Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Skeptical Muslim

Sardar has written a curious, often amusing travelogue of his quest for understanding and the Muslims he has encountered along his journeys. Pakistani by birth (in 1951) but raised in Britain, Sardar studied physics, but got sidetracked early into popular science writing and politics, becoming a member of FOSIS (the Federation of Students Islamic Society), an intellectual group opposed to the right-wing Muslim Brotherhood. This book chronicles Sardar's travels through the Muslim world as an observant journalist and a seeker with one principal question: how can Muslims keep the faith but also fit into the modern world? In Tehran in 1974, Sardar found an Islamic revolution brewing, with an Imam Khomeini at its front. In Baghdad, he was told to "keep an eye on" vice-president Saddam Hussein. In Mecca, he found the ancient pilgrim's city being rapidly demolished and "hideous mosques" being erected by the Bin Laden Group. In Pakistan, China and Nigeria, he discovered groups who yearned to be governed by harsh shariah law. Sardar has done the necessary background reading to fill readers in, he never preaches, and despite what sometimes seems a dismaying array of evidence otherwise, he never loses hope for the future of Muslim civilization. (Dec. 1)