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THE HISTORY OF THE ASSASSINS.
Derived from Oriental Sources,
by
THE CHEVALIER JOSEPH VON HAMMER,
Author of
The History of the Ottoman Empire, &c.
Translated from the German, by Oswald Charles Wood, M. D.
&c. &c. &c.
London:
Smith and Elder, Cornhill.
1835.
Vizetelly, Branston and Co., Printers,
76, Fleet Street, London.
TO
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain,
WITH THE
PROFOUNDEST RESPECT AND ADMIRATION FOR THEIR IMPORTANT SERVICES
IN CHERISHING AND PROMOTING THE CULTIVATION OF
ORIENTAL LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE,
THE PRESENT WORK IS DEDICATED
BY
THEIR MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,
OSWALD CHARLES WOOD.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
The Translator has been induced to present “The History of the
Assassins” to the British Public as much on account of the interest
of the subject itself, as by a desire to introduce to them a portion,
certainly but a small one, of the works of an author so highly gifted,
and of such established reputation, as M. Von Hammer. Nor will the
present volume be deemed supererogatory, if it be considered that,
notwithstanding the attention which, of late years, has been in this
country so meritoriously devoted to the study of Oriental history and
philology, still, but few and meagre accounts have been afforded of the
extraordinary association forming the subject of the ensuing pages, and
even those scattered through large and voluminous works. The Translator
deems it unnecessary to apologize for the notes which he has appended,
believing that their curiosity will plead his excuse.
It may be proper to remark, that the Translator has thought it
advisable to adapt the orthography of the proper names to the
pronunciation of English readers: in this, he has been for the most
part guided by Sir William Jones’s Persian Grammar, and the very
excellent Turkish one of his late accomplished and lamented friend,
Arthur Lumley Davids; he has only, therefore, to state, that the
vowels are to be pronounced broad and open, as in Italian, and the
consonants as in English; by this means, the uncouth appearance of the
names, occasioned by endeavouring to represent the vowels by English
diphthongs, is avoided.
BROMPTON,
June, 1835.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
Page
Introduction—Mohammed, founder of Islamism—Account of his
doctrines—Sects—Ismailites—The Assassins a branch of the
latter 1
BOOK II.
Foundation of the Order of the Assassins, and Reign of the first
Grand-Master, Hassan Sabah 38
BOOK III.
Reign of Kia Busurgomid, and of his son, Mohammed 74
BOOK IV.
Reign of Hassan II., son of Mohammed, son of Busurgomid,
surnamed Ala sikrihi es-selam, and his son, Mohammed II. 105
BOOK V.
Reign of Jelaleddin Hassan III Ben Mohammed Hassan,—and
of his son, Alaeddin Mohammed III. 139
BOOK VI.
Reign of Rokneddin Kharshah, the last Grand-Master of the
Assassins 165
BOOK VII.
Conquest of Bagdad—Fall of the Assassins-Remnant of them 181
Authorities 221
Notes 223
ERRATA.
Page 3 line 12 from the bottom, for _emerging_ read _converging_.
4 17 for _sacred_ _serried_.
5 20 _though_ _being_.
7 26 _a hundred_ _three hundred_.
15 22 _Sheristani_ _Sheheristani_.
24 6 from the bottom, ditto ditto.
26 15 for _they called_ _they were called_.
30 11 from the bottom, for _Esoteries_ _Esoterics_.
47 6 for _Ben Merdas_ _Beni Merdas_.
51 7 from the bottom, for _runs_ _rises_.
61 12 for _remuneration_ _renunciation_.
64 9 _Shah durye_ _Shah durr_.
66 3 dele comma after _pursuit_ and insert _of_.
95 20 for _Khowareim_ _Khowaresm_.
97 11 after _west_ insert _that of_.
— 21 for _Rakuye_ _Kakuye_.
101 8 _Endeddin_ _Esededdin_.
118 14 from the bottom, after _common_ insert _name_.
119 12 for _kasha_ _kaaba_.
131 6 from the bottom, for _and_ _or_.
145 1 for _property_ _properties_.
147 12 from the bottom, for _lie_ _lies_.
148 2 for _Korad_ _Kobad_.
— 18 _Reyumers_ _Keyumers_.
170 8 from the bottom, for _basiraki_ _basikaki_.
HISTORY
OF
THE ASSASSINS.
BOOK I.
_Introduction—Mohammed, founder of Islamism—Exhibition
of its doctrines and of its different sects, from one of
which (the Ismailites) the Assassins sprung._
Although the affairs of kingdoms and of nations, like the revolutions
of day and night, are generally repeated in countless and continued
successions, we, nevertheless, in our survey of the destinies of
the human race, encounter single great and important events, which,
fertilizing like springs, or devastating like volcanoes, interrupt the
uniform wilderness of history. The more flowery the strand,—the more
desolating the lava,—the rarer and more worthy objects do they become
to the curiosity of travellers, and the narratives of their guides. The
incredible, which has never been witnessed, but is nevertheless true,
affords the richest materials for historical composition, providing
the sources be authentic and accessible. Of all events, the account of
which, since history has been written, has descended to us, one of the
most singular and wonderful is the establishment of the dominion of the
Assassins—that _imperium in imperio_, which, by blind subjection, shook
despotism to its foundations; that union of impostors and dupes which,
under the mask of a more austere creed and severer morals, undermined
all religion and morality; that order of murderers, beneath whose
daggers the lords of nations fell; all powerful, because, for the space
of three centuries, they were universally dreaded, until the den of
ruffians fell with the khaliphate, to whom, as the centre of spiritual
and temporal power, it had at the outset sworn destruction, and by
whose ruins it was itself overwhelmed. The history of this empire of
conspirators is solitary, and without parallel; compared to it, all
earlier and later secret combinations and predatory states are crude
attempts or unsuccessful imitations.
Notwithstanding the wide space, to the extremest east and west, over
which the name of Assassins (of whose origin more hereafter) has
spread, and that in all the European languages it has obtained and
preserved the same meaning as the word _murderer_, little has hitherto
been made known, in consecutive order, or satisfactory representation,
of their achievements and fortunes, of their religious or civil codes.
What the Byzantines, the Crusaders, and Marco Polo related of them,
was long considered a groundless legend, and an oriental fiction. The
narrations of the latter have not been less doubted and oppugned,
than the traditions of Herodotus concerning the countries and nations
of antiquity. The more, however, the east is opened by the study of
languages and by travel, the greater confirmation do these venerable
records of history and geography receive; and the veracity of the
father of modern travel, like that of the father of ancient history,
only shines with the greater lustre.
Philological and historical, chronological and topographical
researches, instituted by Falconet and Silvestre de Sacy, Quatremère,
and Rousseau; outlines of European and oriental history, like those
of Déguignes and Herbelot; the very recent history of the Crusades,
by Wilken, compiled from the most ancient documents of the narrating
Crusaders, and cotemporary Arabians; smooth the path of the historian
of the Assassins; which name, neither Withof nor Mariti deserve;
the former, on account of his gossipping partiality, and the latter,
by reason of his meagreness and obscurity. Even after Abulfeda’s
Arabic, and Mirkhond’s Persian historical work, of which A. Jourdain
has given a valuable extract on the dynasty of the Ismailites, other
oriental sources, almost unknown, claim the attention of the historian.
Among the Arabic are—Macrisi’s, large Egyptian Topography, and Ibn
Khaledun’s Political Prolegomena: Hadji Khalfa’s invaluable Geography
and Chronological Tables; the Khaliph’s Bed of Roses, by Nasmisade; The
Two Collectors of Histories and Narrations, by Mohammed the Secretary,
and Mohammed Elaufi; The Explanation and Selection of Histories, by
Hessarfenn and Mohammed Effendi, among the Turkish: and among the
Persian, The Universal History of Lari; The Gallery of Pictures of
Ghaffari, a master-piece of historical art and style; The History of
Wassaf, the Conqueror of the World, by Jowaini; The Biographies of the
Poets, by Devletshah; The History of Thaberistan and Masenderan, by
Sahireddin; and, lastly, The Counsels for Kings, by Jelali of Kain, are
the principal.
