islam-narratives

Notes from Among The Believers by V.S.Naipaul

In Iran, despite systematic issues and severe Western meddling, money had “trickled down” pretty far
This fuelled the illusion of an islamic power, keeping a relatively idle country on boil

The tensions of poverty and political distress merged with tensions of the faith
Years after its founding as a religious state, Pakistan still remained on the boil - and Islam was still the issue
To accept islam is to accept certain “legal concepts” prescribed by its jurisprudence
This meant that to construct a polity no national lines, at the cost of Islamic principles of solidarity was simply unthinkable to a Muslim
The passions were strongest among those muslims who felt threatend in India - however, they lived in parts that continued to be Indian
- The parts that became Pakistan consisted of peoeple who did not have strong feelings around this issue, and hence, the leaders pushing for creation of a new nation found themselves at the service of a people whose goals didn’t align with theirs.
When the state withered, the failuress lead back to the faith –> it wasn’t because the dream of an islamic nation was flawed, or that the faith was flawed; it could only be because men had failed the faith
The dream of a “Muslim homeland” had strange consequences
- The state that appeared to some as God itself, a complete earthly rewrd for the faithful, relied not so much by the agricultural exports or the proceeds of it minor. It ran on remittance economy AKA “manpower export”

Islam went to south east Asia as another Indian rligion
No Arab invasion (as in Sing), no systematic slaugher of the locals, no planting o Arab military colonies, no sharing of loot or sending back trasure and slaves to a cliph in Iraq or Syria
There as no calamity, no overnight abrogation of a settled world order
Islam spread here as an idea - a prophet, divine revelation, heven, hell etc