Paradoxical Sajid

Paradoxical Sajid is one of the bestselling Bangladeshi books of recent years and a defining work of contemporary Islamic apologetic literature in Bengali. Written by Arif Azad, the book takes the form of a series of conversations between Sajid, a thoughtful young Muslim student, and an atheist friend, on questions about the existence of God, the rationality of religious belief, and the place of Islam in the modern world.

Arif Azad has cited international apologists — William Lane Craig, John Lennox, and others — as influences, but Paradoxical Sajid is unmistakably a Bangladeshi book. The conversations happen in tea-stalls and university hostels; the cultural references are local; and the tone is conversational rather than scholarly. That accessibility is part of why the book has reached so many readers.

Whether you find the arguments convincing or not, Paradoxical Sajid is an important contemporary book to read — both for its arguments and as a phenomenon of Bangladeshi reading life. It triggered a small wave of similar books and made Arif Azad one of the most-read Bangladeshi writers of his generation.