Over a period of five months, V.S.Naipaul travelled through four non-Arab Islamic societies, revisiting the scenes that inspired his Among Believers 20 years ago. But this is no re-working of an old travelogue, and four current upheavals make this book politically relevant and up-to-date: the current turmoil in Indonesia, the transformations taking place in Iran, the clashes in Kashmir threatening to bring Pakistan and India closer to war, and the Anwar trial in Malaysia. Today, Malay-speaking Muslims have become the majority of the Muslim world, and Iranians have always stood apart from the Arab world. But Naipaul believes Islam is an imperial, Arabising religion that alters the world-view of non-Arab Muslims. And he argues that these people never become true Arabs; instead they develop fantasies about who and what they are. Like the best of true travel writers, his real interest is in the people he meets: the jailed scientist, the ayatollah handing out "justice", the convert from Oklahoma, the tortured and mutilated women.