Shadow Kingdom
Have you ever walked through a mind of a believer, Ms. Braddock? A true believer, a man who knows without any doubt at all the why and wherefores of the universe. The man who knows that God exists and what must be done to ensure His triumph? No? A pity.
Does the name Hasan ibn Al-Sabah mean anything to you? Of course not. He was a scholar, Ms. Braddock. A historian and a theologian, much like me. Many of my students at the University of Cairo are fascinated with the man. Unsurprisingly.
Theologian. Savor that word. It is a vocation, a study of the greatest force. Nothing of the posturing of the vague appellation you in the West bestow on anyone who lack the talent or drive to write true poetry. Philosophers. Hm.
Hasan was a courtier and an intriguer and like so many academicians thought himself much craftier than he really was. And so in the end he left Cairo as an exile, a hunted man. He traveled East, as do we all when we seek wisdom, answers, a new dream. And somewhere along the way he found it, you see. And then, in the fullness of time, Alamut found him.
Ah, yes. I see. That name does ring some bells. And many things become clear, no?
Have you ever walked through a mind of a believer, Ms. Braddock?
You can you know. They are all around you. Waiting for the Word of God to fall from my lips to their waiting ears.
And the word is always the same.
Death.
Ibn Al-Sabah was a visionary, you see. Somewhere along the road from Cairo to the deserts, somewhere in the dusty streets of Isfahan, he learned the greatest truth of all.
There is no God but God, and he was Him.
As am I.
No, Ms. Braddock, I am not mad. At night I do not hear stars whispering to me, nor do I have delusions of omnipotence.
Just freedom. Of dross and lies and restraints imposed by the fools over millennia. Until we are little less than sheep, blundering through short allotments of our lives to the end of all.
Freedom to know. To learn. To believe or disbelieve what you will. That what makes us equal to any God, Ms. Braddock.
And that is what I am offering to you.
Them?
They don't want it. It's too big. Too terrifying. No limits, no boundaries, no simple answers.
Do as thou wilt is the whole of the law.
Most of the sheep out there would take it as the permission to debase themselves. Pillage and burn and rape. They dream like the insects that they are. And in the end they would be no happier than they are now. Sure of their righteousness. Sure of their God.
No. Not me. I have no ambitions of being worshipped. Only obeyed.
I am content to remain a prophet.
I don't give them freedom, Ms. Braddock. And I don't give them answers.
I give them truth. And I give them a glimpse of Paradise.
Opium and hashish. Crude but effective. With nothing else Ibn Al- Sabah built an invisible empire that stretched from Notre Dame to Delhi. He let them look through the keyhole and that was more than enough to last centuries and more. Today the legend of Assasins is as potent as it ever was.
His sheep grew claws. They killed and died for him, for he offered them what they so desperately wanted, what they so desperately yearned to see with their own eyes. A shred of proof that the oldest con was not con at all.
Where he gave them glimpses, I break the gates.
They saw the Paradise because they wanted it so badly, you see. If it were not Hasan, they would have found another way.
I am Amahl El Farouk, the keeper of the key to the tree of knowledge.
The question is only whether do you want to know or to believe.
Well?
Welcome to the New Alamut, Elisabeth.
Welcome to the Hand of God.