_Reign of Kia Busurgomid, and his Son, Mohammed._
KIA BUSURGOMID, who had been the general and Dai of Hassan,
succeeded him in the spiritual power; and trod precisely in the
sanguinary steps of the founder of the order. Daggers and fortresses
were the foundations of Hassan’s power, and that of his successor
rested on the same basis; the most illustrious leaders of the enemy
either fell, or were tottering to their fall. New castles were taken
or built. Thus, that of Maimundis was erected;[88] the ruin of which
drew with it, in the sequel, the death of the grand-master, and the
suppression of the order. Abdolmelek was declared its dehdar, or
commandant. These precautions were the more necessary, as the Sultan
Sandjar, who had long been deemed a secret protector of the order, now
publicly declared himself their enemy. In the month Shaaban, of the
same year, also, Atabeg Shirghir, overran the province of Rudbar with
an army. The body, which the grand-master sent against him, put the
enemy to flight, and carried off a rich booty.[89]
The war, the year following,[90] assumed a still more cruel character,
when a great multitude of Bathenites were put to the sword, by order
of Sandjar; nor was it altered on Mahmud’s succeeding to the throne of
Irak, in the place of his nephew, Sandjar.[91] This sovereign resolved
to combat the Assassins with their own weapons of perfidy and murder;
a determination unworthy the assertor of a good cause. After being some
time at open war with Kia Busurg, the sultan requested, through the
medium of his grand falconer, that some one should be sent from Alamut,
on the part of the grand-master, to treat of peace. The Khoja Mohammed
Nassihi Sheristani was sent: he was admitted to the honour of kissing
the sultan’s hand, who addressed a few words to him on the subject
of peace. On leaving the presence, the Khoja, or master, and his
accompanying Refik (fellow) were savagely butchered by the populace.[92]
Mahmud despatched an envoy to Alamut, to excuse this action; in which,
according to his own asseverations, he had had no share. Kia Busurg
made answer to the envoy: “Go back to the sultan, and tell him, in
my name, Mohammed Nassihi trusted to your perfidious assurances, and
repaired to your court; if you speak truly, deliver up the murderers
to justice; if not, expect my vengeance.” Mahmud not attending to
this, a body of Assassins came to the very gates of Kaswin,[93] where
they killed four hundred men, and carried off three thousand sheep,
two hundred horses and camels, and two hundred oxen and asses. The
inhabitants followed them, but the death of one of their chief men
interrupted their pursuit.[94]
The year following,[95] the sultan captured, though but for a brief
period, Alamut itself, the stronghold of the order’s sovereignty;[96]
and immediately after, a thousand men were sent against the castle
of Lamsir, who, as soon as they heard that the Refik, or companions
of the order, were in advance against them, instantly fled without
striking a blow. Immediately after the death of Mahmud, which was
most probably caused by the machinations of the Assassins, without,
however, any accusation of the kind, the companions of the order made a
second irruption into the environs of Kaswin,[97] and carried off two
hundred horses, and after killing a hundred Turcomans, and twenty of
the citizens, they retired. The forces of Alamut then marched against
Abu Hashem, a descendant of Ali, who had usurped the dignity of imam
in Ghilan, and invited the people, by manifestos, to recognize him
as their legitimate lord. Kia Busurg wrote to him, advising him to
desist from his aspiring projects; he, however, replied, with reviling
the impious lore of the Ismailites: they made war upon him, beat him
in Dilem, took him prisoner, and, after holding a council of war,
delivered him over to the stake.[98]
On the death of Mahmud, when Messud ascended the throne of the
Seljukides, Itsis, the prince of Khowaresm, a country lying between
the confines of Khorassan, and the mouth of the Oxus, came to him,
to communicate the determination he had formed, of exterminating the
Ismailites. Although the large province of Khorassan lies between
Khowaresm and Kuhistan, or the Highlands, where the Ismailis nestled,
like birds of prey, amongst the rocks, yet the sovereign of Khowaresm,
not unjustly, dreaded the approach of such dangerous neighbours, whose
poniards reached even their most distant foes. Messud, participating in
the maxims and designs of Itsis, presented him with the fief which had
been held by Berenkish, the grand falconer, who in his irritation, took
refuge with Kiabusurg, and sent his wives and children to the castle
of Dherkos, which was in the possession of the Ismailites. Although
this man, till now their declared enemy, had not only attacked them in
open warfare, but also with their own weapons, perfidy and treachery,
the grand-master considered it politic to exercise the rights of
hospitality towards him, who had now flown to their protection.
It was the more advisable to create a new friend to the order, as
Khowaresmshah, who had hitherto shown tokens of a friendly disposition,
had, all at once, declared himself an enemy. The latter sent the
following message to the grand-master: “Berenkish and his party were
heretofore your declared enemies; I, on the other hand, was bound to
you by true attachment. Now that the sultan has given me his fief, he
has sought an asylum with you; if you will deliver him up to me, our
friendship will receive still further increase.” Kiabusurg replied:
“Khowaresmshah speaks truly, but we will never surrender our protegés
to the enemy.” This was the origin of tedious hostilities between
Khowaresmshah and Kiabusurg.[99]
It was natural that princes, who, for a time, were blinded by the
representations of the Dais, and the attractions of the Ismailitic
secret doctrine, should have hastened, as friends, to their arms, but
should afterwards snatch themselves away, dreading lest the embrace,
like that of the Spanish maiden, should be but a form of execution,
under which murdering daggers lay concealed. Thus, the Sultan Sandjar,
and Itsis, shah of Khowaresm, who were both at first reckoned among the
friends and partisans of the order, became their open foes; and we have
seen that, at Aleppo, they enjoyed, during the reign of Riswan, the
most powerful influence; but, under his son, were extirpated with the
sword. Such was their fate also at Damascus; where, during the reign
of Busi, they found a powerful protector in the vizier Tahir, the son
of Saad of Masdeghan. The Persian Assassin, Behram of Astrabad, who
commenced his operations with the murder of his uncle, gained over the
vizier, who gave him the castle of Banias, as Riswan had given the more
inland fortress, Sarmin, to the nephew of Hassan Sabah.[100] Banias,
the ancient Balanea, signifying the old city seated in the little
bay, gave its name to the castle newly erected in A. D. 1162; A. H.
454. It is a farsang, or four thousand paces, distant from the sea,
in a fertile, well-watered plain; where, in former times, more than a
hundred thousand buffaloes found pasture.[101] The valley, into which
numerous rivulets fall, is called Wady ol Jinn (the valley of demons),
a place whose very name rendered it worthy of being a settlement of
Assassins. From this place,[102] they became masters of the surrounding
castles and towns; and Banias became the centre of their power in
Syria, until they transferred it, twelve years afterwards, to Massiat.
