Alamut was the mountain fortress of Hasan-i-Sabbah, the master of the assassins, or Nizari Ismaili, a Muslim sect.
Michael has, as far as we know, no links to the Assassains but liked the idea of a quiet place in the country, with hundreds of drug-crazed fanatics at his beck and call.
He first read about Alamut in the book The Valley of the Assassins by Freya Stark many years ago and has since become fascinated at the overlap between real history and geography and legend.