 | The AssassinsPosted Sep-26-06 15:43:57 PDT I am beginning to re-read Bernard Lewis' The Assassins: a radical sect in Islam. The Assassins refers to the Ismaili sect founded by Hassan ibn al-Sabbah in the eleventh century. This sect is credited as the first group to use murder and calculated terrorism as a systematic way to eliminate political and religious rivals. The Assassins lived in heavily fortified, inaccessible stone castles in high mountains in and around Persia and Syria. Their leader was often referred to as "The Old Man of the Mountain." As they spread, they began to win converts (both open and covert) across the Middle East. They became a very powerful and influential political and religious force, swearing allegiance to Nizar ibn al-Mustansir, whom they supported as Caliph. This support often led to them being referred as Nizaris. One of the most often repeated, yet probably fanciful, stories about this sect is how they came to be called the Assassins. The belief is that when al-Sabbah wanted to eliminate an enemy he would identify a person in his group to be the murder. After plying this man with hashish until he fell asleep, the man would be transported to a garden within the fortress at Alamut. When the man awoke, he would find himself in a garden that was fashioned after the garden of Paradise as described in the Koran. Beautiful fragrant trees would be laden with fruit and he would be surrounded by beautiful women. After experiencing this bliss, he would be taken to al-Sabbah who would tell the man that he had briefly been admitted into paradise and that if he were to kill the target, he would be able to return to paradise to live out the rest of the days. The man, evidently, would oblige. The term assassin, then, is derived from the act of feeding these people with hashish (or "hashhashin" -- one who consumes hashish.) Some of the most prominent of the Assassins’ victims were the vizier Nizam al-Mulk (Nizam al-Mulk, the poet Omar Khayyam, and Hasan al-Sabah were close friends,) the caliph Al-Adil, the Crusaders Raymond II of Tripoli and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Albert. After wrecking havoc with terror for almost two and a half centuries, the Assassins were practically wiped out. In 1256, as part of his Middle Eastern expansion and conquest of Baghdad, the grandson of Genghis Khan, Hulegu Khan systematically chased and massacred the Persian members of the group after al-Sabbah's son murdered several of Hulegu's ambassadors -- a massive breach of diplomatic protocol from a Mongol perspective. (It was exactly this act that enraged Genghis Khan and led him to wreak unmitigated devastation upon the Sultan of Khwarzim and the people of his kingdom.) The Syrians who belong to the sect were wiped out by the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt a bit later. (Interestingly, the Mamluks were one of the few people who were able to withstand a Mongol offensive, which made them revered and respected in both Islamic circles. As the Mongols spread through Dar-al-Islam (the lands of Islam) survivors would flock to Cairo for refuge and protection, making it one of the most cosmpolitan cities of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Christians also grudgingly armired the Mamluks for defending themselves against the Mongols and slowing down the Mongol jaggernaut that finally halted at the gates of Vienna upon the death of Ogodei, the Second Great Khan.) |
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