He, who possesses the advantage of drawing from these oriental sources,
which, for the most part, remain concealed from the western world, will
be astonished at the richness of the treasures still to be brought
to light. There lie open before him—the sovereignty of the great
monarchies converging into one point; the power of single dynasties,
shooting out into a thousand rays; the fabulous chronologies of the
most ancient, and the exact annals of the most modern empires; the
period of ignorance anterior to the prophet, and the days of knowledge
that succeeded; the wonders of the Persians; the feats of the Arabs;
the universally ravaging and desolating spirit of the Mongols; and the
political wisdom of the Ottomans. Amidst such an abundance, the miner’s
strength appears too small, and his life too short, to enable him to
avail himself of all: and moreover, the very excess of riches renders
selection difficult. Which vein is he first to open, and from which
mass is he first to extract the ore for the manufacture of historic
art? Nowhere in the labyrinthine treasury of the east will he find
a perfect work, but only rich materials for the construction of his
edifice. His choice is determined by accident or predilection. What is
new and important always finds a sale; and the market is never glutted
with building materials, at a time when architecture flourishes.
An Arabian proverb says, “The building stone is not left lying in the
road.” If it be indifferent to the historical investigator, who is
eager for knowledge, and to whom sources are accessible, with what
and to what end he begins his labour, it is by no means so with the
conscientious historian, who only works with pleasure where all known
sources are at his command, and when accuracy may, for the future,
spare him the charge of incompleteness. In this point of view, the
serried ranks of oriental histories are thinned at once. Where, either
in the west or the east, is the library, which contains the works so
necessary to the complete treatment of the most important oriental
epochs,—works which, as yet, are known only by their names, and not by
their contents? Who, for example, could precisely and circumstantially
describe the history of the Khalifat, the dominion of the families
Ben Ommia and Abbas, and their capitals, so long as he had not read
the History of Bagdad, by Ibn Khatib, and that of Damascus, by Ibn
Assaker,—the former in sixty, the latter in eighty volumes? Who could
write the History of Egypt, if he has not at hand, besides Macrisi, the
numerous works which he consulted?
Still greater difficulties beset the writer of Persian history, whether
it be of the fabulous times of mythology, or of the middle period,
where the stream of the Persian monarchy, till then restrained in
one bed, flows into the numerous branches of cotemporary dynasties;
or of the most modern, where it has long been lost in the desert of
wild anarchy. More than one generation must pass, ere the literary
treasures of the east will be completed in the libraries of the west,
either by the patronage of princes, or the industry of travellers; or
become more accessible, by a more extended knowledge of languages, and
by translations; and ere thus, the venerable witnesses of antiquity
will be assembled, all of which it is the first duty of the historian
carefully to examine. An exception to this want of accumulated
authorities, which has hitherto been so sensibly felt in Europe,
and which checks the writer of oriental history in the midst of his
career, is exhibited by that of the Ottomans. Its original sources,
the eldest of which scarcely boast an antiquity of five hundred years,
might (although not without considerable expenditure both of money and
trouble) even now, be all procured, and moreover, might be completed
and corrected from the contemporary histories of the Byzantines and
modern Europeans.
A history is, however, the work of years; and the severity of the
task demands strength, prepared by previous exercise. In addition
to the immense importance of the subject, we were induced to
impose upon ourselves the present work in preference to others,
by the consideration, that being in the possession of all the
before-mentioned original authorities, touching the History of the
Assassins (besides which none are known in the east), we might deem the
examination of historical witnesses concerning this important epoch,
almost as closed. Their depositions are certainly sparing and meagre;
but the barrenness of the subject in splendid descriptions of battles,
expeditions, commercial enterprise, and monuments, is compensated
by the deeply engrossing interest of the history of governments and
religions. The Assassins are but a branch of the Ismailites; and these
latter, not the Arabs generally as descendants of Ishmael, the son of
Hagar, but a sect existing in the bosom of Islamism, and so called from
the Imam Ismail, the son of Jafer. In order, therefore, to understand
their doctrinal system, and the origin of their power, it is necessary
to treat, at some length, of Islamism itself, its founder, and its
sects.
In the seventh century of the Christian era, when Nushirvan, the Just,
adorned, with his princely virtues, the imperial throne of Persia, and
the tyrant Phocas stained with his crimes that of Byzantium;—in the
same year, in which Persia’s host, for the first time, fled before
the Arabian troops of the insurgent viceroy of Hira, and Abraha,
the Christian king of Abyssinia, the Lord of the Elephants, who had
hastened from Africa, in order to destroy the sacred house of the
Kaaba, was driven back by that scourge of heaven, the small-pox,
which commencing there, has since raged over the whole of the old
continent—(birds of celestial vengeance, says the Koran, stoned
his army with pebbles, that they fell); in this year, so important
to Arabia, that from it began a new era—that of the year of the
Elephants,—in the same night, when the foundations of the palace of
Chosroes at Medain, which had baffled the attacks of time, or the
builders of Bagdad, were overturned by an earthquake; when, by the
operation of the same agent, lakes were dried up, and the sacred fire
of Persia was extinguished by the ruins of its temple,—Mohammed first
saw the light of the world, the third part of which was so soon to
submit to his faith. His biography has been written in many volumes,
by the historians of those nations who believe in him. From thence
Maracci,[1] Gagnier,[2] and Sale,[3] have derived the accounts which
they have given to Europe. The first is embued with the fanatical zeal
of his church, the second is the most fundamental and complete, the
third the most unprejudiced. Voltaire,[4] Gibbon,[5] and Müller,[6]
have painted the legislator, conqueror and prophet; after them, it
is difficult to add anything concerning him. Hence, in this case, we
shall be brief, and shall only state what is necessary, and what has
remained untouched by those three great historians, or that portion
of his tenets which stands in the nearest connexion with those of the
Ismailites, and by which, in the sequel, they were undermined.
Mohammed, the son of Abdallah, and grandson of Abdolmotaleb, was
descended from a family of the highest rank among the Arabians, that
of Koreish, in whose custody were the keys of the sacred house of
the Kaaba. He felt himself called to lead back his countrymen, who
were sunk in idolatry, to the knowledge of the only true God, and,
as prophet and legislator, to complete the great work of purifying
natural religion from the dross of superstition; a task which so many
had previously, at different times, attempted. Arabia was divided among
the religions of the Christians, the Jews, and the Sabæans. To combine
these three into one, by the union of that which flowed from principles
common to all, for the attainment of political liberty and greatness,
was the aim of his life, which had been so long spent in meditation,
and only late in years was roused to active exertion. From his infancy,
his mother, Emina, who was a Jewess, and in early youth, during a
journey in Syria, the Christian monk, Sergius, imbued him with the
religious tenets of Moses and Jesus, and exhibited, in the full light
of its infamy, the idolatrous worship of the Kaaba, where three hundred
idols demanded the adoration of the people.
The Jews were expecting the Messiah as the Saviour of Israel, the
Christians looked for the advent of the Paraclete, as their comforter
and mediator, when, in his fortieth year (an age which, in the east,
has always been considered as that of a prophet), Mohammed felt within
him the voice of divine inspiration, enjoining him to read in the name
of the Lord,[7] the commands of heaven, and by their promulgation, to
prove himself to his people, the prophet and apostle of God. Nature
had formed him a poet and an enthusiastic orator, by endowing him with
an astounding power of language, a penetrating ardour of imagination,
a dignity of demeanour, commanding the profoundest reverence, and a
captivating suavity of manners. Valour, magnanimity, and eloquence,
qualities prized by every nation, and by none more than the wild son
of the desert, were the three great magnets which drew to him the
hearts of his people, who had long been wont to do homage to the heroic
and munificent, and more especially to the great poets, whose noble
productions were hung in the Kaaba, written in golden letters, and as
the immediate gifts of heaven, deemed worthy of divine adoration.