Behram had long prosecuted the designs of the order at Aleppo and
Damascus, where he was recognised and favoured as Dai, by the princes
Ilghasi and Togteghin. When, by the possession of Banias, he had
obtained a firm footing in Syria, the power and insolence of the
Assassins attained its height. From all sides they hastened to the new
point of union, and princes did not venture to protect any one against
them. The jurists and theologians, more particularly the Soonnites,
those universal victims, were struck dumb with fear of them, and of
the disfavour of the princes. Behram did not fall by their vengeance,
but by that of the inhabitants of the valley of Taim, an appendage
to the district of Baalbek, and inhabited by a mixture of Nossairis,
Druses, and Magians. Their brave leader, Dohak, burned to revenge the
death of his brother Barak, the son of Jendel, who had been slain by
the Assassins, by command of Behram; he united, for this purpose, the
warriors of his native vale, with succours from Damascus, and the
surrounding towns. Behram hoped to surprise them defenceless, at the
head of his Ismailites; he, however, fell into their hands, and was
instantly cut in pieces. His head and hands were brought to Egypt,
where the khalif presented the bearer with a rich habit, and had
them carried about in triumph in Cairo and Fostath. The Ismailis who
escaped, fled from the valley of Taim, to Banias, where Behram, prior
to the expedition, had committed the command to Ismail, the Persian.
The vizier Masdeghani entered into friendly alliance with him, as
with his predecessor. Ismail sent to Damascus, one of his creatures,
Abulwefa, literally, _Father of Fidelity_, but, in reality, the model
of perfidiousness.[103] By his intrigues, he succeeded in obtaining,
not only the office of Dailkebir, or prior of the Ismailites, but also
that of Hakem, or chief judge of the district.
At Cairo, the dignity of grand-master of the lodge (Dail-doat), was
frequently united by the Ismailites, with that of chief justice
(Kadhi al Kodhat). As the attainment of rule was the object of the
order, and as no means were left untried to accomplish it, Abulwefa
sought conquest by means of treachery, and greatness by perjury. The
Crusaders, whose power was continually on the increase in Syria,
appeared to him the most fitting instruments of his ambitious designs.
As the enemies of Mohammedanism, they were the natural allies of its
most dangerous opponents. The bulwarks of the faith of Mohammed,
shaken from without by the tempest of the Crusaders, and undermined
from within by the atheistical doctrines of the Assassins, threatened
an earlier and a more certain fall; and the pious warriors, in union
with their impious allies, promised the sooner to erect the cross and
the dagger on their ruins. Abulwefa entered into a treaty with the
king of Jerusalem, by which he bound himself, on a certain Friday,
to put the city of Damascus in his possession. While the Emir Busi,
and his magnates, both courtly and military, were assembled at their
devotions in the mosque, all the approaches to it were to be hemmed in
by conspirators, and the gates of the city opened to the Christians. In
return for this service, the king promised to deliver the city of Tyre
into his power.[104]
Hugo de Payens, the first grand-master of the Templars, seems to have
been the principal agent in urging Baldwin II., King of Jerusalem,
to this strange alliance of the cross and the dagger. For ten years
after its first institution,[105] this order remained in obscurity;
fulfilling, besides the usual evangelical vows of poverty, chastity,
and obedience, a fourth, the protection of pilgrims; but still existing
only as a private society, without statutes or knightly habits.
By the code of rules given by St. Bernard, and confirmed by Pope
Honorius I., it raised itself at once, to the splendour of a powerful
chivalric order, for the defence of the holy sepulchre, and the
protection of the pilgrims.[106] According to Miræus, its members
consisted of knights, esquires, and lay-brothers, which answer to
the companions (Refik), agents (Fedavi), and laymen (Lassick), of the
Ismailites, as the priors, grand-priors, and grand-master, did to the
Dai, Dailkebir, and Sheikh of the mountain. As the Refik were clothed
in white, with red insignia, so the knights wore white mantles with red
crosses; and as the castles of the Assassins arose in Asia, so did the
hospitals of the Templars in Europe.
The grand-master Hugo, came this year[107] to Jerusalem, accompanied
by a great retinue of knights and pilgrims, who, at his exhortation,
had assumed the cross, and taken up arms in defence of the holy
sepulchre.[108] The siege of Damascus was immediately decided upon.
After the death of the dreaded Togteghin, which had but lately
occurred, his son Taj-ol-Moluk[109] Busi succeeded him. In his name, the
vizier Tahir-ben-Saad exercised the supreme power, and, through him,
the chiefs of the Ismailites, first the warrior Behram, afterwards the
judge Abulwefa, with whom the treacherous surrender of Damascus, in
exchange for Tyre, was agreed upon.
Taj-ol-Moluk Busi having received timely notice of the designs of the
Ismailites, caused his vizier, the son of Saad, to be put to death; and
then gave orders for a general massacre of all of the order who were in
the city. Six thousand fell by the sword, which avenged the victims of
the dagger. It was not an execution, but an indiscriminate slaughter.
In the meanwhile, a numerous Christian army, certain of the promised
surrender of the city, had advanced on the road to Damascus, as far as
Marj Safar. Among them, besides many pilgrims of the west, were the
king and barons of Jerusalem, with their allies, Prince Bernard of
Antioch, Pontius, Count of Tripoli, and Joscelin of Edessa, with many
knights and esquires. The soldiery, under the command of the constable,
William of Buris, had gone with a thousand knights, to plunder the
villages, and collect provisions; marching, however, as was usual with
an army of pilgrims, without order and discipline, they were, with many
of the knights, almost entirely destroyed, by an attack of a small body
of valiant warriors from Damascus. The rest, as soon as they learned
the disgraceful defeat of their brethren, flew to arms, and hastened to
attack the Damascenes; to wash out with their blood the stain inflicted
on the Christian army.
A dreadful darkness, however, came on, interrupted only by the glare of
the lightning and howling of the tempest; in the midst of the thunder,
the cataracts of heaven poured down rain, and inundated the roads, when
suddenly, as if the order of the seasons had at once been changed—as
if summer and winter would together have raged in all their severity,
the rain and flood were changed to snow and ice. Such rapid mutations
of the atmosphere, and sudden vicissitudes of the weather, from one
extreme to the other, are not, indeed, rare in those countries; but
they astonished the inexperienced wanderers, as extraordinary phenomena
of nature.
