Hasan-i Sabbah

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Artistic Rendering of Hassan-i-Sabbah

Hassan-i Sabbah (Persian: حسن صباح) (circa 1034 - 1124) was an Iranian Ismā'īlī Nizarī missionary who converted a community in the late 11th century in the heart of the Alborz Mountains of northern Iran. The place was called Alamut and was attributed to an ancient king of Daylam. He founded a group whose members are sometimes (originally derogatorily) referred to as the Hashshashin.

Life and work

Early life and conversion

It was in the city of Qom in Persia that, in 1056, Hassan ibn Sabbā was born to a family of Ishna Ashariya Shīˤa. Early in his life, his family’s fortunes took them to Rayy, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) from Iran’s modern-day capital city of Tehran. It was in this center of religious matrices that Hassan developed a keen interest in metaphysical matters, and adhered to the Twelver Shi’ite code of instruction.

Rayy was a city that had seen a lot of radical thought since the 9th century. It had seen Hamdan Qarmat as one of its voices. It had, also, seen a lot of missionary work by various sects, each as impassioned as the other. The Ismā'īlī Mission or Daˤwa was a presence there. The Ismā'īlī mission worked on three layers: the lowest was the foot soldier, called the Fida'ai, then the Rafīk or "comrade," and finally the Daˤī or "Missionary," who worked for the Daˤwa "Mission".

It was here that young Hassan came in conference with Amira Darrab, a Rafeek, who introduced him to the Ismā'īlī doctrine. With this doctrine, Hassan was unimpressed: he considered it to be merely an aberration of thought, not at all at par with the Sunnah. As he met Darrab, participating in many passionate debates that discussed the merits of Ismā'īl over Mūsā, Hassan's respect grew. Now, becoming impressed with the conviction of Darrab, Hassan decided to delve deeper into Ismā'īlī doctrines and beliefs. With his characteristic dedication and fervor, Hassan spent many months oblivious to all but his inquiry: reading till late in the night and caring little for sustenance and victuals, Hassan began to see merit in switching to Ismā'īlī eyes. Hassan converted and swore allegiance to the Fatimid caliph in Cairo. His studies did not end with his crossing over. He further studied under two other Daˤiyyīn, and as he proceeded on his path, he was looked upon with eyes of respect. For his young age, Hassan had done well.

Hassan's austere and devoted commitment to the Daˤwa brought him in audience with the chief Daˤī of the region: ˤAbd al-Malik ibn Attash. Attash, suitably impressed with the young seventeen year old Hassan, made him deputy Daˤī, and advised him to go to Cairo to further his studies.

Hassan did not forthwith go to Cairo. Here the life of Hassan gets mixed with legend and extremes. There is a popular legend associated with Hassan, Omar Khayyám, and the prime minister of the Seljuk Turks, Nizam al-Mulk. There was a pact amongst the three: whoever was the favored of fortune would, in turn, help the other two. Nizam al-Mulk (the name translates to "Minister of State") rose to a position of prominence in the court of the Turks who ruled those areas. He got Omar Khayyám appointed as court poet and mathematician. Hassan too was then granted an office in the court.

Working his way up the hierarchy, Hassan became the Intelligence Chief and began to aim for the post of Nizam al-Mulk. Getting a whiff of Hassan’s ambition, Nizam al-Mulk resolved to shame him in front of all the court. An ingenious scheme was thought of: Hassan took upon himself of furnishing the records of the entire kingdom in just 40 days. All went smoothly until the final day when Hassan was to present the records. Somebody had tampered with his papers and he could not make his presentation. The king ("Malik Shah," which are the words for "King" in Arabic and Persian, respectively) was furious. He sentenced Hassan to death. It was on the plea of Omar Khayyám that the sentence was terminated, and Hassan was instead banished from the kingdom.

