Word: asceticism
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Islam proved to be a liberating vehicle, although an ironic one, to Western eyes. There are several layers of paradox in the relationship between religion and revolution. The word revolution first entered the English language as a political term around 1600, and implied restoration of the old order. Later revolutions...
Khomeini first drew attention in Iran more than 30 years ago, when samples of his philosophical writing drew critical acclaim for his "moral dimension" as well as his ascetic personal life and intense spirituality. That intensity seems to have been channeled in more or less the same direction ever since...
His style is not frenzied-he is notably calm, in fact-but it is unusually intense. It suits a man widely deferred to as a wizard, but it would not do, say, for a renowned comic performer, a wisecracking green frog. And the curious truth about this gaunt, bearded, rather...
For how could one imagine a connection between Santayana and Jones's cult? Santayana--the philosopher of the American consciousness, the dissector of our spiritual heritage; the rationalist Harvard professor, the ascetic hermit; the half-Spanish, half-Boston Brahmin writer who knew the spirit of this country so well yet...
A specialist in Islamic philosophy and law, Khomeini lives the typically ascetic life of a mullah and hardly looks like a political leader who could galvanize a nation. Yet no less a personage than Ardeshir Zahedi, Iranian Ambassador to the U.S., tried to pay a call on Khomeini in France...