_Reign of Hassan II., Son of Mohammed, the Son of Busurgomid,
known by the name of Ala-sikrihi-es-selam—that is, Hail to
his memory—and his Son, Mohammed II._
In the preceding books, we traced the mysteries of irreligion and
immorality up to their source, and stripped the secret doctrine of the
Ismailites of the mask of pretended sanctity, under which it concealed
itself from the eyes of the people. A doubt may, perhaps, have arisen
in the minds of our readers, whether we have not scrutinized the system
of the order too closely; and whether, as it was constantly kept
secret, it may not have been somewhat slandered by the uninitiated
and its enemies. The effects of the secret doctrine had, indeed,
manifested themselves in the bloody traces of the dagger; nevertheless,
these multiplied horrors might, perhaps, be attributed to accident,
or private feuds, rather than to a regular system of infidelity and
homicide. Even in our own days, the secret doctrines of many degenerate
orders has been lauded as pure and innocent, although their results
have appeared in the crimes of regicide and rebellion.
The Jesuits and the illuminati, though otherwise opposed as to their
spirit—the former protecting, the latter undermining, thrones—have both
been accused of profligate doctrines: the former, of permitting the
killing of popes and kings; and the latter, of dispensing with thrones
and religion. In the writings of individual members, the maxim may be
found, that it is lawful to kill kings, and to strangle the last of
them with the intestines of the last priest: these horrors, however,
were never publicly taught, or acknowledged by the order at large.
The regicide, imputed by Pombal to the Jesuits, and the poisoning of
Ganganelli, have not been sufficiently proved; and even were this the
case, the Jesuits have as little confessed the guilt of Malagrida,
as have the Illuminati approved of Jean de Brie’s proposition of
establishing a propaganda of Assassins.
As little is the secret doctrine of the Templars convicted of
profligacy, by the confessions wrung from them by the torture; and if
they have been accused of it by cotemporary writers, others, of later
date, have, on the other hand, defended them.
In this matter, however, the case of the Assassins is very different
from that of the Templars, Jesuits, or Illuminati. All that has
hitherto been said of their secret doctrine of systematic infidelity
and sedition, is by no means founded on untenable conjectures,
historical accusations, or forced confessions; but on the free
acknowledgment of their teachers and masters; who, after having long
concealed the atrocities of impiety from the eyes of the world, under
the mask of the most profound hypocrisy, on a sudden lifted the
veil, and published, to the profane, the mysteries of atheism and
immorality, hitherto the inheritance of the initiated. This was a
most inconsiderate slip; most destructive to the order, and entirely
adverse to the profound policy of its founder, who had formed the
well-grounded opinion that the edifice of domination and civil society
can be held together only by the doctrines of faith and duty; that the
open abolition of all religion and morality would necessarily entail
the universal destruction of the existing order of things; and that the
strongest security for blind obedience is to give reins to the wildness
of the passions. Moreover, besides that, by such a desecration, the
secret of the few became the property of the many, the leaders and
their dupes changed parts, and the system of the order caused its own
destruction from within: it also exposed itself, in all its nakedness,
to its external enemies; and, by its own avowal, roused up the world to
vengeance, and justified the anathemas of priests—the persecution of
kings, and the curses of nations. All this had been well and thoroughly
considered by the son of Sabah; not so, however, by his namesake, and
third successor, Hassan the Second, the son of Mohammed, the son of
Busurgomid.
He had, as we have seen already, during his father’s life, stood
forward, with innovations, as a prophet, and had only preserved his
life from the executioner’s sword by the deepest dissimulation. As
soon, however, as he succeeded to the grand-mastership, he threw off
the burthensome mask, and not only gave way himself to all possible
extravagances, but also permitted the same license to all others
with impunity. Not content with this, he could not resist the desire
to mount the pulpit himself, as a popular preacher. Had he been as
enlightened as his predecessors in the grand-mastership, and had the
maturity of his judgment kept pace with the riches of his attainments,
he would have forborne to hurl the flaming brand of infidelity and
lawlessness among the people. It was of small advantage to himself, and
still less for the order, that he was considered learned, and possessed
of intellect, and his father heavy and ignorant.
Preservative ignorance is better than destructive erudition,
and darkness itself is to be preferred to the lurid glare of a
conflagration. Hassan, the son of Mohammed, determined, at whatever
cost, to be an expositor, and to favour the impunity of vice,
not merely by example, but also to preach from his own mouth the
irreprehensibility of crime. In Ramadan, of the 559th year of the
Hegira,[162] the inhabitants of the province of Rudbar were collected,
by his orders, at the castle of Alamut. On the place Mossella (_the
place of prayers_, situated at the foot of the castle, like the suburbs
of Shiras, celebrated by Hafez),[163] a pulpit was placed, looking
towards Kibla (_i. e._ the country of Mecca), to which the Moslemim
turn in praying, and in the four corners, four different coloured flags
were planted—a white, a red, a yellow, and a green.
Oh the seventeenth of Ramadan,[164] the people were assembled on this
place: Hassan ascended the pulpit, and commenced by involving his
hearers in error and confusion, by dark and puzzling expressions. He
made them believe that an envoy of the imam (the phantom of a khalif
still tottering on the Egyptian throne) had come to him, and brought an
epistle, addressed to all Ismailites, by which the fundamental maxims
of the sect were renovated and fortified. He declared that, according
to this letter, the gates of mercy and grace were open to all who
would follow and obey him; that those were the peculiarly elect; that
they should be freed from all obligations of the law; released from
the burthen of all commands and prohibitions; that he had brought them
now to the day of the resurrection (_i. e._ the manifestation of the
imam). Upon this, he began to recite, in Arabic, the khutbe, or prayer,
which he pretended to have just received from the imam. An interpreter,
standing at the foot of the pulpit, translated to the audience in the
following words:—“Hassan, the son of Mohammed, the son of Busurgomid,
is our khalif, dai, and hudshet (our successor, missionary, and
proof), to whom all who profess our doctrine are to yield obedience
in spiritual, as well as temporal, affairs; executing his commands,
and considering his words as inspired, and must not transgress his
prohibitions, but observe his behests as our own. Know all, that our
Lord has mercy on them, and has led them to the most high God.” He then
descended from the pulpit, caused tables to be covered, and commanded
the people to break the fast, and to give themselves up to all kinds of
pleasure, to music, and play, as on feast days; “for to-day,” said he,
“is the day of the resurrection” (_i. e._ the revelation of the imam).
