Informatics student Jan Welke lives a hedonist lacking meaning, bitterly estranged from his father Rainer, but sympathizes with housemate Tariq al-Jabari, a medcial intern whose family is killed or held in Syrian horror jail in Syrien eingeschlossen. When sister Samia arrives in Germany, Jan helps apply for asylum and put her up when expulsion back to Bulgaria threatens, driving her to suicide. Invited to street soccer, Jan meets Bosnian salafist sheikh Abadin Hasanovic, whose Islamic good works soon get Jan fascinated in the Koran and gradually drawn into the devout clique "al-Ghurabaa". Rendered financially independent by his grandfather's inheritance, he joins and prepares fro conversion, despite his mother and Tariq's warnings it's too close to diabolical IS. Jan ends up recruiting Tariq for a humanitarian mission to his native Syria, but the welcome is all but welcome, Jan enters the caliphate as prisoner.