"It [Islam] has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say 'my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn't matter'... This abolition of the self demanded by Muslims was worse than the similar colonial abolition of identity. It is much, much worse in fact... You cannot just say you came out of nothing."
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Nobel laureates in LiteratureTravel writersEssayistsAcademics from the United KingdomNovelists from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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As quoted in VS Naipaul launches attack on Islam" in The Guardian (4 October 2001)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V._S._Naipaul
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V. S. Naipaul
Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (17 August 1932 - 11 August 2018) was a British writer of Indo-Nepalese descent born and raised in Trinidad. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001.
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