From this day, on which crime manifested itself undisguisedly to the
world, the name of Mulahid, or Impious, which hitherto had been given
to the disciples of Karmath, and other disturbers of social order,
by the lawyers, was now bestowed upon all the Ismailites of Asia in
general. The seventeenth of Ramadan was celebrated with games and
banquets; not only as the feast of the revelation, but also as the
proper epoch of the publication of their doctrine. As the Moslimin
reckoned their time from the flight of the prophet, so did the Mulahid,
or Impious, from the revelation of the imam (_i. e._ the 17th Ramadan,
in the 559th year of the Hegira.) And as the name of Mohammed was
never mentioned without the addition of the “Blessed,” so, henceforth,
was added to that of Hassan, the words “Blessed be his Memory,” which
history, instead of blessing, curses. The historian Mirkhond, tells us,
that he had heard from Yusuf-shah Kiatib, on the authority of credible
persons who had read it, that the following inscription was over the
door of the library in the castle of Alamut:—
“With the help of God,
The ruler of the world
Loosened the bands of the law.
Blessed be his name.”
Hitherto, the grand-masters had always represented themselves as only
the precursors of the imam, as his missionaries and envoys, and severe
censors of observance of the rules of Islamism. Hassan, however, now at
once asserted that he was himself the imam, in whose hand all power lay
to loosen the band of the law. By abolishing them he accredited himself
with the blind multitude as lawgiver and khalif.
In this character, he wrote to the presidents and envoys of the
different provinces. His letter of credentials to Reis Mosaffer, the
grand-prior of Kuhistan, as his namesake had been in Irak, under the
founder, Hassan Sabah, was of the following tenor: “I, Hassan, tell you
that I am God’s vice-gerent on earth; and mine, in Kuhistan, is the
Reis Mosaffer, whom the men of that province are to obey, and whose
words they are to listen to as mine.” The reis caused a pulpit to be
erected in the castle of Muminabad, the residence of the grand-prior
of Kuhistan, from which he read the letter of the grand-master to the
people. The majority of the inhabitants heard the perusal with joy.
They played the pipe and drum, danced and drank wine at the foot of the
pulpit, and made known their contempt of law, and their libertinism
in every possible way. Some few, who remained true to the doctrines
of Islamism, emigrated; others, who could not resolve upon this step,
stayed, and shared with the rest the reputation of impiety.
Thus the standard of the freest infidelity and most daring libertinism
floated on all the castles of Rudbar and Kuhistan, as the insignia of
the new doctrine; and instead of the name of the Egyptian khalif, that
of Hassan resounded from all the pulpits, as that of the true successor
of the prophet. Since prejudices are often more deeply rooted in the
breast than religious rites and moral laws, it was easier for Hassan to
assume the character of legislator than that of imam, whom the people
hitherto only acknowledged in the Egyptian khalif.
In order to support his pretensions to this title, he at length found
it necessary to deduce his descent in blood from the Fatimite khalifs;
and although he had, in the public assembly of the 17th Ramadan, called
himself the son of Mohammed Ben Busurgomid, he endeavoured to prove,
partly by dark intimations, partly by ambiguous writings, the opinion
that he was a son of Nesar’s and grandson of the Khalif Mostanssur,
during whose reign the founder, Hassan Ben Sabah, had been at Cairo,
and had, in the political dissensions of the Ismailites, espoused the
party of Mostanssur’s elder son against his younger brother, Nesar; on
which account he had been compelled by the generalissimo, Bedr Jemali,
to quit Egypt, as we have before related more at length. The rumour
which his adherents dispersed abroad in confirmation of his descent was
to this effect. A certain Abulhassan Seide, a confidant of the Khalif
Mostanssur, had come from Egypt to Alamut a year after his patron’s
death, and had brought with him a son of Nesar’s, whom he confided
to the care of Hassan Ben Sabah, who received the envoy with great
respect, and had assigned to the young imam a village at the foot of
the castle as a residence, where he, after a time, married, and gave
his son the name, “Blessed be his Memory.”
At the same time that the imam’s wife was delivered of this child,
the wife of the grand-master, Mohammed, son of Busurgomid, was in
her accouchement. A confidential female servant carried the young
“Blessed be his Memory” into the castle, and substituted him in the
place of the son of Mohammed. As this tale was too absurd to meet with
easy credence, and as, according to their pure doctrine, that all was
indifferent and nothing forbidden, the assertors of this genealogy
were not ashamed subsequently to maintain that the young imam had had
clandestine intercourse with Mohammed’s wife, the fruit of which was
the reigning grand-master, imam, and khalif, Blessed be his Memory.
Thus, Hassan preferred being thought a bastard of the blood of the
khalifs, to being deemed his father’s legitimate child. The honour
of the mother was sacrificed to the ambition of the son; and because
adultery afforded grounds to his pretensions, the sanctity of the harem
was forced to give place to the merit of ambition.
The Ismailites, who, in this manner, made Hassan a descendant of Nesar,
the son of Khalif Mostanssur, were called Nesari, a name considered
synonymous with the Impious or the Assassins. They gave Hassan the
name of Kaimolkiamet (i. e. _Lord of the Resurrection_), and called
themselves the sect of the Resurrection or Revelation; for, by the
epoch of the resurrection they understood the time when the one about
to rise (Kaim, i. e. _the imam_), should bring them near to God by the
removal of all laws. This period had, according to their pernicious
opinion, occurred during the imamat of Hassan, who, on that account,
emancipated the people from all legal obligations. Thus were the
bounds of duty and morals at once and openly violated. Undismayed, and
with heads erect, Vice and Crime stalked over the ruins of Religion
and social order; and Murder, which hitherto had felled the destined
victims under the mask of blind obedience, and as the executioner of a
secret tribunal, now raged in indiscriminate massacres.[165]
Hassan, as might have been expected, died a martyr to his new doctrine.
In the fourth year of his licentious reign, he fell at the castle
of Lamsir, by the dagger of his brother-in-law, a descendant of the
family Buyeb. In this murder, the historian views not so much the
visitation of celestial wrath on so many crimes (which, indeed, both
his predecessors and successors had better merited), as the natural
punishment of insulted prudence, which, in the ordinary course of
human affairs, is sooner or later avenged equally with the greatest
viciousness. It was the height of imprudence in Hassan, the learned
explainer, to surrender the most recondite doctrines of the order to
the many-headed hydra, the people; and he sealed with his own blood the
universally accorded liberty of murder.
