Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples

Revisiting Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia - the countries he visited for Among the Believers (1981), Naipaul reviews his impressions of the Islamic world. He explores the life and culture, and the current ferment which exists inside the nations of Islam.

Islam is an Arab religion, and it makes imperial Arabizing demands on its converts. In this way it is more than a private faith; and it can become a neurosis. What has this Arab Islam done to the histories of Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia? How do the converted peoples view their past--and their future? In a follow-up to Among the Believers, his classic account of his travels through these countries, V. S. Naipaul returns after a gap of seventeen years to find out how and what the converted preach.