12), Richard Curtiss characterizes Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah as a hojatolislam.

The ominous question asked in the title of the book edited by Mushirul Hasan reflects the anxieties experienced by advocates of secularism in India in the face of the increasing ascendancy of the champions of Hindutva (variously understood as Hindu-ness, Hindu nationalism, Hindu militant chauvinism).

First published sixty years ago, Alamut is a literary classic by Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol, a deftly researched and presented historical novel about one of the world's first political terrorists, 11th century Ismaili leader Hasan ibn Sabbah, whose machinations with drugs and carnal pleasures deceived his followers into believing that he would deliver them to a paradise in the afterlife, so that they would destroy themselves in suicide missions for him.