Historical Consciousness Among the Converted Peoples in V. S. Naipaul's Islamic Writings

Abstract

V. S. Naipaul's travel books and other commentaries about the non-Arab converts of Islam are characterized by his trademark sensitivity to colonialism. In these controversial works, Naipaul equates Islamic expansion in Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran and Malaysia to Arab imperialism. While Naipaul does not condone the militaristic origins of Islamic expansionism in history, his principal critique is cultural, concerning how non-Arab converts voluntarily turn away from their pre-Islamic histories, sacred sites, cultures, and traditions in favour of their Arabian counterparts. Beneath the surface of their apparent religiosity, however, Naipaul sees a traumatic historical experience, principally due to the tension between the universalist message of Islam and its Arabian origins. Arguably, the converted peoples cope with their injured national pride by a religious zeal to overwhelm the Arabs, who are their conquerors and the givers of their religion.

• Arab imperialism
• colonialism
• historical consciousness
• Islamic expansion
• Naipaul, V. S.
• religious conversion

Notes

1 A striking example of these forced interpretations is Naipaul's allegedly sympathetic treatment of Iran vis-à-vis his other Islamic destinations. Al-Quaderi and Habibullah (2012: 26–7) and Kapur (1998: 56) argue that Naipaul's (1982: 44, 46) sarcastic comparison of Islamic theological students in the holy city of Qom in Iran with their counterparts in medieval Oxford, Cambridge, and St Andrew's in Scotland evinces the phenomenon. In their view, Naipaul is generally soft on Iranian Islam, or in this case flatters it, because unlike his other Islamic destinations, it had not replaced Hindu civilization. Whereas Naipaul's comparison of contemporary Qom with medieval Oxford and Cambridge mainly serves to show an extant backward and irrational society in the modern world.

2 Instead of catering to his audiences' prejudices, Said (2002: 116) urges Naipaul to publish a critical travelogue about Israel. Nevertheless, this challenge almost certainly has the potential to reaffirm Naipaul's original critique of contemporary Islamic civilization. To the extent that Israel's political existence points out a power imbalance with its Islamic opponents, it also points out an epistemological imbalance. As Said (1979) reiterates in Orientalism, knowledge is power.

3 Wahid served as president of Indonesia between 1999 and 2001. His conversation with Naipaul took place at an unspecified point between 1995 and 1997.

4 This pattern of thought also explains Turkish Islamists' rejection of Kemal Atatürk's legacy. Atatürk successfully led the Turkish independence movement (1919–23) and prevented an Islamic country from being colonized by western, or Christian, imperial powers. However, the modern secular republic he established systematically removed the Islamic religion and other symbols of Arab culture, including the Arabic alphabet, from public life. Had Turkey lost its independence and become a western colony, the Islamic religion and other sacred symbols of Arab culture would have kept their supreme status. As it was, during and after the Independence War, Atatürk and the nationalists encountered various religious uprisings that were allegedly instigated by the western colonial powers. See Aydemir (2001).

5 A slightly different version of this quote from Iqbal appears in Naipaul (1982: 131). In both instances, Naipaul does not specify his original source.

6 Barnouw (2003: 92) states that there is scholarly debate about the role and extent of military violence in the Islamization of India, and points also to the political, economic, educational and social benefits that accrue with religious conversion during the rule of the Mughal Empire.

7 Given their almost exclusive focus on non-Arab converts, Naipaul's Islamic writings do not provide a comparative perspective on historical consciousness among the Arabs that could substantiate his claims. For example, there are recent reports about a construction mania in Mecca and Medina to the detriment of Saudi Arabia's archeological sites that date back to the founding of Islam and the Prophet. This movement is supported by Wahabi clerics who see a connection between historical sites, idolatry and polytheism, but its principal drive is financial, to maximize Saudi Arabia's pilgrimage revenue. See Taylor (2011).