Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
by V S Naipaul
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Book Summary Information
Author: V S NaipaulEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-09-19
ISBN: 0330413333
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Picador
Book Reviews of Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
Book Review: Indispensible
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm surprised there are not more reviews of this book. Since September 11th, I've been engaged in trying to understand Islam and western Asia, both doctrinally and historically, like so many other people. My intent is not to confirm a political agenda but simply to understand and form a reasonable perspective from which to judge the near future, or at least to be able to exclude as more or less unlikely judgments prevailing in the public discourse. Generally my method is simple: I seek out books written in times of political quiescence with respect to a given region, religious debate, historical argument, or what have you. I think it is the best way to approach a remote subject about which one simply seeks an honest picture.
To that end, I regard VS Naipual's Among the Believers as invaluable. Written as a memoir of a journey undertaken simply for its interest and in rather complete ignorance of what he might find - a perspective mirroring most Western readers, and certainly this reader - the book records Naipaul's interaction with specific people in specific positions in specific milieu in specific countries: Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia. The trip occurred over several months (it's actually difficult to tell how long he spent there, exactly) during 1981, beginning in Iran, a couple years after the Revolution and during a period in which the Islamic aspect was completing its dominance of a movement that had been accomplished with the significant support of liberals and Communists.
The value primarily consists in Naipaul's naive mentality. He meets people, he describes the food, the manner of the waiters, the dreams of the youth he meets, the attitudes and philosophies of journalists, mullahs, revolutionaries, students, petit bourgeoisie, peasants, pilgrims - whoever. He comes to them as a foreigner and imparts the mundane experiences of what, one feels, any literate foreigner is also likely to experience. It is this perspective that a non-Iranian, -Pakistani, -Sunni, -whatever is unlikely to acquire without himself visiting. Moreover the trip occurred during a period the significance of which is very prominent in the minds of those he meets, but unappreciated - at least by me.
Carried along by Naipaul's enviably effortless and unadorned prose style, the result is a travelogue and walkabout through the non-Arab Muslim world that illuminates those countries in ways no person considering the present geopolitical conflict can afford to be without. I predict this book will do more than any other to impart a sense of what the people in these countries themselves think about what has occurred and is occurring there, about the then-contemporary direction of the Muslim world, and about the greater world outside. If there is a better book for this kind of necessary thing, I haven't yet found it.
5 stars.
Summary of Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
"Among the Believers" is V. S. Naipaul's classic account of his journeys through Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia; 'the believers' are the Muslims he met on those journeys, young men and women battling to regain the original purity of their faith in the hope of restoring order to a chaotic world. It is a uniquely valuable insight into modern Islam, and the comforting simplifications of religious fanaticism. 'The edgy exactitude of Naipaul's writing is both effortlessly classical and yet at the same time brilliantly contemporary, as sharp and lucid as a spear of glass...He is inimitable, truly great and truly deserving of the Nobel' - "Observer".World Books
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