Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples - Softcover

Acclaimed writer V.S. Naipaul has the eye of a novelist, the fearless curiosity of a 2-year-old, and the tenacity of a cornered badger. In Beyond Belief, he puts these three attributes to use in delving into the secrets of Islam--the other Islam, that is. Journeying into the non-Arab Islamic countries of Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia, Naipaul wonders about how these young nations are absorbing a resurgent Islam into their ancient societies and where it might lead them. His exploration is at the grassroots level, through the people living and breathing Islam today. Naipaul illustrates his points with vignettes about characters he meets, by both happenstance and calculation, along the way. We learn about their histories, their families' histories, their motivations, and their dreams. The mosaic that materializes is not always appealing, for Naipaul is a sensitive but disinterested observer, more a watcher than a champion. Islam, we learn, is a font of hope for the converted peoples, sweet when taken in gulps but often bearing an acrid aftertaste. It buries traditional cultures under promising new foundations, indirectly encourages broken families through polygamy, and turns only tentatively to face the issues of modernity. From beginning to end, we find ourselves empathizing with Naipaul's subjects, seeing ourselves in their struggles with family, religion, and nation, feeling their drive to create a fresh world of virtue and prosperity. --Brian Bruya

praise for v. s. naipaul

"        V. S. Naipaul is one of the greatest living writers in the English language. Yet, when so many are 'one of' this and that, how can even the superlative 'greatest' give an idea of the scope of this expansive novelist and essayist? In Naipaul we have a talent of extraordinary dimensions and excellence. His themes, his vision of human destiny in our time, are composed with a perfection of language, a narrative gift as flowing and inventive as that of the supreme novelists of the nineteenth century, a flawless sense of structure--and above all a profound knowledge of the world."
--Elizabeth Hardwick

"        An admirable, thinking traveller who exposes himself to the scene. He is a born narrator in the small or large scene. Every place and person and mind comes to life. Like most travellers he uses all his wits to make people talk of themselves and he is so persistent in this that, again and again, it strikes us that they would not have known how to do so without his ingenious Socratic questioning. He is not out for 'copy' but to explore states of experience and mind."
--V. S. Pritchett