There is a gap in this legend: Nizam al-Mulk was far senior in age to both Hassan and Omar, hence the three having been part of a pact is unlikely. Some historians have postulated that Hassan, following his conversion, was playing host to some members of the Fatimid caliphate, and this was leaked to the anti-Fatimid and anti-Shīˤa Nizam al-Mulk. This prompted his abandoning Rayy and heading to Cairo. He left the city in 1076.

Hassan took about 2 years to reach Cairo. Along the way he toured many other regions that did not fall in the general direction of Egypt. Isfahan was the first city that he visited. He was hosted by one of his Daˤiyyīn of youth, a man who had taught the youthful Hassan in Rayy. His name was Resi Abufasl, and he further instructed Hassan. From here he went to Azerbaijan, hundreds of miles to the north, and from there to Turkey. Here he attracted the ire of priests following a heated discussion, and Hassan was thrown out of the town he was in. He then turned south and traveled through Iraq, reached Damascus in Syria. He left for Egypt from Palestine. Records exist, some in the fragmentary remains of his autobiography, and from another biography written by Rashid al-Din Tabib in 1310, to date his arrival in Egypt at 30 August, 1078.

It is unclear how long he stayed in Egypt: about 3 years is the usually accepted amount of time. He continued his studies here, and became a full Daˤī. The concept that he stood for contained all at once Shi’ite and pre-Islamic Greek, Persian, and Babylonian philosophies. It was Ali and openly opposed to the Abassid Sunnis, whom they sought to overthrow; they also believed in community service.

Whilst he was in Cairo, studying and preaching, he upset the highly excitable Chief of the Army, Badr al-Jamalī. Hassan was caught by the Caliph al-Muntazir; he was briefly imprisoned. The collapse of a minaret of the jail was taken to be an omen in the favor of Hassan and he was promptly released and deported. The ship that he was traveling on was wrecked. He was rescued and taken to Syria. Traveling via Aleppo and Baghdad, he terminated his journey at Isfahan in 1081.

Hassan’s life now was totally devoted to the Daˤwa. There was not one place in Iran Hassan did not visit. To the north of Iran, and touching the south shore of the Caspian sea, are the mountains of Alborz. These mountains were home to a people who had traditionally resisted all attempts at subjugation; this place was also of Shīˤa leaning. Within these mountains, in the region of Daylam, Hassan chose to pursue his Daˤī activities. Hassan became the Chief Daˤī of that area and sent his personally trained missionaries into the rest of the region. The news of this Ismā'īlī's activities reached the intolerant Nizam al-Mulk, who dispatched his soldiers with the orders for Hassan's capture. Hassan evaded them, and went deeper into the mountains.

Capture of Alamut

His search for a base from where to guide his mission ended when he found the castle of Alamut, in the Rudbar area, in 1088. It was a fort that stood guard to a valley that was about fifty kilometers long and five kilometers wide. The fort had been built about the year 865; legend has it that it was built by a king who saw his eagle fly up to and perch upon a rock, of which the king, Wah Sudan ibn Marzuban, understood the importance. Likening the perching of the eagle to a lesson given by it, he called the fort Aluh Amut: the "Eagles Teaching".

Hassan’s takeover of the fort was one of silent surrender in the face of defeated odds. To effect this takeover Hassan employed an ingenious strategy: it took the better part of two years to effect. First Hassan sent his Daˤiyyīn and Rafīks to win the villages in the valley over. Next, key people were converted and in 1090 Hassan took over the fort. It is said that Hassan offered 3000 gold dinars to the fort owner for the amount of land that would fit a buffalo’s hide. The term having been agreed upon, Hassan cut the hide in to strips and joined them all over along the perimeter of the fort. The owner was defeated. (This story bears striking resemblance to Virgil's account of Dido's founding of Carthage.) Hassan gave him a draft on the name of a wealthy landlord and told him to take the money from him. Legend further has it that when the landlord saw the draft with Hassan’s signature, he immediately paid the amount to the fort owner, astonishing him.

