Shah was born in London and raised in
Kent, England. She was educated at
Bryanston School and read
Arabic and
Persian at the
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, graduating in 1986. Her father was
Idries Shah, an
Indian-
Afghan and half-
Scottish writer of books on
Sufism. Part of his family was originally from
Paghman, Afghanistan. Her mother is half-Indian
Parsi and half-English. and she also has a sister, Tahir's twin,
Safia Shah. Shah currently lives between London and rural France with her partner, journalist and photographer Scott Goodfellow, and their son and daughter Hamish and Rosie Goodfellow. Ailsa Goodfellow, their first daughter, died, suddenly, of a pulmonary embolism early in 2017. Shah said: "Ailsa inspired me to write a novel,
The Mouse-Proof Kitchen, based on her life, which was published in 2013. By then Ailsa had become our teacher, demonstrating how to live with courage, patience and joy – and proving that the essence of humanity lies far deeper than mere development." The novel gives a vivid account of how the fictional characters Anna and her husband Tobias deal with their daughter Freya's birth and the experiences which they must undergo before fully appreciating the miracle of her life. == News reporter and documentary maker ==