_Reign of Mohammed II., Son of Hassan II._
The conflagration which Hassan had kindled, by the revelation of
the secret doctrine, was not extinguished by his blood, but, on the
contrary, extended its flames through all Asia during the reign of
his son and successor, Mohammed II. The first act of his government
was to revenge his father’s death; whose murderer, Hassan Nanwer,
together with all his kindred, both male and female, bled under the
executioner’s axe. Instead of profiting by this bloody example, to
strike into a better road, he constantly pursued the same path. He
preached, even more loudly than his father, the doctrine of impiety;
and, like him, asserted his rights to the dignity of supreme imam.
Deeply versed in philosophical studies, he considered himself to be
in these, as in other branches of knowledge, alone and unequalled.
Many of his philosophical and legal apothegms have been handed down by
tradition; we shall not, however, cite them in this history. He did
homage by these studies, not only to the institution of the founder
of the order, who, profoundly acquainted with the mathematical and
metaphysical sciences, had collected books and instruments in his
castle of Alamut, but also to the spirit of the ages in which the
civilization of modern Persia approached the summit of its splendour;
and philosophy as well as poetry were at the epoch of their greatest
glory in that country. Cotemporary with his long reign of forty-six
years (for so long did the clemency of heaven endure the monster on
earth), lived and died a pleiad of Persian poets, greater and more
illustrious than that of the Alexandrines under the Ptolemies, or that
of the French poets under Francis the First.[166]
During this period flourished the lyric poets, Suseni[167] and
Watwat,[168] of whom the former may be considered the creator of the
metrical system, and the latter as the legislator of Persian poetry;
the two great panegyrists, Khakani[169] and Sohair Faryabi,[170] who,
together with their predecessor, Enweri, stand the great columns of
the splendid edifice of oriental eulogium; the two great mystics,
Senayi[171] and Attar,[172] the former writer of the “Ornamental
Garden,” Kadikat, which the well-known author of the “Garden of Roses
and Fruit,” Saadi, seems to have kept in view; the latter the composer
of the “Dialogues of Birds” (Mantikettair) and other celebrated works,
in whose footsteps trod Jelaleddin Rumi,[173] the great mystic poet of
the east; lastly, Nisami, the greatest romantic poet of the Persians,
the immortal bard of Khosru and Shirin.
Besides this pleiad of poets, other stars of the first magnitude shone
in the hemisphere of juridical and metaphysical science. The Sheikh
Abdolkadir-Ghilani,[174] the founder of one of the most respectable
orders of dervises, and whose monument at Bagdad is, to this day,
visited by pilgrims no less frequently than that of the great Imam
Ebu Hanife; the two great jurists, Ahmed Ibn Mahmud Gasnewi[175] and
Imam Borhaneddin Ali Ben Ebibekr Almaraghainani;[176] the former,
author of the “Mokademme” (_Prolegomena_), the latter of the “Hedayet”
(Guide), two classical works of practical jurisprudence; the secretary
Amad,[177] immortal in the annals of calligraphy; the great historian
Ibn Essir Jeseri,[178] the composer of the “Kamil;” and, to conclude,
the philosopher Shehabeddin Sehrwerdi,[179] and the Imam Fakhr
Rasi,[180] who must not be confounded with their namesakes, the former
with the sheikh, nor the latter with the poet nor the physician Rhases.
Both of them are remarkable, not only in the history of literature, on
account of their opinions, but also in that of the Assassins, by reason
of their fate, as presenting, both by their lives and their deaths,
examples of the danger which the literati incurred, who either openly
reproved or combatted the doctrines of infidelity.
The former, namely, the philosopher Abufeth-Yahya Ben Hanosh Ben
Emirek, commonly celebrated as Shehabeddin Sehrwerdi, the writer of
several metaphysical works, was put to death at Aleppo by the son of
Salaheddin, by order of his father, because his doctrines had been
condemned by the College of Jurists as philosophical, or, in other
words, as atheistical, and the shedding his blood was declared to be
lawful. The Imam Fakhreddin Rasi being menaced with the same fate,
escaped it, but not without great danger. During the grand-mastership
of Mohammed II., the son of Hassan II., he taught jurisprudence
publicly in his native city, Rei. Having been slandered by some who
envied his reputation, as being secretly a disciple of the Ismailitic
doctrine, and even one of their missionaries and envoys, he mounted the
pulpit, and in order to clear himself from the imputation, he abused
and anathematized the Ismailites. As soon as the grand-master received
information of this, through his emissaries, he sent a Fedavi, or
initiated Assassin, to Rei with special instructions. This man appeared
as a student of law, and in that character visited the imam’s college.
Seven months elapsed ere he found a fitting opportunity of executing
his commission. At length he watched an instant when the imam’s servant
was absent in quest of food, and his master alone in his cabinet.
The Fedavi entered, locked the door, and throwing the imam to the
ground, placed himself with his drawn dagger on his breast. The
imam demanded his purpose. “To tear out thy heart and bowels!”—“And
wherefore?”—“Because thou hast spoken evil of the Ismailites in the
public pulpit.” The imam conjured the Assassin to spare his life, and
swore most solemnly never to slander the Ismailites again. “If I leave
thee,” said the murderer, “thou wilt fall back into thy old ways, and
consider thyself released from thy oath by artful sophistries.” The
imam renounced all explaining away of the oath, and was willing to
abide the penalties of perjury. “I had no commands to slay thee, or I
had not been wanting in the execution. Mohammed, the son of Hassan,
greets thee, and requests thee to honour him with a visit at his
castle. Thou shalt there receive unbounded power, and we will obey thee
as honest servants. ‘We despise,’ says the grand-master, ‘the rumours
of the people, which glide from our ears like nuts from a globe; but
you shall not insult us, because your words are graven as with a
graver on stone.’” The imam replied that he could not go to Alamut, but
that, in future, he would not permit himself to utter a word against
the lord of that fortress. Upon this the Fedavi drew three hundred
pieces of gold from his girdle, which he gave him, saying, “Behold
thy pension; and by a decree of the divan, thou wilt receive the same
sum annually from the Reis Mosaffer. I also leave thee two dresses of
Yemen for thy servant; these also the grand-master sends thee.” At the
same instant the Fedavi disappeared. The imam took the dresses and the
money, and for four or five years the same sum was scrupulously paid
him. Prior to this occurrence, he was wont, whenever he mentioned the
Ismailites in a discussion, to express himself thus: “Whatever the
Ismailites (whom may God curse and destroy) may say.” After he had
received the pension, he always said briefly: “Whatever the Ismailites
may say.” He answered one of his pupils, who asked him the cause of
this change: “We may not curse the Ismailites; their arguments are too
convincing and pointed.”
