By V.S. Naipaul
Journeys through converted Muslim societies
Subject
Themes
Conversion to Islam transforms societies in Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia in ways that extend far beyond personal belief. These journeys through four non-Arab Muslim nations, undertaken seventeen years after an initial exploration of the same countries, reveal how religious conversion creates profound cultural dislocations that persist across generations. Everyone who is Muslim but not Arab is a convert, and this conversion demands more than conscience or private belief. It requires adopting Arab holy places, sacred language, and historical narratives whilst rejecting indigenous pasts. The resulting tensions between native traditions and imported faith produce ongoing crises of identity that can easily set these societies on the boil.
Conversion to Islam transforms societies in Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia in ways that extend far beyond personal belief. These journeys through four non-Arab Muslim nations, undertaken seventeen years after an initial exploration of the same countries, reveal how religious conversion…
Published in 1998, seventeen years after Naipaul's initial exploration of the same four countries in *Among the Believers* (1979), this work arrives at a crucial moment in global politics. The book appears two years before September 11th attacks would transform Western understanding of Islam, during…
Islam makes demands that extend far beyond private conscience or personal spirituality. For non-Arab converts, adopting the faith requires a complete reorientation of identity, geography, and history. Holy places shift from local sites to Arab lands; sacred language becomes Arabic rather than…
Indonesia's government under President Suharto discovers that combining technological advancement with Islamic devotion creates an effective mechanism for political control. Habibie, the minister for research and technology, champions both aerospace development and the Association of Muslim…
The histories of converted societies exist in visible layers, with earlier civilizations persisting beneath official Islamic orthodoxy. Indonesia provides the clearest example, where a thousand years of Buddhist and Hindu culture preceded Islam's arrival around 1400. Buddhist monasteries transformed…
Islamic revolutions promise justice, prosperity, and authentic religious governance, yet consistently produce disillusionment as utopian visions confront political and economic realities. Iran's revolution of 1979 epitomizes this pattern. The Shah's regime, seen as corrupt, Westernized, and…
The prologue explicitly states that this is a book about people, not opinions, built from stories collected during five months of travel. This methodological choice reflects a deliberate approach to understanding converted societies: rather than imposing analytical frameworks or seeking definitive…
Imaduddin's journey from persecution to power epitomizes Indonesia's changing relationship with Islam. In 1979, as a lecturer in electrical engineering at the Bandung Institute of Technology, he combined scientific credentials with Islamic preaching, drawing student crowds to the Salman Mosque. This…
Imaduddin's family background reveals deep roots of Islamic learning in Sumatra whilst showing how Western education created new paths. His grandfather was a muezzin calling the faithful to prayer in the Sultanate of Landkat. This muezzin died before his son's birth, and the widow remarried. When…
The final Indonesian chapters explore how conversion affects family structures, identity, and memory. Villages maintain complex social organization with matrilineal inheritance coexisting alongside Islamic patriarchy. Young Indonesians navigate between modernisation and traditional religious…
The Iran-Iraq war, lasting eight years and producing hundreds of thousands of casualties, shapes an entire generation's relationship to revolutionary promises. Iraq's invasion in 1980, shortly after the revolution, provides the Islamic Republic with both existential threat and ideological…
Qom, Iran's religious centre where clerics study and teach, wields enormous power in the Islamic Republic. These religious authorities position themselves as enforcers of divine law, claiming moral superiority over secular governance. The revolution promised that rule by religious scholars would…
Pakistan's polity struggles to achieve coherence despite Islamic identity supposedly providing unity. The state oscillates between military dictatorships and weak civilian governments, neither capable of establishing stable democratic governance or effective administration. Military rulers justify…
Loss permeates Pakistani experience across multiple dimensions. The country loses international significance, dropping off the map as conflicts and instability make it peripheral to global affairs. Economic development lags behind regional competitors. Educated professionals emigrate, seeking…
Old clothes represent the indigenous Malay past that must be discarded as Malaysia pursues Islamic modernisation. Traditional practices, pre-Islamic beliefs, and customary ways of life become embarrassments to be explained away or actively suppressed. The metaphor of old clothes suggests something…
By V.S. Naipaul
Subject
Themes
Conversion to Islam transforms societies in Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia in ways that extend far beyond personal belief. These journeys through four non-Arab Muslim nations, undertaken seventeen years after an initial exploration of the same countries, reveal how religious conversion creates profound cultural dislocations that persist across generations. Everyone who is Muslim but not Arab is a convert, and this conversion demands more than conscience or private belief. It requires adopting Arab holy places, sacred language, and historical narratives whilst rejecting indigenous pasts. The resulting tensions between native traditions and imported faith produce ongoing crises of identity that can easily set these societies on the boil.