This is the story of foreign correspondent Christopher Kremmer's travels, traversing a crescent of Islamic societies in crisis. From Kashmir to Iraq, Pakistan to Tajikistan, millions of ordinary Muslims were having their lives torn apart by the volatile cocktail of Kalashnikov and Koran. No warlord, no victim could adequately explain why Islamic societies had become so iconoclastic and fracticidal. Kremmer's journey became a quest to understand why, and to reconcile a beautiful and destructive culture with his own.