This singular occurrence, which is related by several Persian
historians,[181] circumstantially and concordantly, shows that the
grand-master’s policy did not consider murder only as the most
effective measure, but also frequently deemed the fear of it, and
money, preferable. It shows also that the divan, or assembly of the
order, studied less the removal of their foes than the converting them
into friends, especially where they were men of learning and celebrity,
as their lives being spared was of far more advantage to the order in
public opinion, than their violent deaths could have been.
With the exception of this anecdote of the Imam Fakhr Rasi, history
mentions little or nothing of what occurred to the order during the
reign of Mohammed, in the Persian provinces of Jebal and Kuhistan. It
is, however, much more fertile in events of immediate interest in the
history of the Assassins, if we turn our eyes towards Syria, which
was, at the same time, the celebrated stage of the glorious deeds
of the Crusaders and Salaheddin. As this great prince seems to be
chosen as the instrument in the hands of Providence, of the downfall
of the khalifat of the Fatimites, whose partisans and missionaries
the Ismailites were; so was he, likewise, very early selected by the
latter as a mark for their daggers. In order to become more intimately
acquainted with the man whom they marked out as their victim, and to
know to what a pitch his power had risen when they made the first
attempt upon his life, we shall here give, as a sequel to what has
been said in the former book concerning the reign of Nureddin, a short
outline of the increasing greatness of Salaheddin.
Invested after the death of his uncle, Esededdin Shirkuh, with the
highest dignity in the realm, under the name of Melek Ennassir, he
received from his lord, the Atabeg Nureddin, a confirmatory diploma,
together with the title of Emir al Isfahlar, which means the same
in Persian as the Arabic Emir al Juyush, that is, Prince of Armies.
Shortly afterwards, the khalif of Bagdad sent him also a diploma,
dress of honour, and present, as an acknowledgement to him for having
transferred the highest prerogative of Islam, the prayer from the
pulpit on Friday, from the family of Fatima to that of Abbas. At Cairo
stood the treasury, in which, for two centuries, the Fatimites had
amassed the wealth of Moghreb,[182] Egypt, Syria, and Arabia; its
riches, surpassing all belief, was but too small for the magnanimity of
Salaheddin.[183] According to Aini, an otherwise trustworthy writer,
there were in this treasury alone, seven hundred pearls, each of which
was, from its great size, of inestimable value; an emerald, a span long
and as thick as the finger; a collection of 2,600,000 books, which,
even if there is a superfluous cipher, surpassed the largest library in
Europe; gold, coined and in bars; aloes, amber, and arms without end.
A considerable part of this treasure Salaheddin divided immediately
among the chiefs of his army. He appointed guardians to the library;
the remainder of the collection being put for sale for ten years in
succession, produced the sums requisite for the campaigns against the
Crusaders, and for the buildings in Cairo.
He built the citadel and walls of that city, constructed the large
aqueduct which brings the waters of the Nile to the fortress, and the
noble halls, amongst whose beautifully arranged colonnades, stripped as
they are of their roofs, the writer of this work has, more than once,
indulged in airy visions of Salaheddin’s greatness. Added to these,
are an academy at the tomb of Shafii, an hospital at Cairo the modern,
and a magazine of corn at Missr, the ancient capital of Egypt under
the Arabians. All these architectural works bear the stamp of their
founder’s greatness, and on them is inscribed his name, Yusuf, which
the ignorance of the present inhabitants of Cairo and Missr confounds
with that of the Egyptian Joseph. Thus, in this case, as with the
heroes of Grecian antiquity, the feats of several great men are united
under one name. The space of centuries, which intervenes between two
landmarks of human greatness, is lost to the thought of posterity, and
the common name becomes the more prominent as a monument of antiquity
on the wide plain of history. Thus it is with the Egyptian Yusuf,
whether he be the Joseph of ancient history, the minister of Pharoah
and grandson of Abraham, or the Yusuf of modern history, the lieutenant
of Nureddin, Salaheddin, the grandson of Eyub.
Nureddin, indeed, viewed Salaheddin’s increasing greatness with a
jealous eye; and felt that it was no longer in his power to recall
at his pleasure the master of the treasure of the Fatimites; yet
was he politic enough to confirm his lieutenant, whom he could not
remove, and the latter sufficiently grateful, at least nominally, to
acknowledge Nureddin as his liege lord. As he did not wish to appear
in open opposition to him, and yet, in case of necessity, desired to
provide himself with a place of refuge, he undertook the campaign
against Yemen,[184] whither he sent his elder brother, Turanshah, with
an army. This region was, at the time, governed by Abdennebi, son of
Mehdi, a disciple of the impious sect of Karmath, who exhausted the
country with his extortions and oppression. The plundered treasure he
collected at the tomb of his father Mehdi, at Sobeid. The walls were
covered with gold, and likewise the cupola, which dazzled the eyes at
some miles distance. Gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones were
heaped in profusion. Abdennebi wished to make this tomb the resort of
pilgrims, instead of the kaaba, and for this reason he plundered the
caravans going to Mecca, and added their goods to the accumulated booty
of injustice and rapine.
In the sequel, several princes, and particularly those of Persia, have,
from political motives, attempted to prevent the pilgrimage to Mecca,
and to turn the devotion of the people rather to other burial places,
as Meshed Ali’s, on the Euphrates, which was also covered with plates
of gold by Shah Abbas; or Meshed Ben Mussa’s, at Tuss, in Khorassan,
in order that, with the caravans, the money may remain in the country.
Mecca, however, retained its superiority as the true and only shrine
of Islamism, which triumphed over the conquests of the Karmathites
and Wahabites; and whose gates, spite of the wide-spread portals of
infidelity and impiety, remained to the last ever open to the pilgrim.
Turanshah defeated and killed Abdennebi, the protector of unbelief,
razed his father’s monument, and added the treasures to those of his
brother Salaheddin, in Egypt; by command of the latter he caused
prayers to be repeated from the pulpit for the khalif of Bagdad and
Nureddin.