Of all Arabic poetry, the Koran is the master-piece; in it the
lightning of sublimity gleams through the dreary obscurity of long
prosy traditions and ordinances, and the energetic language rolls
like the thunder of heaven, reverberating from rock to rock, in the
echo of the rhyme; or pours on like the roaring of the wave, in the
constant return of similar sounding words. It stands the glorious
pyramid of Arabic poetry; no poet of this people, either before or
since, has approached its excellence. Lebid, one of the seven great
bards, whose works were called _al-moallakat_, the suspended, because
they hung on the walls of the Kaaba for public admiration, tore his own
down, as unworthy of the honour, the moment he had read the sublime
exordium of the second sura of the Koran. Hassan, the satirist,
who lampooned the prophet, on which verses of the Koran descended
from heaven, was forced, at the conquest of Mecca, to confess the
irresistible power of his word and his sword; and Kaab, the son of
Soheir, paid him spontaneous homage, in a hymn of praise, for which
the prophet gave him his mantle, which is still preserved among the
precious articles of the Turkish treasury; and is annually, during
the month Ramadan, worshipped and touched, in the most solemn manner,
by the Sultan, accompanied by his court and the great officers of
state. Mohammed’s lofty destiny, in changing from poet to prophet,
has induced many later Arabian poets and beaux esprits to attempt the
like; the consequences of which have either been nugatory, or fraught
with their own destruction. Moseleima, a cotemporary of Mohammed, and,
like him, the poet of nature, nevertheless, soon became dangerous to
him, as the unattainable divinity of the Koran had not yet received
the sanction of ages. Ibn Mokaffaa, the elegant translator of the
Fables of Bidpai, who shut himself up for whole weeks, to produce a
single verse which might bear a comparison with the lofty passage
of the Koran, on the deluge,—“Earth, swallow thy waters! Heaven,
withhold thy cataracts!”—earned by his fruitless labours nothing but
the reputation of a free-thinker; and Motenebbi, whose name signifies
the “prophecying,” gained, indeed, the glory of a great poet, but
never that of a prophet. Thus, for twelve centuries, the Koran has
maintained, undisturbed, the character of an inimitable and uncreated
celestial Scripture, as the eternal Word of God.
The word of the prophet is the Soonna, that is, the collection of his
orations and oral commands, which, no less than in the written Koran,
by vivid fancy, energy of will, power of language, and knowledge of
mankind, manifest the genius of the great poet and legislator. The
former has never been estimated in the view we have just taken of it:
the latter will be considered in the sequel.
The creed of Islam (_i. e._ the most implicit resignation to the will
of God) is,—There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet. His
whole doctrine consists of only five articles of faith, and as many
duties of external worship. The dogmas are—belief in God, his angels,
his prophets, the day of judgment, and predestination. The religious
rites are—ablution, prayer, fasting, alms, and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Creed and worship formed a sort of Mosaic of portions of Christianity,
Judaism, and Sabæanism: there are no miracles but those of the
creation and of the word, that is, the verses of the Koran. Mohammed’s
journey to heaven, contained in it, is merely a vision in the style of
Ezekiel, of whose throne bearers, the Alborak (the prophet’s celestial
steed with a human face) is in imitation. The doctrine of the last day,
the judgment of the dead, the balance in which the souls are to be
weighed, the bridge of trial, and the seven hells and eight paradises,
are derived from Persian and Egyptian sources. The highest rewards of
heaven are—pleasures of sensual enjoyment, shady lawns, with rills
bubbling amidst flowers, gilded kiosks and vases, soft couches and rich
goblets, silver fountains and handsome youths. Sparkling sherbet and
generous wine from the springs, Kewsser and Selsebil, for the pious,
who, during their lives, have abstained from intoxicating potations.
Black-eyed damsels, ever young, for the righteous; and, in particular,
for him who has earned the eternal palm of martyrdom in the holy war
against the enemies of the faith. His is the everlasting reward, for
“Paradise is beneath the shadow of the sword,” which the faithful are
to wield against the infidel, till he conforms to Islamism, or subjects
himself to tribute. Even against intestine enemies of the faith, or
of the realm, the execution of justice is lawful, and homicide is
better than rebellion. The Koran contains much relating to the laws of
marriage and inheritance, and the rights and duties of women, to whom
Mohammed was the first to ensure a civil political existence, which
before him they seem scarcely to have enjoyed among the Arabians. There
is nothing concerning the succession to the administration of affairs,
and with regard to claims to property in land and sovereignty, thus
much only:—“The rule is of God, he giveth it to, and taketh it from
whomsoever he will. The earth is God’s, he devises it to whomsoever
he will.” By these general formulæ of the celestial decrees, a fair
field was opened to despots and usurpers: Mohammed’s idea was, that
sovereignty was the right of the strongest, and he once expressly
declared that Omar, who was distinguished by the great energy of his
character, possessed the qualities of a prophet and khalif. Tradition
has, however, handed down to us no similar expression in favour of the
amiable Ali, his son-in-law. Moreover, it had not escaped him, that in
the constant progress of history there is nothing immutable; that no
human institution can be endued with perpetual duration, and that the
spirit of one generation seldom survives that which succeeds it. It was
in this sense that he said, prophetically,—“The khalifate will last
only thirty years after my death.”
It is probable, that had Mohammed destined the succession (or as
the Arabs call it, the khalifate) to his nearest relations, he
would have expressly named his son-in-law, Ali, as khalif. As,
however, he enjoined nothing on this point during his life,—for some
eulogiums passed on Ali, adduced by the latter’s party, are vague
and doubtful,—he seems to have committed the appointment of the most
worthy to the selection of the Moslimin. The first whom they elected
emir and imam, was the first convert to Islamism, Ebubekr Essidik (the
True), and after his short reign, Omar Alfaruk (the Decisive), to whom
they did homage with oath and striking of hands. Omar’s severity,
equally inflexible to himself and others, and the remarkable force
of his character, first impressed on Islamism and the khalifat, the
stamp of fanaticism and despotism, which was foreign to its first
institution. The spirit of conquest, indeed, was already manifested by
Mohammed’s first enterprises against the Christians in Syria, against
the Jews in Chaibar, and the idolators of Mecca. Ebubekr followed his
footsteps with his victories in Yemen and Syria; but Omar first erected
the triumphal arch of Islamism and the khalifate, by the capture of
Damascus and Jerusalem, by the overthrow of the ancient Persian throne,
and the sapping of that of Byzantium, from which he tore two of its
strongest foundation-stones, Syria and Egypt. It was at this epoch,
that the blind zeal of the khalif and his generals ruined the treasures
of Greek and Persian wisdom, the accumulation of ages. It was then
that the Alexandrian library fed the stoves of the baths, and the
books of Medain swelled the flood of the Tigris.[8] Omar prohibited,
under the severest penalties, the use of gold and silk; and the sea,
as being the great medium of the intercourse of nations by commerce
and exchange of ideas, he interdicted to the Moslimin. Thus, by the
vigour of his spiritual and temporal administration, did he hold his
conquests, and preserve the doctrines of Islamism; zealously watching
lest their integrity should be endangered by foreign influence, or the
manners of the victors corrupted by the luxury of the vanquished. It
was not unjustly that he dreaded the effect which the superiority in
civilization and institutions of the Greeks and Persians, might exert
on the Arabs: Mohammed, indeed, had already warned his story-loving
people against the traditions and fabulous legends of the latter.
The reins of dominion, which Omar had held in so tight a grasp, escaped
from the hands of his successor, Osman. He was the first khalif,
who fell beneath the dagger of conspiracy and rebellion; and Ali,
Mohammed’s son-in-law, mounted the throne, which was stained with the
blood of his predecessor, and which soon after was dyed with his own.
Many refused to acknowledge or swear fealty to him, as Prince of the
Faithful; they were called Motasali, that is, the _Separatists_,[9]
and formed one of the first and largest sects of Islamism: at their
head was Moawia, of the family of Ommia, whose father, Ebusofian, had
been one of the most powerful opponents of the prophet. He suspended
the blood-stained clothes of Osman on the pulpit of the great mosque
of Damascus, to inflame Syria with vengeance against Ali. But the
ambition of Moawia was less effectual in securing his destruction than
the hatred of Aishe, which even during the life-time of Mohammed, and
Ebubekr, her father, she had vowed against him. When in the sixth year
of the hegira, during the prophet’s expedition against the tribe of
Mostalak, Aishe the Chaste, having wandered from the line of march with
Sofwan, the son of Moattal, had given rise to certain calumnies: Ali
was one of the many, who, by their doubts and conjectures, rendered the
title of Chaste so problematical, that it was necessary to have a Sura
descend from heaven, to hush report, and rescue the honour of Aishe and
the prophet. Henceforward, by the authority of the sacred scripture
of Islamism, she passed for a model of immaculate purity. Eighty
calumniators fell immediately beneath the sword of justice; but Ali was
destined, at a later period, to atone for his incautious scepticism,
with his throne and his life. Aishe led her two generals, Talha and
Sobeir, against him, and by her presence, inflamed them to the combat
in which they perished. A part of his troops refused to fight, and
declared aloud for the opponents. They were afterwards called Khavaredj
(the Deserters), and afterwards formed a powerful sect, equally hostile
with the Motasali, to the interests of the family of the prophet; but
professing many tenets, differing again from theirs. At the second
battle of Saffain, Moawia caused the Koran to be carried on the
points of lances in the van of his army.[10] After the action near
Nèheran, Ali’s compulsory abdication took place at Dowmetol-Jendel,
which was shortly after succeeded by his assassination. Thus the
khalifat, contrary to the order of hereditary succession, came, by
means of murder and rebellion, into the family of Ommia, thirty years
after Mohammed had prescribed that space of time as the period of its
duration.
