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Saladin Chamcha
Alleluia “Allie" Cone” is an English mountaineer known for her fearless spirit and strength. She becomes romantically involved with Gibreel Farishta after his arrival in London, serving as both his lover and a grounding force amid his psychological turmoil. Allie is depicted as a strong, independent woman who has faced her own struggles, including a difficult relationship with her father, Otto, which drives her to conquer Mount Everest. Despite her resilience, Allie becomes entangled in Gibreel’s deteriorating mental state, bearing the brunt of his jealousy and paranoia. She attempts to support him, but eventually he grows too delusional. Allie’s relationship with Gibreel ultimately ends in tragedy when his madness consumes him, and he kills her.
Alleluia Cone Quotes in The Satanic Verses
The The Satanic Verses quotes below are all either spoken by Alleluia Cone or refer to Alleluia Cone. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 5, Chapter 2 Quotes
Allie didn’t argue with her mother, being by no means certain that she could continue to live with Gibreel, even if he had crossed the earth, even if he had fallen from the sky. The long term was hard to predict; even the medium term looked cloudy. For the moment, she concentrated on trying to get to know this man who had just assumed, right off, that he was the great love of her life, with a lack of doubt that meant he was either right or off his head. There were plenty of difficult moments. She didn’t know what he knew, what she could take for granted: she tried, once, referring to Nabokov’s doomed chess-player Luzhin, who came to feel that in life as in chess there were certain combinations that would inevitably arise to defeat him, as a way of explaining by analogy her own (in fact somewhat different) sense of impending catastrophe (which had to do not with recurring patterns but with the inescapability of the unforeseeable), but he fixed her with a hurt stare that told her he’d never heard of the writer, let alone The Defence.
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For Blake’s Isaiah, God had simply been an immanence, an incorporeal indignation; but Gibreel’s vision of the Supreme Being was not abstract in the least. He saw, sitting on the bed, a man of about the same age as himself, of medium height, fairly heavily built, with salt-and-pepper beard cropped close to the line of the jaw. What struck him most was that the apparition was balding, seemed to suffer from dandruff and wore glasses. This was not the Almighty he had expected.
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Part 7, Chapter 2 Quotes
The moment Saladin Chamcha got close enough to Allie Cone to be transfixed, and somewhat chilled, by her eyes, he felt his reborn animosity towards Gibreel extending itself to her, with her degree-zero go-to-hell look, her air of being privy to some great, secret mystery of the universe; also, her quality of what he would afterwards think of as wilderness, a hard, sparse thing, antisocial, self-contained, an essence. Why did it annoy him so much? Why, before she’d even opened her mouth, had he characterized her as part of the enemy?
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Alleluia Cone Character Timeline in The Satanic Verses
The timeline below shows where the character Alleluia Cone appears in The Satanic Verses. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1, Chapter 2
...recovering, Gibreel goes to a hotel buffet and eats pork. At the hotel, he meets Alleluia Cone, a beautiful blonde woman, and falls in love. Immediately after, he ends his relationship...
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Part 1, Chapter 4
...again.” Gibreel also tells Saladin that he boarded Flight 420 because he is chasing after Alleluia Cone, with whom he is still desperately in love.
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Part 3, Chapter 2
...regrets his inaction. Additionally, Gibreel realizes that he has completely ignored his quest to find Allie (Alleluia Cone). He wonders whether there is something wrong with him.
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Part 3, Chapter 5
...eager to embrace the city and his future. He speaks the name of his lover, “Alleluia,” aloud, only to be startled when the compartment’s only other occupant responds with a jovial...
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Elsewhere, Alleluia Cone, speaking to a classroom of teenage girls, recounts her experiences as a mountaineer. She...
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The girls find Allie’s tales fascinating and ask her to say more. Allie recounts the transcendent experience of reaching...
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...woman expresses disbelief and joy at finding him alive. Gibreel, overwhelmed, realizing the woman is Allie. He is overjoyed to see her but worries that Rekha is only allowing him a...
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Part 5, Chapter 2
Alleluia Cone, while descending from Everest, sees a city of ice. Her sherpa, Pemba, tells her...
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...the elegance she had maintained for him and made a simpler life for herself and Allie. Allie, distancing herself from the academic path Otto had envisioned for her, turned to mountaineering....
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As Gibreel and Allie grow closer, they spend most of their time in bed. However, the two do spend...
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Despite her success as a mountaineer, Allie fears her fate is tied to Everest. She hides from Gibreel her growing obsession with...
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Gibreel and Allie spent their days isolated from the world. Gibreel’s jealousy first appears when Gibreel notices three...
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...skyscraper onto a steel spike. Gibreel finds it despicable. After these gifts fail to win Allie over, Brunel drunkenly shows up at her apartment one night, strips naked, and presents himself...
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As he leaves, Gibreel hears a loud noise, after which he sees God sitting on Allie’s bed. The God he sees is not what he expected—a balding man with a partially...
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...Remembering ancient stories, he realizes how close he had come to danger by being with Allie. Now, he sees that his choice is clear; he must reject the dangerous love of...
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...around London, Rekha continues to haunt him. She appears beside him, throwing insults and accusing Allie of being with him only because she wants to become a mother. After a long...
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...producer S. S. Sisodia, instantly recognizes Gibreel from his films. Sisodia takes Gibreel back to Allie, calling the accident a sort of “miracle,” as Gibreel did not suffer any injuries. After...
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This ordeal deepens Allie’s love for the troubled Gibreel. Sisodia, frequently present during Gibreel’s recovery, pushes him to return...
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...believes he can see Saladin, who still looks like a goat. Eventually, Gibreel collapses on Allie’s doorstep. Allie finds him and helps him inside, before putting him to bed.
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Part 7, Chapter 1
...decides to go with Joshi to a karate school. Joshi, who teaches karate, mentions that Alleluia Cone is one of his best students. Though she isn’t at the class, everyone talks...
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Part 7, Chapter 2
...extras dressed in period costumes. Saladin spots Gibreel in the crowd, surrounded by admirers with Allie by his side.
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...Gibreel and exchanges pleasantries with him. Despite Gibreel’s friendly demeanor, Saladin’s anger quickly grows because Allie’s presence reminds him of the English wife he lost. Gibreel talks extensively about his sex...
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Gibreel, disturbed after hearing Saladin’s revelation, suddenly disappears. Saladin tells Allie that Gibreel is gone, which causes her to grow frantic. The party descends into chaos...
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...Saladin his fears and frustrations about his mental health, revealing that he has even attacked Allie in a fit of madness. Allie, trying to cope with Gibreel’s worsening condition, feels guilty...
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...Saladin despite the rainy weather. On the hike, Gibreel becomes paranoid and rants about protecting Allie from the lustful gazes of other men. Saladin realizes that Allie cannot continue living this...
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Back in London, Gibreel becomes increasingly obsessed with Allie while Saladin continues to manipulate them. Saladin, using his skills as a voice actor, begins...
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Part 7, Chapter 3
As he wanders through the streets, Gibreel’s perception becomes increasingly fragmented. He encounters memories of Allie, which are bittersweet as he now feels as though she has betrayed him. His mind,...
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...of normalcy in his life, finds himself drawn back into the chaos. After dining with Allie, he steps out into the night and witnesses the advance of the police and the...
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Part 9
...Gibreel’s fortune dwindles, his mental state deteriorates further. His illness intensifies when he learns that Allie is coming to India for a mountaineering trip. While in Bombay, Allie stays in the...
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...tells Saladin that he can no longer live with his illness and that he loved Allie. Just then, a knock on the door signals the arrival of the police. Gibreel uses...
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