After the death of Nureddin,[185] the prayers as well as the coinage
were continued by Salaheddin, in Egypt and Arabia, in the name of
Saleh, a boy of eleven years of age, the son of Nureddin, who, himself
incapable as yet of governing, was in the power of his grandees, and
particularly of the eunuch Gumushteghin, who transferred the young
prince’s residence to Aleppo, leaving Ibn al Mokaddem governor of
Damascus. The Crusaders, who desired, after Nureddin’s demise, to
avail themselves of the favourable circumstance of his son’s minority,
threatened Damascus, the siege of which was only raised on the
governor’s disbursing to them large sums of money. Enraged at this,
and being invited by some of the chief men, Salaheddin repaired in
all haste to Damascus with only seven hundred horse. He reproached
the governor with his unworthy conduct, and wrote to the young atabeg
a respectful letter, in which he did homage to him as his lord,
and averred that he had come into Syria only for his defence, his
possessions being assailed on two sides, by the Crusaders and his
nephew Seifeddin, lord of Mossul. The answer which was drawn up by
his enemies, contained, instead of thanks, accusations of ingratitude
and disobedience, and threats of very shortly removing him from the
vice-royalty of Egypt.
Provoked at this, Salaheddin declared to Nial, the lord of Manbedj,
bearer of the missive, that the inviolability of an ambassador alone
preserved his head, and marched with his troops to Aleppo, in order,
as he said, to have a personal interview with his young prince. On
his way he took Hama and Hemss, and encamped in the vicinity of
Aleppo. The inhabitants and the young prince, led by his guardian,
the eunuch Gumushteghin, instead of coming to a peaceful conference
with Salaheddin, advanced against him in arms. “God is my witness,”
exclaimed he, “that I wish it not to come to arms! but since ye will
have it so, they shall decide.” The troops of Aleppo were defeated,
and fled in disorder to the city, which their opponents now began to
besiege in due form.[186]
Gumushteghin, who saw no protection at hand from the swords of his
valiant besiegers, had recourse to the daggers of the Assassins. At
that period reigned, as grand-prior at Massiat, the point, as we have
seen, of the Syrian power of the Ismailites, Rashideddin Sinan,[187]
a man, whose name and deeds are to this day remembered in their
annals.[188]
Massiat lies in the mountain range Semak, which, running parallel
with the coast of the Mediterranean, unites itself with that of
Lebanon.[189] This village, with eighteen others, belongs to the
territory of Hama (Epiphania). At that time it was the chief of ten
mountain forts, forming the strength of the Ismailites, whose numbers
are reckoned by the cotemporary annalists of the Crusaders to amount
to more than sixty thousand men.[190] The names of these places are
found in Hadji Khalfa’s Geography;[191] three have already been
mentioned in this history; namely, Massiat, Kadmus, and Kahaf; the
seven others were, Akkar, Hossnalekiad, Safita, Alika, Hossnalkarnin,
Sihinn, and Sarmin, and were the first colonies of the Ismailites in
Syria.[192] By means of these strongholds, and the daggers of the
Assassins, Rashideddin Sinan was supreme in the mountainous parts of
the north of Syria. Salaheddin, the proper defender of the faith, who
had given the final blow to the Fatimite khalifate in Egypt, and whose
increasing power threatened to ingulph that of the Atabegs in Syria,
was the natural and most dangerous enemy of the order, and consequently
their daggers were unceasingly aimed against him. A large sum of money
contributed to procure easier access to the grand-prior Sinan, for the
prayer of Gumushteghin, that Salaheddin should be the victim of their
mutual revenge. Three Assassins attacked him in the camp before Aleppo;
fortunately, they inflicted no mortal wound, and were themselves cut in
pieces.[193]
While the eunuch was concerting Salaheddin’s fall, he scarcely escaped
his own; which his enemies, the vizier Shehabeddin Abu Saleh, and the
emirs Jemaleddin, Shadbakht, and Mojahid, had conspired to ensure,
in order to deprive him of the favour of Meleksaleh. To anticipate
their purpose, he had recourse to the usual means dictated by his
policy. As the young prince was starting on a hunting excursion,
Gumushteghin presented him with a blank sheet of paper, desiring his
signature for the despatch of some pressing business. Meleksaleh
signed unsuspectingly, and his minister filled the paper with a
letter from his master to Sinan, the grand-prior of the Assassins,
requesting agents from him, for the purpose of despatching the three
emirs above-mentioned. Sinan, thinking that Meleksaleh wished, by this
deed, to remove some obstacles to his unbounded power, sent several
murderers. Two of them, who attacked the vizier as he was proceeding to
a mosque, lying near his house, without the eastern gate, were killed
on the spot.
Soon after, Mojahid was set upon by three others: one seized the skirt
of his mantle, to stab with more certainty; but Mojahid spurred his
horse, and escaped the fatal blow, leaving his mantle behind. The
people seized the Assassins, two of whom were accustomed frequently to
visit Mojahid’s groom. One of them was crucified; and the same was the
fate of the groom, on whose breast was fixed the inscription, “This
is the reward of the concealers of villains.” The other Assassin was
dragged to the citadel, and beaten on the pierced soles of his feet,
to compel him to confess the motives of his crime. In the midst of the
torture, he called out to the young prince: “Thou desirest from our
lord Sinan, the death of thy slaves, and now thou punishest us for the
execution of thy orders.”
Indignant at this, Meleksaleh wrote a letter, full of reproaches, to
Sinan, who returned him one subscribed by himself as his answer. This
was the origin of a kind of correspondence between them. Rashideddin
had frequently applied to the prince, for the restoration of the
district of Hajira, of which the Ismailites had been deprived. As his
writing had been fruitless, he had recourse, this time, not from the
pen to the dagger, but to the still more destructive means, fire. The
Assassins appeared as incendiaries, who set fire to several bazaars
of Aleppo, with burning naphtha. All the efforts of the governor and
his people to extinguish the conflagration were fruitless, which being
produced by means similar to the celebrated Greek fire, resisted
pertinaciously the action of water. Many buildings were entirely
consumed, and an immense quantity of rich stuffs and commodities of all
kinds fell a prey to the flames. The Assassins threw burning naphtha
into the streets, from the terraces of the houses, and, in the midst of
the confusion, escaped the popular rage unhurt.[194]
Meleksaleh Ismail, Prince of Aleppo, whose favourite, Gumushteghin, had
in vain unsheathed the dagger of the Assassins against Salaheddin, now
sought assistance from the Crusaders, and his nephew Seifeddin, Lord of
Mossul. The former laid siege to Emessa, but retired on the approach
of Salaheddin; but Seifeddin, and Aseddin, his brother, united their
forces with those of Ismail, at Aleppo. Salaheddin once more attempted
to come to an amicable arrangement with the latter. He offered him,
in a submissive letter, the restoration of Hama, Hemss, and Baalbek;
and stipulated only for the vice-royalty of Egypt, and the possession
of Damascus. His liberality was deemed weakness. A great battle was
fought at Hama, in which the combined forces of Mossul and Aleppo were
completely routed.[195]
From that day forward, he advanced with steady steps in the path of
sovereignty, as he transferred to his own name the two prerogatives of
coinage and prayer, which hitherto had remained, in Egypt and Syria, in
the name of Saleh. The latter received peaceful possession of Aleppo,
only by humble supplication, and the lord of Mossul, who again took
the field, with those of Hossn Keif and Maradin, lost at Tell, near
Hama, both his camp and army. Salaheddin divided the booty among his
soldiers, set the prisoners free, and took the fortresses of Asas,
Manbedj, and Bosaa.
