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Mateus Soares de Azevedo (Belo Horizonte, Brazil, January 24 1959) is an Islamologist, esoterismologist and historian of religions. Over the last three decades, he has published eleven books and more than a hundred essays and articles on the Perennial Philosophy and the mystical currents of Christianity and Islam. Several of his books and articles have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian and Serbo-Croatian, and published in Portugal, Spain, Argentina, the United States, Canada, France, Italy and Bosnia. The English edition of his Men of a Single Book was named book of the year in the "comparative religion" category in the United States, and won the USA Best Books 2011 Awards. His style was characterized by “clarity, objectivity and proselytizing unpretentiousness”, by the author J. C. Ismael in the daily paper O Estado de S. Paulo

Soares de Azevedo translated from English and French into Portuguese a dozen works by Perennialist authors, among them Frithjof Schuon, William Stoddart, Martin Lings, C.S. Lewis, Rama Coomaraswamy, M. Bina and A. K. Ziarani. As a lecturer, he has given conferences and participated in debates at universities and study centers in Brazil and abroad.

Life
Born in Belo Horizonte to a family with roots in Ouro Preto, he spent his childhood in this historic city. His ancestors include Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos, Minister of Justice and Finance and governor of Minas Gerais in the reign of emperor Pedro 1o., and Diogo de Vasconcelos, historian and politician, author of the História Média de Minas Gerais. In São Paulo, he studied the elementary and high school at Colégio Santa Cruz, modern languages at the University of São Paulo (USP), and Journalism at the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC/SP). He also studied International Relations at George Washington University (USA) and obtained a Master's in History of Religions from the University of S. Paulo.

Soares de Azevedo made journeys to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to contact religious and academic authorities, collect material for his books, and interview Perennialist authors. In the Old Continent, he deepened his knowledge of the three main branches of Christianity, visiting Catholic countries (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Ireland and Croatia); Protestant (England, Scotland, Holland, Switzerland and Germany); and Orthodox (Russia).

He traveled to Muslim countries such as Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Bosnia and Tunisia, in search of direct contact with the Islamic reality. In Japan, he studied the practice of the Nembutsu, the Pure Land School and the figure of Hônen.

Work
He is the author of eleven books on Comparative Religion, the Perennial Philosophy and the mystical and esoteric dimensions of Christianity and Islam in particular. His most recent works are Sufi Orders in Islam: Initiation into Muslim Esoteric Brotherhoods in Shiite Iran and the Sunni World (Polar, São Paulo, 2020) and ''Alchemy of Love: Sexuality & the Spiritual Life’’ (Sophia Perennis, USA, 2020). ''

‘’Sufi Orders in Islam’’ is the first book exclusively dedicated to the theme of Sufi brotherhoods published in Brazil. These fraternities are at the heart of what is most impressive in the Islamic world, from thought to the arts, from architecture to mysticism, clothing and even politics. The work assesses the impact of the ‘’turuq’’ on history; its methods, doctrines and rituals; the advent of Islam in Persia and Sufism in contemporary Iran, among other topics.

As for ‘’Alchemy of Love: Sexuality & the Spiritual Life’’, American author Samuel Bendeck Sotillos wrote: “A unique work, it explores the metaphysical underpinnings of sexuality in a way we rarely see today.”

Other books of his are ‘’Christianity and the Perennial Philosophy’’, which received from the professor and author Wolfgang Smith the following comment: “A brilliant selection of seminal and at times provocative texts which no serious student can afford to miss”.

Men of a Single Book: Fundamentalism in Islam, Christianity and Modern Thought, published in the US in 2011, won the North American Literary Award for Book of the Year in the Comparative Religion category. It was thus characterized in the pages of the North American magazine Parabola: “This groundbreaking book by the award-wining Brazilian author analyzes what the author has perceptively phrased ‘secular fundamentalism’.”

Other works are: Occultism and Religion in Freud, Jung, and Mircea Eliade, co-authored with the Australian scholar Harry Oldmeadow and "Men of a Single Book: Fundamentalism in Islam, Christianity and in Modern Thought". In the latter work, he discusses militant fundamentalism, the hijacking of religion by intolerance, and also the modern phenomenon of what Mateus calls anti-religious fundamentalism (especially that of atheist writers such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins). Men of a single book was translated into English and published in the United States in 2011.

In The Intelligence of Faith: Christianity, Islam, Judaism (Rio de Janeiro, Nova Era,  2006), he traces convergences between the three great monotheistic traditions, emphasizing their more universal and esoteric dimensions, in the line of Frithjof Schuon’s “The Transcendent Unity of Religions”. .

Mateus published more than a hundred essays on the philosophy of religions and criticism of the materialist mentality of the modern world in the main Brazilian newspapers, such as O Estado de S. Paulo, Folha de S.Paulo, O Globo, História Viva, Gazeta Mercantil, among others. Some of them have been translated into English, French, Spanish, and Italian, and published in the journals Sophia (USA), Sacred Web (Canada), Dossier H and Ultreia (France).

