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Alamut was once a mountain fortress in the arid hills south of the Caspian Sea, near Qazvin, about 100 km from present-day Tehran in Iran. Only ruins remain of this fortress today.
In 1090 the fortress was invaded and occupied by the powerful Hashshashin (Assassins), and was then fabled for its gardens and libraries. The ruins of 23 fortresses remain in the vicinity.
It was destroyed in 1256 by Hulagu Khan as part of the Mongol offensive. The fortress itself was impregnable, but the Assassin sheik surrendered it without a real fight, in the vain hope that Hulagu would be merciful.
See also: Hashshashin.
Alamut is also a novel by Vladimir Bartol, first published in 1938 in Slovene, dealing with the story of Hasan ibn Sabbah and the Hashshashin. The novel was only recently published in English translation (in 2004 by Scala House Press in Seattle, USA, ISBN 0972028730), but had already been translated into about 18 other languages including Czech (1946), Serbian (1954), French (1988), Spanish (1989), Italian (1989), German (1992), Turkish, Persian (1995), Arabic, Greek, and Korean. As of 2003 It is being translated into Hebrew and Hungarian.
Alamut also occurs the title of the novel The Alamut Ambush by the British military historian, journalist and crime writer Anthony Price. It is the second title in his series of eighteen novels of crime-espionage, all of which have Dr David Audley as the main protagonist and military history as a major theme or context. The books were published by Gollancz between 1971 and 1989.
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