The author of the present work has, during his travels, more than once
experienced this, and in a terribly sublime manner, in the defile
of Marmaris; as did the British fleet, and the Egyptian army of
occupation. Heavy clouds darkened the approach of night; torrents of
rain, which poured from them and from the rocks, carried away arms and
tents; the howling of the storm and the roaring of the thunder, drowned
the speaking-trumpets of the distressed ships, which were driving from
their anchors. On the cessation of the tempest, which lasted the whole
night, and grew calmer towards morning, the first dawn showed the masts
dashed to pieces by the wind, and the rocks scathed by the lightning,
and covered with a large quantity of snow.
The army of the Gauls, which, in ancient times, under the command of
Brennus, sacked the temple of Delphi, experienced a similar contest and
alternation of seasons, and an equally violent storm.[110] And as, at
that time, these natural phenomena were deemed a token of the celestial
punishment of the sacrilegious presumption of the Gauls, so were they
also considered by the Crusaders as a mark of the anger of Heaven at
their sins, and their late compact with the Assassins, which blood and
perjury could alone confirm. The only advantage which they derived from
this monstrous union of piety and impiety, was the possession of the
castle of Banias, which the commander, Ismail, fearing lest he should
meet the fate of his brethren of Damascus, delivered up to the knight,
Rainier de Brus, the same year,[111] in which the fortress of Alamut
surrendered to Sultan Mahmud. Thus fell, at the same time, the two
citadels of the order in Persia and Syria, and so near was the risk of
its complete annihilation.
A persevering spirit of enterprise, however, overcame the untowardness
of events. Both Alamut and Banias soon returned to their former
possessors. The latter was re-taken, three years afterwards,[112] by
Ismail, while Rainier de Brus and his soldiery lay before Joppa, with
the king of Jerusalem. Among the prisoners who were carried away,
Rainier lost a beloved wife; whom, on her release during a truce with
Ismail, he received affectionately, but repulsed her on learning that
she had neither preserved her faith among the infidels, nor her honour
among the impious. She confessed her sin, and retired into a convent
of devout females at Jerusalem.[113]
The less the designs of the Ismailites prospered by the sword, the more
successful and persevering were they with the dagger; and, however
dangerous to the order the times might be, they were not the less so to
its most powerful adversaries. A long series of great and celebrated
men, who, during the grand-mastership of Kiabusurgomid, fell by the
poniards of his Fedavi, signalized the bloody annals of his reign;
and, as formerly, according to the fashion of oriental historians,
there follows, at the end of each prince’s reign, a catalogue of great
statesmen, generals, and literati, who have either adorned it by their
lives, or troubled it with their death; so, in the annals of the
Assassins, is found the chronological enumeration of celebrated men of
all nations who have fallen the victims of the Ismailites, to the joy
of their murderers, and the sorrow of the world. The first, under the
grand-mastership of Kiabusurgomid, was Cassim-ed-dewlet[114] Aksonkor
Bourshi, the brave prince of Mossul, feared alike by the Crusaders
and the Assassins, as one of their deadliest enemies.[115] Having
fought his last battle with the former, near Maarra Mesrin, he was, on
the first Sunday after his return,[116] attacked by eight Assassins,
disguised as dervishes, as he was in the act of seating himself on his
throne in the mosque at Mossul: protected by a coat of mail and his
natural bravery, he defended himself against the wretches, three of
whom he stretched at his feet; but before his retinue could hasten to
his assistance, he received a mortal wound, from the effects of which
he expired the same day. The remaining Assassins were sacrificed to the
vengeance of the populace, with the exception of one young man from
the village of Katarnash, in the mountains near Eras, whose mother,
on hearing of Aksonkor’s murder, dressed and adorned herself for joy
at the successful issue of the attempt, in which her son had devoted
his life; but, on his returning alone, she cut off her hair, and
blackened her face, with the deepest sorrow, that he had not shared the
murderers’ honourable death. To such lengths did the Assassins carry
their point of honour, and what may be termed their Spartanism.[117]
Moineddin, the vizier of Sultan Sandjar, was also murdered[118] by an
Assassin, hired by his enemy, Derkesina, the vizier of Mohammed, and
a friend of the Ismailites. In order the better to attain his object,
the ruffian entered his service as a groom. One day, as the vizier
went into the stable to inspect his horses, the false groom appeared
before him without clothes, in order to avoid all suspicion of carrying
concealed weapons, although he had hidden his dagger in the mane of
the horse, whose bridle he was holding. The horse reared, and under
pretence of quieting him with caresses, he snatched his poniard, and
stabbed the vizier.[119]
If Bourshi, Prince of Mossul, stood on the list of the victims of
the Ismailites solely because he was the rival of their power; and
an obstacle to their greatness, we shall not be surprised at finding
the name of Busi, the Prince of Damascus, by whose orders the Vizier
Masdeghani, and six thousand Assassins, had been massacred. The
slightest pretence was sufficient to cause the blood of princes to flow
beneath their stilettos; how much more when their own called as in this
latter case, for revenge. To escape was beyond the power of prudence,
as they watched for years for time, place, and opportunity. Busi, the
son of Togteghin, was, in the second year after the massacre,[120]
attacked by its avengers, and received two wounds, one of which healed
immediately; the other was, however, mortal, the following year.[121]
The vengeance of the Assassins seems to to have descended from father
to son: Shems-ol-Moluk (_the sun of the king_), the son of Busi, and
grandson of Togteghin, fell a victim to a conspiracy.[122] There fell,
besides, under the daggers of the order, the judges of the east and the
west, Abusaid Herawi, the mufti of Kaswin, Hassan-ben-Abelkassem; the
reis of Ispahan, Seid Dewletshah; and the reis of Tebris.[123] These
were the most celebrated of a numerous body of officers of state and
jurists, who perished in heaps and unnamed. To drag from amongst the
murdered the most splendid victims, is the melancholy and sorrowful
duty of the historian of the Assassins.
Hitherto, their attacks had been directed only against viziers and
emirs, the subordinate instruments of the khalif’s power; and the
throne itself, which they were undermining, had remained unstained by
the blood of its possessors. The period, however, was now arrived, in
which the order dared to seal their doctrine with the blood of those
khalifs, to whom it was so destructive, and to deprive the successors
of the prophet not merely of their temporal power, but likewise
of their lives. The shadow of God on earth, as the khalifs called
themselves, was, indeed, a mere shadow of earthly power; and was, when
he would have asserted more, sent, by the dagger of the Assassin to the
shades below.