Of all the passions which have ever called into action the tongue,
the pen, or the sword, which have overturned the throne, and shaken
the altar to its base, ambition is the first and mightiest. It uses
crime as a means, virtue as a mask. It respects nothing sacred, and
yet it has recourse to that which is most beloved, because the most
secure, that of all held most sacred by man,—religion. Hence the
history of religion is never more tempestuous and sanguinary than when
the tiara, united to the diadem, imparts and receives an increased
power. The union of the supreme temporal and spiritual rule, which the
steady policy of the popes, never to be diverted from its object, has
for centuries in vain sought to achieve, is a fundamental maxim of
Islamism. The khalif, or successor of the prophet, was not only Emir al
Mominin, Commander of the True Believers, but also Imam al Moslimin,
Chief of the Devout; supreme lord and pontiff, not merely invested with
the standard and the sword, but also the prophet’s staff and mantle.
The Moslim world could yield obedience to but one lawful khalif, as
Christendom to but one pope. But as three popes have often pretended to
the triple crown, so have three khalifs laid claim to the supreme rule
of three portions of the earth. After the family of Ommia had lost the
throne of Damascus, it still maintained the khalifat in Spain, as did
the family of Abbas, on the banks of the Tigris, and that of Fatima,
on those of the Nile. As formerly, the Ommiades, the Abbasides, and
the Fatimites reigned contemporaneously at Granada, Bagdad, and Cairo;
so, at the present day, the sovereigns of the families of Katschar and
Osman possess the dignity of khalif at Teheran and Constantinople;
the latter with the most justice, since, after the conquest of Egypt
by Selim the First, the insignia, which were preserved at Cairo, the
banner, the sword, and the mantle of the prophet, together with the
two holy cities, Mecca, his birth-place, and Medina, his burial-place,
augmented their treasury and their dominions. They designate themselves
guardians and servants of the two holy cities, Padishah and Shah (_i.
e._ emperor and king); Sultan Alberrein and Khakan Albahrein, rulers
and lords of two parts of the globe and two seas. They might, with
great justice, entitle themselves sovereigns of three holy cities,
rulers of three portions of the globe, and lords of three seas; because
Jerusalem, as well as Mecca and Medina, is in their possession; because
their dominion extends into Europe, Asia and Africa; and because the
Red, as well as the Black and the White Seas, lie within the compass of
their sway.
Having bestowed this rapid glance on the modern dominions of the
Moslimin, which the illustration of the subject justified, we shall
now revert our attention to its primitive condition. The first and
greatest schisms in Islamism proceeded from the contest for temporal
rule, and the faith shared the dismemberment of the empire. We have
already remarked the existence of the two great political and religious
factions, the Motasali and Khavaredj, the apostates and the deserters,
many of whose tenets differed materially from those inculcated by the
ruling doctrine; but particularly that opinion which they maintained
with arms, in respect to the right to the dignity of khalif and imam.
This is the origin of most of the sects of Islamism, and is the fertile
root from which has grown the many-branched stem of heresy.
No less than seventy-two sects are counted, according to a tradition
of Mohammed, who is said to have foretold that his people would divide
into seventy-three branches, of which one only is the true one, all the
rest being erroneous. A very instructive sub-division and enumeration
of them is found in Sheheristani and also Macrisi, to which Silvestre de
Sacy first directed public attention, in a treatise read by him to the
Institute of France. We shall be satisfied with considering merely the
two stems into which the tree of Islamism, as soon as it rose above
the ground, bifurcated, and which even now, after the growth of twelve
hundred years, still remain the two principal limbs which have given
birth to the confused sectarian ramifications. These two divisions are
the doctrines of the Soonnites and the Shiites, which, though otherwise
multifarious, differ from each other principally in this,—that the
former recognise, as legitimate, the succession of the four first
khalifs, the latter only acknowledge the rights of Ali and his
descendants. The Soonnite is shocked by the murder of Osman, and the
Shiite is revolted by the slaughter of Ali and his sons. What the one
execrates, the other defends; and what the latter receives, the former
rejects. This exactly diametrical opposition of most of their dogmas
became only the more decisive by the lapse of time, and the separation
of political interests of the nations which subscribe to them. Most of
the wars between the Turks and Persians, the former Soonnites, and the
latter Shiites, have always been as much religious as inter-national
wars: and the efforts, so often repeated, and last essayed by Shah
Nadir, of bringing about a coalition of the two parties, remained
as fruitless as the endeavours, century after century, to unite the
Western and Eastern Christian churches, with whose schism that of the
Soonnites and the Shiites may not inaptly be compared.
The Soonnites, whose doctrine is considered among us the orthodox
one,—all the delineations of the Islamitic system, hitherto published
in Europe, having been derived from Soonnitic authorities,—are again
divided into four classes; these differ from each other in some
non-essential points of ritual ceremony: as, for example, the ritual of
the Roman Catholic church, and the no less canonical ones of the united
Greek, Armenian, and Syrian churches. In essential dogmas, however,
they agree. These four thoroughly orthodox sects of the Soonnites,
are named after the four great imams, Malek, Shaffi, Hanbali, and Abu
Hanife, who, like fathers of the church, stand at their head. Their
doctrine and that of the latter, in particular, which is acknowledged
as the predominant one in the Ottoman empire, are sufficiently known
by the admirable exposition of them by Mouradya d’Ohsson. We are
less acquainted with the sects of the Shiites, who are divided into
several, as for example, the Anti-Catholics into Protestant, Reformed,
Anabaptists, Quakers, &c. The four principal are the Kaissaniye,
Seidiye, Ghullat, and Imamie. We shall here give some particular
account of these from Ibn Khaledun and Lary, both by reason of the
novelty of subject, and the relation it bears to the present history.
The chief ground of their difference consists in the proofs on which
they rest the pretensions of Ali, and the order of succession in which
the imamat, or right to the supreme pontificate of Islamism in his
family, has been inherited by his descendants.
I.—The Kaissaniye, so named after one of Ali’s freedmen, maintain
that the succession did not pass, as most of the other Shiites
believe, to his sons, Hassan and Hossein, but to their brother,
Mohammed-Ben-Hanife. They are divided into several branches, two of
which it is proper to mention: 1st. The Wakifye (_i. e._ the standing),
according to whom the Imamat has remained in the person of Mohammed,
and has never been transferred; he never having died, but being said to
have appeared since on earth, under other names. Of this opinion were
the two Arabian poets, Kossir and Seid Homairi. 2ndly. The Hashemiye,
according to whom the imamat descended from Mohammed-Ben-Hanife to
his son, Abu Hashem, who bequeathed it to Mohammed of the family of
Abbas, who left it to his son, Ibrahim, who was succeeded by his
brother, Abdallah Seffah, the founder of the dynasty. The object of the
Hashemiye was evidently to strengthen the claims of the Abbasides to
the throne of the khalifat, to which one of the principal doctors and
preachers of this sect, Abomoslem, essentially contributed.
II.—The second[11] principal sect of the Shiites, the Seidiye, affirm
that the imamat descended from Ali to Hassan, and Hossein; from the
latter, to his son, Ali Seinolabidin; and from this last to his son,
Seid: whereas most of the other Shiites consider, after Seinolabidin,
his son, Mohammed Bakir, Seid’s brother, as the legitimate imam.
Besides this order of succession, the Seidiye differ from the Imamie in
two essential points:—1st. In recognizing him only as the true imam,
who possesses—in addition to piety—liberality, bravery, knowledge, and
other princely virtues; while the Imamie are satisfied with the mere
practice of religious duties, as prayers, fastings, and almsgiving.
2nd. In acknowledging, as legitimate, according to an expression of
Seid, the khalifate of Ebubekr, Omar and Osman, who are rejected
by the other Shiites as illegitimate, and execrated by the Imamie.
