You can take "Beyond Belief" to mean: i can't imagine these people can be so ignorant and stupid. or, "Beyond Belief", let's talk about matters which go beyond belief and faith.
More than a decade and half after Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, V.S. Nai-paul was on the prowl again in Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan and Malaysia. The result is Beyond Belief, which can be taken to mean-"Beyond Belief"-'I can't imagine how these people can be so ignorant and stupid.' Or, "Beyond Belief"-'let us talk about matters which go beyond belief and faith-transcend faith.' Take it as you will, how Naipaul takes it is very predictable.
Naipaul has an almost pathological hatred for Muslims which, even marriage to a Muslim, Nadira Khannum Alvi, to whom this book is dedicated, has not been able to lessen and try as he might to hide it or fight it, it comes out in statements like the one which says Muslims reduced the cultural life of India into the "Light of A Dead Star"
In his foreword, Naipaul warns us that in 1979 when he wrote Among the Believers, he knew almost nothing about Islam and that that is the best way to start on a venture. I hate to tell him this, but regardless of what he might think, he still doesn't know much. The only difference is that the caustic humour with which the earlier book was laced is now gone