We have seen, that the secret doctrine of the Ismailites derived its
origin from the lodge at Cairo, long before the foundation of the
order, of the Assassins; and flourished under the protection of the
Fatimites, the rivals of the Assassins, and their competitors for
the throne. By a just retribution, this protection of a doctrine of
irreligion and immorality was avenged on the Fatimites themselves, by
the murderous order which sprung from it. The Egyptian khalif, Emr
Biahkamillah Abu Ali Manssur,[124] tenth of the Fatimite dynasty
(whose founder, Obeidollah, had made the lodge of the secret doctrine a
part of his ministerial policy), fell, in the twenty-ninth year of his
reign, under the dagger of the Assassin.[125]
It is not clear whether his death proceeded from the policy of the
order, or the private revenge of the family of the powerful Vizier
Efdhal.[126] This emir was equally dangerous to the Christians by
the zeal with which he prosecuted the war, and to the khalif, by
his colossal power in the state. He was murdered by two Assassins,
of whom it is uncertain whether they were the instruments of
their superiors, at that time in alliance with the Crusaders, or
the hirelings of the khalif. The latter is probable, from the
circumstance that Abu Ali, the son of Efdhal, was, immediately after
his death, thrown into prison, and on being set at liberty after
the murder of the khalif, was invested with his father’s dignity.
As, however, Abu Ali himself shortly after fell by the dagger, it
appears that these two assassinations proceeded from the profound
policy of the concealed fomentors. From this period, Egypt became a
scene of disorder and confusion, occasioned by the violent contests
between the partisans of the khalif thrones of Cairo and Bagdad.
Mostarshedbillah-Abu-Manssur-Fasl, the twenty-ninth Abbasside khalif,
sustained himself on the latter for seventeen years, though constantly
tottering.
Hitherto, the Seljukide sultans who had, under the pretext of being the
protectors of the khalifat of Bagdad, assumed all the temporal power,
had, at least, left to the Abbasside khalif the two highest prerogatives
of Islamism,—the mint, and prayers from the pulpit on Fridays. If they
stamped any coin, it was in the name of the khalif; for whom, likewise,
they prayed weekly in the mosques. Messud was the first to appoint the
khatibs, or Friday prayer, to be in his own name; an injury which
Mostarshed was obliged, however unwilling, to endure, as he was not
strong enough to resent it. A few years afterwards, however, when some
dissatisfied chieftains deserted with their troops from Messud to
Mostarshed, they persuaded the latter that it would be easy to subdue
the sultan; he, in consequence, took the field against him. In the very
first engagement, the khalif was abandoned by the greater part of his
troops, and taken prisoner by Messud, who carried him to Meragha, on
his campaign against his own nephew, David.
A treaty was concluded, by which the khalif engaged to confine himself
within the walls of Bagdad, and to pay the sultan an annual tribute.
This composition deceived the expectations of the Ismailites, who had
hoped that the result of this war, between the sultan and the khalif,
would be the destruction of the latter: the grand-master, therefore,
resolved to complete what the sultan had begun; and that, though the
khalif had escaped the sword, he should not be spared by the dagger. In
the camp, two farsangs from Meragha, while Messud was absent, having
gone to meet the ambassadors of Sandjar, Assassins put the khalif and
his immediate suite to death;[127] and not content with that foul deed,
mutilated the dead, in the most horrible manner, by cutting off the
noses and ears; as though they would, to the treason of a khalif’s
murder, add insults to his corpse.[128]
_Reign of Mohammed, Son of Kia Busurgomid._
After a blood-stained reign of fourteen years and three days, Kia
Busurgomid, feeling his end approaching, named his son, Mohammed, as
successor in the grand-mastership of the order; either because he
really found none other worthy of the office, or that the natural
desire of making the sovereignty hereditary in his family caused him
to depart from the spirit of the fundamental maxims of the order, as
they had been sketched out by Hassan Sabah. Be that as it may, the
office, which, without respect to relationship, ought to have depended
on the nomination of the existing grand-master, remained hereditary in
the family of Busurgomid to the fall of the order. His death was, at
first, a cause of great joy to the enemies of the Ismailites; when,
however, they perceived that his son drove the chariot of restless
ambition in the bloody track of his father, all Asia again sank into
despair. He began, as his father had ended, with regicide; and before
the votaries of Islam had time to recover from the consternation, with
which the murder of the Khalif Mostarshed had overwhelmed them, their
ears were horror-stricken with the intelligence of the fate of Rashid,
his successor. The order had hoped, by the violent death of Mostarshed,
to succeed in involving the khalifat in confusion and immediately
effecting its ruin. This expectation, however, proving fallacious; and
Rashid, immediately on taking possession of the vacant throne, and ere
he was firmly seated on it, meditating revenge against his father’s
butchers, the new grand-master resolved to begin where his predecessor
had ended, and to heap murder on murder, crime on crime, and to add
regicide to treason.
The khalif went from Ramadan to Ispahan where he had just begun
to recover from an attack of illness. Four Assassins, natives of
Khorassan, and who had mingled with his retinue, watched an opportunity
of stealing into his tent, and poniarded him. He was buried on the
spot where he fell; and the troops which he had collected from Bagdad,
for the purpose of a campaign against the Ismailites, dispersed. When
the news of this successful atrocity, and the frustrated expedition
reached Alamut, the residence of the grand-master, public festivals and
rejoicings were appointed on the occasion. For seven days and seven
nights the kettle drums and cornets echoed from the turrets of the
fortress, and published to the surrounding castles the jubilee of crime
and the triumph of murder. Proofs so cutting as the Assassins’ daggers
(to use an expression of Mirkhond) raised their claims beyond the reach
of doubts, and imposed the silence of the grave on their opponents.
