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The Cult Dossier · No. 017 · Political / Terror

Order of Assassins

Hashshashin; Nizari Ismailis of Alamut

1090 – 1256/1273 · Persia (Alamut, Daylam) and Syria (Masyaf)

II. MEDIEVAL — HERESY, DUALISM AND THE MILLENNIUM

Fully religious — a branch of Shia Islam, now mainstream and peaceful

Who led it

HASAN-I SABBAH (c.1050–1124), the Old Man of the Mountain, who seized Alamut in 1090. Successors: Kiya Buzurg-Ummid; Hasan II, who declared the Qiyamah; RASHID AD-DIN SINAN, the Syrian chief; the last lord, Rukn al-Din Khurshah.

What it worshipped and taught

The Nizari line of Ismaili imams as infallible living guides. Doctrine of talim — authoritative teaching by the imam alone. In 1164 Hasan II proclaimed the QIYAMAH, the resurrection, declaring the sharia abrogated and the spiritual age begun — one of history's boldest antinomian moves.

Who was in it

Hasan-i Sabbah; Nizar ibn al-Mustansir; Rashid ad-Din Sinan; the fida'i (the devotees who carried out killings); victims including the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk (1092) and Conrad of Montferrat, King of Jerusalem (1192); Hulagu Khan; Marco Polo, who popularised the drugged-garden legend.

How it ended, or where it stands

Destroyed by the Mongols and Mamluks; the community survived and today numbers millions under the Aga Khan.

The dead

NO RELIABLE TOTAL EXISTS, AND THIS FILE PREVIOUSLY GAVE ONE. It said ‘roughly 50 documented assassinations’; no accessible scholarship supports that figure, and it is withdrawn. WHAT IS ESTABLISHED: the Nizaris did adopt assassination as deliberate policy. FARHAD DAFTARY, the leading modern historian of the movement, writes that they ‘assigned a major political role to the policy of assassination, which they utilized rather openly in a spectacular and intimidating fashion’ — the point being that the killings were public and few, chosen for effect rather than volume. Tens of thousands of Nizaris were killed in the Mongol conquest of 1256, which is the larger and better-attested death toll in this entry

Of note

ALMOST EVERYTHING POPULARLY ‘KNOWN’ ABOUT THIS GROUP IS AN ARTEFACT OF ITS ENEMIES, and this entry now flags two separate instances rather than one. THE HASHISH ETYMOLOGY is a hostile nickname, not a description of practice — the drugged-garden story reaching the West largely through Marco Polo. THE BODY COUNT IS ALSO UNRELIABLE: no sound total survives, and the figure this file used to print has been removed. Since the 1970s FARHAD DAFTARY, MARSHALL HODGSON and others have worked to separate the Nizari state from the legend that grew over it for the better part of a millennium; DAFTARY EXPLICITLY REJECTS the modern habit of calling them the original terrorists. The order is nonetheless the historical origin of the entire Western idea of the fanatical death-cult assassin — an idea built, like the Cathars (016) and the Khlysty (022), almost entirely out of enemy testimony. See Appendix D.

Its timeline

  1. 1090 Hasan-i Sabbah takes the fortress of Alamut by infiltration.
  2. 14 October 1092 Assassination of Nizam al-Mulk — the first and most famous killing.
  3. 1094 The Nizari–Musta'li schism in Cairo.
  4. 1162–1164 Hasan II declares the Qiyamah at Alamut, 8 August 1164.
  5. 28 April 1192 Conrad of Montferrat murdered at Tyre.
  6. 15 December 1256 Hulagu Khan takes Alamut; the great library is destroyed. Rukn al-Din Khurshah surrenders and is later killed.
  7. 1273 Baibars ends Syrian Nizari independence at Masyaf.

Its people

Hasan-i Sabbah

the Old Man of the Mountain; Sayyidna

Founder, the Nizari Ismaili state at Alamut · c.1050 – 1124 · active 1090–1124

A Persian missionary who took the fortress of Alamut in 1090 without a battle, by converting its inhabitants one at a time until the garrison commander found himself alone. From there he built a network of mountain strongholds and a doctrine of talim — that truth comes only from the infallible imam — and pioneered the use of the single dedicated assassin against a vastly superior military power. He lived at Alamut for 34 years and, by report, never left his house. Ascetic to the point of severity, he had both his own sons executed, one for murder and one for drinking wine.

Before the law. None — sovereign in his own territory.

Where things stand. Deceased 1124. His community survives today as the Nizari Ismailis under the Aga Khan, numbering in the millions.

  1. 1090 Takes Alamut by infiltration.
  2. 14 October 1092 Assassination of the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk.
  3. 1094 The Nizari–Musta'li schism.
  4. 1124 Dies at Alamut.
  5. 1256 Hulagu Khan destroys Alamut and its library.

Checked

Rashid ad-Din Sinan

the Old Man of the Mountain (Syrian)

Syrian chief of the Nizari Ismailis · c.1132 – 1193 · active 1162–1193

Ran the Syrian wing of the Nizari state from Masyaf with near-total independence from Alamut, and it is he, not Hasan-i Sabbah, whom the Crusader chroniclers actually met and mythologised as the Old Man of the Mountain. He negotiated directly with Saladin, who twice besieged him and twice withdrew — one account has Saladin waking to find a poisoned dagger and a note on his pillow. The Western legend of the drugged garden and the fanatical devotee attaches largely to him.

Before the law. None — sovereign in his own territory.

Where things stand. Deceased 1193.

  1. 1162 Sent from Alamut to take charge in Syria.
  2. 1176 Saladin besieges Masyaf and abruptly withdraws.
  3. 28 April 1192 Conrad of Montferrat, King of Jerusalem, murdered at Tyre — the killing that fixed the Assassin legend in Europe.
  4. 1193 Dies at Masyaf.

Checked

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