During the siege he was, a second time, attacked by an Assassin, who
wounded him in the head. Salaheddin seized his hand in time, and struck
him down. Another immediately rushed forward, but was cut down by the
guards; two others followed with no better success.[196] Having before
their eyes the example of their three precursors, who had fallen in
a similar attempt, they hoped the better to attain their object by
rushing on successively, and, by throwing the sultan and his guard into
consternation, succeed in taking his life. The first part of their
plan was more successful than the last. Salaheddin, terrified by these
repeated attacks, retired to his tent, mustered his army, and drove
away all strangers.[197]
The following year,[198] however, as soon as he had concluded a peace
with the lords of Mossul and Aleppo, he attacked the territory of the
Ismailites, ravaged it, and blockaded the fortress, Massiat. He would
have carried it, and would have annihilated the power of the Ismailites
in Syria, had not his uncle, Shehabeddin, Lord of Hama, moved by the
entreaties of the grand-prior, Sinan, interposed, and induced his
nephew to make peace, on condition that he should, in future, be
secured from the Assassin’s dagger; and, in fact, Salaheddin reigned
fifteen years afterwards, carried on his campaigns in Egypt and Syria,
and captured the strongest places of the Crusaders, even Jerusalem
itself, without experiencing another murderous attack.
Whether it was that the double failure of the Assassins, restrained
them from a third attempt, or that the order considered it necessary
to preserve Salaheddin, the greatest enemy of the Crusaders, as a
counterpoise to the growing power of the latter; or, lastly, that,
contrary to the fundamental maxims of the order, some idea of the
sanctity of a treaty floated in the mind of the grand-prior, though
most improbably,—all the ties of religion and morality having been
loosened, and the mysteries of impiety publicly divulged by the
grand-masters, Hassan and Mohammed; it nevertheless appears, that
Rashideddin Sinan struck out a path for himself, both in respect of
doctrine and policy; one, too, which varied somewhat from that of his
predecessors, and of the reigning grand-master. The former, as we have
seen above, were the secret friends of the order of the Templars, the
latter trampled on all religion. Sinan’s faith and policy, however,
took another direction, as is clearly shown in the unanimous accounts
of cotemporary historians of the Crusaders.[199]
What William, Bishop of Tyre, and James, Bishop of Acca, on the
occasion of an embassy, despatched from the Old Man of the Mountain to
the king of Jerusalem, in the year 1172, relate concerning the origin,
system, and discipline of the Assassins, agrees very well with that
which we have derived from oriental sources, and presented to our
readers in the former books: “The Assassins,” say they, “were formerly
the strictest observers of the laws of Mohammedanism, till the epoch
when a grand-master of genius and erudition, and intimately acquainted
with the Christian tenets, and doctrine of the Gospel, abolished the
prayers of Mohammed, annulled the fasts, and allowed all, without
distinction, to drink wine and eat pork. The fundamental rule of their
religion, consists in blind submission to their abbot, by which alone
they could attain eternal life. This lord and master, who is generally
called the Old Man, resides in the Persian province, lying beyond
Bagdad (Jebal or Irak-Ajemi). There (at Alamut) young men are educated
in secret tenets and pleasures, instructed in various languages, and
then sent, armed with their daggers, throughout the world, to murder
Christians and Saracens without distinction; either from hatred,
as being enemies of their order, or to please its friends, or for
the sake of a rich reward. Those, who had sacrificed their lives in
the fulfilment of this duty, were adjudged to greater happiness in
paradise, as being martyrs; their surviving relations were loaded with
gifts, or, if slaves, set at liberty. Thus was the world overrun by
these miserably misled youths, who, devoted to murder, issued joyfully
from their brethren’s convent, to execute the sanguinary commands they
had received; appearing in different forms and disguises, sometimes as
monks, sometimes as merchants; in fact, in such a variety of shapes,
and with so much prudence and caution, that it was impossible for the
destined victims to escape their daggers. The low and mean mob of
the people are safe, inasmuch as the Assassins deem it beneath their
dignity to assail them; but for the great, and for princes, no remedy
remains but to ransom their lives at a heavy price; or to be constantly
armed and surrounded by their guards, and exist in a continued state of
alarm.”
On an attentive comparison of these passages, in the works of the two
learned bishops, which agree in point of meaning, with the narratives
of oriental writers, much is found wanting, but nothing erroneous. The
strict observance of the duties of Islamism at first, the abrogation
of all commandments under the last grand-masters, Hassan II., and
Mohammed II., the vow of blind obedience, the bands of Assassins
devoted to death, their noviciate, the institution of the order, and
its murderous policy, are here comprised in a few words. It is, indeed,
difficult to conceive how European historians, who, hitherto, drew
from no other sources than the Byzantine and Crusading annalists, how
such orientalists as D’Herbelot and Deguignes, could have regarded
the Assassins as an usual dynasty of princes; whereas, here, every
thing points to an order, inasmuch as they clearly speak of the abbot,
convent, grand-master, rule of the order, and religion; as we should
concerning the knights-Hospitallers, the Teutonic knights, and the
Templars. Every thing harmonizes with the contents of the preceding
books of this history: one circumstance only, that of the superior,
who sent the embassy, being inclined to Christianity, and desirous
of conversion, does not agree with the systematic plan of irreligion
of the then reigning grand-master. Either the Crusaders deceived
themselves with the pious error, that because the grand-master had
abjured Islamism, he must assent to Christianity; or, his policy
induced him to preserve the king of Jerusalem in this opinion, and,
consequently, as the friend of the order; or, lastly, what appears more
probable than either of these conjectures, this mission did not proceed
from the grand-master at Alamut, but from the grand-prior of the order
in Syria, Rashideddin Sinan, Lord of Massiat.
