Of Afghan Indian origin, Sayyid Hashim Arif Ali-Shah studied and received a degree in Literature at the University of Exeter in England.
[5] Ali-Shah is also credited as writer of the animated film Papelucho y el Marciano (2007), directed by the Chilean Alejandro Rojas Téllez.
[6] He has worked with film-makers Sir Derek Jacobi, Jodhi May, James Thierree, Niklas Ek, Izabella Miko, Michael Lonsdale and Andrej Acin.
[8] Arif Ali-Shah has guided study groups led by Professor Emeritus Leonard Lewin of CU Boulder, as did his father and uncle.
His great-great-great grandfather was the Afghan warlord, noble and Sufi teacher,[8] the Nawab Jan-Fishan Khan (d. 1864) who significantly assisted the British in the First Anglo-Afghan War and the subsequent Indian Rebellion of 1857.