Desperately Seeking Paradise - Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim by Ziauddin Sardar
Has anyone else read the above book ? I have to say I found it one the most enjoyable, intelligent and witty books I’ve read for ages. A must read for muslim or non-muslims alike - in my opinion.
I’ve no royalties on the book but below is a cut-and-paste of one of the critiques on the book - others can be found from the link below:
"Ziauddin Sardar a prolific writer, insightful cultural commentator and a polymath has already earned his seat with historic towering intellectuals. Ziauddin Sardar a leading futurist has already published over forty books on science, religion and culture. DSP like Zia is very hard to define and pigeon hole- a book which in many respect is a semi-autobiography of his travels, interactions, commentary, analysis of Islam in last thirty years-taking him to almost all the Muslim countries through a responsive accounts of Sufism, traditionalism, modernism and extremism. The book is written in a candid but lucid style- it is a book once opened is very difficult to put down. Zia’s commitment, dedication and zeal in understanding the Muslim world through first hand experience puts him under very difficult and often problematic situations in Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia.
DSP is an essential read for everyone who is interested in understanding the tumultuous decades for Muslim in the last twentieth and the early twenty-first century. At a time when Muslim and the Islamic world is understood through simplistic and essentialist characterisation- DSP is a very timely book which bridges that essential gap and helps readers understand the diverse and complex jigsaw’s which makes the Muslim community. "