Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah (, ; 1894 in Sardhana, India – 4 November 1969 in Tangier, Morocco) was an Indian-Afghan author and diplomat descended from the Sadaat of Paghman. Born and educated in India, he came to Britain as a young man to continue his education in Edinburgh, where he married a young Scotswoman. 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. His other writing includes lighter works such as travel narratives and tales of adventure, as well as more serious works on Sufism, Islam and Asian politics. 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. Ikbal Ali Shah fathered three children, all of whom became notable writers themselves; his son Idries Shah became particularly well known and acclaimed as a writer and teacher of Sufism in the West. When Ikbal Ali Shah's wife died in 1960, he moved from Britain to Morocco, spending the last decade of his life in Tangier. He died in a road accident in Morocco, aged 75. Life Family origins Ikbal Ali Shah was born into a family of Musavi Saiyeds (descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah and also through Musa al-Kadhim, the great-great-grandson of Husayn ibn Ali and seventh Imam of the Twelver Shi'a sect of Islam). The family originated from Paghman near Kabul, Afghanistan. In 1840, Ali Shah's great-grandfather was awarded the title Jan-Fishan Khan for his support of Shah Shuja, a puppet ruler installed by the British. In 1841, following the defeat of the British, Jan-Fishan Khan was forced to leave Afghanistan. The British-Indian government rewarded his loyalty with an estate in Sardhana, Uttar Pradesh, which thereafter became the family seat. Ali Shah's granddaughter Saira Shah relates that her grandfather "maintained that ancestry was something to try to live up to, not to boast about" and told her that "it is less important who your forebears were than what you yourself become." Education and marriage Ali Shah was educated in Britain before the World War I. He met his future wife Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah (pseudonym: Morag Murray Abdullah, b. 1900) during the war, while engaged in an unsuccessful