fotografia sulla diffusione dll'islam nei paesi asiatici. Non entusiasmante ma leggibile ( )

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. ( )

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) ( )

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. ( )

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 Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia-lands where descendants of Muslim converts live at odds with indigenous traditions, and where dreams of Islamic purity clash with economic and political realities.

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.

V.S. Naipaul has felt that his acceptance of his religion is a rejection of the culture he lives in. And, similarly, his distance from the Arab world -- for he believes Islam is fundamentally an Arabic religion -- is also a distance from his faith. In the early 1980s, Naipaul published Among the Believers, a collection of reflections on his travels in Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, and Malaysia. At that time, the fundamentalist revolution in Iran was at its peak, Pakistan was a struggling and repressive South Asian nation, and Indonesia and Malaysia were trying to adapt to the demands of Western capitalism. Now, 15 years later, with Iran ever-so-slowly liberalizing, Pakistan making moves to be a world power, and Indonesia and Malaysia at the heart of both the Asian miracle and the Asian crisis, Naipaul returns to these countries in Beyond Belief. With one or more of these countries making the front pages of newspapers around the world almost every day, understanding the philosophical and practical expressions of religion is crucial to both understanding the nations and interpreting the news.

In this spiritual travelogue, novelist and essayist Naipaul picks up where he left off in his earlier Among the Believers (1981). Whereas in that earlier work he focused primarily on his own stories of his encounters with the revolutionary potential of Islam in Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia, here he allows individuals in those countries to tell their own stories about their experiences with the Islamic faith. Crucial to Naipaul's argument is what he sees as the imperialism of Islam. "Everyone who is not an Arab who is a Muslim is a convert. Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands.... The disturbance for societies is immense, and even for a thousand years can remain unsolved." In Iran, for example, a young teacher remembers with anguish and cool reflection giving up his university education to be a part of Khomeini's religious revolution, only later to be jailed and almost killed by the Revolutionary Guards for failing to give Khomeini unwavering support.