It must have been the latter, and not the former, who paid the Templars
the annual tribute, to effect the removal of which was the chief object
of the embassy; and what gives our opinion the highest degree of
probability, is the contents of Rashideddin’s writings, which are to
this day preserved in Syria, by the remainder of the Ismailites.[200]
In them appear evident traces of Christianity, and of an acquaintance
with its sacred books.[201]
Rashideddin Abulhasher Sinan, son of Suleiman of Basra, pretended
that he was himself an incarnation of the Deity.[202] He never shewed
himself but in coarse dresses of hair; he was never seen to eat, or
drink, or sleep, or spit. From the top of a rock, he preached to the
people, from sunrise to sunset, and was long considered by his audience
as a superior being. When, however, they discovered that he limped,
from having been wounded by a stone in a great earthquake,[203] he
was near losing both the sanctity of his character, and his life,
the people wishing to murder him as an impostor. He exhorted them to
patience, descended from the rock, where he had preached so long as a
Stylite, invited his hearers to a banquet, and succeeded, by the power
of his eloquence, in inducing them unanimously to swear obedience and
fealty to him as their superior.[204] He seized the moment when the
grand-master of the Ismailites in Persia had exposed all the mysteries,
and by that means sapped the foundations of the order, to envelope
himself in the halo of an apostle, and confirm his dominion in Syria.
For this reason, he is unanimously considered by oriental historians
as the chief of the Ismailitic doctrine in Syria;[205] and even to
this day, his writings are esteemed canonical by the Ismailites
still remaining in that country. They consist of a shapeless chaos
of contradictory articles of faith, which probably are all to be
understood only allegorically; a host of mutilated passages from the
Koran and the Gospels, hymns, litanies, sermons, prayers, and ritual
ordinances. These can hardly have been preserved in their original
purity, but must have descended to us intermixed with the superstition
and ignorance of later centuries, like the books of the Druses, who,
now as little acquainted as the Ismailites with the spirit of their
founder, possess but a very imperfect knowledge of their original
dogmas, and have lost the tradition of the allegorical doctrine.
It was Rashideddin Sinan, therefore, the grand-prior of Massiat,
and not the cotemporary grand-master of Alamut, who sent, in the
latter years of the reign of Amaury, King of Jerusalem, the envoy
Behaeddewlet, a skilful, prudent, and eloquent man, with the secret
offer, that he and his followers would undergo baptism, providing the
Templars, their nearest neighbours on the mountains, would release
them from the annual sum of two thousand ducats, and live in brotherly
and peaceful union with them. King Amaury received the envoy with
joy, promised to pay the Templars, out of his own purse, the two
thousand ducats from which they begged to be released, and sent him,
after keeping him for some time, back with guides and an escort, as
far as the Ismailite confines. They had already crossed the territory
of Tripoli, and had, therefore, arrived in the vicinity of their
first castles, which are situated on the mountains in the environs of
Tortossa, or Antoradus, when suddenly a body of Templars rushed from an
ambuscade, and killed the envoy.[206]
Thus, these knights, who were suspected of being secretly allied to
the Ismailites, and followers of their doctrine, openly proclaimed
themselves likewise as Assassins: the religion of both had a bond of
union in the guilt of wilful murder. The actor of this tragedy was
Walter de Dumesnil, a vicious, one-eyed man; who, however, did not
perform this act of atrocity from motives of private malice, but with
the knowledge of the brethren, and by the command of the grand-master,
Odo de St. Amand, and to avenge the order. The inducement seems to
have been no other, than the Assassins having endeavoured to relieve
themselves from the annual tribute of two thousand ducats to the
Templars, either to purchase peace with the neighbours, or for the
recompense of services performed: as, for example, as is mentioned in
its place, their refusal to participate in the campaign against the
Egyptian sultan, their natural protector.[207]
The king, violently enraged at this atrocity, by which the honour of
the Christian name, and his own dignity, suffered so severe a blow,
assembled the princes of his realm, in order to consult with them,
concerning the measures proper to be adopted. Their unanimous decision
was, that religion, and the royal authority, had equally suffered
an affront, and could not permit this murder to pass unpunished.
Seiher, of Mamedun, and Gottschalk, of Turholdt, were despatched
by the council, in the name of the king and the realm, to demand
satisfaction from Odo de St. Amand, for so flagitious a deed. Odo,
haughty and wicked, fearing neither God nor man, replied, bursting
with arrogance and rage,[208] that he had already imposed a penance on
Brother Dumesnil, and should send him to the holy father, by whom it
was forbidden to lay violent hands on him; and more in the same strain,
suggested by his passion. But the king, meeting the grand-master and
several Templars afterwards, at Sidon, held a council, and had the
murderer, as guilty of high treason, dragged from their hospital, and
thrown, fettered, into a dungeon at Tyre.[209] The death of the king,
which followed soon after, saved him from well-merited punishment.
The grand-master, however, met with his, by being taken prisoner
by Salaheddin, in the battle of Sidon,[210] the loss of which was
attributed to his fault, and dying, the same year, unpitied in
his dungeon. The king, indeed, seemed absolved in the eyes of the
Assassins; but the hope of converting them to Christianity was gone;
and their daggers were now again unsheathed against the princes of the
Crusaders, as they had already long been against the chiefs of the
Moslimin. Forty-two years had elapsed, since they stabbed Raymond,
the young Count of Tripoli,[211] as he was kneeling at prayer, and
stained the altar with his blood. This long truce of the dagger, with
the Christian chieftains, was at once raised by the atrocious murder
of Conrad, Lord of Tyre and Marquess of Montferrat. Richard, King of
England, is accused, both in European and Asiatic histories, of having
been the accomplice, or instigator of this action, by means of the
daggers of the Assassins.
