Safia Shah grew up with the same tales her brother Tahir did — teaching stories passed down by their father, the writer and thinker Idries Shah. Those stories, she says, work differently at every stage of a life. As a child you understand one thing. As an adult, decades later, you find something else entirely waiting inside them.
In this conversation, Tahir and Safia talk about what it meant to grow up in that tradition, how Hoopoe Books has distributed over five million illustrated editions of those stories in Afghanistan alone — and millions more in dozens of languages worldwide — and why that work feels more urgent now than ever.
The UN has called the situation facing Afghan women today "gender apartheid." Safia doesn't flinch from the phrase. This conversation doesn't either.
Hoopoe Books & Hoopoe Share: hoopoeshare.org
Support Azada Women — the Scheherazade Foundation's campaign to fund internet access for women inside Afghanistan: crowdfunder.co.uk/p/azada-women
🌍 Learn more: sf.charity/azada-women
📧 Contact: info@sf.charity
The Scheherazade Foundation is a UK-based cultural organisation harnessing the power of traditional stories and wisdom to address modern global challenges.
#AfghanWomen #Afghanistan #AzadaWomen #WomensRights #HumanRights #Crowdfunder
What is The Scheherazade Foundation Mini Podcast?
Hosted by Tahir Shah, the Scheherazade Foundation Podcast brings you conversations with thinkers, artists, and changemakers working at the intersection of culture, justice and the human imagination.
The Foundation takes its name from the great storyteller of the Arabian Nights — and like Scheherazade herself, we believe that stories have the power to transform the world.
Our conversations begin with the Foundation's Azada Women project, supporting Afghan women and girls at a moment of profound crisis, and reach outward from there to wherever the most important work is being done.
Short, focused, and always worth your time.