The Iranian-born photographer Abbas, a staff photographer for Magnum Photos in Paris, travelled in twenty-nine Muslim countries from West Africa to China in an effort to try the pulse and flavor of fundamentalist Islam. Abbas, who makes no bones about the fact that his religion is artistic creativity, finds the whole phenomenon slightly repulsive even as it fascinates him.
The hundreds of black-and-white pictures in Allah O Akbar will likewise repulse and fascinate the reader, as will Abbas's fast-moving, intelligent text telling of his experiences as a photographer. Violence and death features prominently in these pictures, from the Qur'anic teacher in the Sudan bearing a whip to a profusion of slaughtered animal parts to the appalling parade of young Iranian men triumphantly carrying the corpse of a prostitute they had burnt to death. Many fascinating pictures concern women: one very modestly covered Algerian art student diligently paints a naked male statue while an Egyptian zoology student covered from head to toe (including black gloves) looks from under her cowl into a microscope. An Afghan bride participates in a marriage ceremony at which the groom is represented only by his picture (he's off in Germany); a belly dancer performs in a social club at a Renault company social club in France; and two women sit together on a Moroccan beach, one veiled and the other in a tanktop swimming suit.
