_Establishment of the Order of the Assassins, and Reign
of the first Grand Master, Hassan Sabah._
Egypt, that extraordinary country, so distinguished from all others by
the many wonderful phenomena of nature, has ever been in history the
memorable theatre of extraordinary exhibitions of the art of governing
mankind by wisdom or folly in the name of heaven or earth. In the
remote ages of antiquity reigned a caste of priests, in whose hands
the king was the servile tool of their power, the lituus (our present
bishop’s crosier) was the real sceptre. Superstition, and the external
worship of statues and pictures, was the religion of the people, while
the secret doctrine of the initiated was concealed under symbols and
hieroglyphics. Their mysteries had a particular relation to the state
of the soul after death; whereas the popular belief confined its
duration to that of its earthly existence. It was a deeply designed but
ill-calculated policy, which excluded from the doctrine of immortality
the multitude who cleave to the clod, and made it the peculiar
prerogative of a certain number of elect, to whom it was permitted to
soar beyond the limits of the tomb, without at the same time neglecting
the duties and objects of civil life. It was imagined, that the vulgar
could only fulfil them with all their energies, and to their full
extent, when, instead of being actuated by views extending beyond the
grave, they confine to earth the whole activity and faculty of their
mind, during the space of time which intervenes between the cradle and
the coffin. Thus, neither time nor vigour would be lost in vain hopes
or useless speculations; every application of them was devoted to civil
existence: this was the object of the state, which reserved to itself
the allotment of rewards and punishments, not only here but hereafter.
In order to satisfy, in some measure, that longing after continued
existence implanted by nature in every breast, though deriving little
support from reason, the people sought to preserve their bodies and
names for the longest possible period, by mummies and tombs: hence
those mighty monuments, and the secret judgment of the dead, in which
the priests, as assessors and judges, were the dispensers of this
transitory immortality of stone and dust. To the few better informed,
and who were not satisfied with this mummery, the judgment of the dead
was symbolically explained in the mysteries, and the real immortality
of the soul taught; and explanations were afforded by the priests of
subjects of which they were themselves entirely ignorant.
Moses, imbued with the Egyptian policy, and initiated into the
mysteries of the sacerdotal colleges, among many other of their
institutions, retained this, of not imparting to his people the
doctrine of immortality, which, in all probability, remained, as in
Egypt, the peculiar privilege of the priestly order. We find no trace
of it in the books of the Hebrews; except in the Arabic poem of Job,
which, in fact, does not belong to them.
How much this concealment of the doctrine of immortality, deemed by
the priests such a master-piece of policy, has repressed the spirit of
the people, and impeded every loftier aspiration, is sufficiently made
known to us, not only in the history of their government, but also by
their still remaining monuments, which are so entirely unconsecrated
by the hand of art. The sphinxes and colossal statues, the temples,
and the pyramids, those astounding monuments of human activity, and of
the power of numbers directed to one end, bear the stamp of greatness,
from the extent of their proportions, but by no means that of beauty
in their execution. This latter dwells only in those favoured regions
of light, to which art and religion are together elevated by the idea
of immortality. Although this mysterious policy set bounds to the more
free developement of civilization, and the elevation of the people
to a higher social grade, it is nevertheless very probable, that it
proceeded from purely intellectual views, and the honest intention
of laying the foundation of the highest prosperity for the kingdom,
and the greatest temporal happiness of the people, by the undisturbed
activity of all human energies, and the continued application of them
to one political object. The secret doctrine benefited the initiated,
while it did not injure the profane. Of an entirely opposite nature,
was, as we have seen, that which prevailed in modern Egypt, during the
middle ages; the former contrived for the strengthening of the throne
and the altar, the latter imagined for their ruin. As wide a chasm,
as that which lies between the building of ancient Memphis and the
founding of modern Cairo, divides the secret tenets of the academies of
Heliopolis from those of the modern house of science. Egypt, in remote
antiquity the cradle of science and social institutions, afterwards the
mother of alchemy and treasure-hunting, by means of the philosopher’s
stone and talismans,—became, in modern times, the native soil of secret
sciences and societies.
The lodge of Cairo, whose political aim was, as we have already seen,
to overthrow the khalifat of the family of Abbas, in favour of the
Fatimites, spread its secret doctrine, by its Dais (_i. e._ political
and religious missionaries). To these were subordinate the ordinary
partisans, Refik, or fellows, who, initiated into one or several
grades of the mysteries, were, nevertheless, neither to teach them,
nor to collect the suffrages for any dynasty; this being the peculiar
privilege of the Dais, whose chief, the Dail-doat, or grand-master,
resided at Cairo, in the House of Sciences. This institution remained
unchanged, from its foundation by Hakem,[32] to the time of the khalif,
Emr-Biahkam-illah,[33] when the Emir-ol-juyush, or commander-in-chief
of the army Efdhal, on the occasion of an insurrection fomented by
the members of the lodge,[34] caused it to be shut up, and, as it
appears, to be destroyed. When, after his death in the following year,
the society strongly urged their re-opening, the vizier, Maimun,
refused to open the academy on the same spot, but permitted them to
erect, in a different situation, another building, dedicated to the
same purpose, which was Darolilm-jedide (_i. e._ the new House of
Sciences); where public courses of instruction and secret meetings,
as before, continued, till the downfall of the Fatimite dynasty. The
effects of their doctrine soon appeared in the increasing power of the
Fatimites, and the feebleness into which the khalifat of the family of
Abbas gradually sank.[35] The Emir Bessassiri, one of the most zealous
partisans and defenders of the former, took possession,[36] for a whole
year, at Bagdad, of the two royal prerogatives of Islamism, the mint
and the pulpit, in the name of the Egyptian khalif, Mostanssur, who
would have retained them, had not Bessassiri fallen in the following
year, by the sword of Togrul, who had hastened to the assistance of the
Abbassides. In the meanwhile, the fellows, Refik, and the masters, Dai,
inundated the whole of Asia; and one of the latter, Hassan-ben-Sabah
Homairi, was the founder of a new branch of the sect, namely, the
eastern Ismailites, or Assassins, before whose cradle we now stand.
Hassan Sabah, or Hassan-ben-Sabah, that is, one of the descendants
of Sabah, was the son of Ali, a strict Shiite of Rei, who took his
name from Sabah Homairi, and pretended that his father had gone from
Kufa to Kum, and from Kum to Rei. This allegation met, however, with
considerable contradiction from the natives of Khorassan, particularly
those of Tus, who unanimously asserted that his ancestors had
constantly dwelt in the villages of that province. Ali was universally
suspected of heretical notions and expressions, which gained him
the reputation of Rafedhi, or Motasal (Dissenter, or Separatist).
He sought, by false confessions and oaths, to prove his orthodoxy
to Abumoslem, the governor of the province, a strict Soonnite, and
afterwards withdrew to a monastery, to lead a life of contemplation.
This retirement, however, had not the effect of securing him from
public report, which at one time accused him of heresy and heterodoxy,
at another, of infidelity and atheism. In order to clear himself, as
much as possible, from this suspicion, he sent his young son, Hassan,
to Nishabur, and placed him in the school of the illustrious Mowafek
Nishaburi, who, at that time past eighty years of age, not only enjoyed
the well-merited consideration of being the first doctor of the
Soonna, but also the advantageous reputation, which events justified,
of securing the temporal happiness of all who studied the Koran and
Soonna under his auspices. Great was the concourse of distinguished
youths who sought from him happiness and instruction, and justified,
by the developement of fortunate talents, the established opinion
of the Imam’s wisdom and auspicious conversation. His last pupils,
even to his death, contributed to confirm his reputation:—three
of them, who flourished at the same time,—Hassan, Omar Khiam, and
Nisam-ol-mulk, endued with the most splendid talents, pursued the most
different careers, with the most fortunate results. They shone among
the constellations of mighty minds of their age, like the three stars
in Orion’s belt,—Omar Khiam, as an astronomer and philosophical poet;
Nisam-ol-mulk, as grand vizier; and Hassan-ben-Sabah, as the head of
a sect and founder of the Assassins. The first, useless in civil
society, was innoxious, by his epicurean mode of life; the second was a
beneficent, active, and learned statesman, under three of the Seljukide
sultans; and the third, by his diabolical policy, became a pernicious
scourge to humanity.