In the United States, he organized and edited Remembering in a World of Forgetting: Thoughts on Tradition and post-modernism, a collection of essays by British Perennialist author William Stoddart. Mary Ann Brussat noted : “In this scholarly paperback edited by M. Soares de Azevedo, William Stoddart celebrates the truth of religion, orthodoxy, and mysticism.”

Mateus lives in São Paulo, Brazil.

Awards
Men of a Single Book: Fundamentalism in Islam, Christianity and Modern Thought, published by World Wisdom Books, USA:
 * USA Best Books 2011 Awards - "Comparative Religion" category: 1st place.
 * Midwest Book Award - "Current Events" category: silver medal.
 * USA Book of the Year Award - "Religion" category: finalist.

Books in English

 * Alchemy of Love: Sexuality & the Spiritual Life (EUA, Sophia Perennis, 2020). ISBN 9781597311830
 * Men of a Single Book: Fundamentalism in Islam, Christianity and Modern Thought (edição revista e ampliada com dois novos capítulos e um prefácio, World Wisdom, 2010) ISBN 9781935493181
 * Ye shall know the truth: Christianity and the Perennial Philosophy (World Wisdom, EUA, 2005) ISBN 0941532690

Books in Portuguese

 * Ordens Sufis no Islã: Iniciação às confrarias esotéricas muçulmanas no Irã xiita e no mundo sunita (São Paulo, Polar, 2020). ISBN 978-85-867-7541-3
 * O Livro dos Mestres (São Paulo, Ibrasa, 2016). ISBN 978-85-348-0363-2
 * Filosofia Perene e Cristianismo: o desafio da modernidade (São Paulo, Ibrasa, 2016)
 * Ocultismo e Religião em Freud, Jung e Eliade (Ibrasa, S. Paulo, 2010. Co-authored with Harry Oldmeadow.) ISBN 9788534803366
 * A Inteligência da Fé: Cristianismo, Islã e Judaísmo(Record/Nova Era, 2006) ISBN 8577010457
 * Mística Islâmica: convergência com a espiritualidade cristã (3a. edição, Vozes, 2001) ISBN 8532623573
 * Iniciação ao Islã e ao Sufismo (4a. edição, Record, 2000) ISBN 8501041815
 * Bob Marley (São Paulo, Brasiliense, 1984. Em coautoria com Cassiano Quillicci)

Contributions and introductions

 * Remembering in a World of Forgetting: Thoughts on Tradition and Postmodernism (by William Stoddart. World Wisdom, USA, 2006) ISBN 9781933316468
 * Dossier H - Frithjof Schuon (L'Âge d'Homme, Lausanne, 2001)
 * Ter um Centro (by Frithjof Schuon. Polar, 2018)
 * A Unidade Transcendente das Religiões (by F. Schuon. Irget, 2013)
 * Lembrar-se num Mundo de Esquecimento (by W. Stoddart. Sapientia, 2013)
 * Traços de Luz (by Faouzi Skali. D'Livros, 2013)
 * Ensaios sobre a Destruição da Tradição Cristã (by Rama Coomaraswamy) (Irget, 2013.)
 * Forma & Substância nas Religiões (by Fritthjof Schuon. Sapientia, 2010) ISBN 9788562052033
 * O Estudo das Religiões: desafios contemporâneos (ed. by Silas Guerriero. Paulinas, 2001)
 * Para Compreender o Islã (Frithjof Schuon. Record, 2005)
 * O Homem no Universo (Frithjof Schuon. Perspectiva, 2001)
 * O Sentido das Raças (Frithjof Schuon. Ibrasa, 2002)
 * O Budismo ao seu alcance (de William Stoddart. Record, 2004)
 * Sabedoria Tradicional & Superstições Modernas" (by Martin Lings. Polar, 1990)

English

 * The Perennial Philosophy is not for fools (co-authored with William  Stoddart)
 * Short answer to three militant atheists
 * Rama Coomaraswamy: between Perennialism and traditional Catholicism
 * (en)Frithjof Schuon & Sri Ramana Maharshi: a survey of the spiritual masters of the 20th Century.

Portuguese

 * A Ideologia do Estado Islâmico
 * A sexualidade na vida espiritual
 * A invenção da Terra de Israel
 * O Islã Hoje: entre Tradição e extremismo
 * Francisco e a profecia dos últimos papas de São Malaquias
 * Outros Islãs
 * Francisco 1 e a mitologia do concílio Vaticano 2
 * Francisco põe poderosa ordem no coracão da igreja
 * Vaticano 2 se encerra com Bento 16
 * O Sermão da Montanha segundo a Filosofia Perene
 * Deixem que os muçulmanos cuidem de si
 * Islã Cristianizado.
 * Sinais de Contradição na Opus Dei