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...

These 24 studies on specific symbols, images and icons from the Muslim tradition authored by scholars from around the world. Divided into four sections, the Divine, the Spiritual, the Physical, and the Societal, the work examines theological issues, such as divine unity, creation, wrath, and justice; spiritual subjects, such as the straight path, servitude, perfection, the jinn, intoxication, and the status of Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. Essays also explore the symbolism of physical elements such as water, trees, seas, ships, food, the male sexual organ, eyebrows, and...