Alamut novel by Bartol Actions Cite verifiedCite While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style MLA APA Chicago Manual of Style Copy Citation Share Share Share to social media Facebook X URL https://www.britannica.com/topic/Alamut-novel-by-Bartol Give Feedback External Websites Feedback Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Feedback Type Select a type (Required) Factual Correction Spelling/Grammar Correction Link Correction Additional Information Other Your Feedback Submit Feedback Thank you for your feedback Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

　　External Websites Internet Archive - "Alamut" Academia - “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted”. Vladimir Bartol’s Novel “Alamut” – Belated Entry in the Modern Balkan Context Print Cite verifiedCite While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style MLA APA Chicago Manual of Style Copy Citation Share Share Share to social media Facebook X URL https://www.britannica.com/topic/Alamut-novel-by-Bartol Feedback External Websites Feedback Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Feedback Type Select a type (Required) Factual Correction Spelling/Grammar Correction Link Correction Additional Information Other Your Feedback Submit Feedback Thank you for your feedback Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

　　External Websites Internet Archive - "Alamut" Academia - “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted”. Vladimir Bartol’s Novel “Alamut” – Belated Entry in the Modern Balkan Context Written by Theodora Sutcliffe Theodora Sutcliffe is a journalist and copywriter who also writes fiction. She is also a contributor to 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2012), where an earlier version of this Britannica... Theodora Sutcliffe Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Last Updated: Oct 1, 2024 • Article History Table of Contents Ask the Chatbot a Question Ask the Chatbot a Question Alamut, allegorical novel written by Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol (1903–1967), begun while the author was living in Paris in the early 1930s and published in 1938. The novel and its famed maxim “Nothing is an absolute reality, all is permitted,” influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche and later recast by William S. Burroughs as “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” in his novel The Naked Lunch, inspired the popular video game series and action-adventure franchise called the Assassin’s Creed. It finds subtle echoes in The Matrix science-fiction film franchise as well.

　　Alamut was inspired at least in part by the assassination of Yugoslavian king Alexander I in 1934 at the hands of Balkan nationalists, allegedly commissioned by agents of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, who had hopes of conquering the newly united country. Bartol was also responding to reports of ethnically motivated attacks on Slovenians by Italian fascists in his hometown of Trieste. The novel reimagines the story of the 11th-century Ismaili leader Ḥasan ibn Ṣabbāḥ, the “Old Man of the Mountain” who founded the Islamic order called the Assassins—elite suicide attackers motivated by religious passion and a carefully nurtured vision of the paradise that awaits them. Set in Alamūt, Sabbah’s hilltop fortress in Persia, and seen primarily through the eyes of the young slave girl Halima and the elite, if naive, warrior Ibn Tahir, the narrative raises potent questions about faith, belief, rhetoric, and the nature and purpose of power.

　　Britannica Quiz Famous Novels, First Lines Quiz Bartol’s works languished out of print and unpublished for many years. He was heavily censored in the Soviet era, his novel broadly read as a parodic attack on the regime of Josip Broz Tito, who nonetheless authorized editions in Serbian and Slovenian during his rule. Yet Alamut, his masterpiece, is one of those rich works that acquires new meaning as it journeys into its futurity: what was, in part, a satire on the rising fascist movements that would envelop its author only a year after publication has acquired new and deeper levels of meaning in the 21st century, especially after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, now with Osama bin Laden as the fanatical leader being pilloried. Reissued in Slovenia following those attacks, Alamut became a surprise bestseller there.

　　There is more to the novel, translated into English only in 2004, than politics and religion. The life of the girls and aging women in the initially idyllic harem are explored; the moral complexities at the heart of Sabbah’s ascent to power are painfully exposed; the contrasting landscape of medieval Iran and the savage beauty of isolated Alamūt are intensely imagined. The whole, despite the occasional longeur, still has the power to shock, to move, and to provoke.