Family and Personal Life
Shah was born into a family of Saadat (Arabic plural of Sayyid) who had their ancestral home at Paghman, not far from Kabul. His mother is of Indian Parsi ethnicity and his father was a Sufi teacher and writer Idries Shah. His elder sister is the documentary filmmaker Saira Shah. He also has a twin sister, author Safia Nafisa Shah.
Tahir Shah was born and brought up in Britain. His father believed strongly in lifelong learning, which influenced his literature. Tahir Shah was educated at Bryanston School, Dorset, England and at universities in London, Nairobi and San Diego. In 2003, sick of living in a London apartment, Shah moved to Morocco along with his wife Rachana and their two small children, Ariane and Timur, where they bought a crumbling mansion in Casablanca located in the middle of a huge shantytown. The Caliph's House (2006) charts the highs and lows of their integration into their new life.
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