Order of Assassins

Main article: Nizari

The Hashshashin (also Hashishin, Hashashiyyin, or Hashasheen) from which the word assassin is thought to originate, was the Persian derived designation of the Nizari branch of the Ismā'īlī Shia Muslims during the Middle Ages. The Nizari or Hashshashin as they were designated by their enemies split from the Fatimid Isma'ili Empire following a dispute regarding the succession of their spiritual and political leader the Fatimid Caliph Ma'ad al-Mustansir Billah.

They are survived by the Shia Imami Isma'ili Muslims in the contemporary world, otherwise known as the Nizari, and are currently led by the Aga Khan IV their 49th Imam.

History

The Empire

Hashshashin fortress of Alamut.

Despite being a minority within a minority, the Isma'ili, under the leadership of their Imams, succeeded in establishing a generational secretive underground movement against the Abbasid Caliphate. They based their ideas on Greek philosophy, mysticism, and an end to perceived corruption and greed. They would turn their revolutionary ideals into reality by establishing the first Shia state--the Fatimid Empire, spanning across the Mediterranean and Levant, with its capital in Cairo. The empire's goal was to bring scientific and social breakthroughs to all its peoples, including religious freedom.

When in 1094 the eighth Fatimid Caliph and Isma'ili Imam Ma'ad al-Mustansir Billah took ill in Cairo, his powerful Vizier, Al-Afdal, took the reins of state power. Following the death of the Caliph, Vizier Al-Afdal led a palace coup, appointing the Caliph's younger son Ahmed and the vizier's brother-in-law as Caliph, dubbed Al-Musta'ali. Nizār, the heir apparent, left for Alexandria, where he was given strong local support and led another rebellion, only to be defeated and executed on his brother's orders. This caused a split in the Fatimid Empire amongst the Isma'ili.

Alamut

Nizār's supporters, called the Nizāriyya or Nizari, continued his cause under the charismatic Iranian leadership of Hassan-i Sabbah, also known as the leading Isma'ili missionary "Da'i" of the secret Fatimid propaganda machine within the enemy Abbasid Caliphate. Hassan-i Sabbah successfully gained the majority support of Fatimid Shia east of Egypt within the Levant, Persia (Iran), and Iraq, and a small underground following within the Empire's heart (Egypt and the rest of North Africa). However, by breaking with the Fatimid Empire, the followers of Hassan-i Sabbah found themselves alone and outnumbered in enemy territory.

Not merely content to survive, but instead determined to build a new utopia, the Nizari formulated a strategy of gaining control of strategically important fortresses by covertly converting local inhabitants living within and around strategically vital fortresses to Isma'ili Shi'ism and seizing control. They established a new kind of state consisting of a number of "island" fortified settlements within a sea of hostility in present day Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The formal origin of the Federation of the Assassins is marked as 1090 when Hassan-i Sabbah established his first stronghold in the Daylam at the fortress of Alamut ('The Place of the Eagle's Teaching' or "Eagles Nest"), south of the Caspian Sea. Alamut remained capital of the federation, and home of its rulers--styled "The Lords of Alamut"--until its destruction.

Map of the crusader states, showing the area controlled by the Assassins around Masyaf, slightly above the center, in white.

The power of the Hashshashin was destroyed by the Mongol warlord Hulagu Khan during the Mongol assault of Alamut on December 15, 1256. The Syrian branch of the Hashshashin was destroyed in 1273 by the Mamluk Sultan Baibars. The Hashshashin captured and held Alamut for a few months in 1275 but their political power was lost. The Mamluks continued to use the services for which the Assassins have become more widely known: Ibn Battuta recorded in the 14th century their fixed rate of pay per murder. In exchange, they were allowed to exist. Eventually, they resorted to the act of Taqq'iya (dissimulation), hiding their true identities until their Imams would awaken them.

The Hashashin are survived by the Nizari under the leadership of Agha Khan IV.