This exception has obtained the Seidiye the by-name Rewafis (_i. e._
Dissenters). The Seidiye are again divided into different branches,
according as they make the imamat descend from Seid to one or the
other. They have given origin to many competitors for the throne,
both in the east and in the west. Such was Edris, the son of Edris
Mohammed’s brother.[12] It was to this last, usually known by the
name Nefs-sekiye (_i. e._ the pure soul), that Seid’s son, Yahya, who
was hanged in Khorassan, is said to have ceded his pretensions to the
imamat, of which the before-named Edris availed himself to found the
dynasty of the Edrissides, in his newly-built city of Fez. According to
others, Mohammed, the son of Abdallah, also called the pure soul, and
Mehdi, surrendered the imamat to his brother Ibrahim; and this latter
to his nearest relation, Issa. These three, who raised their claims to
the khalifat during the reign of Manssur, expiated them in imprisonment
or with death. By their removal, the family of Abbas was established on
the throne, till, at a later period, it was assailed by a descendant of
Issa, with the aid of the Africans from Zanguebar (Sinji), who at that
period overran Asia. In Dilem, also, a certain Nassir Atrush invited
the people to recognise the claims to the khalifat of Hassan Ben Ali,
a son of Omar, brother of Seinolabidin, uncle of Seid; and hence arose
the power of Hassan in Taberistan. Thus the Seidiye promulgated their
doctrine respecting the succession of the imamat, both in Africa and
Asia, at the expense of the existing khalifat of the Abassides.[13]
III.—The Ghullat, the Exaggerating. This title, which is common to
several sects, indicates the exaggeration and extravagance of their
doctrines, which far exceed the bounds of reason, and in which traces
of the metaphysics of the Gnostics and of Indian mysticism cannot be
overlooked They recognise but one imam, as the Jews admit but one
Messiah; and attribute to Ali divine qualities, as the Christians do to
Jesus. Some distinguish in him two natures,—the human and the divine:
others acknowledge only the latter. Others are of opinion that the
imams alone are gifted with metempsychosis; so that the same perfect
nature of Ali has descended, and will to the end of the world descend,
to his successors in the imamat in their respective turns. According
to others, this series was interrupted by Mohammed Bakir, the son
of Seinolabidin, and brother of Seid; who is believed by some to be
still alive, wandering on earth, although concealed, like Khiser, the
guardian of the spring of life. Others again affirm, that this is true
only of Ali, who sits immortally enthroned in clouds, from whence his
voice is heard in the thunder, and the brandished scourge of his wrath
is viewed in the lightning’s flash.
These sects of the Ghullat are held to be damnable heretics, not merely
by the Soonnites, but also by the rest of the Shiites, as the Arians
and Nestorians were so estimated, not by the Roman catholics only,
but also by the Byzantine Jacobites. They received the general name
of Mulhad, or “impious.” The basis of their doctrine lies in their
extravagant homage and _de facto_ deification of the first imams; who,
however, far from admitting it, condemned its supporters. Ali himself
doomed some to the flames; Mohammed-Ben-Hanife rejected with horror
the faith of Muchtar, who ascribed god-like properties to him;—and the
Imam Jafer excommunicated all who hazarded the same tenet concerning
himself. This, however, did not prevent its gaining both teachers and
disciples.
It is not difficult to perceive its tendency, nor how convenient an
instrument of sedition and usurpation it must have been found in the
hands of skilful impostors or political competitors for the throne.
It was easy to turn, in the name of one invisible and perfect imam,
the obedience of the people from the visible and imperfect prince,
or by the ascription to an ambitious usurper of the transmigration
of the souls, and the perfections of preceding imams, to achieve his
investment with the sovereignty.
IV.—The Ghullat, however, notwithstanding the extravagance of their
doctrines of deification and metempsychosis, were, on the whole, far
from being so dangerous to the throne as the Imamie; who, indeed,
adopted from them the idea of a vanished imam, but who otherwise
maintained a continued series of revealed imams prior to him, but
posteriorly a natural descent of concealed ones. While some closed the
series of the revealed with the twelfth, and others with the seventh,
none expected, from his reigning successors, the most requisite
princely qualities as the Seidiye did, but merely devotion and
innocence. By means of this doctrine, wily and courageous intriguers
were enabled to keep their weak princes in leading strings, and by
their skilful manœuvres to delude the people, to serve their own
ends.
The Imamie are divided into two classes—the Esnaashrie, or the
_twelvers_, so named because they make the series of revealed imams
end with Mohammed-Ben-Hassan-Askeri, who was the twelfth. Of him,
they believe that he disappeared in a grotto near Hella, and that he
remains there invisible, to re-appear at the end of the world, under
the name of Mohdi, _the leader_. The second class is the Sebiin, the
_seveners_, who only reckon seven imams, in the following order: 1st.
Ali; 2nd. Hassan; 3rd. Hossein; 4th. Ali Seinolabidin (_i. e._ ornament
of the devout); 5th. Mohammed Bakir (_i. e._ the dealer in secrets);
6th. Jafer Sadik (_i. e._ the just); and, 7th. His son, Ismail. The
latter, who died before his father, is deemed by them the last imam,
and from him they are called Ismailites, as the twelvers were named
Imamites. The discrepancy between them commences at the seventh imam;
as the Imamites (the twelvers) deduce the imamat from Mussa Kassim, the
son of Jafer and brother of Ismail, in the following order: 7th. Mussa
Kassim; 8th. Ali Risa; 9th. Mohammed Taki; 10th. Hadi; 11th. Hassan;
12th. Askeri, and his son, Mohammed Mehdi. The claims of these imams
to the khalifat were so powerful and well recognised, under the first
Abassides, that Maimun publicly named Ali Risa, the eighth of them,
as his successor, to the great dissatisfaction of the whole family of
Abbas; who would certainly have endeavoured to prevent the execution
of this law of inheritance, had not the death of Ali proceeded that of
Maimun.
In maintaining their sovereignty, the _Seveners_ or Ismailites, were
more fortunate than the other sect. Their power first originated
with the dynasty of the Fatimites, on the coast and in the interior
of Africa, at Mahadia, and Cairo; and, one hundred and fifty years
afterwards, in Asia, by the dominion of the Assassins, in the
mountainous parts of Irak, and the coasts of Syria. By the oriental
historians, the African Ismailites are termed the western, the Asiatic
the eastern Ismailites.
Ere we commence our proposed subject, the history of the latter,
it is of primary importance to say a few words, in circumstantial
detail of the former, as being their original stock. Their founder
was Obeidollah, who came forward as the son of Mohammed Habib, the
son of Jafer Mossadik, the son of Mohammed, the son of Ismail, as,
in fact, the fourth in descent from the seventh imam. Ismail, in the
opinion of the Ismailites, was the last of the revealed imams; and
his son, grandson, and great-grandson, Mohammed, Jafer Mossadik, and
Mohammed Habib were concealed imams (Mectum) till Obeidollah, as the
first again revealed, asserted the rights of the family of Ismail
to the khalifat. These rights, however, were long and violently
contested by the Abassides, whose interest it was to annihilate
together, both the genuineness of their rivals’ genealogy, and
the validity of their pretensions. During the reign of the Khalif
Kadirbillah,[14] a secret assemblage of doctors of the laws was held,
in which the most celebrated among them, Abuhamid Isfraini, Imam
Kuduri, Sheikh Samir, Abjurdi, and others, declared the genuineness
of the Fatimites’ genealogy, and their claims to the throne, to be
false and void. How well founded, if not this decision, at least the
fear of the Abassides was, appeared fifty years afterwards, when the
Emir Arslan Bessassiri, a general in the service of the Dilemite
Prince Behaeddewlet, originally a Mameluke of the Fatimites at Cairo,
transferred, for a whole year, to Bagdad, the two royal prerogatives of
Islamism,—the coining of money and the public prayer, from the name of
the Bagdad khalif Kaim-Biemrillah, to that of the Egyptian sovereign
Mostanssur.[15]
This rivalry, and the necessity of self-defence, caused the doubts
which the Abassides had cast on the descent of Obeidollah, the first
of the Fatimites, to fall into considerable suspicion; and they are
considered unfounded by great Arabian historians, such as Macrisi
and Ibn Khaledun, as being the effusion of a factious policy. The
great jurist Kadi Ebubekr Bakilani is of the opposite opinion, which
is supported, as we shall presently see, not only by this sheik’s
authority, but also by other cogent arguments derived from the esoteric
doctrines of the Ismailites. In order to understand these, on which
also those of the Assassins are founded, it is necessary to take a
still wider view of the sects and parties into which Islamism was
divided.
