[4][5][6] Based in London, England, the charity is primarily for the study, dissemination of knowledge, and promotion of Sufi arts, literature, culture and heritage, with special focus on the published works of Idries Shah.

[8] The charity's stated objective is “to promote tolerance and cultural understanding by the dissemination of contemporary Sufi ideas as widely as possible throughout the world.”[9] It aims “to translate the works of Idries Shah into Eastern languages in order to help preserve Sufi ideas and values within the Islamic world, where they originated.”[9] Between 2015 and 2020, the foundation's publishing arm, ISF Publishing, plans to republish the complete corpus of Idries Shah in English.

The foundation is also working on releasing translations of Shah's publications in Oriental languages (including Arabic, Dari, Pashto, Urdu and Turkish).

[3] With the successful completion of the re-publication of all of Idries Shah's books, and a streamlining of the charity's operations to ensure its long-term viability, Hall stepped-down as CEO in May 2024.

2014 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Idries Shah's first book on Sufism, The Sufis, which award-winning author Doris Lessing, writing in The Washington Post, describes as “a seminal book of the century, even a watershed.”[22] New paperback and ebook editions of the work were published that year by the newly formed ISF Publishing, in association with The Idries Shah Foundation, to coincide with that event.

To a certain degree, the classics – what Shah drew on to bring Sufism to the west – are being overlooked by younger generations.”[24] In another related article on the Asian Affairs journal weblog, author Robert Twigger writes of it being fifty years since the original publication of The Sufis.

He is of the opinion that “ironically, the original material Shah brought from the Oriental world has been persecuted to extinction in many regions of the East,” and adds that “the shock troops of ISIS will one day depart and folk will need re-introducing to their cultural inheritance.”[10]