With Alamut as his, Hassan devoted himself so faithfully to study, that it is said that in all the years that he was there – almost 35, he never left his quarters, except the two times when he went up to the roof. He was studying, translating, praying, fasting, and directing the activities of the Daˤwa: the propagation of the Nizarī doctrine was headquartered at Alamut. He knew the Qur'ān by heart, could quote extensively from the texts of most Muslim sects, and apart from philosophy, he was well versed in mathematics, astronomy and alchemy. Hassan was one who found solace in austerity and frugality. A pious life was one of prayer and devotion. Hassan was a charismatic revolutionary; it was said that by the sheer gravity of his conviction he could pierce the hardest and most orthodox of hearts and win them over to his side.

Given the pillars of devoted adherence to the path of the faith, it is unlikely that the usually accepted "Assassin" postulate is accurate. Hassan had his son executed for drinking wine and another person was banished from Alamut for playing the flute. The theories of Hassan being associated with Hashish are, at best, debatable. Furthermore there have emerged traces that there was a name given to Alamut by the people with Nizarī leanings: al-Assas "the Base". It was the base for all operations that Hassan wished to effect. Members of al-Assas were known as al-Assasīn.

From this point on his community and its branches spread throughout Iran and Syria and came to be called Hashshashin or Assassins, an Islamic mystery cult.

Hassan was extremely strict and disciplined. The abrogation of Islamic law (Sharia) occurred under a later Grand Master, Hassan II, in 1174. If hashish was used by the community (and this is uncertain) it probably also occurred later. There is dispute as to whether the term 'Assassin' means 'user of hashish' or 'follower of Hassan'.

Not much is known about Hassan, but legends abound as to the tactics used to induct members into his quasi-religious political organization. A future assassin was subjected to rites very similar to those of other mystery cults in which the subject was made to believe that he was in imminent danger of death. But the twist of the assassins was that they drugged the person to simulate a "dying" to later have them awaken in a garden flowing with wine and served a sumptuous feast by virgins. The supplicant was then convinced he was in Heaven and that Sabbah was a representative of the divinity and that all of his orders should be followed, even to death. This legend derives from Marco Polo, who visited Alamut just after it fell to the Mongols in the thirteenth century.

Other accounts of the indoctrination attest that the future assassins were brought to Alamut at a young age and, while they matured, inhabited the aforementioned paradisaical gardens and were kept drugged with hashish; as in the previous version, Hassan occupied this garden as a divine emissary. At a certain point (when their initiation could be said to have begun) the drug was withdrawn from them, and they were removed from the gardens and flung into a dungeon. There they were informed that, if they wished to return to the paradise they had so recently enjoyed it would be at Sabbah's discretion, and that they must therefore follow his directions exactly, up to and including murder and self-sacrifice.

The famous novel Firdous e Bareen written by Indian Muslim novelist Abdul Halim Sherer gives the biographical account of Hussain, a youth lured and captured by Hassan's men and then forced into his assassination machinery.

The cult was responsible for the assassination of a number of Sunni scholars and rulers. Non-lethal warnings could also be given, whereby a target would wake to find a dagger embedded in his pillow next to his head. They usually took the hint.

The Assassins often allied with the Crusaders against the Sunnis. The Aga Khan is said to be the spiritual successor to the order -- in terms of leadership, not methods.

A famous quote of unknown origin is popularly attributed to Hassan, and often described as his last words: "Nothing is true. Everything is permissible."

Hæssæn-e Sæbbah: An Ismā'īlī Perspective

[excerpt from the introduction of Farhad Daftary's 'The Assassin Legends'] In sum, it seems that the legends in question, though ultimately rooted in some popular lore and misinformation circulating locally, were actually formulated and transmitted rather widely due to their sensational appeal by the Crusaders and other western observers of the Nizaris; and they do, essentially, represent the 'imaginative constructions' of these uninformed observers. (Daftary, Farhad. "Introduction," The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismailis. (London: I.B. Tauris, 1994; reprinted 2001), pp. 1-7.)

