Haroon Moghul accuses V.S. Naipul of hypocrisy. I admit that I have a negative view of Muslim culture as it is generally now being expressed, and as it has generally been manifested in the past (see here for my dim view of the God of Abraham, and why). Nevertheless, historical accuracy and coherence are important, fact must not give up its place of precedence to rhetoric. In Among the Believers, Naipul observes the primal self-hatred and ostentatious Arabophilia that is often evinced by the malwali (converted peoples). Nevertheless, Moghul is correct in that what is now is at the expense of what was in the past, by definition. What Moghul does allude to though, and what does exist among many malwalis (and documented by Naipul), is a pathological hatred for the "darkness" (jahiliyya) that came before Islam (ergo, the urge to "purify"). This tendency can be found among many "converted" peoples who now prostrate themselves to the One God of Abraham, and the tension between their pre-Islamic past and their Muslim present is a constrant thread running through their cultural history (you can also project this to Western cultures-just rewind a few hundred years back to the time when the glory of pagan Greece had not bewitched the European intellectual elites in its battle with the Christianity of St. Paul).