Assassination

Unable to mount a conventional military army, the Nizari developed a form of asymmetric warfare transforming the act of political assassination into a system of survival and defense against greed, corruption, injustice and foreign domination, they trained highly capable sleeper commandos known as Fedayeen, who would covertly infiltrate enemy positions and remain undercover. If Nizari civilians were facing pogroms or forts imminent attack the Fedayeen were activated to prevent an attack.

Fedayeen used their well-known deadliness for political goals without necessarily killing; for example, a victim, usually high-placed, might one morning find a Hashshashin dagger lying on his pillow upon awakening. This was a plain hint to the targeted individual that he was not safe anywhere, that maybe even his inner group of servants had been infiltrated by the assassins, and that whatever course of action had brought him into conflict with the Hashashashin would have to be stopped if he wanted to live.

Within Persian Iran they employed their tactics directly against the Seljuk Turks, rulers who had been persecuting Nizari sects. They were meticulous in killing the targeted individual, seeking to do so without any additional casualties and loss of innocent life, although they were careful to cultivate their terrifying reputation by slaying their victims in public. Typically, they approached using a disguise, or were already sleeper agents in an entourage. Preferring a small hidden blade or dagger, they rejected poison, bows and other weapons that allowed the attacker to escape and live. For unarmed combat, the Hashshashin practiced a fighting style called Janna which incorporated striking techniques, grappling and low kicks. However, under no circumstances did they commit suicide, preferring to be killed by their enemies once the assassination had taken place.

Within the Levant it is believed that Saladin, incensed by several almost-successful Hashshashin attempts on his life, besieged their chief Syrian stronghold of Masyaf during his reconquest of Outremer in 1176. He quickly lifted the siege after parley, and thereafter attempted to maintain good relations with the sect. The sect's own accounts tell of Rashid ad-Din Sinan stealing into Saladin's tent in the heart of his camp, and leaving a poisoned cake and a note saying "You are in our power" on Saladin's chest as he slept. Another account tells of a letter sent to Saladin's maternal uncle, vowing death to the entire royal line; perhaps no idle threat. Whatever the truth of these accounts (and likely it will remain a mystery) Saladin's uncle clearly heeded their warning, and desisted.

The Hashshashin were often motivated by outsiders. The murder of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, for example, was instigated by the Hospitallers. Richard the Lionheart was among those suspected of commissioning the assassination of Conrad of Montferrat. In most cases they were aimed at retaining the balance of the Hashshashin's enemies.

Notable victims include the Abbasid Vizier Nizam al-Mulk (1092), the Fatimid vizier al-Afdal (1122) (responsible for imprisoning Nizar), ibn al-Khashshab of Aleppo (1125), il-Bursuqi of Mosul (1126), Raymond II of Tripoli (1152), Conrad of Montferrat (1192), and Prince Edward (later Edward I of England) was wounded by a poisoned assassin dagger in 1271.

Myths and Legends

Artistic rendering of Hassan-i Sabbah.

The library of Alamut was destroyed, along with much of their Persian power base, and thus much of the sect's own records were lost; most accounts of them stem from the polemic of Arab historians of the period, and Marco Polo's accounts. Most Muslim contemporaries were hostile toward Nizari; in fact they were described using the term Batini. The term was sometimes used pejoratively to refer to those, especially Isma'ili, who discerned an inner, esoteric level of meaning (batin) in the Qur'an. This constant religious estrangement would eventually see them go so far as allying with the Occidental Christians against Muslims on a number of occasions when it suited their interests.

A popular legend derives from Marco Polo, who claimed to have visited Alamut during his journey east, is that future assassins were subjected to rites similar to those of other mystery cults; the subject was made to believe that he was in imminent danger of death. The twist was that they were drugged to simulate "dying" and later they awakened in a garden flowing with wine and served a sumptuous feast by virgins. The supplicant was then convinced he was in Heaven and that the cult's leader, Hassan-i Sabbah, was a representative of the divinity and all his orders should be followed, even unto death.

Much of the current western lore surrounding the Assassins roots from Marco Polo's supposed visit to Syrian fortress of Alamut in 1273 (a visit widely considered fictional since the stronghold had been destroyed by the Mongols in 1256), and from returning Crusaders from the Levant who encountered their local Syrian leader Rashid ad-Din Sinan (the old man of the mountain) in the fortress of Masyaf.

