Eros and ecstasy

The novel fuses histoire (the narration of the emergence of the Shi'ite-Islamic faction of the Nezâris, the "Assassins") and textualized performance (the description of various aspects of the narrative's mise-en-scène) in an attempt to re-present the order's teachings, practice and occult knowledge. In the enclosed area of the mountain fortress Alamut, the intellectual head and master, Hasan-i Sabbah, is God-like, modeling a state within the state according to his grand plan that also includes a paradise as pictured by the Koran - the latter being a stage for experiments on the human psyche. Regaining illusionary power by means of a (ritual) drug, this theater turns into a rite of passage for the Fedayin ("self-sacrificing ones"). Based on strategies of disguise, that is simulation and dissimulation, the theater's procédé questions the relation between power and ethics as well as the legitimization of totality and the absolute.