Next Stop: Jihad

Düsseldorf Station, Platform 3 D Tuesday, 6.10 am Like any other morning, the local train is trundling from Koblenz to Bonn. The wagons are full of commuters, college students, businessmen and women on their way to the airport. In among them is Max, a 20 year-old athletic type. He is carrying a backpack and dragging a little suitcase on wheels. When Max steps off the train, the little suitcase with the bomb stays in the wagon...

Max met Adil on his way home from school, when he helped him beat off two drunken Neo-Nazis. They made friends and Max was enthralled by the way Adil showed his trust in God, and his profound conviction that everything has a meaning. Together, they visited a little mosque in Düsseldorf and heard Imam Mohammad preaching. Max felt as if his eyes had suddenly been opened, that the veil which had covered them all his life had been removed. He started going to evening class to learn about the Koran and the Arabic language, and within a few weeks he had converted to Islam. Slowly, very slowly, he came to realise that he was one of the chosen. He was God’s instrument, through whom unbelievers would be punished...

• An exciting political thriller which asks what motivates young men to adopt a radical ideology.
• The story is told alternatively from the viewpoint of Max, the murderer, his sister Paula, and Kemper, the
policeman.
• Extra tension is provided by a deep, but apparently impossible love interest.

JIHAD IN EUROPE

- What is it that makes young people want to commit murder in the name of religion?
- Diving into four different perspectives
- Suitable for reading in schools (Teaching material available)
- Multiple award-winning author Agnes Hammer

Two young men from Dusseldorf join a radical Islamist group led by preacher Mohammed. They are Adil, a devout Muslim from a well-integrated family, and Max, his German friend, the son of affluent but emotionally distant parents. Both young men are fascinated by the clarity and simplicity of the ideas that Imam Mohammed preaches. Max even takes Quran lessons, and soon starts to feel that he is a chosen instrument of God. He and Adil plan an attack on the regional express train which Max takes from Dusseldorf to Cologne every day on his way to school – along with hundreds of other students and commuters…
In Jihad in Europe, coach and social worker Agnes Hammer raises a highly topical issue: what is it that makes young people want to commit murder in the name of religion?