Secularisation theory – analysis of the role of religion under modern conditions – has been thrown into confusion by some baffling historical developments. Writing about ‘secularisation’ as a subject involves a paradox: it pre-commits us to write about the ‘decline’ of religion, although the entire point of the analysis should be to ascertain whether religion has suffered a decline or not. Conceiving the subject that way presupposes an answer to a question still under analysis. History appeared to be obediently following the logic of rationalisation detected by modern social theory, until the revolution by Ayatollah Khomeini unreasonably upset its rhythms and confused its directions. After a time, it was clear that the Iranian Revolution was not an isolated incident, which could be treated as an anomaly. A revivalist Taliban successfully destroyed Afghanistan's modernist communist regime, supported by Soviet arms – though, in this startling achievement the US policies contributed more generously than is normally admitted. Western governments sought simply to use these medieval fanatics, incongruously placed in a modern world, for their own geopolitical strategy, and intended to offer them strictly temporary support. After their victory over communism, the fundamentalist army refused to melt into oblivion, and on the contrary, started spreading influence in surrounding regions. Even in the enlightened continent of Europe, where government policies implicitly assumed that immigrants, stepping on these enlightened shores, would be instantly converted to secular rationalism, surprising developments happened.