Gilles Kepel takes us into the world of the students, professionals, workers, and unemployed who are caught up in the Islamic movements of our day. Events that have riveted world attention—the World Trade Center bombing, assassinations in Beirut, the attempt on the life of the Pope, the assassination of Sadat—are illuminated by this penetrating study which surveys the background of the Islamist movement beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.