After 11 September 2001 I was frequently asked, as many scholars of Islamic studies probably were, why certain people are prepared to hijack an aeroplane and plunge themselves and all the other passengers to certain death. I do not have an answer. What I have done instead is to tell three stories - about the cult of martyrdom in Shi'ite Islam, about modern fantasies of salvation through self-sacrifice, and about power politics in the Middle East - which together assemble the elements of a fourth : the unfinished story of the modern world.