great-grandfather, Sayyid Amjad Ali Shah, was the [[nawab]] of [[Sardhana]], in the North-Indian state of [[Uttar Pradesh]]. The principality was awarded to his ancestor [[Jan-Fishan Khan]] during the [[British Raj]], and had been ruled formerly by the Kashmiri-born warrior-princess, the [[Begum Samru]].

Tahir Shah is the son of the well-known Sufi teacher and writer Idries Shah, and the grandson of the writer and diplomat Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah. His elder sister is the award-winning documentary filmmaker Saira Shah. He also has a twin sister, Safia Nafisa Shah.

Born and brought up in Britain, Shah says he was encouraged from an early age to never follow the pack, and to strive for originality. His father believed strongly that education was about more than school lessons, and was something that continues after childhood throughout one's life. This sense of a quest for knowledge colours all of Shah's work, most notably his travel literature.

Tahir Shah was educated at Bryanston School, Dorset, England and at universities in London, Nairobi and San Diego. He left London for Morocco in 2003. Today, he lives in Casablanca with his wife, Rachana, and their two children, Ariane and Timur, in a large home named Dar Khalifa, set in the middle of a "sprawling shantytown".

Tahir Shah is the author of more than a dozen books and several documentary films. He also writes introductions, academic pieces for journals, and book reviews for newspapers such as the Washington Post.

Shah's books have appeared in a dozen languages and have been published in more than forty editions. His films have been screened on National Geographic Channel, Channel 4, Five and The History Channel, as well as in cinemas worldwide.

Books

Shah's books include (in order of publication):

• Cultural Research (editor) for the London-based Institute for Cultural Research
• The Middle East Bedside Book
• Beyond the Devil's Teeth
• Sorcerer's Apprentice
• Trail of Feathers
• In Search of King Solomon's Mines
• House of the Tiger King
• The Caliph's House
• In Arabian Nights

In The Middle East Bedside Book (1991), Shah examines the Arab and Islamic worlds through their literature and folklore.

Beyond the Devil's Teeth, Shah's first traditional travelogue, published in 1995, is the narrative of an epic journey, made through Africa, India and much of Latin America. The book follows the geological concept of an ancient supercontinent known as Gondwanaland, and links this idea to a primitive aboriginal tribe, known as the Gonds, once dominant in central India.

Sorcerer's Apprentice (1998) is an account of Shah's initiation into the world of Indian "Godmen".

Trail of Feathers (2001) is an examination into the idea that man may have been able to glide — albeit in the most rudimentary way — in ancient times. Having read in a Spanish manuscript that "the Incas flew over the jungle like birds," Shah set out to see what truth there could have been for a Conquistador monk to have penned such words. After a journey into the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, to the world of the Shuar tribe, he concluded that the Incas were taking a powerful hallucinogen known as Ayahuasca that induces a sense of imaginary flight.

Shah's next book, In Search of King Solomon's Mines (2002), chronicles a journey to Ethiopia. Obsessed by the location of the source of King Solomon's astonishing wealth since childhood, Shah travelled to Ethiopia, which he equated with the biblical land of Ophir.

House of the Tiger King (2004) was the result of a seventeen-week journey through the Madre de Dios jungle of Peru, in search of the lost city of Paititi. The book considers matters such as the importance of searching for a lost city, and finding it. The book was selected to be read on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.

Sick of living in a London apartment, Tahir Shah moved to Morocco along with his wife and two infant children, where he bought a crumbling mansion in Casablanca located in the middle of a huge shantytown. The Caliph's House (2006) charts the highs and lows of integrating into the new life, and exorcising the Djinn from the house they now call home. The book was rated by Time Magazine as one of the top ten books of the year. It was also selected to be read on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.

His latest title, In Arabian Nights (2009), examines the role traditional stories play in the transmission of values and information, especially in eastern societies, and continues his account of his life in Morocco.

Films

The main films presented by Shah include:

• The Search For King Solomon's Mines
• House of the Tiger King
• Search For the Lost City of Gold
• Search For the Lost Treasure of Afghanistan

Videos

• Tahir Shah's guide to Casablanca

Shah himself has written about his fascination with the works of Bruce Chatwin, especially his book The Songlines, as well as with a range of the classic nineteenth century explorers, such as Samuel White Baker, Heinrich Barth and Sir Richard Burton. He had a close friendship with Wilfred Thesiger, whom he considered a mentor and a source of inspiration.

In the years before he turned his hand primarily to book writing, Shah wrote a large number of serious reportage-type magazine features, highlighting the lives of the voiceless in society, especially those of women. These included pieces about women on Death Row, widows who cleared mines in Cambodia, the trapped lives of bonded labourers in India, and the women-only police stations in Brazil, known as "Delegacia da Mulher" (Woman's Police Station). He continues to write journalistic pieces, especially aimed at drawing attention to causes he believes deserve public attention.

As well as writing and film making, Shah writes screen material and co-wrote Journey to Mecca, an Imax film charting the first journey made by Ibn Battuta to Mecca for the Hajj, in 1325. He also does corporate guest lectures on problem-solving and leadership, and states on his website that he has worked in this capacity for Shell Petroleum and Procter and Gamble. In addition, he reviews for a selection of other media on both sides of the Atlantic, and writes pieces for the radio, such as The Journey, which was read on BBC Radio 3.

In July 2005 (a week after the 7 July London bombings) Shah and two colleagues from Caravan Film in London were arrested in Peshawar in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, and held without charge in solitary confinement in a torture prison. Much of the time they were handcuffed, stripped virtually naked, and blindfolded. After sixteen days of interrogations in a "fully equipped torture room," Shah and his colleagues were released. The Pakistani government agreed that they had done nothing wrong. Tahir Shah gave an interview which was screened on British TV's Channel 4 News, and published an article in the British Sunday Times about the ordeal. Shah has publicly maintained his affection for Pakistan, despite the rough treatment he and his film crew received at the hands of the Pakistani secret services. The illegal custody earned Shah and his film crew a mention in the United States Department of State's 2005 report on Pakistan's human rights practices. The news story came back into the spotlight in July 2008, when a British MP claimed that the British government had 'outsourced' the torture of UK citizens to Pakistani security agencies.

Tahir Shah is also a champion of what he calls "the East-West Bridge".

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001, Tahir Shah began to devote a great deal 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. One example of this work is the Qantara Foundation (from "qantara" meaning "bridge" in Arabic). He has spoken and written on the idea 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. Shah's greatest interest within the East-West theme is probably the subject of the legacy of science in medieval Islam, and its role in creating a foundation for the Renaissance. He has lectured publicly on the subject and believes strongly in the importance of drawing attention to the polymath poet-scientists from the Golden Age of Islam.

Image:Idries_Shah.gif?|Sayed Idries Shah (father)Image:Ikbal Ali Shah.jpg|Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah (grandfather)Image:Amjad_Ali_Shah.jpg|Nawab Amjad Ali Shah (pictured seated in centre) (great-grandfather)Image:Jan Fishan Khan.JPG|Jan Fishan Khan (great-great-great-grandfather)