Stories about young people traveling from the West to the East to take part in a “holy war”—only to end up serving the mafia—no longer surprise anyone. Still, what drives them? Anjela Rodisio, a war journalist, writer, and UN correspondent, decided to investigate this complicated question. To find answers, she first went to London, where students at prestigious colleges increasingly embrace Islam and join ISIS—then she went to the Middle East, to the place where everything began. Her goal is to search for knowledge and traditions laid down in ancient Baghdad and adopted by Islam. And to understand why young women, of their own free will, become “brides of jihad,” and after that—sexual slaves.