I enjoyed the the parts about Indonesia and Malaysia . They really touched on some current affairs in the muslim world,but the others I personally found boring . It took me about 2 weeks to finish it but it seemed like forever

I read this book probably ten years ago and recall it was quite good. I'll have to refresh myself if I can ever find the copy. The author has character flaws though.

dense, rudderless and interesting

The writing is not that inspired and the subject not that interesting.

the follow up to his "among the Believers..." 15 years later. also excellent.

Stating that he has a strongopinion is understatement, and I believe due to his Indian heritage and his own view on Indian history his sharp insight into Pakistan's state is almost oracle-ish, when he accuses the state of beong a thief (mind you in 1995!) he could have been accused of being bigoted but it seems over next decade and a half Pakistan state has worked hard in proving him right.

Not a review... but an excerpt from Edward Said's Orientalism which is relevant to this reading.. going to leave this here
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"Arabs and Muslims have been told that victimology and dwelling on the depredations of empire are only ways of evading responsibility in the present. You have failed, you have gone wrong, says the modern Orientalist. This, of course, is also V. S. Naipaul's contribution to literature, that the victims of empire wail on while their country goes to the dogs. But what a shallow calculation of the imperial intrusion that is, how summarily it scants the immense distortion introduced by the empire into the lives of "lesser" peoples and "subject races" generation after generation, how little it wishes to face the long succession of years through which empire continues to work its way in the lives of, say, Palestinians or Congolese or Algerians or Iraqis. We allow justly that the Holocaust has permanently altered the consciousness of our time: why do we not accord the same epistemological mutation in what imperialism has done, and what Orientalism continues to do? Think of the line that starts with Napoleon, continues with the rise of Oriental studies and the takeover of North Africa, and goes on in similar undertakings in Vietnam, in Egypt, in Palestine and, during the entire twentieth century, in the struggle over oil and strategic control in the Gulf, in Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Afghanistan. Then think contrapuntally of the rise of anti-colonial nationalism, through the short period of liberal independence, the era of military coups, of insurgency, civil war, religious fanaticism, irrational struggle and uncompromising brutality against the latest bunch of "natives." Each of these phases and eras produces its own distorted knowledge of the other, each its own reductive images, its own disputatious polemics."

Conservo mi asco por los sistemas políticos islámicos chiítas, pero también la curiosidad por ese mundo vedado a nuestros ojos occidentales. Me gustó la diversidad de historias y la cítrica del autor hacia la fe puesta al servicio de la destrucción de la identidad, porque el islam desconoce tu pasado y tu cultura, todo allí es la meca y el mundo árabe. Y sin embargo el sincretismo cultural conserva raíces fuertes, la lucha por un mundo con derechos humanos se encuentra todavía al filo de la locura cuando la fe y las tradiciones marcan puntos de no retorno sobre la vida ajena.

Por otro lado, Asia guarda mucho que quisiera seguir explorando, al final me quedó el deseo de visitar un Kampung en Malasia y de haber sido también nómada en Pakistán, recordé cuando un japonés me preguntó si yo era malayo, y qué ganas de haber mentido porque a veces la piel dice más de las conexiones invisibles que cargamos con nuestros antepasados; A veces la vida nos pesa con cada revolución mal gastada y las distancias de veinte años entre relatos nos dan un vestigio del cansancio por la lucha infructuosa. Hay cosas del libro que me costaron bancarme, pero en general agradezco la semilla de curiosidad que me plantó con respecto a Indonesia, Irán, Pakistán y Malasia.

Beyond Belief had a bulwark of its author’s racial arrogance which dissuaded me from completing it each time I opened it to read. This time I read it through, to educate myself: never place yourself over your guest. The humility of our guest is to be reciprocated with almost equal humility to be grateful to them, if not with empathy. You can speak to people for two reasons beforehand: to understand them, or to understate them (to say what you think of them is true). The author, in my view, had the second purpose before his travel and he tries to hide it under an elegant prose.

A virtual connect with those lives which I could only imagine living. Although, it does come with the usual naipul satire, it is truly insightful into the social fabric of the 4 countries.

For me, not quite as good as "Among the Believers" but worth the price of admission just for the Iran chapter. It wasn't that long ago (this book was published in 1998), but our knowledge of what things are really like in Iran, what people there think and what it's like day-to-day seem so limited. Naipaul's account of Iran in the aftermath of its savage war with Iraq, that recent World War I-like slaughterhouse is remarkable. So many deaths. I spent a few days in a fort at the foot of the Zagreb mountains along the Iraq-Iran border and it was all shot to pieces; the whole remote location had such a French Foreign Legion feel to it, that it's easy to forget how many millions died and how many millions more were affected by it all.

Both books deserve a wide readership, and Naipaul offers one of the most thoughtful, revealing pictures of life for Muslims in these countries (Indonesia, Pakistan) I've ever encountered. Highly recommended.

Racist nonsense.