its "tedium heightened by the Sirdar's efforts at wit, by his imaginary yet dull stories of adventure", and for the many incorrect renderings of Persian words. In his introduction to the 1939 edition of Ikbal Ali Shah's book, Alone In Arabian Nights, Sir Edward Denison Ross stated that while the Sirdar, well known to him for many years, was "tremendously modest about his achievements", he considered him "the greatest contemporary writer and traveller of the East". He referred to the book as "fascinating" and "extraordinary", commenting on its "erudition, scope and range" and declaring that the Sirdar wrote "the most excellently idiomatic English". Viet Nam (Octagon Press, 1960) fared worse; a reviewer in the Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs accused the book of "numerous elementary errors" and questioned whether Ali Shah had ever visited the country he was describing, or had mostly just drawn on official anti-Communist government propaganda. Summing up, the reviewer concluded: "This book is heavily biased, meretricious, frequently inaccurate, and badly written. It cannot be recommended." A review in the 1962 Year Book of World Affairs similarly described the book as "highly confused and unreliable". The popularity of Idries Shah's work generated renewed interest in his father. Asked about his recently-deceased father in a 1970 BBC interview, Idries Shah agreed that Ikbal Ali Shah was "very unusual". Although he did make some enemies, Shah found it remarkable how few they were, given how uncategorizable and unusual he was. People often remarked to Shah that "the trouble is we never quite knew which side your father was on", to which Shah responded, "I'm sure it never occurred to him that he had to be on any side." Shah described him as "rather a mild sort of person in manner and appearance" but capable of behaving like an "unpredictable Oriental" who often did "unexpected" and "surprising" things when it was required by circumstances. He had a wide range of information and activity but much of it was compartmentalized so that few people knew everything, and no biography had ever been written. Aref Tamer, an Ismaili Syrian author and scholar of Islamic culture, pointed out in 1973 that "Very little has been written about Saiyid Ikbal Ali Shah... not all [historians] have been able to descry the underlying unity, the service of the community, and the view of the ultimate good that was found in him," because