Reply #2: Please remember he wrote this in 1975 after visiting Iran and meeting [View All]

[KlatooBNikto]

an Ayatollah who was known as an avenging judge.He described a meeting in his plush tent with his entourage sitting in a circle and sending them into delirious laughter after describing how many defendants he had personally beheaded.He has seen the despair and revolutionary rhetoric laying waste to many young lives and the Islamic culture, refusing to provide them with an education that would prepare them for the modern world. Instead, the Islamic elders blame Western influence for all the ills of their societies and say that the Koran is the best source for a cure to their ills.

I do not believe that we can dismiss a person of this type of first hand knowledge out of hand. We need not embrace everything he says, but we need to have an open mind towards impartial sources like Naipaul who have no axe to grind one way or another.