Overview:
Published in the year 1981, “Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey” is book written by Nobel Prize winning Trinidadian author, Sir V.S. Naipaul. It is based on six month long journey undertaken by the author across the Asian continent. On the journey, Naipaul explored the explosive situation and culture in those countries where Islamic Fundamentalism was known to be growing.
He covers four countries; Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and, finally, Indonesia. The purpose of this long journey, according to Naipaul, was that he wanted to study the cultures of those countries-which have some amount of pre-Islamic history and are attempting to establish a country based on Islam. Naipaul also added that he did not visit Arabian countries because he was only interested in people who converted from other religions to Islam.
Travels:
As mentioned before, Naipaul travelled to four different Asian countries that were pro-Islamic. He first travelled to Iran at a time when the revolution had just been concluded. Therefore, he heard many mixed opinions from various people living near holy destinations like Qom. He was guided by a person named Behzad and also had the good fortune of interviewing Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali, who later became famous as the “hanging judge” of Iran.
From Iran, Naipaul moved to Pakistan, a country which was a part of India before attaining independence. Naipaul has given a pretty controversial outlook of Pakistan in the book, but scholars believe that it is because of his Indian origins. When Naipaul finished travelling Pakistan, he moved to Malaysia. Here, he met the future star of Malaysian politics, Anwar Ibrahim. He later moved on to Indonesia, about which, he has written the largest description. He wrote about how Japan liberated the Indonesians and how they fought the Dutch, in order to attain independence. He met poets in Jakarta and visits numerous Koranic schools.
On his way back to the United Kingdom, Naipaul made two short stops in Iran and Pakistan.