The use of intoxicants is never mentioned in contemporary Ismaili sources, nor from rival Sunnis and Shia, despite their suffering from the assassination acts of that rival sect. For example, Farhad Daftary in The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'ilis says: "At the same time, within the crusading-culture of a pre- and early-modern Europe, the Syrian and Persian Nizaris took shape as Muslim mercenaries who murdered their victims while high on opium or hashish. If this propagandist concoction of a 'stoned' assassin fails to fit the complex reality of the discipline and training required for committing what was always an explicitly political act, the popular notion of Nizaris as a community of killers also denies their rich, multivalent culture."

Edward Burman, in his The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam says: "There is no mention of that drug [hashish] in connection with the Persian Assassins - especially in the library of Alamut ('the secret archives')." Additionally, the Encyclopedia of the Orient refutes this allegation. Indeed Hassan-i Sabbah is recorded as being particularly harsh with users over intoxicants. He felt intoxicants undermined the strict discipline required for the Nizari to survive. He made a public example of his two sons by executing them for drinking alcohol, which he believed set a bad example for a community facing such insurmountable odds. Benjamin of Tudela who traveled one hundred years before Marco Polo mentions the Al-Hashshashin and their leader in the fertile crescent Al-Sinan whom the crusaders dubbed "the Old Man of the Mountain". He notes their principal city to be Qadmous.

Modern scholarship began with Soviet scientists, who in order to better understand communities existing within their vast empire, set about conducting surveys and discovered small Isma'ili communities isolated by treacherous terrain living within central Asia. Professor Vladimir Alexeyevich Ivanov, a Russian Orientalist, collected and published copies of documents from Alamut. Including first-hand accounts, accompanied by his commentary of the Hashashin from original sources. The Nizari continue the work started by the Soviets, and later Western scholars collecting, preserving and publishing literary works from Nizari Isma'ili communities. In 1977 the Institute of Ismaili Studies was set up in order to publish scholarly work by leading academics on the Nizari. Much of this work deals with the Hashashin period, including their history, science, and philosophy.

Etymology

View of Alamut besieged.

The sect referred to themselves as al-da'wa al-jadīda (Arabic:الدعوة الجديدة), which means the New Doctrine, as opposed to the Fatimid (Old doctrine), military commandos were known within the organization as Fedayeen.

The designation assassin is commonly believed to be a mutation of the Persian haššāšīn (حشّاشين), It has also been suggested by some that assassin simply means followers of Hassan (or Hassan-i Sabbah). Although a contemporary variation on the theory described by Burman is that haššāšīn was a derogatory epithet applied by the sect's Syrian neighbors who regarded neighboring Nizaris with suspicion due to their secretive society, fondness for philosophy and heterodox theology which gained the ire of the more traditional; the term may have originated as a metaphor to describe the Nizari's odd behavior as "crazed people," as in "those people who are addled, as if by cannabis", this epithet may have gradually been presented as fact by later enemies of the sect. As the Nizari use of narcotics has been dismissed as myth by contemporary scholars, it must be remembered that it was a popular myth during the period the term Hashshashin (a name given to them by rival Islamic sectarians) may have been derived from the Arabic "haššāšīn" (حشّاشين, "hashish user"), although this remains unclear. It may also refer to "those who produce hashish", however this etymology is also disputed. The word Hashish (of probable Persian origin) refers to resin collected from the cannabis flowers. An accurate definition of the word in Persian is actually "healers" or "herb sellers", this view may have influenced the crusaders, certainly Marco Polo's fabled account of his visit to Alamut in 1273 makes reference too it, and by either or both of these two sources the corrupted term "assassin" may have entered western vocabulary.

