[1] Bestowed with further lands and ancestral titles by the British Raj during the Great Game, a number of Shah's more recent ancestors were born in the principality of Sardhana, in northern India – which they ruled as Nawabs.

[2] His mother, Cynthia Kabraji,[3] was of Zoroastrian Parsi descent and his father was the Indian Sufi teacher and writer Idries Shah.

"[17] Tahir Shah attended Rose Hill Preparatory School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent – where Lord Baden Powell had also been a student.

[20] These included the escapades of Nasrudin, the wise fool of Sufi folklore, as well as tales of Antar and Abla, and the epic treasury that forms The Thousand and One Nights.

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.

He later took his self publishing efforts a step further in 2012 with the release of Timbuctoo and again in 2013 with Scorpion Soup, two limited edition hardcovers that were designed by his wife Rachana.

Shah himself has written about his fascination with the works of Bruce Chatwin, especially his book The Songlines,[29] as well as with a range of the classic nineteenth century explorers, such as Samuel White Baker, Heinrich Barth and Sir Richard Burton.

He has said that his style of using short blocks of text, with a concluding denouement was influenced by Iron & Silk by Mark Salzman,[32] which he first read in 1988; and that he writes with the intention to educate and inform his readers, while at the same time amusing them.

Shah avoids "self-congratulatory" literary festivals, although he had appeared as a speaker at a number of them in the past – including at Hay-on-Wye,[36] Wigtown,[37] Shute, Oxford, Deià,[38] Gibraltar,[39] and Vilnius.

Shah's earlier books fell into the travel literature genre, with more recent work being regarded as straight fiction.

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.

[45] 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.

[46] 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.

[47] In 2003 Shah moved to Morocco with his wife Rachana and his two infant children from a small apartment in London's East End, and relocating to a mansion called "Dar Khalifa",[48] said by locals to be haunted by Jinn, "set squarely in the middle of a Casablanca shantytown."

Shah has written widely about Casablanca, which he has resided in,[49][50] and Morocco,[51] and is regarded as an expert on both, as well as on India,[52] and a number of other destinations.