A terror but too well founded seized the khalifs of the race of Abbas,
who, henceforth, did not venture to show themselves in public. The
companions of impiety (Refik), and the dedicated to murder (Fedavi),
spread themselves in troops over the whole of Asia, and darkened
the face of the earth. The castles already in their possession were
maintained and fortified, and new ones built or purchased. Thus they
obtained in Syria, Kadmos, Kahaf, and Massiat: the two former were sold
to them by Ibn Amrun;[129] the latter they wrested from the commandant
of the lords of Sheiser,[130] and made it the centre of their Syrian
power, where, even now, traces of it are to be found.[131]
While the order was thus aggrandizing itself, and striking its foes
with terror, by the acquisition of strong places and the use of the
dagger, the fundamental maxim, which separated so completely the
secret doctrine of the initiated from the public tenets of the people,
was observed to the letter; and the fulfilment of the injunctions of
Mohammedanism was the more strictly exacted, the more indifferent the
superiors considered faith and morals to be to themselves. The people
saw only the effect of their terrible power, without perceiving the
moving force, or its instruments. They saw, in the numerous victims
of the poniard, only the enemies of the order and religion, which the
vengeance of heaven had visited by the arm of a secret tribunal. The
grand-master, his priors and envoys, did not preach sovereignty in
their own name, or in that of their order, but of the invisible imam,
of whom they called themselves the apostles, and who was to appear, at
some future period, to assert his right to the dominion of the earth
with a conqueror’s power. Their doctrine was enveloped in a veil of the
profoundest mystery, and ostensibly its maintainers appeared only as
strict observers of the rites of Islamism. A proof of this is afforded
by the answer given to the envoy of Sultan Sandjar, who had been sent
from Rei to collect official information concerning the Ismailitic
doctrines. He was told by the superiors, “Our doctrine is as follows:
we believe in the unity of God, and consider that only as true wisdom,
which accords with His word and the commands of the prophet; we observe
these, as they are given in the holy book of the Koran; we believe in
all that the prophet has taught concerning the creation and the last
day, rewards and punishments, the judgment and the resurrection. To
believe this is necessary, and no one is permitted to pass his judgment
on God’s commands, or even to alter a letter of them. These are the
fundamental rules of our sect; and if the sultan approves them not, he
may send one of his theologians to enter into polemical discussions on
the subject.”[132]
In this spirit, during the reign of Kia Mohammed, which lasted
twenty-five years,—that of his father, Kia Busurgomid, of fourteen
years,—and that of the founder, Hassan Sabah, of thirty-five, the
external rites of Islamism were strictly observed. Kia Mohammed,
however, had neither the intellect nor the experience of his
predecessors; and it soon appeared what an error Kia Busurgomid had
committed, in consulting, in his choice of a successor, the ties
of kindred rather than innate talent. From his want of knowledge
and capacity, Kia Mohammed was but little esteemed by the people,
who transferred their attachment to his son, Hassan. The latter was
regarded as a man of great attainments, and he availed himself of the
good opinion of the ignorant multitude, not for the general interest
of the order, but entirely contrary to its institutions, to serve the
purposes of his own private ambition. Initiated into all the mysteries
of the secret doctrine, deeply versed in philosophy and history, he
stood forward as a popular teacher and expounder, and favoured the
report which had begun to be spread abroad, that he was the imam
promised by Hassan-ben-Sabah. The companions of the order respected him
more and more every day, and rivalled each other in the promptitude
with which they executed his behests.
Kia Mohammed, on learning his son’s conduct, and the disposition of
the people, convened them, and declaring his disapprobation of the
proceedings of the former, said, “Hassan is my son, and I am not the
imam, but one of his precursors. Whoever maintains the contrary is an
infidel.” Two hundred and fifty of his son’s adherents were put to
death, and as many more were banished. Hassan, fearing his father’s
anger, himself anathematised the illuminati, and wrote treatises in
which he condemned the opinions of his partisans, and asserted those
of his father. In this manner he succeeded, by his dissimulation,
in preserving his own head, and obliterating all suspicion from his
father’s mind. As, however, he was in the habit of drinking wine
in secret, and permitted himself to practise what was forbidden,
his adherents saw, in these actions, new indications of his mission
as the promised imam, whose advent was to abrogate all prohibitory
commands.[133]
About this period, nearly all the Asiatic monarchies were
revolutionized by the change of the order of succession; and new
dynasties arose on the ruins of their predecessors. As the order of
the Ismailites was inimical to all rulers, and treated hostilely by
most of them, and as they infused into all governments the envenomed
and pernicious influence of murder and sedition, their history stands
in close relation with that of all the contemporaneously paramount
dynasties; and a glance at the reigning families of Asia will not be
out of place here. From the confines of Khorassan to the mountains
of Syria, from the Musdoramus to Lebanon, from the Caspian to the
Mediterranean, extended the widely spread ramifications of the empire
of the Assassins; their centre being the grand-master, in his mountain
fort of Alamut, in Irak.
We shall take a cursory glance at these broad regions of Asia,
according to the political divisions of the period, and proceeding
in natural geographical order, from east to west, our progress will
commence with Khorassan and terminate in Syria.
Khorassan, however, first deserves mention not merely on account of
its geographical position and its immediate vicinity to Kuhistan,
the eastern grand-priorate of the order, but also by reason of the
preponderating power of Sultan Sandjar, whose dominion had been
founded at the same epoch as that of Hassan Sabah, and whose reign had
proceeded contemporaneously with the first three grand-masters, and
terminated only with his death, four years earlier than that of Kia
Mohammed, the third grand-master.
Moeseddin Abulharess Sandjar, one of the greatest princes of the
Seljukide race, and of the east, received, after the demise of his
father, the Sultan Melekshah, which, as we have seen, occurred
immediately after the occupation of Alamut by Hassan Sabah,[134] the
vice-royalty of Khorassan, which province he governed, for twenty
years, in the name of his brothers, Barkyarok and Mohammed, who, as the
heads of the Seljuk family, reigned in Irak.
On the death of his brother Mohammed, in the first year of the sixth
century of the Hegira,[135] Sandjar took possession of his states. He
made war upon his nephew, Mahmud, who wished to assert his paternal
rights, defeated him, and at length, when the sagacity of the vizier
Kemaleddin Ali had mediated a peace, allotted him his paternal kingdom,
as a fief, upon the following four conditions: 1st. That in the public
prayers in the mosques, on Fridays, the name of Sultan Sandjar should
stand before that of Mahmud (the prayers and the mint are the first
regal prerogatives of Islam); 2nd. That the latter should have only
three curtains to the door of his hall of audience (Sultan Sandjar had
four, and the khalif seven; to raise and lower which was the office of
the Hajeb, or chief chamberlain); 3rd. That no trumpet should sound on
his entrance or exit from his palace (a flourish of trumpets was, at
that time, the privilege of sovereigns, as is, at this day, the ringing
of bells a mark of distinction for their representatives); 4th. That he
should retain in their dignities the officers appointed by his uncle.
