Beyond Belief (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: V. S. Naipaul
- First Published: 1998
- Type of Work: Current affairs, religion, and travel
- Time of Work: July, 1995, to May, 1997
- Setting: Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia
- Genres: Nonfiction, Current affairs
- Subjects: Culture, Traveling or travelers, Islam, Religion, Spiritual life or spirituality, Ethnic relations, Faith, India or East Indian people
- Locales: Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia
In 1979, V. S. Naipaul traveled through Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The itinerary had a theme: He wanted to find out how Islam was faring in countries whose citizens descended from non-Arab converts. The book he wrote afterward, Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (1981), is a disturbing album of profiles, interviews, history, personal drama, and analysis, which together portray Islam among converts as culturally confused, turbulent, wholly authoritarian and legalistic, and politically stultifying. Yet the religion is also precious to the faithful, for whom it...
[The entire page is 1897 words long]
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