Post by Lucy of Ravenscar on May 21, 2023 15:09:37 GMT
This article originally appeared in Nothing's Forgotten issue 6, April 1997.
The Order of Assassins
A Brief History, compiled by Lucy Collin
Will: “Who were those men you went off with?”
Nasir: “Hashishiyun... in your tongue, Assassin.”
Will: “Killers.”
Nasir: “They kill yes, but like us for their belief.”
Will: “What did they want with you?”
Nasir: “I am one of them. Now I have washed my hands of them.”
Will: “And they let you?”
Nasir: “They had no choice.”
The origins of the Order
The Assassins originated in the split of Islam into various sects, principally Sunni, or orthodox Islam, and Shi’a, which had various offshoots, including Isma’ilism. The entry of the Seljuk Turks into Western Asia in the second half of the eleventh century with their vehement orthodoxy checked the spread of Isma’ilism, which in future was only able to operate as an underground terrorist movement. A militant splinter group of Shi’a, organised by the Persian Hassan-i Sabbah to destroy the power of the Turks, captured the fortress of Alamut in 1090 and made it the centre of their movement, the New Preaching (al-da’wa al-jadida). Lacking military power, the order had recourse to political murder to destroy its opponents and spread terror. This came to be known as the Order of Assassins, the word assassin coming from Hashishiyun as it was supposed that they committed their acts of murder under the influence of hashish.
The Assassins in Persia
In 1092 Hassan’s armed bands snatched control of several castles and strongholds in northern Persia, from which the warring Seljuk princes were unable to dislodge them. Hassan was a man of fanatical devotion, will-power and organising ability, and he ruled his people for thirty-four years until his death in 1124.
Whatever might have been Hassan’s original hopes, he failed to destroy the power of the Turks or to set up a territorial state. The appeal of Shi’ism had waned; the new madrasas (colleges) were teaching a rigorous orthodoxy, and the greatest of Muslim theologians, al-Ghazali, was effecting an alliance between Sunnite legalism and Sufi mysticism which boded ill for heresy. The cities as a rule were strongly Sunnite; the Isma’ilis rarely gained a footing outside remote country districts or mountain valleys, and it was never possible for them to wage open war with the Turkish or Arab authorities. Hence they were obliged to resort to terrorism, the weapon of the weak. Hassan pronounced their enemies apostates and therefore liable to the death penalty. A murder campaign was launched which spread all over Western Asia and even into Egypt, whose chiefs were considered traitors to the faith. Dedicated fida’is (assassins) sacrificed their own lives to kill the foes of their sect, and caliphs, generals, governers, ministers and judges fell victim to their daggers. The fear and fury thus aroused gave rise to the wildest tales and legends, some of which reached Europe many years later through the reports of Marco Polo, the commonest being the story about hashish. In the thirteenth century their fame was such that widespread panic resulted in France from a rumour that a couple of Assassins had landed and were on their way to Paris.
The Assassins in Syria
The Assassins became powerful in Syria when it was ruled by Ridwan ibn Tutush. They were influential in Aleppo, established a base in Damascus, and went on to acquire more secure bases of power in the Syrian mountain strongholds. After Ridwan’s death in 1113 a popular rising against the Assassins led to their expulsion from Aleppo, although traces of their influence there remained for another decade. Their next base was Damascus, where they received the protection of Tughtigin. Here also the death of their patron in 1128 was followed by a proscription. Tughtigin was succeeded as ruler by his son Bori and in the next year thousands of Assassins were killed. (Bori died from wounds received in an attack by Assassins in 1132.) Thereafter the Assassins of Syria, like their brethren in Persia, made their bases in remote and impregnable mountain fortresses. Their strongholds were mostly in Jabal Bahra (now Jabal Ansariyya), the coastal range of northern Syria, the chief of which was Masyaf, which they captured in 1140.