Religious fanaticism is continually accused by history as the fomenter
of those sanguinary wars which have desolated kingdoms, and convulsed
states; nevertheless, religion has scarcely ever been the end, but
merely the instrument, of ambitious policy and untameable lust of
power. Usurpers and conquerors perverted the beneficent spirit of the
founders of religion, to their own pernicious ends. Religious systems
have never operated so destructively on dynasties and governments, as
in those cases where the insufficient separation of the spiritual from
the temporal authorities has given the freest play to the alternation
of hierarchy and tyranny. The nearer the altar is to the throne, the
greater is the temptation to step from the former to the latter, and
bind the diadem round the mitre; the closer the connexion of the
political and ecclesiastical interests, the more numerous and prolific
are the germs of tedious civil and religious wars.
The histories of the ancient Persians and Romans, of the Egyptians and
Greeks, possess almost an immunity, because religion, being merely
considered as popular worship, could neither weaken nor support
pretensions to the supreme authority. Christianity never deluged
kingdoms with blood, until it was made use of by ambitious popes and
princes, contrary to the original spirit of its institution; as, under
Gregory the Seventh and his successors, the crosier overpowered the
sceptre; or when, to use the words of Gibbon,[16] “rebellion, as it
happened in the time of Luther, was occasioned by the abuse of those
benevolent principles of Christianity which inculcate the natural
freedom of mankind.” Entirely different was the case with Islamism,
which, as we have seen, being founded as much on the sword as the
koran, united in the person of the imam and khalif, both the dignity
of pontiff and that of sovereign. Hence its history presents more
numerous and more murderous wars than that of any other religion;
hence, in almost all the sects, the chief ground of the schism is the
contested succession to the throne; and hence, there is scarcely one of
any importance which has not, at some period, proved dangerous to the
reigning family as a political faction in the state.
There was none which did not strive to become, in the strictest sense,
predominant, and to seat the princes of their faith on the throne of
Islam. Their missionaries (Dai) claimed not only the faith, but also
the obedience of the people, and were at once apostles and pretenders.
All the heresies, which we have hitherto mentioned, were, in spirit,
essentially usurping sects. Islamism, however, bore in its bosom others
still more prejudicial to its existence; sects, which trampling under
foot all the maxims of faith and morality, and preaching the overthrow
of thrones and altars, bore as their cognizance, equality and liberty.
We have still to give some details concerning these latter; to which,
in order to distinguish them from the former, to whom they are entirely
opposed, we shall give the name of revolutionary.
The Persian empire, the most ancient and likewise the best regulated
monarchy of the east, was the first to experience, and had, for the
longest period endured, all the horrors of despotism and anarchy
arising from unbounded power and resisting liberty. As long as the
faith of Zoroaster preserved its primeval purity, and the sacred fire
still burned in the temples, religion could neither afford a shield nor
a mask to rebellion; but when, under the Sassanides, the edifice of the
ancient system was shaken by new opinions and reforms, the temple and
the palace began alike to totter. Innovators and heretics sprung up,
and sedition undermined, at the same moment, both the altar and the
throne.
The sects of Magianism are very little known to us; hence, the
erroneousness of the prevailing opinions concerning the religion of
the Persians. Dualism, or Manicheism, has often been cited as the
original doctrine of Zoroaster. It has been attempted to combine into
one system, opinions in vogue at very different epochs; hence, the
vague and contradictory accounts not only of the Greeks, but even of
Anquetil, and Kleuker, since the discovery of some books of the Zend;
to which Herder was the first to direct our attention. His conjectures
confirm what Macrisi, probably taking Sheheristani as his guide, has
said respecting the sects of the Magians. He enumerates several; and
1st. The Keyumerssie, followers of the ancient doctrine according
to Keyumers, called the first man or king; 2nd. The Servaniye, who
consider Servan (_i. e._ eternity) as the matrix and sole origin of all
things; 3rd. The Zerdushtiye, or disciples of Zerdusht or Zoroaster,
the reformer of the ancient doctrine of Hom; 4th. Sfeneviye the
Dualists, properly so called; 5th. The Maneviye or Manicheans; 6th. The
Farkuniye, a species of Gnostics who admit two principles, the father
and the son, whose discord was mediated by a third celestial power;
7th. The Masdekiye, the adherents of Masdek, who declared war against
all religion and morality, and preached universal liberty and equality,
the indifference of human actions, and community of goods and women. As
he gave free rein to all the passions, he gained all their slaves; not
merely the poor and needy,—that numerous class, having nothing to lose
and all to win,—but also those who, on the contrary had all to lose
and nothing to win, the grandees, and King Kobad himself, the father
of Nushirvan. This latter expiated the weakness of his concession
by the loss of his throne, and an incarceration, from which he was
released only by the wisdom and virtue of his vizier, Bisiirjimihr.
His son Nushirvan, however, purified the faith, and exterminated this
scandalous brood with fire and sword, without being able, as appears
from later incidents, entirely to annihilate them.[17] For, in the
first century of Islamism, the same spirit showed itself in the liberal
doctrines of several heads of sects; till at last, in the hands of
Babek and Karmath, it raised itself over heaps of carcases and ruins,
the terror of the kingdom, and the abhorrence of mankind.
The Persians, says Macrisi, have ever considered themselves the freest
and most cultivated of nations, and others as mere ignorant slaves.
After the destruction of their empire by the Arabians, they looked
down upon their victors with contempt and hatred; and sought the ruin
of Islamism, not only by open war, but also by secret doctrines and
pernicious dissensions, which, breaking forth in rebellion, must have
shaken the kingdom to its base. As these opinions bore the stamp of
irreligion and libertinism, those who maintained them were called
Sindik[18] (libertines), a word corrupted from Zend, the living word of
Zerdusht. Their first appearance in Islamism was in the commencement of
the khalifat of the family of Abbas, of whom, the first khalifs in vain
endeavoured to eradicate them with the sword. The eastern provinces
of the ancient Persian empire, whither the remaining adherents of the
ancient dynasty and form of worship had taken refuge, and whither
Ismalism had, as yet, scarcely penetrated, were the fertile sources of
these heresies so fatal to the imamat and khalifat. Thus, in the reign
of the Khalif Manssur,[19] the Rawendi, who maintained the doctrine of
the transmigration of souls, revolted; and twenty years afterwards,[20]
under the command of Abdol Kahir, the Mohammer (_i. e._ the red, or the
ass-like), so called, either because they wore red clothes, or because
they were called the true believers asses (the arabic root Hamara meaning,
both, he has been red and he has been an ass); and in the same year,
in Transoxana, the Sefidjamegan or white-dressed, founded by Hakem Ben
Hashem, called Mokannaa the concealed, from wearing a golden mask;
or Sasendeimah (_i. e._ the moonshine-maker), because he, at night,
produced a miraculous illumination from a well at Nakhsheb, which
caused the place to appear to be lighted by the moon. By this juggling
he wished to attest his divine mission, as by a miracle; as Mani had
proved the celestial origin of his, by the divinity of art, namely,
with a book adorned with splendid paintings (Ertengi Mani). Mokannaa
taught that God had assumed the human form since he had commanded the
angels to adore the first man; and that, since that period, the divine
nature had passed from prophet to prophet, to Abu Moslem, who had
founded the glory of the Abbasides, and descended lastly to himself. He
was a disciple of Abu Moslem, who was acknowledged also by the Rawendi
as their head, and who seems to have been the first to introduce the
doctrine of transmigration into Islamism.
Mokannaa added to the metempsychosis (Tenasukh), the incarnation
of the human and divine nature, a dogma originating in India, and
afterwards adopted, as we have seen above, by the Ghullat as one of
their principal tenets.[21]
In the reign of Maimun, the seventh Abbasside khalif, when translations,
and the invitation to Bagdad of the literati of Greece and Persia,
had caused the seeds of science, already planted, to bloom in full
luxuriance,—the spirit of the Arabian, which was now imbued with
the systems of Grecian philosophy, Persian theology, and Indian
mysticism, shook off, more and more, the narrow trammels of Islamism.