Mahmud submitted to these conditions; and as only the name and
appearance of rule were left him, he embraced the wise resolution
of not involving himself deeper in political matters, but devoting
himself entirely to the pleasures of the chase, which, as an exercise
and school of war, has, from remote antiquity, been considered, in the
east, less as a princely amusement than a royal occupation. (Hence
Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord, and Cyrus an arranger
of hunting; hence, too, the most ancient monarchs of the Assyrians
and Persians are represented on the monuments of Persepolis, and the
amulets excavated from the ruins of Babylon, as engaged in an heroic
combat with wild animals; hence, in the last Persian dynasty, the
cognomen of the “Wild Ass,” was given to Behramgur, one of their
bravest and sport-loving princes: and hence, likewise, the immense park
or royal chase of Khosru Parwis). In this spirit, Mahmud expended his
treasure in the splendour of his hunting equipments; he had a pack of
four hundred hounds, with gold collars and housings embroidered with
pearls.[136]
Thirty years after this peace between Mahmud and Sandjar, Behramshah,
the last prince but one of the once powerful dynasty of the sultans of
Gasna, attempted to shake off the yoke of the Seljukides; feeling,
however, the enterprise to be beyond his powers, he sent ambassadors
to renew his homage to Sandjar. With him he succeeded, but not so with
Hossein Jehansus, the founder of the Indian dynasty of the Gurides,
who, about this time,[137] raised themselves on the ruin of the power
of the Gasnewides. Behramshah, the Gasnewide, yielded to the power of
Hossein, the Guride, as did the latter to that of Sultan Sandjar, who
drove the founder of the Gurides out of Khorassan, and then appointed
him his viceroy of the Indian province of Gur (whence the name of the
dynasty). The fortune, which had smiled on Sandjar in his enterprises
against Mahmud, Behramshah, and Hossein, was not so favourable to him,
in his wars against the people of Karakhatai, whom he attacked in the
obscurity of their forests; nor against the Turcomans of the race of
Oghuz, who invaded Khorassan. He lost, in the battle which he fought
with Gurjash, the prince of the former, thirty thousand men, together
with his harem; and Tarkhau Khatun, the first of his wives, was made
captive by the Karakhtaiyis.
Still worse was his success against the Oghuz Turcomans, whom he wished
to compel to an annual tribute of sheep, which they refused. He was
taken prisoner by them, and confined, for four years, in an iron cage.
The Turkish historians, who relate this unworthy treatment of the great
Sultan Sandjar, deny Sultan Bajazet’s having experienced the same from
his conqueror, Timur.
Concerning this last, European writers add, that whenever he mounted
his horse, he placed his foot on the neck of the Ottoman sultan, as,
it is said, the Persian king, Shabur (Sapor), had done a thousand
years before, to his captive, the Roman emperor, Valerian. Valerian
and Bajazet perished in the captivity of Shabur and Timur; but Sandjar
had the good fortune to make his escape from his barbarous conquerors,
and returned to Khorassan, where he died the following year, from
melancholy, caused by his bad fortune, and the desolation of his
states; after a reign of fifty-one years, and a life of nearly a
hundred, as he had before he became sole ruler, acted, for twenty-one
years, as viceroy of his brothers, in Khorassan. His brilliant
exploits, and the encomiums of the poets, have caused his name to
shine among those of the most illustrious princes of the east; and
have not undeservedly gained him the surname of Alexander the Second.
The greatest poets of his time, Selmar and Ferideddin Katib, sang
his praise; but, above all, Enweri, the Persian Pindar. Unequalled
in his panegyrics, either by his predecessor, Khakani, or his
follower, Farjabi, who, with him, form the astral triangle of Persian
panegyrists, he raised the name of Sandjar high above the regions of
earth in the light of the milky way, and to the highest heavens, in
the midst of the music of the spheres. While Enweri thus bestowed
immortality on Sandjar in his works, the poet Sabir did him a no less
essential service in prolonging his sublunary existence, by protecting
him from the murderous dagger.
When Itsis, the governor of Khowaresm, rebelled against Sandjar,
the latter sent the poet, one of the most faithful and respected in
his court, secretly to Khorassan, as a spy upon the designs of the
rebellious governor. He succeeded in ascertaining that Itsis had
engaged an Assassin (Fedavi), to murder the sultan, in the mosque, on a
Friday. The murderer was discovered, by means of the exact description
sent by Sabir to Sandjar, and, after confessing every thing, he was
put to death. Itsis, however, who was aware that Sabir had caused his
design to fail, had him drowned in the Oxus.[138] Sabir thus gained
an immortal name, in the ranks of great poets and faithful servants,
not only by his encomiastic poems, but also by his praiseworthy
deeds. Sandjar, who, at first, had been favourably inclined towards
the Assassins, seems to have had his eyes opened by this attempt, and
to have been urged to the severity with which, as we have already
related, in his latter years, he pursued the order who had caused the
irruption of the Turcomans.
Sandjar, if not the most dangerous, was yet, at this period, the most
powerful of the enemies of the Ismailites. With the exception of the
phantom of spiritual power, which sat on the throne of the khalifat,
and whose nominal superiority was acknowledged by the Asiatic princes
in their Friday’s prayers, the most powerful sovereigns either held
their states in fee, as the vassals of the Sultan Sandjar, or governed
them as his lieutenants. As, in the ancient Persian empire, the seven
satraps of the distant large provinces, surrounded the throne of the
great king as viceroys (like the seven Amshaspande collected round
the throne of Ormusd), so the rulers, of seven powerful dignities,
acknowledged the Sultan Sandjar as the source of their power; which,
indeed, enfeebled by distance, operated less powerfully on the extreme
points of the circumference, than in the centre.
The Indian provinces of Multan and Gur, immediately to the south of
Khorassan, were governed by the Sultan of the Gasnewides, Behramshah,
and him of the Gurides, Hossein Jehansus (world burning). Ahmed, the
son of Soleiman, whose frequent rebellions had brought upon him as
frequent punishments, ruled in northern Transoxana; and the adjacent
province of Khowaresm was held in fief by, first, Kotbeddin, then his
son, Itsis, two great court and hereditary dignities, who likewise
held the office of chief cup-bearer. In middle Persia, reigned the
Sultan Mahmud, the Seljukide, under the guidance of his uncle Sandjar;
and in the northern and western provinces, Aserbijan and Irak, the
two dynasties of the Atabegs, founded by Amadeddin Ben Senji and the
Turcoman Ildigis, acknowledged him as paramount lord. As the two
powerful families of the Gasnewides and Seljukides, after reigning more
than a century, were nodding to their fall, and the dynasties of the
Atabegs were shooting up into multifarious branches, we think a few
words relative to the origin of the latter not unsuitable.
