Part I: Mullahs and heretics. An atheist childhood -- The origins of Islam -- The empire of the world -- Jerusalem, Jerusalem -- Ottomanism -- The joys of heresy -- Women versus the eternal machine -- Part II: One hundred years of servitude. A spring memory -- The roots of Wahhabism -- The kingdom of corruption -- Zionism, the first oil war, resistance -- Marginal notes on the chapter of defeats -- The anti-imperialism of fools -- An ocean of terror -- Part III: The nuclear wastelands of South Asia. The case of Anwar Shaikh -- Plain tales from Pakistan -- Afghanistan: between hammer and anvil -- The story of Kashmir -- Part IV: A clash of fundamentalism. A short-course history of US imperialism -- September surprise -- Letter to a young Muslim -- Appendix: On the Arab-Israeli war.