Religion and Revolution: Spiritual and Political Islām in Ernesto Cardenal

Review By introducing the works of Cardenal to English speaking Muslims, Dr. Morrow has opened an important window... One can, therefore, conclude that Cardenal's works represent a genuine effort to build bridges between East and West, Christianity and Islam, and Latin America and Islamic Iran. -- Zafar Bangash, Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought[T]his book...represents a new method of studying socio-political relations... It is a work that accurately helps to understand similarities and differences between two ideological, philosophical, and religious concepts which have significant resonance in our times. -- Héctor Manzolillo, Literary and Socio-Political Advisor and Social ActivistA very fascinating book. -- Iqbal Siddiqui, Research Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought and Former Editor of Crescent InternationalMorrow's on-the-whole impartial and unbiased interpretation of Islam, Sufism, and Iran...constitutes a calibre of work rarely seen or read in the western media and literature. -- F.B. Sekaleshfar, Qom, Iran Product Description Religion and Revolution provides a comprehensive study of spiritual and political Islam in Ernesto Cardenal, the great Latin American poet, priest, and revolutionary. The work studies the relationship between Thomas Merton and Sufism, Cardenal's connection to spiritual Islam, as well as the Sufi sources cited in his Cosmic Canticle. The work equally examines the impact of political Islam on his ideology, focusing particularly on his trip to Iran during the very triumph of the Islamic Revolution. Using Cardenal's Interlude of the Revolution in Iran as a starting point, the work provides a vivid and detailed description of the early days of the revolution as well as the ties between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Latin American left. From the Author Cardenal's poetry and prose integrate elements of both spiritual and political Islam. Theologically and mystically, sections of the Cántico cósmico draw from the teachings of ... Muslim mystics... Politically, a portion of his prose and poetry manifest his solidarity with the Muslim movement and the impact of revolutionary Islamic thought on his ideology, the most striking of which came from Imam Khomeini... About the Author Dr. John Andrew Morrow received his PhD from the University of Toronto where he specialized in Hispanic Studies, Native Studies, and Arabic-Islamic Studies. He has taught at numerous institutions of higher learning, including the University of Toronto, Park University, Northern State University, Eastern New Mexico University and Ivy Tech. In the fall of 2011, he served as professor of Advanced Spanish, Travel Literature, and Islamic Culture for the Institute for Shipboard Education's prestigious Semester at Sea program which is academically sponsored by the University of Virginia. Besides a large body of peer-reviewed academic articles and edited works, Professor Morrow is the author of Islamic Insights: Writings and Reviews, the Encyclopedia of Islamic Herbal Medicine, Amerindian Elements in the Poetry of Ernesto Cardenal: Mythic Foundations of the Colloquial Narrative, Amerindian Elements in the Poetry of Ruben Dario: The Alter Ego as the Indigenous Other, and Arabic, Islam, and the Allah Lexicon: How Language Shapes our Conception of God.