The fascination with the foreign, adventure, and distance drives seventeen-year-old Stefan Weidner through Europe and North Africa to the Algerian desert in 1985. In Tunis, he is faced with his first temptation. He exceeds his tight budget and, based on optimistic calculations of his travel expenses, buys an expensive Arabic-French edition of the Quran. The book is supposed to help him navigate the mysteries of the Muslim world. But can a non-believer truly grasp the necessary understanding to comprehend the strict rules of the Quran? On his later travels across the Arab-Islamic world, Weidner, now a studied Arabist, attempts to grasp the incomprehensible and open his eyes to the "Oriental" Other. Shifting between narrative, travelogue, and essay, Stefan Weidner presents his thrilling coming-of-age and consciousness novel.