Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples

By V. S. Naipaul

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Aug 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9780307828415

V. S. Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession. His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now. In 1990, V.S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 2018.

Reviews for Beyond Belief

[deebee1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In 1995, Naipaul travelled to 4 non-Arab Muslim countries: Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia, the same countries he visited in 1979 which he wrote about in Among the Believers. His thesis is that Islam makes imperial demands on its converts. More than a private faith, it can become a neurosis. A convert's world view alters, his holy places are in Arab lands, his sacred language is Arabic. His idea of history alters, he turns away from everything that is his. The disturbance for societies is immense, people develop fantasies of who and what they are. These countries can be easily set on the boil.In this book, he attempts to find out what this religion has done to the histories of these 4 countries, and how these converted peoples view their past, and their future. And here, Naipaul does what he does so wonderfully -- telling other people's stories. As he journeys through these places, at times visiting those whom he interviewed 17 years ago, we learn about certain characters, their family histories, their motivations, their dreams. Islam, while a font of hope, also buries traditions, cultures, and wholly faces modernizing influences only when the cause of Islam is furthered. Naipaul is a sensitive observer, letting the stories come out. He makes an observation now and then, but never comes across heavy-handed. A master writer, he easily shifts between details in a character's life to the big picture of history, in easy and simple prose one forgets we are talking of very complex themes here. Themes and issues even more compelling today than they were at the time of this book's publication. An enlightening and very fascinating read. Naipaul can never disappoint, even if he tried.

[bo18 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A quite good book about 4 of the biggest Muslim countries in the world (Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia)The inhabitants of those 4 countries get the chance to tell their personal stories. With Islam as the main subject. This gives you a good insight in the country and local Islam.However, when Naipaul has the word you kind of notice a defiant and negative attitude towards these people and islam in general.He feels sorry for them because they're Muslim. And speaks of the cultural destruction and negativity brought by the Islam to these countries.The western influences are being portrayed as funny, weird and positive. While the western influences have the same effect on the local culture as Islam. (cultural destruction and negativity)

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A compellingly insightful follow-up to "Among the Believers;" Naipaul retraces his steps through the non-Arab Islamic countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Iran, observing how the culture of each has changed in the past decade and a half, in the context of Islam, a non-native religion.