Masyaf Castle, Assassin stronghold in Syria
The Crusades
The murderous activities of the Assassins divided and distracted Islam and contributed to the consolidation of Frankish rule in Syria and Palestine. The long struggle with the Franks was carried to a successful conclusion by three brilliant soldiers and statesmen - the Turks Zengi and his son Nuraddin and the famous Kurd Saladin. All operated from Iraq; all had to pick their way carefully amid the feuds of sultans and caliphs and local amirs, and all had to face the murderous enmity of the Assassins.
In 1160 Egypt became the prize that both the Muslims and the Christians wanted. The Franks were eager to occupy one of the richest kingdoms of the East; its large Christian minority, Copts and Armenians, might welcome their co-religionists, and the establishment of a Christian regime in the Nile valley would deal a deadly blow to Islam and perhaps enable the Crusaders to open up connections with the isolated churches of Nubia and Abyssinia. Nuraddin for his part realised that if he could beat the Crusaders in the race for Egypt, he could extinguish the heretic regime and earn the plaudits of Sunnite Islam, as well as encircle the Frankish States and drive the Western invaders into the sea. It was a slow process, involving one of Nuraddin’s commanders, Shirkuh, and Shirkuh’s nephew Saladin. Eventually, in 1168 Shirkuh gained mastery of the Nile valley, and upon his sudden death in 1169, Saladin was appointed his successor. The brave, humane and generous young Kurd won the affection of the people, who had long suffered from civil strife, foreign invasion, and the excesses of the slave troops, and had never really accepted the tenets of Isma’ilism. The ruling dynasty was set aside and the country’s reunion with the Sunnite world was effected with little disturbance. Except for the Yemenis and the Assassins in their Persian and Syrian castles, Isma’ilism as a politico-religious force was dead, and it was an Islam stronger and more unified than it had been for nearly three centuries which now confronted and encircled the Crusaders’ pricipalities.
Using Egypt as his base, Saladin was able to build up the power necessary to expel the Franks. His brother Turanshah reduced the Nubians to submission and conquered the Yemen, while Saladin himself repulsed a big naval attack on Alexandria in which the Franks of Jerusalem, the Assassins and the Normans from Sicily all participated.
Contemporary portrait of Saladin, c. 1180
The Old Man of the Mountain
Saladin was unable to extirpate the Assassins, whose power for mischief was augmented during his lifetime by the uncanny skill of Rahid al-Din Sinan, the leader of the Syrian Isma’ilis for thirty years (1163-1193), whose Arabic sobriquet Shaikh al-Jabal was translated by the Franks as ‘the Old Man of the Mountain’. Sinan held his own among the diverse communities of Syria by playing off one against the other; Saladin was twice wounded by the daggers of his fida’is, and the Crusaders benefitted not a little from this continuing and venomous feud within the household of Islam.
The Mongol invasion
The effective end of the Assassins, certainly in Persia, came in 1255 when the Mongol prince Hulagu, a grandson of Jenghiz Khan, came with the Mongol army to conquer all the lands of Islam as far as Egypt. Hulagu first moved against the Assassins, who though they had never succeeded in creating a territorial state, had resisted all efforts to dislodge them from their castles in northern Persia. He demanded their submission and the dismantling of their strongholds. The reigning Imam (leader), Muhammed III, a moody melancholic, favoured defiance, but his chiefs were terrified of Mongol strength and ferocity, and had him killed in a drunken sleep. His son, Rukn al-Din, the last ‘grand master’ of Alamut, young, inexperienced and frightened, gave in; the Mongols swarmed into the Assassin fortresses, and such local or sporadic defence as was put up was savagely crushed.
The Assassins were still active to some extent after this as King Edward I, at the time Lord Edward, narrowly escaped death at the dagger of an Assassin in 1272 when he was commander of the last army of Crusaders at Acre.