The appellation of Mulhad (atheist), and Sindik (libertine), became
constantly more and more common with their cause, and the wisest and
best informed of the khalif’s court, were thus stigmatized. In the
first year of the third century of the Hegira, arose a revolutionary
sectarian, who, like Masdek, two centuries and a half before, in
Persia, preached the indifference of actions and community of goods,
and menaced the throne of the khalif with ruin, as his prototype had
that of Chosru. Babek, surnamed Khurremi, either, according to Lari,
from the town Khurrem, his birth-place, or, according to others,
from the gay licentiousness of his doctrines (Khurrem, in Persian,
signifying gay), for a space of twenty years, filled the whole circuit
of the khalif’s dominions with carnage and ruins, until at length, in
the reign of Motassem, he was overthrown, taken prisoner, and put to
death in the khalif’s presence.[22] Babek, before he delivered his
captives to the axe, caused their wives and daughters to be violated
before their eyes; and it is said, that, in his turn, he received
the same treatment from the commandant of the castle in which he was
imprisoned. When his hands and feet were struck off, by order of the
khalif, he laughed, and smilingly sealed with his blood the criminal
gaiety of his tenets. The number of those who fell by the sword in
twenty years, is estimated by historians to amount to a million. Nud,
one of his ten executioners, boasted that he alone had butchered twenty
thousand men,—so terrible and sanguinary was the contest between the
assertors of liberty and equality, and the defenders of the khalif’s
throne and the pulpit of Islamism.[23]
At this tempestuous and blood-stained epoch, there lived at Ahwas,
in the southern part of Persia, Abdallah, the son of Maimun-Kaddah,
a son of Daissan, the Dualist. By his father and grandfather, who
had introduced Dualism, from the system of the Magi into that of
Islamism, he was educated in the principles of the ancient empire and
faith of the Persians; and stimulated to deeds, by which, if he could
not accomplish their re-establishment, he might at least achieve the
overthrow of those of the Arabians.
Profoundly versed in all the sciences, and taught by the study of
history and the dire experience of his own day, Abdallah, the son of
Maimun, had sufficient opportunity to perceive the risk of declaring
open war against the established religion and reigning dynasty, so
long as the conscience of the people, and the military power, stood
at their command. He determined, therefore, by a deeply laid plan,
to undermine in secret, that which he dared not attack openly. His
system was to be enveloped in a veil of mystery, nor was it to appear
in the face of day, until it had succeeded in placing the sovereignty
in the hands of its partisans. It is always extremely dangerous to
endeavour, at once, to eradicate from the minds of men the deeply
imprinted reverence which they feel for the throne and altars of their
fathers. Men can only by degrees emancipate themselves from their
prejudices; many but imperfectly, and it is but few who can throw them
off entirely. As, however, it was Abdallah’s design to annihilate not
merely the prejudices of positive religion and authority, but to aim
at the very foundation of all, he resolved to promulgate his doctrines
gradually, and divided them into seven degrees, after the fashion of
the Pythagorean and Indian philosophers. The last degree inculcated the
vanity of all religion,—the indifference of actions, which, according
to him, are neither visited with recompense or chastisement, either
now or hereafter. This alone is the path of truth and right, all the
rest imposture and error. He appointed emissaries, whom he despatched
to enlist disciples, and to initiate them, according to their capacity
for libertinism and turbulence, in some or all of the degrees. The
pretensions of the descendants of Mohammed, the son of Ismail, served
him as a political mask; these his missionaries asserted as partisans,
while they were secretly but the apostles of crime and impiety. Under
these two relations, they and their followers were sometimes called
Ismailites, and sometimes Ibahie, “_indifferent._” Abdallah proceeded
from Ahwas to Basra, and thence to Syria, where he settled at
Salemiye: from this place his son, Ahmed, and Ahmed’s sons, Abulabbas
and Mohammed Sholalaa, and his envoys (Dai), at once emissaries and
missionaries, spread forth his doctrines. The most celebrated of the
latter was Hossein of Ahwas, who, in the country of Kufa, initiated,
amongst others, Ahmed, the son of Eshaas (called Karmath), in the
mysteries of revolt and infidelity, of which he soon gave an earnest to
the world, in torrents of blood and the smoking ruins of cities.[24]
He called himself Karmath, from the broken Arabic letters of this
name, and became the leader of the Karmathites, who, issuing from
Lahssa and Bakhrein, like the Wahabees, nine hundred years afterwards,
menaced Islamism with destruction. His doctrine, in addition to the
circumstance of its forbidding nothing, and declaring every thing
allowable and indifferent, meriting neither reward nor punishment,
undermined more particularly the basis of Mohammedanism, by declaring
that all its commands were allegorical, and merely a disguise of
political precepts and maxims. Moreover, all was to be referred to the
blameless and irreproachable Imam Maassum, as the model of a prince,
whom, although he had occupied no existing throne, they pretended
to seek, and declared war against bad and good princes, without
distinction, in order that, under the pretext of contending for a
better, they might be able to unravel at once the thickly interwoven
web of religion and government. The injunction of prayer meant nothing
but obedience to the Imam Maassum; alms, the tithes to be given to him;
fasting, the preservation of the politital secret regarding the imam of
the family of Ismail.
Every thing depended on the interpretation (Terwil), without which,
the whole word of the Koran (Tensil) had neither meaning nor value.
Religion did not consist in external observances (Sahir), but in
the internal feeling (Bathin). According to the variations of this
doctrine, which, in many points, touches those mentioned above, their
assertors received various names in the different provinces of the
khalifat. In Taberistan, they were called Seveners, from the seven
degrees of the secret doctrines of Abdallah, the son of Maimun Kadah;
in Khorassan, Mohammere (_i. e._ the Red), and in Syria, Mobeiyese,
the White, from their dress; in Transoxana, Rawendi and Borkai (_i.
e._ the Veiled), because Mokannaa covered his face with a golden mask;
at Ispahan, Batheni (_i. e._ the Esoterics), and also Mutewilin (_i.
e._ the interpreting Allegorists); at Kufa, Karmathi, or Mobareki; at
Lahssa and Bahrein, Jenabi; in Western Africa, Saidi, from Karmath,
Mobarek, Jenabi, and Said, four of their chiefs. They named themselves
in general Ismaili, from deducing them pretensions to the khalifat from
Ismail, the son of Jafer Sadik. From their opponents, they all received
in common the well merited appellations of Mulhad (_i. e._ Atheists),
or Sindik (libertines[25]).
The Karmathites differed from the doctrine of Abdallah, the son of
Maimun, in hoisting the standard of revolt, instead of, according to
the secret system, waiting their time tranquilly, till the throne
should be occupied by one of their number, and openly taking the field
against the existing power of the khalifat. The contest was sanguinary,
like that of Babek twenty years before; but more tedious and dangerous
both to the altar and the throne. Even Khalif Motadhadbillah, who
strengthened, with the iron remedy of the sword, those nerves of
the khalifat, so deplorably enfeebled since his sixth ancestor,
Motewekul, and received in history the name of the second founder of
the Abbassides, Seffahssanni, the second blood-spiller,—Abbas being the
first,—was unable, with all his energy, to extirpate this pernicious
brood. The astrologers, philosophers, soothsayers, and story-tellers,
had entirely lost all the credit which they once possessed at court,
in the reigns of Harun and Maimun:[26] these, however, being without
weapons, or leaders, were in nowise dangerous; while commanders of
military genius and courage, such as Abusaid, Jenabi, and Abutaher,
guided the mailed arm of the Karmathites against the head and heart of
Islamism. Under the conduct of the latter, the Karmathites took the
holy city of Mecca, as the Wahabees have done in our own days,[27]—so
little novelty do such doctrines and deeds possess in the history of
Mohammedanism. Thirty thousand Moslimin fell in defence of the sanctity
of the Kaaba against its impious assailants, who set fire to the
temple, and carried away to Hadjar even the black stone said to have
fallen from heaven in the time of Abraham. This stone was an aërolite,
and for that reason, like many others, an object of popular veneration.
It was restored, after a lapse of twenty-two years, when the Emir of
Irak redeemed it at the price of fifty thousand ducats. The adoration
of the Kaaba, which was founded on this stone, was not to have the
gates of hell prevail against it. For a whole century, the pernicious
doctrines of Karmath raged with fire and sword in the very bosom of
Islamism, until the wide spread conflagration was extinguished in blood.
The fate of the Karmathites, like that of the followers of Babek,
was a bloody lesson to those initiated into the secret doctrines of
Abdallah, the son of Maimun-Kaddah, not to propagate them otherwise
than covertly until they should be masters of the throne itself.