The ambition of the latter burst forth even in his youth, when
he endeavoured to lay the foundation of his fortune, with his
two school-fellows, by mutual promises. One of them, the vizier,
Nisam-ol-mulk, that is, _order of rule_, himself relates, in his
character of historian, the obligations into which they entered, and
their sequel. “The general opinion is,” said Hassan, one day, to the
other two, “that the imam’s pupils are certain of their fortune; now,
let us promise each other, that if this proves true of only one of us
three, he will share his good fortune with the other two.” Omar Khiam
and Nisam-ol-mulk agreed to Hassan’s proposal, with mutual engagements;
the first too indolent to involve himself in politics, the second too
magnanimous not to wish to share with the restless ambition of the
third, that prosperity, which his great talents and honest industry
ensured him in that career. Years elapsed, during which Nisam-ol-mulk
travelled through the countries of Khorassan, Mawarainehr, Khasnin,
and Kabul, and filled the lower offices of the state, till he at last
attained, under Alparslan, the great prince of the Seljuks, the highest
post in the empire,—that of vizier. He received with honour his old
school-fellow, Omar Khiam, who was the first to visit him, and mindful,
as he himself relates, of his youthful promise, offered him his credit
and influence, in procuring him an office; which is the more probable,
as Nisam’s knowledge of the world convinced him that Khiam’s love for
epicurean enjoyments would reject the offer; and that, in any case,
such a rival, as vizier, could never prove dangerous to him. Omar Khiam
thanked him, and merely requested peaceful leisure to devote himself,
undisturbed, to the pursuit of the sciences; and, as he constantly gave
the same answer to Nisam-ol-mulk’s repeated offers to make him vizier,
the latter granted him an annual pension of one thousand ducats, out
of the revenues of Nishabur, in which place, removed from the turmoil
of public affairs, and in the bosom of luxurious independence, he
henceforward devoted his life to the cultivation of his genius and the
sciences, and gained great fame as a poet and astronomer. Although his
love of ease did not permit him to transmit his glory to posterity,
by any considerable work, yet he has preserved it in the history of
Persian poetry, merely by his four-line strophes. These are unique in
their kind, by the licentiousness of their overwhelming wit, which,
without the least scruple, indulged itself in pleasantries, at the
expense of all pious persons, and particularly the mystics, not only
on the doctrines of the Sofis, but also the Koran itself; so much, as
to be held by the orthodox in the worst reputation for impiety. Omar
Khiam, in the collection of his quatrains (Rubayat), and Ibn Yemen,
in that of his fragments (Mokataat), merit, before all Persian poets
who have gained a name, that, more particularly, of philosophical. The
genius of the former is allied to that of Young, the latter to that of
Voltaire.
Hassan Sabah lived in obscurity, and unknown, during the ten years’
reign of Alparslan. Immediately, however, after the accession of
Melekshah, under whom Nisam-ol-mulk enjoyed the same unlimited power, as
vizier, as he had under his predecessor,—the son of Sabah also appeared
at the court of the Sultan of the Seljukides, and with harsh words from
the Koran, directed against promise-breakers, reminded the vizier of
the fulfilment of the obligations of his youth. Nisam-ol-mulk received
him with honour, procured him considerable titles and revenues, and
introduced him to the sultan, of whom Hassan, by crafty hypocrisy,
and under the mask of virtuous frankness and candid honesty, soon
became master. The sultan consulted him on all important occasions,
and acted according to his decision. The authority and influence of
Nisam-ol-mulk were soon essentially endangered, and Hassan laboured with
zeal to accomplish the fall of his benefactor. With consummate art, he
caused the smallest oversights of the divan to come to the sultan’s
knowledge; and on being questioned, contrived, by the most insidious
representations, sophisms, and unfavourable impressions, to turn his
sovereign’s mind against the vizier. The most cruel blow of this kind
was, according to Nisam-ol-mulk’s own confession, Hassan’s pledging
himself to lay before the sultan, within forty days, the balance sheet
of the revenues and expenditure of the state,—a task, to the execution
of which the vizier had requested a period ten times as long. Melekshah
placed at Hassan’s disposal all the secretaries of the chamber, with
whose assistance he performed the desired computation within the
promised time. Nisam-ol-mulk relates, that, although Hassan gained the
victory, he reaped no advantage from it; for, after having sent in
his accounts, he was compelled to leave the court with dishonour. He,
however, does not give us the proper cause of his disgrace. According
to the statement of other historians, it is very probable, that
Nisam-ol-mulk, consulting his own preservation, found means to mutilate
Hassan’s estimate, by the abstraction of some leaves; and as no account
could be given by the latter to the sultan, of this unexpected disorder
in his papers, he increased the sovereign’s displeasure, in order to
remove so dangerous a rival for ever from the court. He declares,
very _naïvely_, in his Political Institutes (Wassaya), that if this
misfortune had not befallen the son of Sabah, he would himself have
been necessitated to adopt the same course,—that is, to have abandoned
the court and his office.[37]
Hassan retired from Melekshah’s court to Rei, and then to Ispahan,
where he kept himself secluded in the house of Abufasl, in order to
escape the inquiries of Nisam-ol-mulk. He soon gained over the Reis to
his opinions, and lived sometime with him. One day, he concluded the
complaints which he was making against Melekshah and his vizier, with
the expression, that “if he had had at his bidding but two devoted
friends, he would soon have overturned the power of the Turk and the
peasant” (the sultan and the vizier). These remarkable words unveil
the profound and extensive plans of the founder of the Assassins, who
already contemplated the ruin of kings and ministers. The canon of the
whole policy of this order of murderers is comprised in them. Opinions
are powerless, so long as they only confuse the brain, without arming
the hand. Scepticism and free-thinking, as long as they occupied only
the minds of the indolent and philosophical, have caused the ruin of
no throne, for which purpose religious and political fanaticism are
the strongest levers in the hands of nations. It is nothing to the
ambitious man what people believe, but it is everything to know how
he may turn them, for the execution of his projects. He is satisfied
with finding ready slaves, faithful satellites, and blind instruments.
What may not two such, animated by the soul of a third, and obeying his
behests, accomplish? This truth, which lay open to the enterprising
soul of Hassan, found no access to the understanding of his host, the
Reis Abufasl, one of the shrewdest and most intelligent men of his
time. He considered these words as a sign of madness, and doubted
not that they were the effusion of delirium; for, thought he, how
could it occur to a man of sound intellect, to place himself, with
two adherents, in opposition to Melekshah, whose power extended from
Antioch to Kashgar. Without imparting his thoughts to his guest, he
placed before him, at breakfast and dinner, in hopes of restoring his
health, aromatic drinks and dishes, prepared with saffron, which were
considered as strengtheners of the brain. Hassan guessed his host’s
design, and prepared to leave him. The latter in vain employed all his
eloquence to retain him;[38] he soon after repaired to Egypt.[39]
When, twenty years afterwards, Hassan had possessed himself of the
strong fortress of Alamut, and the Vizier Nisam-ol-mulk had fallen under
the daggers of his assassins, and the Sultan Melekshah had followed him
to the grave soon after,—the Reis Abufasl was at the castle, as one of
the most zealous of Hassan’s partisans. “Reis,” said the latter to him,
“which of us two was out of his senses, I or thou? and which would the
aromatic drinks, and dishes dressed with saffron, which thou settedst
before me at Ispahan, have best suited,—thee or me? Thou seest how I
have kept my word, as soon as I found two trusty friends.”
