Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Maps

Prologue: A Man of Enterprise and Genius

PART ONE: OCCUPATION

1. A Seeker of Manuscripts

2. A Wide Extended Blank

3. Hell Is Not Far Away

4. The Fourth Traveller

5. Al-Qaeda to the Rescue

6. It Shall Be Mine

7. Ismael’s List

PART TWO: DESTRUCTION

8. The Armchair Explorer

9. A Headless Horseman

10. The Pope of Timbuktu

11. Secret Agents

PART THREE: LIBERATION

12. Lives of the Scholars

13. The Terrible Twosome

14. King Leopold’s Paperweight

15. Auto-da-Fé

16. Chronicle of the Researcher

17. An Indiana Jones Moment in Real Life!

18. Manuscript Fever

19. The Myth Factory

Epilogue

Picture Section

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Photo Credits

About the Author

About the Publisher