Bibliography
A History of Medieval Islam by J.J.Saunders
The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the eleventh century to 1517 by P.M.Holt
The Cross and the Crescent by Malcolm Billings
The Order of Assassins
A Brief History, compiled by Lucy Collin
Will: “Who were those men you went off with?”
Nasir: “Hashishiyun... in your tongue, Assassin.”
Will: “Killers.”
Nasir: “They kill yes, but like us for their belief.”
Will: “What did they want with you?”
Nasir: “I am one of them. Now I have washed my hands of them.”
Will: “And they let you?”
Nasir: “They had no choice.”
The origins of the Order
The Assassins originated in the split of Islam into various sects, principally Sunni, or orthodox Islam, and Shi’a, which had various offshoots, including Isma’ilism. The entry of the Seljuk Turks into Western Asia in the second half of the eleventh century with their vehement orthodoxy checked the spread of Isma’ilism, which in future was only able to operate as an underground terrorist movement. A militant splinter group of Shi’a, organised by the Persian Hassan-i Sabbah to destroy the power of the Turks, captured the fortress of Alamut in 1090 and made it the centre of their movement, the New Preaching (al-da’wa al-jadida). Lacking military power, the order had recourse to political murder to destroy its opponents and spread terror. This came to be known as the Order of Assassins, the word assassin coming from Hashishiyun as it was supposed that they committed their acts of murder under the influence of hashish.
The Assassins in Persia
In 1092 Hassan’s armed bands snatched control of several castles and strongholds in northern Persia, from which the warring Seljuk princes were unable to dislodge them. Hassan was a man of fanatical devotion, will-power and organising ability, and he ruled his people for thirty-four years until his death in 1124.
Whatever might have been Hassan’s original hopes, he failed to destroy the power of the Turks or to set up a territorial state. The appeal of Shi’ism had waned; the new madrasas (colleges) were teaching a rigorous orthodoxy, and the greatest of Muslim theologians, al-Ghazali, was effecting an alliance between Sunnite legalism and Sufi mysticism which boded ill for heresy. The cities as a rule were strongly Sunnite; the Isma’ilis rarely gained a footing outside remote country districts or mountain valleys, and it was never possible for them to wage open war with the Turkish or Arab authorities. Hence they were obliged to resort to terrorism, the weapon of the weak. Hassan pronounced their enemies apostates and therefore liable to the death penalty. A murder campaign was launched which spread all over Western Asia and even into Egypt, whose chiefs were considered traitors to the faith. Dedicated fida’is (assassins) sacrificed their own lives to kill the foes of their sect, and caliphs, generals, governers, ministers and judges fell victim to their daggers. The fear and fury thus aroused gave rise to the wildest tales and legends, some of which reached Europe many years later through the reports of Marco Polo, the commonest being the story about hashish. In the thirteenth century their fame was such that widespread panic resulted in France from a rumour that a couple of Assassins had landed and were on their way to Paris.
The Assassins in Syria
The Assassins became powerful in Syria when it was ruled by Ridwan ibn Tutush. They were influential in Aleppo, established a base in Damascus, and went on to acquire more secure bases of power in the Syrian mountain strongholds. After Ridwan’s death in 1113 a popular rising against the Assassins led to their expulsion from Aleppo, although traces of their influence there remained for another decade. Their next base was Damascus, where they received the protection of Tughtigin. Here also the death of their patron in 1128 was followed by a proscription. Tughtigin was succeeded as ruler by his son Bori and in the next year thousands of Assassins were killed. (Bori died from wounds received in an attack by Assassins in 1132.) Thereafter the Assassins of Syria, like their brethren in Persia, made their bases in remote and impregnable mountain fortresses. Their strongholds were mostly in Jabal Bahra (now Jabal Ansariyya), the coastal range of northern Syria, the chief of which was Masyaf, which they captured in 1140.