The reign of Sultan Melekshah, during the twenty years of which Hassan
Sabah was occupied in laying the foundation of his power,—is one of the
most stormy periods of middle oriental history, many ways distinguished
by the downfall of old, and the rise of new, dynasties. In Taberistan,
Aleppo, and Diarbekr, the races of the Beni Siad, Beni Merdas, and
Beni Merwan,[40] disappeared, and in their place, the families of
Danishmend-Bawend and Ortok,[41] raised themselves to the thrones of
Kum, Taberistan, and Maradin.[42] The Seljukides, who, since the time
of their founder, Togrul-beg, had ruled in Iran, spread their branches
into Syria,[43] Karman,[44] and Asia Minor;[45] Bagdad, the metropolis
of the Abbasside khalifs, was torn with intestine religious wars.[46]
The Soonnites and the Shiites, the followers of the Imams, Eshaari and
Hanbeli, fought sanguinary combats within the city’s walls.[47] The
mint, and prayers from the pulpit, had, indeed, since the death of the
Emir Bessassiri,[48] been restored to the name of the family of Abbas;
but in both the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, they were continued in
the name of the fanatical khalif, Mostanssur, who occupied the throne
of Egypt. His Dais, or missionaries, the initiated of the Ismailites,
the Apostles of the lodge of Cairo, inundated the whole of Asia, in
order to gain proselytes to the cause of infidelity and rebellion. It
cannot afford matter of surprise that, in Hassan Sabah, their seed met
with a fertile soil. We will relate the beginning of his connexion with
them, in his own words, as history preserves them.[49]
“From my childhood, from my seventh year, my sole effort has been to
extend the bounds of my knowledge and to increase my capacities. Like
my fathers, I was educated in the tenets of the twelve imams (Imamie),
and I formed an acquaintance with an Ismailite Refik (Fellow),
called Emire Dharab, with whom I cemented bonds of friendship. My
opinion was, that the doctrine of the Ismailites was like that of the
philosophers, and that the ruler of Egypt was one of the initiated:
whenever, therefore, Emire spoke in favour of their principles, I
disputed with him, and there was a great deal of discussion between us
concerning points of faith. I did not in the least admit the justice
of the reproaches which Emire lavished on my sect; nevertheless they
left a deep impression on my mind. In the meanwhile he left me, and
I was attacked by a severe fit of illness, during which I blamed my
obstinacy in not having embraced the doctrine of the Ismailites, which
was the true one; and I dreaded lest, should death await me, from
which God preserved me, I might die without obtaining a knowledge of
the truth: at length I recovered, and met with another Ismailite,
Abu-Nedshm-Saraj, whom I questioned concerning the truth of his
doctrine; Abunedshm explained it to me in the most circumstantial
manner that I came fully to understand it. Lastly, I found a Dai
(Missionary), called Mumin, to whom the Sheikh Abdolmelek-ben-Attash,
the president of the missions of Irak, had granted permission to
exercise that office. I entreated him to accept my homage in the name
of the Fatimite khalif; this he at first refused, because I was of
higher rank than himself, but as I urged it most pressingly, he at
length acquiesced. Now when the Sheikh Abdolmelek arrived at Rei, and
had become acquainted with my opinions in conversation, my demeanour
pleased him so, that he immediately invested me with the office of Dai
(religious and political missionary). He said to me, ‘Thou must go
to Egypt to enjoy the happiness of serving the Imam Mostanssur, (the
reigning Fatimite khalif).’ On the Sheikh Abdolmelek’s departure from
Rei on his route to Ispahan, I journeyed into Egypt.”[50]
Hassan then had been already initiated, in Persia, in the Ismailite
mysteries of Atheism and immorality, and had even been deemed worthy
to become a teacher and promulgator of them. The fame of his great
talents, and the authority which he had enjoyed at the court of
Melekshah, preceded him; and the khalif Mostanssur, delighted with
the acquisition of such a partisan, received him with honour and
distinction. The chief of the missionaries, or grand-master of the
lodge, Dail Doat, the Sherif Tahre Kaswimi, and some other persons
of rank and influence, were despatched to the frontiers to meet him;
Mostanssur assigned him a residence in the city, and welcomed him in
the person of his ministers and court dignitaries, and loaded him
with marks of honour and favour. According to some, Hassan remained
eighteen months at Cairo, during which, although the khalif had no
personal interview with him, he interested himself in every thing that
concerned him, and even spoke of him in terms of the highest eulogium:
so great were the recommendations and predilection of the khalif, that
his relations and chief officers were persuaded that Hassan would be
named prime minister. In the meantime, clouds of disunion and discord
arose between Hassan and Bedr Jemali (_full moon of beauty_), the
Emirol Juyush, or commander-in-chief, who enjoyed unlimited power in
the Ismailite dominions. The cause was the great dissensions, which,
at that period, took place relating to the succession to the Egyptian
throne: the khalif had declared his son Nesar his legitimate successor;
while a faction, headed by Bedr Jemali, asserted that his other son,
Mosteali, who eventually succeeded him, was alone worthy to be so.
Hassan maintained the succession of Nesar, and by that means drew upon
himself the inextinguishable hatred of the general, who employed every
effort against him, and at length persuaded the reluctant khalif to
imprison the son of Sabah in the castle of Damietta.[51]
About this period, one of the strongest towers in the city fell
without any visible cause; and the terrified inhabitants saw, in
this accident, a miracle performed by the fortunate stars of Hassan
and Mostanssur. His enemies, and those who envied him, conveyed him
with their own hands into a ship which was sailing to Africa; he was
scarcely at sea, when a violent gale lashed up the waves, and filled
the whole crew, except Hassan, with terror; he, calm and raised above
all fear, answered one of his fellow-passengers, who asked him the
cause of such security, “Our Lord (Sidna) has promised me that no evil
shall befal me.” The sea becoming calm some minutes afterwards, the
voyagers were filled with universal confidence, and from that moment
became Hassan’s disciples and faithful partisans. Thus, to increase
his credit, did he avail himself of accidents and natural occurrences,
as if he possessed the command of both. The coolness with which he
confronted the perils of the swelling sea, gave him, with the apparent
rule of the elements, real authority over the mind: in the dark night
of the dungeon and the storm, he meditated black projects of ambition
and revenge; in the midst of the crash of the falling tower, and the
thunder and lightning, and billows of the storm, he laid the foundation
of his union of Assassins, for the ruin of thrones, and the wreck of
dynasties.
A wind, contrary to the destination of the ship, but favourable to
Hassan, drove them on the coasts of Syria instead of towards Africa;
Hassan disembarked and proceeded to Aleppo, where he remained some
time; thence he visited Bagdad, Khusistan, Ispahan, Yezd, and Kerman,
everywhere publishing his doctrine: from Kerman he returned to Ispahan,
where he resided four months, and then made a second excursion into
Khusistan; after staying three months in this province, he fixed
himself for as many years in Damaghan and the surrounding country: he
here made a great number of proselytes, and sent to Alamut as well as
other fortresses of the place, Dais of captivating eloquence. After
preparing everything here for the future maturity of his plans, he went
to Jorjan, whence he directed his journey towards Dilem; he would
not, however, enter the territory of Rei, because Abu Moslem Rasi, the
governor of that district, having received orders from Nisam-ol-mulk to
possess himself of his person in any way, omitted nothing in execution
of these instructions; Hassan proceeded therefore to Sari, and thence
to Demawend. On his way to Kaswin, he passed through Dilem,[52] and at
length arrived at the castle of Alamut, which became the cradle of his
power and greatness. He had already, some time before, sent to this
stronghold one of his most zealous and skilful Dais, Hossein Kaini,
to invite the inhabitants to swear fealty to the Khalif Mostanssur.