Atabeg, not _Father of the Prince_, as it has been translated, but,
_Father Prince_, or _Princely Father_, was an honorary title, first
borne by the great Vizier Nisam-ol-mulk, without any claim to unlimited
authority, and still less to be hereditary. Under the successors of
Melekshah, this title distinguished the highest military dignity of
the empire, and was given, at the court of the Bagdad khalif, to the
Emir-ol-umera (i. e. _prince of princes_); and at the court of Cairo,
to the Emir-ol-juyush, or _prince of the army_. But, as at a preceding
epoch, the family Buje had exercised the power of the khalifat, under
the title of Emir-ol-umera, and in the west that of, the Merovingian race
had, under the title of _maire du palais_, passed into the hands of
the Carlovingians; so the Atabegs possessed themselves of boundless
authority, and raised themselves into dynasties. The principal are,
besides that of the Atabegs of Irak, that of Aserbijan, that of Fars,
called also the family of Salgar, and that of Loristan; all of which,
in the short space of five years, made their claims to unlimited rule
available.[139]
Within this period, disappeared the reigning families of Kakuye, in
Fars;[140] that of the sons of Togteghin, at Damascus;[141] the family
Nedshah, in Yemen;[142] and that of the Gurides in Khorassan;[143] in
whose stead arose the Seliki, as kings of Erzroum, and the Eyoubides,
as princes of Emessa; and, three years before the death of Sandjar, the
mightiest prince of his time, a still more mighty one was born,[144]
Jengis Khan, the scourge of the east and the west, who afterwards
converted the most fertile territories into a wilderness, and bathed
the deserts with streams of blood.
Cotemporaneously with the last ten years of Salgar’s reign in the east
in Khorassan, Nureddin Mohammed Ben Amadeddin Sengi, Lord of the Irak
Atabegs, ruled in Syria, as one of the greatest princes of the east.
He was a cotemporary of Salgar, and the most powerful opponent of the
Crusaders; whose historians, unceasingly employed in detailing the
mischief which he caused them, cannot refuse him the just praise of his
great and noble qualities. “Nureddin,” says the learned William, bishop
of Tyre, a man profoundly versed in history, “was a prudent, discreet
man, who feared God according to the faith of his people; fortunate
and an increaser of his paternal inheritance.”[145] His budding power
sorely oppressed that of the Christians; whose conquests put a term
and measure to his. Raymond, Prince of Antioch, and Gosselin, Count of
Tripoli, fell as the trophies of his victories; the first at the siege
of Anab,[146] on the battle field; the second, as he was proceeding to
the chase, from his residence, Telbasher,[147] was taken prisoner by
a foraging party of Turcomans. The castles of Telbasher, Antab, Asas,
Ravendan, Tellkhaled, Karss, Kafsrud, Meraash, and Nehrelhus,[148] fell
into the victors’ hands, with considerable booty.
Nureddin, as possessor of Mossul and Aleppo, was, in fact, the lord
of northern Syria; but in the southern, he still wanted Damascus as
a _point d’appui_ for his rule. Here Mejereddin Abak,[149] the last
of the Seljukides of Damascus, reigned; or, rather, with his name
and with unlimited power, his vizier, Moineddin Ennar.[150] Twice
had Nureddin invested it with his besieging army; at length, the
inhabitants, dreading to fall under the dominion of the Crusaders,
summoned him to their assistance. Mejereddin retired willingly, and
received in exchange, first Emessa, then Balis, and afterwards went to
Bagdad. Nureddin, having obtained Damascus, raised it from the ruin
caused by an earthquake, and chose it as his metropolis; adorning it
with mosques, academies, libraries, hospitals, baths, and fountains.
As Melekshah, the great prince of the Seljukides, had been the first
to establish a high school (Medresse) at Bagdad, so Nureddin founded
at Damascus, the first theological school (Darol-hadiss), where the
traditions of the prophet were treated of.
With the constant practice of the two most splendid oriental princely
virtues, liberality and justice, he combined the strictest attention to
the duties of Mohammedanism. Just and modest, as Omar Ben Abdolasis,
the seventh khalif of the Ommiad family, he was pious and strict, like
Omar Ben Khattab, the second successor of the prophet. He wore neither
silk nor gold, but cotton and linen; and never expended on his clothes,
or nourishment, more than his just lot of the fifth of the booty. He
was ever engaged in the “_holy war_;” either the “_lesser_,”[151]
with weapons in his hand, against the enemies of Islam; or the
“_greater_,”[152] with fasting and prayer, occupying day and night in
political duties and study.
The presents of foreign princes, he caused immediately to be sold,
and devoted the proceeds to pious institutions, public buildings, and
eleemosynary purposes. Besides presenting large sums annually, to
the inhabitants of the holy cities, Mecca and Medina, and the Arabs
of the desert, to induce them to allow the caravans of pilgrims to
proceed unmolested; he divided, every month, five thousand ducats
among the poor. He particularly honoured and rewarded jurisconsults,
in whose ranks he was himself inscribed, as he had collected into a
particular work, Fakh-rinuri (i. e. _glory of light_), the traditions
of the prophet, relating to justice, alms, and the holy war, as the
ground-work of his policy, morals, and discipline. As, during his long
reign of twenty-eight years, he conquered more than fifty castles, and
established in all the cities of his dominions, mosques and colleges;
and had maintained most gloriously, both less and greater war, for
Islamism; so history gives him, like his father, Amadeddin Sengi, not
only the honorary title Gasi, or victorious, but also that of Shehid,
or martyr; because both merited the crown of martyrdom, if not in the
field of battle, in that of honour, by their unwearied exercise of
princely duties, and martial virtues.[153]
Religion and policy combined to decide Nureddin in favour of the khalif
of Bagdad, against him of Cairo. His inclination to do homage to the
former, rather than to the latter, as the successor of the prophet,
would find more ready access to his mind, as on account of the great
confusion prevailing in Egypt, the time seemed to have arrived for the
Atabegs to tear the sceptre from the feeble grasp of the Fatimites.
This long shapeless idea of Syrian policy soon received form and
existence from the Egyptian civil war, between the two viziers,
Dhargham and Shawer, who, under the last of the Fatimites, struggled
for mastery.
In the same year[154] in which Nureddin had, by one of the most
splendid victories, and the conquest of Harem, repaired the great
discomfiture which he had received from the Crusaders, four months
previously, at Bakia (Boquea), Shawer himself came to Damascus, to
promise the third part of the revenues of Egypt, if Nureddin would aid
him with arms, against his rival, Dhargham. Nureddin sent the governor
of Emessa, Esededdin Shirkuh (i. e. _lion of the faith of lion’s
mount_), of the family Eyub, with an army into Egypt. Dhargham fell in
battle; Shawer was restored to his former power, but on refusing to
fulfil his promise, the lord of lion’s mount took possession, with his
troops, of the eastern province Sherkiye, and the chief town Belbeis.