Masyaf Castle, Assassin stronghold in Syria
The Crusades
The murderous activities of the Assassins divided and distracted Islam and contributed to the consolidation of Frankish rule in Syria and Palestine. The long struggle with the Franks was carried to a successful conclusion by three brilliant soldiers and statesmen - the Turks Zengi and his son Nuraddin and the famous Kurd Saladin. All operated from Iraq; all had to pick their way carefully amid the feuds of sultans and caliphs and local amirs, and all had to face the murderous enmity of the Assassins.
In 1160 Egypt became the prize that both the Muslims and the Christians wanted. The Franks were eager to occupy one of the richest kingdoms of the East; its large Christian minority, Copts and Armenians, might welcome their co-religionists, and the establishment of a Christian regime in the Nile valley would deal a deadly blow to Islam and perhaps enable the Crusaders to open up connections with the isolated churches of Nubia and Abyssinia. Nuraddin for his part realised that if he could beat the Crusaders in the race for Egypt, he could extinguish the heretic regime and earn the plaudits of Sunnite Islam, as well as encircle the Frankish States and drive the Western invaders into the sea. It was a slow process, involving one of Nuraddin’s commanders, Shirkuh, and Shirkuh’s nephew Saladin. Eventually, in 1168 Shirkuh gained mastery of the Nile valley, and upon his sudden death in 1169, Saladin was appointed his successor. The brave, humane and generous young Kurd won the affection of the people, who had long suffered from civil strife, foreign invasion, and the excesses of the slave troops, and had never really accepted the tenets of Isma’ilism. The ruling dynasty was set aside and the country’s reunion with the Sunnite world was effected with little disturbance. Except for the Yemenis and the Assassins in their Persian and Syrian castles, Isma’ilism as a politico-religious force was dead, and it was an Islam stronger and more unified than it had been for nearly three centuries which now confronted and encircled the Crusaders’ pricipalities.
Using Egypt as his base, Saladin was able to build up the power necessary to expel the Franks. His brother Turanshah reduced the Nubians to submission and conquered the Yemen, while Saladin himself repulsed a big naval attack on Alexandria in which the Franks of Jerusalem, the Assassins and the Normans from Sicily all participated.
Contemporary portrait of Saladin, c. 1180
The Old Man of the Mountain
Saladin was unable to extirpate the Assassins, whose power for mischief was augmented during his lifetime by the uncanny skill of Rahid al-Din Sinan, the leader of the Syrian Isma’ilis for thirty years (1163-1193), whose Arabic sobriquet Shaikh al-Jabal was translated by the Franks as ‘the Old Man of the Mountain’. Sinan held his own among the diverse communities of Syria by playing off one against the other; Saladin was twice wounded by the daggers of his fida’is, and the Crusaders benefitted not a little from this continuing and venomous feud within the household of Islam.
The Mongol invasion
The effective end of the Assassins, certainly in Persia, came in 1255 when the Mongol prince Hulagu, a grandson of Jenghiz Khan, came with the Mongol army to conquer all the lands of Islam as far as Egypt. Hulagu first moved against the Assassins, who though they had never succeeded in creating a territorial state, had resisted all efforts to dislodge them from their castles in northern Persia. He demanded their submission and the dismantling of their strongholds. The reigning Imam (leader), Muhammed III, a moody melancholic, favoured defiance, but his chiefs were terrified of Mongol strength and ferocity, and had him killed in a drunken sleep. His son, Rukn al-Din, the last ‘grand master’ of Alamut, young, inexperienced and frightened, gave in; the Mongols swarmed into the Assassin fortresses, and such local or sporadic defence as was put up was savagely crushed.
The Assassins were still active to some extent after this as King Edward I, at the time Lord Edward, narrowly escaped death at the dagger of an Assassin in 1272 when he was commander of the last army of Crusaders at Acre.
Bibliography
A History of Medieval Islam by J.J.Saunders
The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the eleventh century to 1517 by P.M.Holt
The Cross and the Crescent by Malcolm Billings