The greater number had already taken the accustomed oath to him. Ali
Mehdi, the commandant, who held it in the name of Melekshah, with a few
others, remained faithful to his duty, acknowledging no other spiritual
supremacy than that of the khalif of Bagdad, of the family of Abbas;
and submitting to no other temporal prince than the Sultan Melekshah,
of the family of Seljuk. He was a descendant of Ali, and reckoned among
his ancestors Dai Ilalhakk (_i. e._ the inviter to truth). Hassan ben
Seid Bakeri had built this fortress two centuries and a half before.[53]
Alamut (_i. e._ Vulture’s nest), so called from its impregnable
position, and situated in 50 deg. 30 min. E. longitude, and 36 deg.
N. latitude, is the largest and strongest of fifty castles which lie
scattered about the district of Rudbar, at the distance of sixty
farsangs north of Kaswin. It is a mountainous country on the confines
of Dilem and Irak, watered by the Shahrud or King’s river; two streams
bear this name, one of which rises in Mount Thalkan, near Kaswin, the
other in Mount Sheer, and flows through the district, Rudbar of Alamut.
Rudbar means river land, and is applied to another district as well
as this northern one, which is called “of Alamut,” to distinguish it
from the southern Rudbar of Lor, which is situated near Ispahan, and is
watered by the river of life, Sendrud, as the former is by the King’s
river, Shahrud.[54]
Hassan, who had hitherto sought in vain for some central point for the
foundation of his power, at length took possession of the castle of
Alamut, on the night of Wednesday, the 6th of the month Redsheb, in
the four hundred and eighty-third year after the flight of Mohammed,
and the thousand and ninetieth after the birth of Christ; seven
centuries before the French revolution, whose first movers were the
tools or leaders of secret societies, which, like the Ismailites, then
openly attempted what they had in secret contemplated—the overthrow
of thrones and altars. Long experience and extensive knowledge of
mankind, profound study of politics and history, had taught the son
of Sabah, that an atheistical and immoral system was more calculated
to accomplish the ruin, than the establishment of dynasties, and the
confusion rather than the ordering of states; that lawlessness may
be the canon of the ruler, but ought never to be the code of the
subject; that the many are only held together by the few by the bridle
of the law; and that morality and religion are the best sureties of
the obedience of nations and the security of princes. Initiated into
the highest grade of the lodge of Cairo, he clearly penetrated their
plan of boundless ambition, whose object was nothing less than the
destruction of the khalifat of the Abbassides, and the raising new
thrones on their ruins. He, who had till now acted as Dai or religious
nuncio and political envoy, in the name of the Fatimite khalif,
Mostanssur, formed the resolution of securing power to himself instead
of his superior, and did not apply himself to the destruction of the
works of foreign wisdom and policy, so much as to found and fortify the
edifice of his own,—since, in the opinion of the Moslimin, the supreme
dominion was always vested in the person of the imam khalif; and the
people were merely divided as to whether this was legally inherited by
the families of Ommia, Abbas or Fatima. No other resource was left to
an ambitious chief, who usurped thrones and sovereignty, than to seek
them under the shadow of the khalifat (at that time itself a shadow),
and in the name of the reigning khalif; so had but lately the family
of Seljuk, as others had done before, possessed themselves of the rule
in Asia, in the name of the khalif of Bagdad. Hassan Sabah, who had
been unsuccessful in his hopes at the court of the Seljukides, and had
disagreed both with the sultan and his vizier, could only come forward
for the khalif of Cairo: in his name, and under the appearance of the
strictest piety, he gained disciples; ostensibly, for the khalifat of
Cairo and religion, but in reality, for himself and the projects of his
lawless ambition.
He obtained possession of Alamut, partly by stratagem and partly
by force; and the artifice by which he succeeded received a higher
confirmation in the eyes of the multitude by means of the Cabbala,
which very luckily found, in the letters of the word Alamut, the date
of the current year 483. Hassan adopted the same trick against Mehdi,
the commandant of the castle, in the name of the Sultan Melekshah,
which history mentions as having been used at the foundation of
Carthage and other cities. He requested, at the price of 3000 ducats,
as much land as an ox’s hide would only contain; he split the hide into
strips, and with them surrounded the castle. Mehdi, who had already
some time earlier excluded the Ismailites from the fortress, and then
on an arrangement taking place had re-admitted them, was, on his
not acceding to this purchase, driven out by force, and withdrew to
Damaghan. Previous to his departure, Hassan gave him a laconic letter
or bill of exchange, on the Reis Mosaffer, commander of the castle of
Kirdkuh, in these words: “Reis Mosaffer, pay Mehdi, the descendant of
Ali, 3000 ducats, as the price of the castle of Alamut. Health to the
prophet and his family. God the best ruler sufficeth us.” Mehdi could
not believe that a man like the Reis Mosaffer, who enjoyed the highest
consideration as a lieutenant of the Seljuks, would pay the slightest
respect to the bill of an adventurer like Hassan: he made, therefore,
no use of it until his curiosity was spurred by necessity, when, on
presenting it to the Reis, to his great astonishment, the 3000 ducats
were immediately paid. The Reis, in fact, was one of the earliest and
most faithful followers of Hassan Sabah; the second and most active was
Hossein of Kaini: they taught and acted for him as missionaries,—the
former in Jebal, the latter in Kuhistan, both names meaning Highlands,
and being the northern mountainous provinces of Persia. Hassan provided
his metropolis with ramparts and wells; he caused a canal to be dug,
bringing the water from a considerable distance to the foot of the
castle; he made plantations of fruit trees around the neighbourhood,
and encouraged the inhabitants in the pursuit of agriculture. While
he was thus employed in the fortification and defence of his castle,
which commanded the whole district of Rudbar, promoting cultivation and
raising supplies, his care and attention were still more deeply engaged
with the establishment of his own religious and political system,
namely, the peculiar policy of the Assassins.
A power was to be established, to which laws were to be given, and
the want of treasure and troops, the great arms of sovereignty, was
to be compensated in unusual ways. History showed, in the sanguinary
examples of Babek and Karmath, who had led hundreds of thousands to the
slaughter, and had fallen themselves the victims of their ambition, how
dangerous it is for infidelity and sedition to dare an open contest
with the constituted faith and government. Hassan’s own experience
taught him, by the slender results which the Ismailite mission had
exhibited in Asia, how useless it was to attempt to propagate the
secret doctrine of the lodge of Cairo, as long as its superiors had
heads, but not hands at their disposal.
During the two hundred years that the empire of the Fatimites had been
established in Africa, the lodge first erected at Mahadia, then at
Cairo, and the system of secret missions in favour of the Fatimites,
had been organized; they had indeed succeeded in giving the authority
of the Abassides a shock, but without being able to extend their
own; they had assumed the two prerogatives of the mint and public
prayers at Bagdad, but could keep possession of them for only a year,
and lost it when Bessassiri succumbed to the arms of Togrul. Under
pretence of enlisting partisans to the successors of Ismail, they had
preached atheism and immorality; and thereby loosened the religious
and moral bonds of civil society, without troubling themselves about
compensation; they had shaken thrones, without being able to overturn,
or to seat themselves upon them. Nothing of this escaped Hassan’s deep
reflections; and as he had not been successful in the usual routine
of ministerial ambition, in playing a part in the empire of the
Seljukides, he afterwards, as nuncio and envoy, paved the way to his
own power, and planned a system of administration of his own. “Nothing
is true and all is allowed,” was the ground-work of the secret doctrine:
which, however, being imparted but to few, and concealed under the
veil of the most austere religionism and piety, restrained the mind
under the yoke of blind obedience, by the already adopted rein of the
positive commands of Islamism, the more strictly, the more temporal
submission and devotion were sanctioned, by eternal rewards and glory.
