Religion and Revolution

Religion and Revolution provides a comprehensive study of spiritual and political Islām in Ernesto Cardenal, the great Latin American poet, priest, and revolutionary. The work studies the relationship between Thomas Merton and Ṣūfism, Cardenal’s connection to spiritual Islām, as well as the Ṣūfī sources cited in his Cosmic Canticle. The work equally examines the impact of political Islām on his ideology, focusing particularly on his trip to Iran during the very triumph of the Islāmic 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 Islāmic Republic of Iran and the Latin American left.