Shawer, the most fickle of viziers, faithless alike to friend and foe,
and, by his false policy, a traitor to his army and himself, called
Amaury, formerly Count of Askalon, then king of Jerusalem, with the
Crusaders, to his assistance, against the general of his ally; he soon,
however, repented, and dismissed the Crusaders, with a sum of sixty
thousand ducats.[155]
In the meanwhile, Esededdin, being reinforced with fresh troops,
advanced against Cairo, and defeated the khalif at Ashmunind, and
remained master of Upper Egypt, at the same time that his nephew,
Yusuf, took Alexandria, and maintained himself there valiantly, for
three months, against the combined besieging forces of the Egyptians
and the Crusaders. At the end of this period peace was concluded;
Nureddin receiving, as compensation, an annual sum of fifty thousand
ducats, and the Crusaders, one hundred thousand, out of the revenues
of Egypt.[156] There remained, moreover, at Cairo, a general of the
Crusaders, with some thousands of men, as a garrison and protection
against Nureddin’s enterprises.
These advantages accorded to the king of Jerusalem, in the
metropolis of Egypt, tempted him to a rupture of the peace, with
the hope of becoming master of the whole country. Persuaded by the
Knights-Hospitallers, whose grand-master hoped to maintain his order,
in the possession of Belbeis, which, in warlike preparations, he had
charged with a debt of more than one hundred thousand ducats, Amaury
advanced with an army against Egypt. The Templars, however, refused
to participate in the expedition, either from real displeasure at the
rupture of the peace, or, what is more probable, from jealousy of the
knights of St. John, and other hidden grounds of their mysterious
policy.[157]
In this predicament, Shawer applied to Nureddin, for assistance
against the Crusaders, who had already[158] made an irruption into
Egypt, had taken Belbeis, and were besieging the capital. New Cairo
was surrounded with a wall, at which women and children laboured
with untired zeal, day and night. The more ancient part of the city,
Missr, usually, but incorrectly, called Old Cairo, was set on fire, by
command of Shawer, and burned for fifty-four days. The Khalif Adhad
despatched couriers with urgent letters to Syria, imploring the aid and
assistance of Nureddin against the infidel; and to depict the highest
grade of his necessity, he enclosed locks of his wives’ hair, as if
to say, “Help! help! the enemy is dragging our women from us by the
hair of their heads.”[159] Nureddin was, at that time, at Aleppo, and
Esededdin Shirkuh, at Emessa, his government. Nureddin immediately
intrusted him with the conduct of the Egyptian campaign; and gave him
for the execution of it, two hundred thousand ducats, and a chosen
body of eight thousand men, six thousand of which were Syrians, and
the remainder Turcomans. In the meanwhile, Shawer and Amaury, both
on the brink of despair, entered into negociations; the latter for
the possession, the former for the relief, of Cairo. Shawer promised,
in the name of the khalif, the enormous sum of a million of ducats,
and the king was glad to receive fifty thousand ready money.[160] On
this, the Crusaders retired, when the Syrians, under the conduct of
Esededdin, appeared before Cairo.
The khalif, accompanied by the chief officers of his court, repaired
to the camp, and complained bitterly of the excessive power of
Shawer, who, merely on his own account, had invited the Franks into
the country, committed Missr to the flames, and desolated the land;
and entreated Esededdin Shirkuh for his vizier’s head, being himself
too powerless to secure it. The latter soon became aware of the
danger which threatened his life, and resolved to make away with
Esededdin, together with his nephew, and the princes of his court,
under the pretext of an invitation to a banquet. The project was,
however, betrayed; and the intended victim retorted on the guilty
head of Shawer, which was sent to the khalif. Nureddin immediately
stepped into Shawer’s place, as vizier and Emir-ol-juyush, with the
title of Almelek-al-mansur (i. e. _the victorious king_); and as he
died sixty-five days afterwards, his nephew, Yusuf Salaheddin (i. e.
_Joseph, justness of faith_), was invested with the same high dignities
of the empire, and received the honorary designation, Almalek-ennassir
(i. e. _conquering king_). He was the founder of the dynasty of the
Eyubites; his greatness, like his name, smoothed, and diminished by
the western historians, is more familiar to Europeans, than that of
many other great princes and conquerors of the east, at whose names and
deeds European languages and manners recoil.
The Syrian heroes of the Crusades have been celebrated by the
Christians in Europe, and the latter by the former in Asia. Amadeddin
Sengi, Nureddin, and Salaheddin, appear in European chronicles of the
Crusades, as Sanguin, Noradin, and Saladin; while in the Moslem annals,
the count of Tripoli, the prince of Antioch, and the king of Jerusalem,
are masked under the names of Comis, Birias, and Rei. In the following
book, we shall have an opportunity of mentioning Salaheddin’s exploits
more at large; as yet he appears as the khalif’s vizier, and Nureddin’s
general, in whose name he administered the government of Egypt; he
caused the name of his master the Atabeg, to be mentioned in the public
prayers on Friday, after that of the khalif.
Nureddin thought the opportunity was now arrived to destroy the
khalifat of the Fatimites, and to deprive the last of them of even
the shadow of power. He commanded his lieutenant, Salaheddin, to
fill up all judicial offices, which had hitherto been held by
Imamis or Ismailis, with lawyers of the orthodox sect of the
Shafiites, and in the public prayers to name the Abbaside khalif,
Almostanssar-biemrillah, instead of the Fatimite Adhad-lidinillah.
Salaheddin delayed the fulfilment of these commands, as the people
almost universally were of the sects, Rafedhi and Shii, and still hung
to the phantom of the Fatimite khalifat: the last representative of
that race, however, Adhad-lidinillah, very opportunely falling sick and
dying,[161] Salaheddin immediately transferred the royal prerogative of
prayer on Friday, from the name of the khalif of Cairo, to that of the
khalif of Bagdad, after whom, Nureddin, the Atabeg of Syria, was named.
Thus, Salaheddin executed, more, indeed, for his own than Nureddin’s
interest, though still in the latter’s name, the great stroke, by
which the main trunk of the western Ismailites was overthrown; after
having budded for more than two hundred years, and transplanted itself
into Asia, in the branch of the eastern Ismailites, or Assassins.
The throne, which the secret doctrine of the Ismailites wished to
establish on the ruins of all others, was overturned, and buried the
lodge of Cairo in its ruins. The khalifat of the Abbasides prevailed
over that of the family of Ali, for which the envoys of the Ismailites
preached and intrigued; and the phantom, in whose name they had deluded
the people, vanished from the earth: an event of great magnitude,
and rich in consequences; important in the history of the east, and
more especially in that of the Assassins, to whom, Salaheddin, whose
dominion rose on the ruins of the Egyptian khalifat, appeared a
powerful and dangerous foe.
END OF BOOK III.