Hitherto, the Ismailites had only Masters and Fellows; namely, the Dais
or emissaries, who, being initiated into all the grades of the secret
doctrine, enlisted proselytes; and the Refik, who, gradually intrusted
with its principles, formed the great majority. It was manifest to
the practical and enterprising spirit of Hassan, that, in order to
execute great undertakings with security and energy, a third class
would also be requisite, who, never being admitted to the mystery of
atheism and immorality, which snap the bonds of all subordination,
were but blind and fanatical tools in the hands of their superiors;
that a well organized political body needs not merely heads but also
arms, and that the master required not only intelligent and skilful
fellows, but also faithful and active agents: these agents were called
Fedavie (_i. e._ the self-offering or devoted), the name itself
declares their destination. How they afterwards, in Syria, obtained
that of the Hashishin or Assassins, we shall explain hereafter, when
we speak of the means employed to animate them to blind obedience and
fanatical self-devotion. Being clothed in white,[55] like the followers
of Mokannaa, three hundred years before, in Transoxana, and, still
earlier, the Christian Neophytes, and, in our own days, the pages
of the sultan, they were termed Mobeyese, the white, or likewise,
Mohammere the red, because they wore, with their white costume, red
turbans, boots, or girdles, as in our own day do the warriors of the
prince of Lebanon, and at Constantinople the Janissaries and Bostangis
as body guard of the seraglio. Habited in the hues of innocence
and blood, and of pure devotion and murder, armed with daggers
(cultelliferi) which were constantly snatched forth at the service of
the grand-master, they formed his guard, the executioners of his deadly
orders, the sanguinary tools of the ambition and revenge of this order
of Assassins.
The grand master was called Sidna (Sidney) our lord, and commonly
Sheikh al Jebal, the Sheikh, the old man or supreme master of the
mountain; because the order always possessed themselves of the castles
in the mountainous regions, both in Irak, Kuhistan, and Syria, and
the ancient of the mountains, resided in the mountain fort of Alamut,
robed in white, like the Ancient of days in Daniel.[56] He was neither
king nor prince in the usual sense of the word, and never assumed the
title either of Sultan, Melek, or Emir, but merely that of Sheikh,
which to this day the heads of the Arab tribes and the superiors of
the religious order of the sofis and dervishes bear. His authority
could be no kingdom or principality, but that of a brotherhood or
order; European historians, therefore, fall into a great mistake in
confounding the empire of the Assassins with hereditary dynasties, as
in the form of its institution it was only an order like that of the
knights of St. John, the Teutonic knights, or the Templars—the latter
of these, besides the grand-master and grand-priors, and religious
nuncios, had also some resemblance to the Assassins in their spirit
of political interference and secret doctrine. Dressed in white, with
the distinctive mark of the red cross on their mantles, as were the
Assassins with red girdles and caps, the Templars had also secret
tenets, which denied and abjured the sanctity of the cross, as the
others did the commandments of Islamism. The fundamental maxim of the
policy of both was to obtain possession of the castles and strong
places of the adjacent country, and thus without pecuniary or military
means, to maintain an _imperium in imperio_, to keep the nations in
subjection as dangerous rivals to princes.
The flat part of a country is always commanded by the more mountainous,
and the latter by the fortresses scattered through it. To become
masters of these by stratagem or force, and to awe princes either by
fraud or fear, and to arm the murderer’s hand against the enemies of
the order, was the political maxim of the Assassins. Their internal
safety was secured by the strict observance of religious ordinances;
their external, by fortresses and the poniard. From the proper subjects
of the order, or the profane, was only expected the fulfilment of
the duties of Islamism, even of the most austere, such as refraining
from wine and music: from the devoted satellites was demanded blind
subjection and the faithful use of their daggers. The emissaries, or
initiated, worked with their heads, and led the arms in execution
of the orders of the Sheikh, who, in the centre of his sovereignty,
tranquilly directed, like an animating soul, their hearts and poniards
to the accomplishment of his ambitious projects.
Immediately under him the grand-master, stood the Dailkebir, grand
recruiters or grand-priors, his lieutenants in the three provinces
to which the power of the order extended, namely, Jebal, Kuhistan,
and Syria. Beneath them, were the Dai, or religious nuncios, and
political emissaries in ordinary, as initiated masters. The fellows
(Refik) were those who were advancing to the mastership, through the
several grades of initiation into the secret doctrine. The guards of
the order, the warriors, were the devoted murderers (Fedavie), and
the Lassik (aspirants) seem to have been the novices or lay brethren.
Besides this seven-fold gradation from Sheikh (grand-master), Dailkebir
(grand-prior), Dai (master), Refik (fellows), Fedavie (agents), Lassik
(lay brothers), down to the profane or the people, there was also
another seven-fold gradation of the spiritual hierarchy, who applied
themselves exclusively to the before-mentioned doctrine of the Ismailis
concerning the seven speaking and seven mute imams, and belonged more
properly to the theoretical frame-work of the schism, than to the
destruction of political powers. According to this arrangement, there
live, in every generation, seven persons distinguished from each other
by their different grades of rank: 1st. The divinely appointed Imam;
2nd. The proof Hudshet, designated by him, which the Ismailis called
Esas, (the seat); 3rd. The Sumassa, who received instruction from
the Hudshet, as they did from the Imam; 4th. The Missionaries (Dai);
5th. Mesuni, (the Freed) who were admitted to the solemn promise or
oath (Ahd); 6th. Mukellebi, the dog-like, who sought out subjects fit
for conversion for the missionaries, as hounds run down the game for
the huntsman; 7th, Mumini, the believers, the people. On comparing
these two divisions, we perceive that, according to the first, the
invisible imam, in whose name the sheikh claimed the obedience of the
people, and in the second, the guard, of which he made use against
the foes of the order, are wanting; but that, in other respects, the
different grades coincide. The _proof_ was the grand-master; the
Sumassa, the grand-prior; the fellows were the freed; and the dog-like
the lay-brethren; the fourth and seventh, that is the preachers of
the faith and the believers, the cheating missionaries, and the duped
people are the same in both.[57]
We have seen above, that the first founder of secret societies in the
heart of Islamism, Abdollah Maimun, the son of Kaddah, established
seven degrees of his doctrine, for which reason, as well as their
opinions concerning the seven imams, his disciples obtained the
by-name of Seveners. This appellation, which had been assigned,
hitherto, to the western Ismailites, although they had increased
the number of grades from seven to nine, was, with greater justice,
transferred to their new branch, the eastern Ismailites or Assassins,
whose founder, Hassan, the son of Sabah, not only restored the grades
to their original number, seven, but also sketched out for the Dais,
or missionaries, a particular rule of conduct, consisting of seven
points, which had reference, not so much to the gradual enlightenment
of those who were to be taught, as to the necessary qualifications of
the teachers; and was the proper rubric of the order.
The introductory rule was called Ashinai-risk (_knowledge of the
calling_), and comprised the maxims of the knowledge of mankind,
necessary to the selection of subjects suited to the initiated. Several
proverbs, of much vogue among the Dais, had relation to this; they
contained a sense different from their literal meaning:—“Sow not in
barren soil;” “Speak not in a house, where there is a lamp;” implied
“Waste not your words on the incapable;” “Venture not to speak them in
the presence of a lawyer;” for it was equally dangerous to engage with
blockheads, as with men of tried knowledge and probity; because the
former misunderstand, and the latter unmask, the doctrine, and neither
would be available either as teachers or instruments. These allegorical
sentences, and the prudential rules so necessary to avoid all chance
of discovery, remind us of a secret society of high antiquity, and
a celebrated order of modern times;—in short, of Pythagoras and the
Jesuits. The mysterious adages of the former, which have come down
to us, and whose peculiar sense is now unintelligible, were probably
nothing more than similar maxims to the initiated in his doctrine;
and the political prudence in the selection of subjects fit for the
different designs of a society, reached the highest perfection in that
of Jesus. Thus the Pythagoreans and the Jesuits have a resemblance
to the Assassins. The second rule of conduct was called Teenis,
(_gaining confidence_), and taught them to gain over candidates by
flattering their inclinations and passions. As soon as they were won,
it was requisite, in the third place, to involve them, by a thousand
doubts and questions concerning the positive religious commands and
absurdities of the Koran, in a maze of scruples, which were not to be
resolved, and of uncertainty, which was not to be disentangled.