Nevertheless, the most acceptable etymology of the word assassin is the simple one: it comes from Hassan (Hassan ibn al-Sabbah) and his followers, and so had it been for centuries. The noise around the hashish version was invented in 1809, in Paris, by the French orientalist Sylvestre de Sacy, whom on July the 7th of that year, presented a lecture at the Academy of Inscriptions and Fine Letters (Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres) – part of the Institute of France - in which he retook the Marco Polo chronicle concerning drugs and this sect of murderers, and associated it with the word. Curiously his theory had great success and apparently still has.

— Jacques Boudet, Les mots de l’histoire, Ed. Larousse-Bordas, Paris, 1998

Many scholars have argued, and demonstrated convincingly, that the attribution of the epithet 'hashish eaters' or 'hashish takers' is a misnomer derived from enemies of the Isma'ilis and was never used by Muslim chroniclers or sources. It was therefore used in a pejorative sense of 'enemies' or 'disreputable people'. This sense of the term survived into modern times with the common Egyptian usage of the term Hashasheen in the 1930s to mean simply 'noisy or riotous'. It is unlikely that the austere Hassan-i Sabbah indulged personally in drug taking. ...there is no mention of that drug hashish in connection with the Persian Assassins - especially in the library of Alamut ("the secret archives").

— Edward Burman, The Assassins, Ed. Crucible, Wellingborough, 1987

[...]their contemporaries in the Muslim world would call them hash-ishiyun, "hashish-smokers"; some Orientalists thought that this was the origin of the word "assassin," which in many European languages was more terrifying yet. ...The Truth is different. According to texts that have come down to us from Alamut, Hassan-i Sabbah liked to call his disciples Assassiyun, meaning people who are faithful to the Asās, meaning "foundation" of the faith. This is the word, misunderstood by foreign travelers, that seemed similar to "hashish".

— Amin Maalouf, Samarkand, Interlink Publishing Group, New York, 1998

In Popular Culture

• In the popular video game Assassin's Creed, based on the novel Alamut by Vladimir Bartol, the player controls a Hashshashin. Masyaf is featured as your "home", from which you start each mission.
• The Hashshashin appear in the Dan Brown novel Angels and Demons.
• The main characters in Peter Berling's The Children of the Grail live in Alamut until its destruction.
• The Hashshashin and the Old Man on the Mountain are featured prominently in some of the writings of William S. Burroughs.
• A latter-day version of the Hashshashin (as the Assassins) and the Old Man of the Mountain figure into the labyrinthine plot of A.W. Hill's alternate reality novel Nowhere-Land, which also features the chimerical CIA agent known as Philby Greenstreet.

See also

• Ainsarii
• Sicarii
• Alamut - novel by Vladimir Bartol
• Sufism

Bibliography

• Burman, Edward (1987). The Assassins. Wellingborough: Crucible. ISBN 1-852-74027-2.
• Daftary, Farhad (1990). The Isma'ilies, Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37019-1.
• Daftary, Farhad (1995). The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismailis. London: I.B. Tauris. pp. 88–127. ISBN 1-850-43950-8. Review {{cite book}}: External link in |quote= (help)
• Franzius, Enno (1969). History of the Order of Assassins. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
• Hodgson, Marshall G.S. (1955). The Secret Order of Assassins: The Struggle of the Early Nizârî Ismâʻîlîs Against the Islamic World. The Hague: Mouton. ISBN 0-8122-1916-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Maalouf, Amin (1989). The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (translated by Jon Rothschild ed.). New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 0-805-20898-4.
• Polo, Marco (1903). H. Cordier (ed.). The Book of Ser Marco Polo, volume 1 (3rd revised translated by H. Yule ed.). London: J. Murray. pp. 139–146.
• Silvestre de Sacy, Antoine Isaac (1818). "Mémoire sur La Dynastie des Assassins, et sur L'Etymologie de leur Nom". Memoires de sins, et sur l’Institut Royal de France. 4: 1–84. English translation in F. Daftary, The Assassin Legends, 136-188. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Stark, Freya (2001). The Valleys of the Assassins and Other Persian Travels. New York: Modern Library. ISBN 0-375-75753-8.
• Willey, Peter (1963). The Castles of the Assassins. London: George G. Harrap.

External links

• The Crusades Wiki