Chapter 1: Why this book is needed -A global crisis of misunderstanding: why this book is needed; who its author is; what this book will accomplish -Why? How? What? -My Story and Credentials -The Structure and Substance of this Book Chapter 2: The Roots of Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism: the historical fault-lines of Islam -Introduction: Islam is shaped by the presence and absence of Muhammad -Political-theological Hiatus and Split: the Sunni-Shia Divide -Institutional Hiatus and Split: the division of powers between the Muslim Executive and the Religious Judiciary -Intellectual Hiatus and Split: Rationalist vs. Literalist intellectual tension Chapter 3: The Worldviews of Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism -Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism are all internally-coherent, self-contained Worldviews -The idea of a Worldview -Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism as Worldviews -The Worldview of Traditional Islam: unity-in-diversity -The Worldview of Activist Islam: diversity-in-unity -The Worldview of Islamism: contingent separation and exaggerated difference -The Worldview of Non-Violent Islamist Extremism: absolute Manichean separation -The Worldview of Violent Islamist Extremism: absolute, eternal difference and separation with lethal consequences for the non-Muslim and Wrong-Muslim outgroups Chapter 4: Basic Beliefs, Practices and Characteristic Themes of Islam, Islamism and Islamist Extremism -The sources of the Worldview of Islam: the Qur'an and the Sunna -The themes and ethical praxis of Mainstream Islam -The themes and ethical praxis of Activist Islam -The themes and ethical praxis of Ideological Islamism -The themes and ethical praxis of Non-Violent Islamist Extremism -The themes and ethical praxis of Violent Islamist Extremism Chapter 5: The People, Texts and Contexts of Mainstream Islam -Hermeneutical Health-Warning: people and their ideas are 'shifters' -Mainstream Islam: the people and the texts -The Book of God - Al-Qur'an (The Recitation) -The Opening Chapter (Al-Fatiha) -Other Seminal Chapters -Commentaries on the Qur'an -The Canonical Books of Hadith -The Great Works of, Law (Fiqh), Jurisprudence (Usul al-Fiqh) -The Wahhabi Reformation: The Book of Divine Unity (Kitab al-Tawhid) -To philosophise or not to philosophise? Al-Ghazali vs. Ibn Rushd -Mainstream Islam in the modern and contemporary period Chapter 6: The People, Texts and Contexts of Ideological Islamism -Maududi, Al-Banna and Khomeini: The Ideological Islamist Shift from Agency to Structure -The Second Phase Islamism: Sayyid Qutb and the birth of Non-violent Islamist Extremism -Milestones (1964) - the 'Ur' text of Islamist Extremism -Ayatollah Khomeini: Shia Islamism succeeds where Sunni Islamism fails Chapter 7: The Genealogy of Terror: the People, Texts and Contexts of Violent Islamist Extremism -Violent Islamist Extremism's 'pioneers': Abdullah Azzam and Muhammad Abd as-Salam Faraj -The ideologues of Al-Qaeda: bin Laden, Al-Awlaki, Al-Zawahiri and As-Suri -The Ideologues of the Islamic State: Abu Musab Az-Zarqawi, An-Naji, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani Chapter 8: A Second Age of Extremes or a Second Age of Enlightenment? -Summary -The Political Conditions of Extremism -Why? The Root Causes of Islamist Extremism.