In the fourth place, followed the oath (Ahd) by which the acolyte
bound himself, in the most solemn manner, to inviolable silence and
submission; that he would impart his doubts to none but his superior;
that he would blindly obey him and none but him. In the fifth rule,
Teddlis, the candidates were taught how their doctrine and opinions
agreed with those of the greatest men in church and state; this was
done the more to attract and fire them, by the examples of the great
and powerful. The sixth, Tessiss (i. e. _confirmation_), merely
recapitulated all that had preceded, in order to confirm and strengthen
the learner’s faith. After this followed, in the seventh place, Teevil
(i. e. _the allegorical instruction_), which was the conclusion of
the course of atheistical instruction. In Teevil, the allegorical
explanation, in opposition to Tensil, or the literal sense of the
divine word, was the principal essence of the secret doctrine, from
which they were named Bateni, the Esoterics, to distinguish them from
the Jaheri, or followers of the outward worship.[58] By means of this
crafty system of exposition and interpretation, which, in our own days,
has often been applied to the Bible, articles of faith and duties
became mere allegories; the external form, merely contingent; the inner
sense alone, essential; the observance, or non-observance of religious
ordinances and moral laws, equally indifferent; consequently, all was
doubtful, and nothing prohibited. This was the _acme_ of the philosophy
of the Assassins, which was not imparted by the founder to the
majority, but reserved only for a few of the initiated and principal
leaders, while the people were held under the yoke of the strictest
exercise of the precepts of Islamism. His greatest policy consisted
in designing his doctrine of infidelity and immorality, not for the
ruled, but only for the rulers; in subjecting the tensely-reined and
blind obedience of the former, to the equally blind but unbridled
despotic commands of the second; and thus, he made both serve the aim
of his ambition,—the former by the renunciation, the latter by the
full gratification of their passions. Study and the sciences were,
therefore, the lot of only a few who were initiated. For the immediate
attainment of their objects, the order was less in need of heads
than arms; and did not employ pens, but daggers, whose points were
everywhere, while their hilts were in the hand of the grand-master.
No sooner had Hassan Sabah obtained possession of the castle of
Alamut, and before he had provided it with magazines, than an emir,
on whom the sultan had conferred the fief of the district of Rudbar,
cut off all access and supplies. The inhabitants were on the point of
abandoning the place, when Hassan inspired them with new courage, by
the assurance that fortune would favour them there. They remained, and
the castle henceforth received the name of the Abode of Fortune. The
Sultan Melekshah, who had at first viewed the efforts of the Ismailites
with contempt, was at length roused to secure the internal peace,
which was threatened by Hassan’s insurrection. He commanded the Emir
Arslantash (_Lion-Rock_),[59] to destroy the son of Sabah, with all his
followers. The latter, although he had only seventy companions, and
few provisions, defended himself courageously, until the deputy Abu
Ali, who was collecting, as Dai, troops and disciples in Kaswin, sent
three hundred men,—who, during the night, having formed a junction
with the garrison, and falling upon the besiegers, put them to flight.
Sultan Melekshah, being awakened to serious consideration by this
check, sent Kisil Sarik, one of his most confidential officers, with
troops of Khorassan, against Hossein Kaini, Hassan Sabah’s Dai, who
was spreading the principles of sedition throughout the provinces of
Kuhistan. Hossein retreated to a castle in the district Muminabad,
where he was not less straitened than Hassan had been in Alamut. The
latter now thought, that the moment was arrived for him to put into
execution a decisive stroke, and long-matured plan of murder, and to
rid himself of his most powerful foes, by the ready mode of dagger
or poison. Nisam-ol-mulk, the vizier of the Seljukides, great by his
wisdom and power, under the three first sultans of that family, Togrul,
Alparslan, and Melekshah,—he who, in his early youth, had rivalled
Hassan at the school of the Imam Mosawek, in industry; afterwards,
at the court of Melekshah, in their disputes concerning the dignity
of vizier and the monarch’s favour; and who, last of all, now openly
contended with the lord of Alamut for power and rule,—he, the great
support of the Seljuk empire, and the first great enemy of the order
of the Ismailites,—fell, as the first victim of Hassan’s revenge and
ambition, under the poniards of his Fedavi, or Devoted. His fall, and
the death of Melekshah, not without suspicion of poison, which followed
shortly afterwards, and with which all Asia echoed,—were the frightful
signals for assassination, which henceforth became Hassan’s policy,
and, like the plague, selected its victims from all classes of society.
It was a fearful period of murders and reprisals, equally destructive
to the declared foes and friends of the new doctrine.[60] The former
fell under the daggers of the Assassins, the latter under the sword of
the princes, who, now roused to the dangers with which Hassan Sabah’s
sect threatened all thrones, visited its partisans and adherents with
proclamations and condemnation to death. The first imams and priests
issued, voluntarily or by order, fetwas and judgments, in which the
Ismailites were condemned and anathematized, as the most dangerous
enemies of the throne and the altar, as hardened criminals and lawless
atheists; and which delivered them over to the avenging arm of justice,
either in open war, or as outlaws, as infidels, separatists, and
rebels, whom to slay was a law of Islamism. The Imam Ghasali, one of
the first moralists of Islam, and most celebrated Persian teachers of
ethics, wrote a treatise, peculiarly directed against the adherents
of the esoteric doctrine, entitled, _On the Folly of the Supporters
of the doctrine of Indifference, that is, the impious (Mulahid), whom
may God condemn_.[61] In that entitled, _Pearls of the Fetwas_,[62]
a celebrated collection of legal decisions, the sect of the impious
(Mulahid) of Kuhistan were condemned according to the ancient sentences
of the Imams, Ebi Jussuf and Mohammed, pronounced against the
Karmathites, and their lives and goods given as free prey to all the
Moslemin. In the “_Confluence_” (Multakath), and the “_treasures of the
Fetwas_” (Khasanetol Fetavi), even the repentance of the Mulhad, or the
impious, is rejected as entirely invalid and impossible, if they have
ever exercised the office of Dai, or missionary; and their execution
commanded as legal, even though they become converts and wish to abjure
their errors; because perjury itself was one of their maxims, and no
recovery could be expected from libertine atheists. Thus, the minds of
both parties were mutually embittered; governments and the order were
at open war, and heads fell a rich harvest to the assassin’s dagger and
the executioner’s sword.[63]
Those who were of the highest rank were the first to fall: such were
the Emir Borsak, who had been appointed by Togrul-beg first governor of
Bagdad, and Araash Nisami, to whom Yakut, the uncle of Barkyarok, the
reigning Seljukide sultan, had given his daughter in marriage.[64] The
civil war between the brothers, Barkyarok and Mohammed,[65] concerning
the territories of Irak and Khorassan, facilitated the execution of
Hassan’s ambitious designs; and in the bloody hotbed of intestine
discord, the poisonous plant of murder and sedition flourished. By
degrees, his partisans made themselves masters of the strongest castles
of Irak, and even of that of Ispahan, called _Shah durr_ (_the king’s
pearl_), built by Melekshah. That prince, hunting once near this place,
in company with the ambassador of the Roman emperor at Constantinople,
a hound strayed to an inaccessible mountain plateau, on which the
castle was afterwards situated. The envoy observed, that, in his
master’s territories, a place presenting so many natural advantages of
fortification would not be neglected, and that on the spot a fortress
would long ago have been erected. The sultan availed himself of the
ambassador’s suggestion and the situation, and the castle was built,
which was wrested by the Ismailites out of the hands of its commander.
This gave rise to the saying—“A fort, the situation of which a dog
pointed out and an infidel advised, could only bring perdition.”