At length, one of their most zealous and active partisans, the Dai
Abdollah, a pretended descendant of Mohammed, the son of Ismail,
succeeded in escaping from the dungeons of Sejelmessa, in which he
had been confined by order of the Khalif Motadhad, and seated himself
on the throne in Africa, under the name of Obeidollah Mehdi.[28] This
adventurer was the founder of the dynasty of the Egyptian khalifs, who
tracing their descent to Ismail, son of Jafer Sadik, and from him to
Fatima, the prophet’s daughter, are known by the name of the Fatimites,
or eastern Ismailites. Thus the name, which hitherto had designated a
sect, was applied to a race. Ismailitism, which governed as a ready
tool the founder of the dynasty it had placed on the throne, was, in
Africa, in every sense, the predominant doctrine; and the khalif throne
of Mahadia, the first residence of these princes, soon threatened
that of Bagdad. It was from that ancient metropolis of the khalifat
that proceeded the allegations against the purity of Obeidollah’s
extraction. According to them, he was anything but a descendant of
Mohammed, the son of Ismail; but was the half-brother, by a Jewess, of
Hossein and Abushelalaa, the two sons of Ahmed, the son of Abdollah,
the son of Maimun-Kaddah. His name was affirmed to be originally Said,
but that after he had been set at liberty by Abdollah, it was changed
to Obeidollah; and in fact, if it is considered that the doctrine of
Abdollah, the son of Maimun, so utterly subversive of that of Islamism,
became, on the establishment of the Fatimite sovereignty, the
prevalent one in the court and the government, and that it was first
publicly taught at Mahadia, and, after the conquest of Egypt under the
fourth khalif of this dynasty, at Cairo; that its chief, under the
title of Daial-doat, supreme missionary of the crown, was, as Kadhiol
Kodhat, or supreme judge, invested with one of the first dignities of
the empire, both offices being frequently united in the same person;
the supposition that the chiefs of this sect, to whom nothing was
sacred and all was permitted, had placed one of their own number on the
throne, acquires very great probability, notwithstanding the assertions
of Macrisi and Ibn Khaledun to the contrary. The accounts which the
former of these two great historians has preserved, concerning the
promulgation of this doctrine, and the degrees of initiation, which
were now increased from seven to nine, form a very precious and the
most ancient document on the history of the secret societies of the
east, in whose steps those of the west afterwards trod. Their immediate
connexion with the doctrine of the eastern Ismailites, or Assassins,
renders it necessary to give a brief outline of it here.
Immediately after the establishment of the monarchy of the
Fatimites,[29] history mentions similar assemblages, which were
convened twice a week, every Monday and Wednesday, by the Daial-doat,
and were frequented in crowds both by men and women, who had separate
seats. These assemblages were named Mejalisol-hikmet, or Societies of
Wisdom. The candidates for initiation were dressed in white; the chief
went on those two days to the khalif, and read something to him, if
possible, but in every case received his signature on the cover of his
manuscript. After the lecture, the pupils kissed his hands, and touched
the signature of the khalif reverently with their foreheads. In the
reign of the sixth Fatimite khalif, Hakem Biemvillah, (the most stupid
tyrant of which the history of Islamism makes mention, who desired
to receive divine honours, and what is still more absurd, is to this
day worshipped by the Druses as an incarnate god), these societies,
the house in which their meetings were held, and the institutions for
the maintenance of teachers and servants, were increased on a very
large scale: an extensive building or lodge was erected,[30] called
Darol-hikmet, or the House of Wisdom, and richly furnished with books,
mathematical instruments, professors and attendants; access, and the
use of these literary treasures was free to all, and writing materials
were afforded gratis. The khalifs frequently held learned disputations,
at which the professors of this academy appeared, divided according
to their different faculties—logicians, mathematicians, jurists, and
physicians, were dressed in their gala costume, khalaa, or their
doctoral mantles. The gowns of the English universities still have the
original form of the Arabic khalaa or kaftan.
Two hundred and fifty-seven thousand ducats, raised by the tenths and
eighth of the tenth, was the amount of the annual revenue of this
academy, for the salaries of the professors and officials, for the
provision of the requisites for teaching, and other objects of public
scientific instruction, as well as of the secret articles of faith:
the former comprised all the branches of human knowledge—the latter
inculcated, in nine successive degrees, the following principles:[31]
The first degree was the longest and most difficult of all, as it was
necessary to inspire the pupil with the most implicit confidence in the
knowledge of his teacher, and to incline him to take that most solemn
oath, by which he bound himself to the secret doctrine with blind
faith and unconditional obedience. For this purpose, every possible
expedient was adopted to perplex the mind by the many contradictions of
positive religion and reason, to render the absurdities of the Koran
still more involved by the most insidious questions and most subtle
doubts, and to point from the apparent literal signification to a
deeper sense, which was properly the kernel, as the former was but the
husk. The more ardent the curiosity of the novice, the more resolute
was the refusal of the master to afford the least solution to these
difficulties, until he had taken the most unrestricted oath; on this,
he was admitted to the second degree. This inculcated the recognition
of divinely appointed imams, who were the source of all knowledge. As
soon as the faith in them was well established, the third degree taught
their number, which could not exceed the holy seven; for, as God had
created seven heavens, seven earths, seven seas, seven planets, seven
colours, seven musical sounds, and seven metals, so had he appointed
seven of the most excellent of his creatures as revealed imams: these
were, Ali, Hassan, Hossein, Ali Seinolabidin, Mohammed Albakir, Jafer
Assadik, and Ismail, his son, as the last and seventh. This was the
great leap or the proper schism from the Imamie, who, as we have seen,
reckoned twelve, and considerably facilitated the passing into the
fourth grade. This taught, that since the beginning of the world there
have been seven divine lawgivers, or speaking apostles of God, of whom
each had always, by the command of heaven, altered the doctrine of his
predecessor. That each of these had seven coadjutors, who succeeded
each other in the epoch from one speaking lawgiver to another, but who,
as they did not appear manifestly, were called the Mutes (Samit).
The first of the Mutes was named Sus, the seat as it were of the
ministers of the speaking prophet. These seven speaking prophets, with
their seven seats, were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed,
and Ismail, the son of Jafer, who, as the last, was called Sahibeseman
(_i. e._ the Lord of time). Their seven assistants were Seth, Shem,
Ishmael, son of Abraham, Aaron, Simeon, Ali, and Mohammed, son of
Ismail. It is evident from this dexterous arrangement, which gained
the Ismailites the name of Seveners, that as they named only the
first of the mute divine envoys in each prophetic period; and since
Mohammed, the son of Ismail, the first of the last prophet’s coadjutors
had been dead only a hundred years, the teachers were at full liberty
to present to those whose progress stopped at this degree, whomsoever
they pleased, as one of the mute prophets of the current age. The fifth
degree must necessarily render the credibility of the doctrine more
manifest to the minds of the learners; for this reason, it taught that
each of the seven mute prophets had twelve apostles for the extension
of the true faith; for the number twelve is the most excellent after
seven: hence the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve months, the
twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve bones of the fingers of each hand,
the thumb excepted, and so on.
After these five degrees, the precepts of Islamism were examined; and
in the sixth it was shown, that all positive religious legislation
must be subordinate to the general and philosophical. The dogmas of
Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras were adduced as proofs, and laid
down as axioms. This degree was very tedious, and only when the
acolyte was fully penetrated with the wisdom of the philosophers,
was admission granted him to the seventh, where he passed from
philosophy to mysticism. This was the doctrine of unity, which the
Sofis have exhibited in their works. In the eighth, the positive
precepts of religion were again brought forward, to fall to dust by
all that preceded; then was the pupil perfectly enlightened as to the
superfluity of all prophets and apostles, the non-existence of heaven
and hell, the indifference of all actions, for which there is neither
reward nor punishment either in this world or the next; and thus was he
matured for the ninth and last degree, to become the blind instrument
of all the passions of unbridled thirst of power. To believe nothing
and to dare all, was, in two words, the sum of this system, which
annihilated every principle of religion and morality, and had no other
object than to execute ambitious designs with suitable ministers,
who, daring all and honouring nothing, since they consider every
thing a cheat and nothing forbidden, are the best tools of an infernal
policy. A system, which, with no other aim than the gratification of an
insatiable lust of dominion, instead of seeking the highest of human
objects, precipitates itself into the abyss, and mangling itself, is
buried amidst the ruins of thrones and altars, the horrors of anarchy,
the wreck of national happiness, and the universal execration of
mankind.
END OF BOOK I.