The Assassins

From a high mountain fortress, Ibn al-Sabbah directed a ruthless campaign against the overlords of other sects in Persia, Iraq and Syria. Northwest of Qazvin, atop the Alborz Mountains, on a lonely ridge 6000 feet above the sea, stood the castle of Alamut (eagle’s nest). Commanding a royal view of the valley below, accessible only by a single, almost vertical pathway, the remote fortress was an ideal hideout and headquarters. In 1090, Hasan seized the fortress of Alamut, and the castle henceforth received the name of the Abode of Fortune.

His feared organization’s sinister name came from its members’ alleged ritual use of the drug hashish. For the immediate attainment of their objects, the order was less in need of heads than arms; and did not employ pens, but daggers, whose points were everywhere, while their hilts were in the hand of the grandmaster. With poison and dagger as their means of dealing death to carefully selected victims, the fedaviyan (Modern Persian, from Arabic Fidā'īyīn "Who are Ready to Sacrifice their Lives for the Cause") struck terror wherever they appeared. From 1090-1256 CE, the Assassins unsettled everyone who opposed them. Amīrs, governors of cities, commanders of fortresses, and even religious dignitaries all took to wearing a coat of chain mail at all times.

Hassan ibn as-Sabba conditioned and organized a band of fearless political killers such as had never been seen before. His method of indoctrination was unique. He constructed a secret garden and furnished it with all the delights promised in the Qur'ān to the faithful when they reached paradise. The chosen were drugged, one or two at a time, and taken to this garden by night. When they woke up in the morning they were surrounded by beautiful and scantily clad women who would minister to their every need and desire. After being allowed to savor this false — but pleasant and sensual — paradise for a day or so, they were again drugged before being taken back to awaken in their own squalid hovel or cave dwelling. To them, it was as if it had been a vivid dream. Hæsæn-e Sæbba then sent for them, told them God had given them a preview of Paradise, and surprised them by telling them exactly what each had been up to while in the secret garden. So successful was he in this method of conditioning and indoctrination that it was said he once astounded a visiting amīr whom he wanted to impress with his power by sending for one of his men and ordering him to kill himself — which he immediately did.

When an Assassin was sent out by Ibn as-Sabba to carry out some violent death, the Assassin was just as dedicated. So convinced were the Assassins that they would be rewarded in paradise that they never hesitated to fulfill their missions of murder, even though this often meant their victims’ bodyguards would kill them immediately afterward.

Hæsæn and the grandmasters who ruled the order after him wielded great political power until the coming of the Mongols. The Mongols, led by Hülegü Xaqan, destroyed the Nizarī base in Alamut in 1256, but the Nizarī sect has survived to this day. Scattered in many countries of Asia, Africa and the West, the Ismā'īliyya currently acknowledge His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan IV as their 49th Imam.

Nizamulmulk Tusi (Seljuk Prime Minister)