Besides the _king’s pearl_, they took also the castles of Derkul
and Khalenjan, near Ispahan, the last, five farsangs distant from
that city; the castle of Wastamkuh, near Abhar; those of Tambur and
Khalowkhan, between Fars and Kuhistan; those of Damaghan, Firuskuh, and
Kirdkuh, in the province of Komis; and, lastly, in Kuhistan, those of
Tabs, Kain, Toon, and several others in the district of Muminabad.[66]
Abulfettah, Hassan’s nephew, captured Esdahan, and Kia Busurgomid took
Lamsir, both of them being, together with Reis Mosaffer, and Hossein
Kaini, as Dais, energetic promulgators of the doctrine, and supporters
of the greatness of Hassan Sabah, whose most intimate friends and
confidants they were, as Abubekr, Omar, Osman, and Ali, had been those
of the prophet. The acquisition of these fortresses, excepting those of
Alamut and Wastamkuh, which came into the possession of the Ismailites
ten years earlier, happened the year after the taking of Jerusalem by
the Crusaders.[67] Christianity and infidelity, the cross of the pious
warriors and the dagger of the Assassins, at the same time conspired
the ruin of Mohammedanism and its monarchies.
For a long period, the Assassins have only been known to Europe by
the accounts of the Crusaders, and recent historians have dated their
appearance in Syria later than it really took place. They, however,
appeared in Palestine contemporaneously with the Crusaders; for,
already, in the first year of the twelfth century of the Christian era,
Jenaheddevlet, Prince of Emessa, fell beneath their daggers as he was
hastening to the relief of the castle of the Kurds, Hossnal a-kurd,
which was besieged by the Count St. Gilles. Four years before,[68]
he had been attacked, by three Persian assassins, in his palace, as
he was preparing for his devotions. Suspicion, as the author of this
attempt, fell upon Riswan, Prince of Aleppo, the political opponent of
Jenaheddevlet, and a great friend of the Assassins, who had gained him
over by the agency of one of their emissaries, a physician, who was
also an astrologer, and thus doubly qualified to deceive himself and
others, without having recourse to the false doctrine of his order.
This man died twenty-four days after this first unsuccessful attempt
at murder; but the sanguinary views of the order were not extinguished
with him. His place was supplied by a Persian goldsmith, one Abutaher
Essaigh, who inflamed the Prince of Aleppo, Riswan, to deeds of blood.
This chieftain, who was constantly at enmity with the Crusaders,[69]
and his brother, Dokak, Prince of Damascus, favoured the emigration
and colonization of the Bateni, or Assassins, as their doctrine was
agreeable to him, he being but a bad Moslem, and a free-thinker. He
entered into the closest tie of friendship with them, and forgot, in
the pursuit, his infidelity and short-sighted policy, the interest of
his people and posterity. Sarmin, a strong place, only a day’s journey
south of Aleppo,[70] became the residence of Abulfettah, the nephew
of Hassan Sabah, who was his grand-prior in Syria, as were Hossein
Kaini, the Reis Mosaffer, and Busurgomid, in Kuhistan, Komis, and Irak.
A few years afterwards,[71] when the inhabitants of Apamea besought
the assistance of Abutaher Essaigh, the commandant of Sarmin, against
their Egyptian governor, Khalaf; he caused him to be assassinated, and
took possession of the town in the name of Riswan, Prince of Aleppo,
and remained in command of the citadel.[72] He could not, however,
resist Tancred, to whom the town surrendered, and who, contrary to his
promise, carried Abutaher prisoner to Antioch, and only released him on
receiving a ransom. The Arabian historian, Kemaleddin, for this reason,
accused Tancred of forfeiting his word; and, on the other hand, Albert
of Aix, the Christian annalist of the crusades, blames him for granting
so vile a ruffian so much as his life. His companions, however, whose
lives were secured by no treaty, were delivered up by Tancred to the
vengeance of the sons of Khalaf, and Abulfettah himself expired under
the anguish of the torture.[73] Soon after this, Tancred took from the
Assassins the strong castle of Kefrlana.
Abutaher having returned to his protector, Riswan, exerted his
influence still further in schemes of assassination. Abu Harb Issa (_i.
e._ Jesus, Father of Battles), a rich merchant of Khojend, a sworn
enemy of the Bateni, who had expended large sums in injuring them,
arrived at Aleppo with a rich caravan, consisting of five hundred
camels. An Assassin, a native of Rei, by name Ahmed, son of Nassr, had
accompanied him from the borders of Khorassan, watching an opportunity
to avenge on his person the blood of a brother, who had fallen under
the blows of Abu Harb’s people. On his arrival at Aleppo, the murderer
had a conference with Abutaher and his protector, Riswan, whom he won
the more easily to his purposes, as the richness of the booty, and
Abu Harb’s known hostility to the Assassins, invited to vengeance.
Abutaher provided Assassins, and Riswan guards, for the execution of
the deed. As Abu Harb was, one day, counting his camels, surrounded by
his slaves, the murderers attacked him; but before they could pierce
their victim’s heart, they all fell themselves under the blows of the
brave and faithful slaves, who exhibited their courage and attachment
in defence of their master. The princes of Syria, to whom Abu Harb
communicated this attack, loaded Riswan with reproaches for this
scandalous breach of hospitality. He excused himself with the lie, that
he had had no share in the transaction, and added, to the universal
horror of his deed, the public contempt which eventually falls to the
lot of all liars. Abutaher, in order to escape the daily increasing
rage of the inhabitants of Aleppo against the Ismailites, returned into
his own country to his sanguinary associates.[74]
As unsuccessful as their enterprise against Apamea, was the attack of
the Bathenites on Shiser, of which they wished to deprive the family
of Monkad and subject it to themselves. While the inhabitants of this
castle had gone into the town,[75] to participate in the festivities
of the Christians at the celebration of Easter, the Assassins took
possession of it and barricaded the gates. On the return of the
inhabitants, they were drawn up through the windows with ropes, by
their wives, during the night, and drove out the Assassins.
Soon after, Mewdud, the prince of Mossul, fell under their daggers at
Damascus, as he was walking with Togteghin, the prince of that city,
on a feast day, in the fore court of the great mosque. An Assassin
stabbed him, for which he lost his head on the spot.[76] In the same
year[77] died Riswan, the prince of Aleppo, the great protector of the
Ismailites, who made use of their swords and daggers for the defence
and extension of his power. His death was the signal of theirs: the
eunuch Lulu, who, with Riswan’s son, Akhras, a youth of sixteen,
carried on the government, commenced it with condemning to death all
the Bathenites; which sentence was executed less in a legal manner than
in a promiscuous carnage.
No less than three hundred men, women, and children, were cut in
pieces, and about two hundred thrown into prison alive. Abulfettah,—not
the one who was tortured to death by the sons of Khalaf, but a son
of Abutaher, the goldsmith, and his successor, after his return to
Persia, as head of the Assassins in Syria, met with a fate no less
horrible and merited than his namesake: after being hewed to pieces at
the gate looking towards Irak, his limbs were burnt, but his head was
carried about through Syria for a show. The Dai Ismail, brother of the
astrologer, who had first brought himself and his sect into credit with
Riswan, paid for it with his life; several of the Assassins were thrown
from the top of the wall into the moat; Hossameddin, son of Dimlatsh,
a newly-arrived Dai from Persia, fled from the popular rage to Rakka,
where he died; several also saved themselves by flight, and were
dispersed in the towns of Syria; others, to escape the fatal suspicion
of belonging to the order, denounced their brothers and murdered
them. Their treasures were sought out and were confiscated.[78] They
revenged this persecution variously and sanguinarily. In an audience,
granted by the khalif of Bagdad to Togteghin Atabeg, of Damascus, three
conspirators in succession attacked the Emir Ahmed Bal, governor of
Khorassan, whom they probably mistook for the Atabeg. They all three
fell, together with the emir, who had been selected for their daggers,
and who was in reality their sworn foe, and had frequently besieged
their castles. The governors of provinces, as being the principal
instruments of the state for the preservation of peace and good order,
were their natural enemies, and, as such, more than all exposed to
their daggers. Bedii, the governor of Aleppo, became their victim,[79]
as also one of his sons, who was on his way to the court of the Emir
Ilghasi. His other sons cut down the two murderers, but a third sprang
forward and gave one of them, who was already wounded, his death-blow.
