Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah (Hindi: सरदार इक़बाल अली शाह, Urdu: سردار اقبال علی شاہ; 1894 in Sardhana, India – 4 November 1969 in Tangier, Morocco) was an Indian-Afghan author and diplomat descended from the Sadaat of Paghman.

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.

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.

This particular teaching was so deep that it was not until many political cross-currents amongst the Moslem States had much weakened the spiritual essence that the clergy at last won the battle which they had fought for at least a thousand years.

"[13]Justifying Turkey's modernisation efforts under Kemal Atatürk, Ali Shah condemned what Islam had become in Turkey: "Even the slightest divergence from the established church was considered the highest crime; and the faithful wandered in and out of the four water-tight compartments of schools of theology completely dazed by the priest-made dogma that neither would reconcile with the early teachings of Islam nor ring true to the advancing humanity of the present age.

[16] According to Augy Hayter (a student of Ikbal's son Omar Ali-Shah) the Sirdar's connection with the League of Nations began in its early days when he was working with professor Gilbert Murray and the Agha Khan, and records of his contributions and position as a "respected intellectual" of the time can be found in the Unesco archives in Paris.

Through this, I believe, lies the way of mutual sympathy between the nations; and such can only be accomplished by means of reading the effusions of one another's Great Minds; because if we but endeavour to understand about our fellow men, good will can come as the gentle dawn of peace.

[4] In 1945, Ali Shah and his son Idries travelled to Uruguay as expert advisors on halalled meat questions for the India Office; a scandal resulted, leading the British ambassador to describe him as a "swindler".

[21][22] Graves believed that the disputed manuscript was in the possession of Ikbal Ali Shah, and that he was about to produce it at the time of his death from a road accident, to allay the growing controversy surrounding the translation.

[30] He wrote biographies of major leaders in the Islamic World, such as Kemal: Maker of Modern Turkey (1934) and Controlling Minds of Asia (1937), as well as anthropological, historical and political works like Afghanistan of the Afghans (1928), Pakistan: A Plan for India (1944) and Vietnam (1960).

The latter two books also include selections from the Sirdar's writings which had previously been published under the names Sheikh Ahmed Abdullah, Rustam Khan-Urf, Bahloal Dana and Ibn Amjed.

According to his long-time friend L. F. Rushbrook Williams, Ikbal Ali Shah believed that the Sufi message "might form a bridge between the Western and the Eastern ways of thinking, and that the methods that [the Sufis] were using to convey it— methods well-tested by centuries of successful practice— would certainly be of interest and might be of value to the Western world in the quest for the best ways of promoting independent thought and the re-examination of accepted values to test their suitability to the needs of modern social organization.

Nawab Mohammed Ali Shah's father was Jan-Fishan Khan, who in turn had been a disciple of the celebrated Naqshbandi master Haji Dost Muhammad Qandhari.

Ikbal Ali Shah sets out the remainder of this silsila, from Qandhari backwards to Yaqub Charkhi (the disciple of Bahauddin Naqshband) in Islamic Sufism (where it is described as "The Punjab Tradition").

Abul Khair took over responsibility for the 'Delhi house' - the dargah and burial place of Mirza Mazhar Jan-i-Janaan and Ghulam Ali Dihlawi by the Turkmen Gate of the old city of Delhi - from Haji Dost Qandhari's deputy Rahim Bakhsh Ajmeri, and today it bears his name.

It seems most likely that Ikbal Ali Shah attended Abul Khair's assemblies in person, prior to his coming to Edinburgh, thus linking his Sufi teaching (and, by extension, that of his sons) directly into the main line of the Naqshbandiyya Mujaddidiya.

[35] In his more substantial introduction[36] Islamic Sufism (1933), Ali-Shah includes excerpts from the work of Khaja Khan attributing the discovery of this system (Latayifi Sitta)[37]—with its corresponding colours: yellow (qalb); red (ruh); white (sirr); black (khafi), and green (ikhfa)—to Ahmad Sirhindi, the founder of the Naqshbandi Mujaddidi.

Deploring the current state of the world, he notes that it is in such times that new revivals of spiritual thought often take place, guided by great exemplars who make a significant impact on society.

"[39] As examples of practical methods of Sufism which can be of use in the modern world, the Sirdar discusses meditation, the giving of charity, and focusing more on durable truths and realities than on transient and illusory pursuits.

[40] Rushbrook Williams affirms that Ikbal Ali Shah's more public work and activities, such as writing travel books and biographies of major figures, was only a byproduct of his determination to study and promote the value of Sufism as a link between Eastern and Western thought.

Gibb in the Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs as a "well-spiced Eastern review, featuring Afghan raiders, alchemists, enchanted walls, watery blue-eyed Bolshevists, singing dervishes and mysterious caves, relieved by more common-place political and literary interludes.

"[43] In a review in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, The Golden East (1931) was criticised for its imperfect command of English, its "tedium heightened by the Sirdar's efforts at wit, by his imaginary yet dull stories of adventure", and for the many incorrect renderings of Persian words.

[44] In his introduction to the 1939 edition of Ikbal Ali Shah's book, Alone In Arabian Nights, Sir Edward Denison Ross stated that while the Sirdar, well known to him for many years, was "tremendously modest about his achievements", he considered him "the greatest contemporary writer and traveller of the East".

[45] Viet Nam (Octagon Press, 1960) fared worse; a reviewer in the Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs accused the book of "numerous elementary errors" and questioned whether Ali Shah had ever visited the country he was describing, or had mostly just drawn on official anti-Communist government propaganda.

Shah described him as "rather a mild sort of person in manner and appearance" but capable of behaving like an "unpredictable Oriental" who often did "unexpected" and "surprising" things when it was required by circumstances.

[48] Aref Tamer, an Ismaili Syrian author and scholar of Islamic culture, pointed out in 1973 that "Very little has been written about Saiyid Ikbal Ali Shah... not all [historians] have been able to descry the underlying unity, the service of the community, and the view of the ultimate good that was found in him," because outside observers did not have the perspective to see the pattern.

"[50] Edinburgh orientalist L. P. Elwell-Sutton considered many of the claims made in Rushbrook Williams' book on behalf of Ikbal Ali Shah and his son Idries, concerning their representing the Sufi tradition, to be self-serving publicity, filled with "sycophantic phraseology, fawning adulation, and disarming disregard for facts.

[54] A review of the reprint in the University of Oklahoma Books Abroad journal wondered why the book had been reprinted, since it no longer appeared to meet contemporary standards; the amount of space given to various national literatures appeared very uneven, the section on Arabia lacked many essential authors, and the section on Japan, consisting of just two pages, failed to give the names of the writers whose poems were featured.