So this is an interesting one. Basically its a pulp adventure story, complete with betrayals, wars, rebellions, secret tunnels, death traps, princess-like-figures etc. but crossed with a political and religious allegory.
Pulp adventure fiction and religious allegory are not two things one tends to see a lot in the same place :) .

Style-wise it feels about half-way between H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Also a lot of the story involves trying to convert a ruler to being nice, and so it starts to feel a bit like 'A Christmas Carol' in places.

The basic plot is that the country of Ardistan is about to wage war on Djinnistan and the Galadriel-esque ruler of a neighbouring country wants to stop the war. So she sends two agents to infiltrate Ardistan and find a means of doing so.

All sorts of religions are represented in the book and it mostly seems like its tolerating all of them but the author can't help letting his christian leanings get the best of him at times.
Also the way the plot progresses you start to see that our heroes are only a small part of what seems like almost a CIA plot to deal with Ardistan. I think modern readers might well question some of this interference in a foreign country however well intentioned.

Its an odd duck of a novel, at its heart its still a decent bit of adventure fiction but the religious preaching and pulpy adventure don't always sit well together.

Also due to the religious nature of the work there is a certain amount of predestination and Deux Ex-Machina's about. However there almost always is with these kinds of adventure stories and i've seen many, Many worse uses of such elements in other pulp adventures :) . ( )

""Mays bedeutendstes Spätwerk führt Kara Ben Nemsi und Hadschi Halef Omar auf einen ganz neuen Schauplatz: den Stern "Sitara". Die gleichnishafte Handlung, welche sich in der Welt des Inneren vollzieht, schließt in ihrem gewaltigen Bau die Darstellung der ganzen Menschheitsentwicklung ein. Ardistan" ist der erste Band der zweiteiligen Reihe "Ardistan und Dschinnistan". Fortsetzung: "Der Mir von Dschinnistan" (Band 32)."" (nach KMV Katalog, 2010)