Travelling through all the countries of Islam, V.S. Naipaul met and talked with the 'believers', most of them young and intent upon restoring their faith to its original purity in the belief that it would provide the ultimate solution to all of the ills of the world today. Sadly the more he saw and heard, the more he realised that strict adherence to 'the Faith' does not teach men how to run a modern state, but his direct and open approach makes this a more than usually enjoyable travel book as well as a valuable insight into modern Islam.