Being seized, and carried before the princes Togteghin and Ilghasi, he
was condemned by them only to imprisonment, but he sought his death by
drowning himself.
The following year[80] Ilghasi received a message from Abu Mohammed,
the head of the Ismailis in Aleppo, with a request to put them in
possession of the castle of Sherif. Ilghasi, dreading his power,
pretended to grant it; but before the envoy could return with this
consent, the inhabitants of Aleppo destroyed the walls, filled up
the ditches, and united the castle with the town. Ibn Khashshab, who
had made this proposition, in order not to increase the power of
the Ismailites by the possession of the fortress, paid for it with
his blood. A few years afterwards, they made a similar request to
Nureddin, the celebrated prince of Damascus, for the possession of
the castle Beitlaha; which was, in the same way, apparently granted,
and frustrated by a similar stratagem: for the inhabitants, secretly
instigated by Nureddin, to prevent the Ismailites obtaining a firm
footing, immediately set about destroying their fortifications. So
great was the dread in which princes held the order, that they did
not dare to refuse them the strong places of their own countries, and
preferred destroying them, to abandoning them for citadels of the
power and sovereignty of the Assassins.[81]
In Persia, also, their vengeance chose the most illustrious victims.
Fakrolmulk[82] (_Glory of the kingdom_), Abulmosaffer Ali, the son of
the grand vizier Nisam-ol-mulk, who had filled the office he inherited
from his father, along with his hatred of the Assassins, during the two
reigns of the sultans Mohammed and Sandjar, with credit and industry,
and Chakarbeg, the son of Mikail, brother of Togrul, grand-uncle of
Sandjar, the reigning sultan of the Seljuks, were amongst them.[83] A
sanguinary lesson for the latter, whom the son of Sabah warned by still
farther menaces. He found it more adviseable frequently to restrain his
powerful enemies by impending danger, and preferred unnerving their arm
by terror, to multiplying uselessly avengers by repeated murders. He
gained over a slave of the sultan’s, who, while the latter slept, stuck
a dagger in the ground close to his head. The prince was terror-struck
when, on waking, he espied the murderous weapon but concealed his
fear. Some days after, the grand-master wrote to him in the style of
the order, brief and cutting like their stilettos: “Had we not been
well-disposed towards the sultan, we might have plunged the dagger into
his heart, instead of the ground.”
Sandjar, who had despatched some troops against the castles of the
Ismailites in Kuhistan, was the more fearful, after this warning, of
prosecuting the siege; as his brother Mohammed, who had caused the two
strongest fortresses of the Ismailites in Irak, Alamut and Lamsir, to
be invested by the Atabeg Nushteghin Shirghir, for more than a year,
died at the very moment when, being reduced to extremities, they were
on the point of surrendering.[84] This death was too favourable to
the Assassins, not to be considered less the work of accident than of
their policy, which, though trusting to the dagger, did not neglect
the use of poison. Admonished by this, Sandjar offered to make peace
with the Ismailites on three conditions:—1st. They should erect no new
fortifications about their castles; 2nd. They should purchase no arms
nor ammunition; and, 3rd. That they should make no more proselytes. As,
however, the jurists, who had thundered the ban of general condemnation
and persecution against the impiety of the order, would hear of no
compromise or peace with them, the sultan fell under the popular
suspicion of being a secret partisan of their impious doctrines. Peace
was, however, concluded between Hassan and Sandjar; and the latter
not only exempted the Ismailites from all duties and imposts in the
district of Kirdkuh, but even assigned them a certain portion of the
revenues of Kumis, as the annual pension of the order. Thus, this
society of murderers increased daily in power and authority.
It was not, however, merely since his accession, but twelve or fourteen
years earlier, that the Sultan Sandjar had exhibited tokens of
forbearance towards the Assassins; for on his journey from Khorassan
to Irak, he visited at Damaghan the Reis Mosaffer, venerable both on
account of his age and influence, who, as we have already seen, had
declared himself an adherent of Hassan Sabah, and had obtained for him,
by stratagem, the treasures of the Emir David Habeshi. Some officers
proposed to demand them back, but on Mosaffer’s representation, that
he had always loaded the inhabitants of the place with favours, as the
proper subjects of the sultan, the latter lavished honours upon him.
Thus died Reis Mosaffer,[85] respected and honoured as the patriarch of
the new doctrine, at the age of one hundred and one.[86]
Hassan Sabah survived the most faithful of his disciples, and his
nearest relations, to whom the ties of attachment and consanguinity
seemed to secure the highest rights to the succession to the
sovereignty. His nephew and grand-prior in Syria, Abulfettah, had
fallen by the sword of the enemy; Hossein Kaini, grand-prior in
Kuhistan, under the dagger of a murderer, probably Ostad, one of
the two sons of Hassan: and Ostad and his brother under the hand of
their own father, who seemed to revel even in spilling his own blood.
Without proof or measure of guilt, he sacrificed them, not to offended
justice, but apparently to mere love of murder, and that terrific
policy, by virtue of which the order snapped all ties of relationship
or friendship, to bind the more closely those of impiety and slaughter.
Ostad (i. e. _the master_), probably so called because the public voice
had destined him as the successor of his father as grand-master, was
put to death on the mere suspicion of being concerned in Hossein’s
murder; and his brother, because he had drunk wine: the former,
probably, because he had, by his crime, which was without orders,
interfered with his father’s prerogative; the latter, because he had
infringed one of the least essential laws of Islamism, but whose strict
observance was part of the system of the order. In the execution of
his two sons, the grand-master gave the profane and the initiated a
sanguinary example of avenged disobedience to the ordinance of outward
worship, and the rules of internal discipline; but probably, besides
this apparent motive, the son of Sabah was urged by another, to the
destruction of his race; possibly, his sons, disgusted with the long
reign of their father, were expecting with impatience to succeed him;
it is probable, that on that account he deemed them incompetent, as
not having learned to obey, or as being wanting in the necessary
princely qualities; or, it is probable, that he set them aside, in
order to avoid sinking the order into a dynasty by inheritance, and
that the succession of grand-masters might be determined by the nearest
relationship of mind and character, irreligion and impiety. Human
nature is not usually so diabolical, that the historian must, among
several doubtful motives to an action, always decide for the worst;
but, in the founder of this society of vice, the establisher of the
murderous order of the Assassins, the most horrible is the most likely.
Of the most faithful promulgators of the new doctrine, of whom we have
hitherto made mention, there still remained the Dai Kiabusurgomid, who
had not quitted the castle of Lamin during the twenty years that had
elapsed since he took it, and the Lieutenant Abu Ali, Dai in Kaswin.
When the son of Sabah felt his end approaching, he sent for them to
Alamut; and, by his last will, divided the government between them in
such a manner, that Abu Ali was invested with the external command and
civil administration, and Kiabusurgomid, as proper grand-master, with
the supreme spiritual power and government of the order. Thus, at a
very advanced age, died Hassan Sabah;[87] for more than seventy years
had elapsed, since, as a youth of twenty, he studied with Nisam-ol-mulk,
under the Imam Mowasek, in the reign of Togrul. He expired, not on the
bed of torture, which his crimes merited, but in his own; not under
the poniards, which he had drawn against the hearts of the best and
greatest of his contemporaries, but by the natural effect of age;
after a blood-stained reign of thirty-five years, during which he not
only never quitted the castle of Alamut, but had never removed more
than twice, during this long period, from his chamber to the terrace.
Immoveable in one spot, and persisting in one plan, he meditated the
revolutions of empires by carnage and rebellion; or wrote rules for
his order, and the catechism of the secret doctrine of libertinism
and impiety. Fixed in the centre of his power, he extended its
circumference to the extreme confines of Khorassan and Syria; with
the pen in his hand, he guided the daggers of his Assassins. He was,
himself, in the hand of Providence, like war and pestilence,—a dreadful
scourge for the chastisement of feeble sovereigns and corrupted nations.
END OF BOOK II.