Beyond Belief
Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The Nobel Prize-winning author offers an insightful follow-up to his landmark travelogue Among the Believers: a "brilliant … powerfully observed, stylistically elegant exploration" (The New York Times) that’s the result of a five-month journey through Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia, countries where dreams of Islamic purity clash with economic and political realities.
Fourteen years after the publication of his landmark travel narrative Among the Believers, V. S. Naipaul returned to the four non-Arab Islamic countries he reported on so vividly at the time of Ayatollah Khomeini's triumph in Iran. Beyond Belief is the result of his five-month journey in 1995 through lands where descendants of Muslim converts live at odds with indigenous traditions.
In extended conversations with a vast number of people—a rare survivor of the martyr brigades of the Iran-Iraq war, a young intellectual training as a Marxist guerilla in Baluchistan, an impoverished elderly couple in Teheran whose dusty Baccarat chandeliers preserve the memory of vanished wealth, and countless others—V. S. Naipaul deliberately effaces himself to let the voices of his subjects come through. Yet the result is a collection of stories that has the author's unmistakable stamp. With its incisive observation and brilliant cultural analysis, Beyond Belief is a startling and revelatory addition to the Naipaul canon.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this spiritual travelogue, novelist and essayist Naipaul picks up where he left off in his earlier Among the Believers (1981). Whereas in that earlier work he focused primarily on his own stories of his encounters with the revolutionary potential of Islam in Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia, here he allows individuals in those countries to tell their own stories about their experiences with the Islamic faith. Crucial to Naipaul's argument is what he sees as the imperialism of Islam. "Everyone who is not an Arab who is a Muslim is a convert. Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands.... The disturbance for societies is immense, and even for a thousand years can remain unsolved." In Iran, for example, a young teacher remembers with anguish and cool reflection giving up his university education to be a part of Khomeini's religious revolution, only later to be jailed and almost killed by the Revolutionary Guards for failing to give Khomeini unwavering support. Naipaul also recounts the story of an Indonesian leader who integrated Western technology with his Muslim faith in order to gain a lucrative job in the Suharto administration. Naipaul's luminous prose provides glimpses of insight into the lives of ordinary people whose dedication and commitment to the practice of Islam is the foundation of their lives.
