John Herlihy was born in 1945 into an Irish-American family in Boston, Massachusetts. Herlihy completed studies at a Paulist seminary, but has worked as a professor of academic writing and senior administrator at several Near and Far Eastern countries. He currently works in the UAE as the Director of the English Language Center at the University of Sharjah. In the early 1970s, Herlihy made the acquaintance of a Kashmiri Indian whom he now fondly remembers as "the laughing Sufi." In his book The Seeker and the Way, Herlihy explains that his conversion was a raw and unexpected awakening that pulled him back from the abyss and set a new direction in coming to terms with the purpose and meaning of his life. Twenty years after his conversion and with a life-long interest in writing, he began to explore through words the complex nature of his relationship with this and the "other" world. In addition to writing for such traditional journals as Sacred Web and Sophia, his publications include the recently published "Wisdom's Journey" which reflects upon the disparity between modernity and the Islamic tradition and the pursuit of spirituality in today's anti-spiritual world.