Hassan in popular culture

• William S. Burroughs is one of a number of fiction writers who have incorporated Sabbah -- himself or his ideas -- in their work. Burroughs also adopted the phrase "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" as one of his personal maxims.
• Brion Gysin, a friend and contemporary of William S. Burroughs, wrote extensively about Sabbah and the Assassins in his novel "The Process" and also described his visit to the ruins of Alamut in one of his short stories.
• The serpent king Thulsa Doom in the 1982 film Conan the Barbarian bears many similarities to the legendary Hassan, notably in the scene where acolytes commit suicide as a demonstration that "flesh is stronger than steel". Hassan reportedly demanded (and got) the same sacrifice as a demonstration of his power, when one follower slit his own throat and another leapt from the battlements of Alamut.
• Hassan-i-Sabbah and the Assassins play a substantial role in Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum, as well as in his Baudolino.
• Hassan i Sabbah and the Assassins appear in Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus! trilogy, in which they have some connection to the Necronomicon.
• Hassan i Sabbah X (the tenth in the line) appears as a Sufi mystic using the alias of "Franklin Delano Roosevelt Stuart", in the Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson.
• Jin Yong wrote in The Heavenly Sword and the Dragon Saber that Hassan, referred to as the "Old man in the Mountain", was a member of the Persian Manicheism in the explanation of a Persian Song. He wrote that Hasan's friend had become prime minister of Persia and gave Hasan riches to start the Hashshasin, but later Hasan assassinated his friend for the position. When his friend, the Prime Minister was dying he composed the song known by "all of the Persians" and sung by two of the characters in the story. It also had an anecdote about one of Hasan's disciples striking the King of England, who was saved after the Queen sacrificed herself and sucked out the poison. This story is somewhat similar to the one relating Hassan, Omar Khayyam and the vizier.
• Hasan ibn Saba is one of the main characters in Vladimir Bartol's Alamut novel.
• The visual novel Fate/stay night features a Servant-class named True Assassin. In the Heaven's Feel Scenario, it is revealed that the depicted True Assassin's real identity was Hassan-i-Sabah.
• Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson's gamebook Blood Sword book 3 "The Demon's Claw" features Hassan-i-Sabah. He killes Susurrien and takes the sword of Death while the "hero" takes the sword of life.
• Hassan-i-Sabbah has recently appeared in Superman comic #657 as a super-powerful villain commanding an underground conspiracy against the world, using the hostilities between radical Islam and the West as a cover for his activities, known now, as the comic states, as "Khyber".
• Hassan is a primary antagonist in the Ameri-manga Ravenskull, which is a sequel to the novel Ivanhoe.
• A Hashshashin is featured as the primary antagonist in Dan Brown's book Italic textAngels and Demons

Hassan in music

• Bill Laswell produced a concept album called Hashisheen: The End of Law, which was released in 1998 through Meta/Sub Rosa Records. The album consists of a series of ancient mystical Islamic poems and writings set to modern music and features various artists, poets and writers including William Burroughs, Iggy Pop, Jah Wobble, Hakim Bey, Bill Laswell, Jim Carroll, Nicky Skopelitis, Genesis P. Orridge and John Balance. The texts used are a mixture of hashish poems and mystical texts concerning the divine nature; also featured is the account of Alamut by Marco Polo.
• There is also a now-defunct, screamo band called Hassan I Sabbah. They were active around 2000-2001, and released a 7" on Robodog Records and a split 7" with Usurp Synapse. They also featured on the Antipodes compilation 7" on Level Plane. They featured members of Puritan, Prevail, and Rinse. Their drummer is now in Unearth. Their singer is now in Otesanek[1].
• The 1977 Recording "Quark, Strangeness and Charm" by Hawkwind features a song titled "Hassan I Sahba"
• The Recording "Knights Of The Cross" by Grave Digger features a song titled "Fanatic Assassins"
• The band Isis has a concept album, In the Absence of Truth which was inspired by Hassan I Sabbah and has many references to it in the song lyrics and song titles.

See also

• Ismaili
• Firdous e Bareen
• List of Iranian National Heroes

External links

• The life of Hassan-i-Sabah from an Ismaili point of view. Focuses on assassination as a tactic of asymmetrical warfare and has a small section on Hasan-i-Sabah's work as a scholar.
• Introduction to The Assassin Legends (From The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma‘ilis, London: I. B. Tauris, 1994; reprinted 2001.)
• The life of Hassan-i-Sabbah as part of an online book on the Assassins of Alamut.
• Arkon Daraul on Hassan-i-Sabbah.
• An illustrated article on the Order of Assassins.
• William S. Burrough's invocation of Hassan-i-Sabbah in Nova Express.
• Assasins entry in the Encyclopedia of the Orient.
• Review of the book, "The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'ilis (I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd: London, 1994), 213 pp." by Babak Nahid, Department of Comparative Literature, University of California, Los Angeles