After studying at Columbia University, he did extensive traveling in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. He studied Tantra in West Bengal and visited many Sufi shrines and masters. In 1971 he undertook research on the Ni'matullahi funded by the Marsden Foundation of New York.

During 1974 and 1975 he was consultant in London and Tehran for the World of Islam Festival. In 1974 he became director of English language publications at the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy in Tehran under Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and he studied, worked with, and published books by Nasr, Toshihiko Izutsu, Henry Corbin and others. He was editor of Sophia Perennis, the Journal of the IIAP.

• The Winter Calligraphy of Ustad Selim, & Other Poems (1975) (Ipswich, England) ISBN 0-903880-05-9
• Science and Technology in Islam (1976) (with Leonard Harrow)
• Traditional Modes of Contemplation & Action (1977) (editor, with Yusuf Ibish)
• Nasir-I Khusraw: 40 Poems from the Divan (1977) (translator and editor, with Gholam Reza Aavani) ISBN 0-87773-730-4
• DIVAN (1978) (poems, London/Tehran)
• Kings of Love: The Poetry and History of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order of Iran (1978) (translator and editor, with Nasrollah Pourjavady; Tehran)
• Angels (1980, 1994) ISBN 0-500-11017-4 (abridged edition: ISBN 0-500-81044-3)
• Weaver of Tales: Persian Picture Rugs (1980) (with Karl Schlamminger)
• Loving Boys: Semiotext(e) Special (1980) (editor as Hakim Bey; Semiotext(e) (New York))
• Divine Flashes (1982) (by Fakhruddin 'Iraqi, translated and introduced with William C. Chittick; Paulist Press (Mahwah, New Jersey)) ISBN 0-8091-2372-X
• Crowstone: The Chronicles of Qamar (1983) (as Hakim Bey)
• CHAOS: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism (1985) (as Hakim Bey; Grim Reaper Press (Weehawken, New Jersey))
• Semiotext(e) USA (1987) (co-editor, with Jim Fleming)
• Scandal: Essays in Islamic Heresy (1988) (Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 0-936756-15-2
• The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry (1988) (translator and editor, with Nasrollah Pourjavady) ISBN 0-933999-65-8
• Semiotext(e) SF (1989) (co-editor, with Rudy Rucker and Robert Anton Wilson)
• The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism (1991) (as Hakim Bey; incorporates full text of CHAOS) ISBN 0-936756-76-4
• The Universe: A Mirror of Itself (1992?) (Xexoxial Editions (La Farge, Wisconsin))
• Immediatism (1992, 1994) (as Hakim Bey; originally published as Radio Sermonettes) ISBN 1-873176-42-2
• Aimless Wandering: Chuang Tzu's Chaos Linguistics (1993) (as Hakim Bey; Xexoxial Editions (La Farge, Wisconsin))
• Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam (1993) (City Lights Books (San Francisco)) ISBN 0-87286-275-5
• The Little Book of Angel Wisdom (1993, 1997) ISBN 1-85230-436-7 ISBN 1-86204-048-6
• O Tribe That Loves Boys: The Poetry of Abu Nuwas (1993) (translator and editor, as Hakim Bey) ISBN 90-800857-3-1
• Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes (1995, 2003) (Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 1-57027-158-5
• Millennium (1996) (as Hakim Bey; Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York) and Garden of Delight (Dublin, Ireland)) ISBN 1-57027-045-7
• "Shower of Stars" Dream & Book: The Initiatic Dream in Sufism and Taoism (1996) (Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 1-57027-036-8
• Escape from the Nineteenth Century and Other Essays (1998) (Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 1-57027-073-2
• Wild Children (1998) (co-editor, with Dave Mandl)
• Avant Gardening: Ecological Struggle in the City & the World (1999) (co-editor, with Bill Weinberg) ISBN 1-57027-092-9
• Ploughing the Clouds: The Search for Irish Soma (1999) ISBN 0-87286-326-3
• The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, Second Edition (2003) (as Hakim Bey; incorporates full text of CHAOS and Aimless Wanderings; Autonomedia (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 1-57027-151-8
• Orgies Of The Hemp Eaters (2004) (co-editor as Hakim Bey with Abel Zug) ISBN 1-57027-143-7
• rain queer (2005) (Farfalla Press (Brooklyn, New York)) ISBN 0-9766341-1-2
• Gothick Institutions (2005) ISBN 0-9770049-0-2
• Green Hermeticism: Alchemy and Ecology; (with Christopher Bamford and Kevin Townley, Lindisfarne (2007)) ISBN 1-58420-049-9
• Black Fez Manifesto (2008) ISBN 978-1-57027-187-8