It is with a reluctant pen that we indicate the circumstances and
motives of this crime, which attaches to the splendid reputation of
one of the first heroes of the Crusaders, a stain, which neither his
military glory, nor forged documents, can obliterate from the sight
of an impartial writer. The pretended letter of the Old Man of the
Mountain, composed by Richard’s partisans, to acquit him of the guilt
of this murder, stands rather as a proof against him, since it has
been proved to be a manifest invention and forgery.[212] This letter
commences with an oath in the name of the law, and ends by being dated
according to the era of the Seleucidæ, both entirely strange and
unknown to the Ismailites; for, at this time, they publicly trampled
on the law, and had substituted, for the chronology of the Hegira
(which besides is the only one used in the countries of Islamism),
that from the accession of Hassan II.; making it the epoch of the
abrogation of the law. The writer’s making the Old Man of the Mountain
date from Massiat, proves, in fact, nothing, either for or against
Richard; but it rather heightens the probability of the opinion we
have advanced, that the Crusaders were not aware of the existence of
the distant grand-master at Alamut, but considered the grand-prior
of Massiat, as the Old Man of the Mountain to a certainty. According
to the purport of this apocryphal work of partiality for the hero,
this so much celebrated murder was only an instance of the order’s
revenge; the marquess having pillaged, and put to death, a brother, who
was shipwrecked at Tyre; and instead of giving the order’s envoy the
required satisfaction, threatening to throw him into the sea. From that
time, the death of the marquess was determined on; and executed, at
Tyre, by two brothers, in the presence of the whole people.
All that is true in this Latin production of Nicolas of Treveth, which
was either written by himself, and accepted as credible by Richard’s
party, consists in the circumstances of the murder. The marquess was
attacked by two Assassins, disguised as monks,[213] who had approached
him unobserved, in the market-place of Tyre. Not only do western,
but also oriental historians, name Richard Cœur de Lion, King of
England, as the instigator of the murderers. Alberic des Troisfontaines
expressly affirms it,[214] but with those who doubt, the contradiction
of Nicolas of Treveth might be equiponderant to his charges, if the
scale did not turn against Richard, with the heavy weight of the
impartial testimony of oriental historians. The writer of the history
of Jerusalem and Hebron, a classical work for the history of the
Crusades, says, under the title of the murder of the marquess, clearly
and distinctly: “The marquess had gone, on the 13th of the month
Rebi-ul-ewel, to visit the bishop of Tyre; on coming out, he was attacked
by two murderers, who stabbed him with their daggers. Being seized, and
put to the torture, they confessed that they were employed by the king
of England. They were put to death with torments.”[215]
The same work contains still farther traits of Richard’s craft and
perfidy, which stain his character but too deeply, and justify but too
much the suspicion of his being accessory to this murder. Thus, his
imprisonment by Leopold of Austria, a near relation of the marquess of
Tyre, seems to have been but a measure of reprisal, for the death of
his kinsman.
While the English, to remove from their monarch the suspicion of this
assassination, and to liberate him the sooner from his captivity,
forged the above-mentioned letter[216] of the Old Man of the Mountain,
to Leopold of Austria; they, at the same time, and with the same
view, concocted a second, which is mentioned by William of Newbury,
as having been sent by the grand-master to Philip Augustus, King of
France. This letter, like the first, bears the marks of a counterfeit
on its front.[217] The grand-master of the Assassins is made to call
himself “_simplicitas nostra_;” which we cannot allow our simplicity
to err so far as to believe. In this palpably apocryphal writing, the
Old Man of the Mountain assures the king of France, that it had never
entered into his thoughts to send to France, at the desire of Richard,
Assassins with regicidal designs.
This letter, the falsehood of which is still more manifest than that
of the former one, proves, instead of acquitting Richard, that the
murder of the marquess of Montferrat had drawn upon him the suspicion
of a similar attempt against the king of France. Rigord,[218] the
historian of Philip Augustus, relates, that while the king was in
Pontoise, in the year 1192, being apprised by letters from Palestine,
that Richard meditated his assassination, he established, for his
security, a body-guard, armed with iron maces; and William Quiart,[219]
who, a century after, wrote a rhyming history, openly ascribes the
whole murderous system of the Assassins to the king of England, who
had young men educated in the principles of blind obedience to his
cruel commands, in order to sacrifice the king of France; upon which,
the latter instituted his guard of _sergens à masses_. Even if these
precautions were groundless and exaggerated, they, nevertheless, were
occasioned by the known deeds and character of Richard. The murder of
Conrad of Montferrat, thus gave rise to the English king’s captivity
in Austria; and, likewise, to the institution of the first royal
body-guard in France.
It may, perhaps, appear a thankless and vain labour, to wish to justify
the order of the Assassins, who are charged with a thousand manifest
murders, from the guilt of the thousand and first; but the duty of
impartiality imposes this task on the historian who remains faithful
to truth, although it may neither acquit, nor condemn. Whether the
order, in the person of Philip Augustus, attempted the life of one
prince more or less—whether the grand-master directed the poniards of
the murderers, who slew the marquess of Montferrat, moved by private
revenge, or by the desire of Richard, is of little consequence;
participation in murder does not lessen the guilt of the crime.
We shall not, therefore, stop to inquire whether the Arab Assassin,
found in the camp of Frederic Barbarossa, at the siege of Milan, in the
year 1158,[220] and against whom the emperor received timely warning,
came from Spain or Syria; whether he was in the pay of the pope, or the
grand-master of the Ismailites; or, whether Frederic was destined to
fall a victim to the Old Man of the Mountain, or to him of the seven
hills. He was, on account of his campaigns in Palestine and Italy,—his
enterprises against the infidels and the papal chair, equally dreaded
by the supreme pontiffs, both of Bagdad and Rome; and the khalif on the
Tigris, would have had no less cause to rejoice at his death, than the
khalif on the Tiber.
He, however, who profits by the commission of an atrocity, is not
always to be accused of being its author. Barbarossa’s grandson,
Frederic II., was accused by Pope Innocent IV., in the synod of
Lyons,[221] of having employed Assassins to murder the duke of Bavaria,
and was excommunicated; while Frederic, in a letter to the king of
Bohemia, charges the duke of Austria with having entertained similar
designs against himself.[222] These accusations, however, do not prove
the guilt of the accused, but only the crime of the Assassins.
Two years after[223] the death of Conrad, Marquess of Montferrat and
Tyre, and that of Rashideddin Sinan, Henry, Count of Champagne, passed,
on his journey to Armenia, near the territory of the Assassins; the
grand-prior, the successor of Rashideddin Sinan, sent deputies to
welcome him, and to invite him to visit his fortress on his return.
The count accepted the invitation, and came; the grand-prior hastened
to meet him, and received him with great honours. He took him to
several castles and fortresses, and brought him at last to one having
very lofty turrets. On each look-out stood two guards, dressed in
white, consequently initiated in the secret doctrines. The grand-prior
told the count that these men obeyed him better than the Christians
did their princes; and, giving a signal, two of them instantly threw
themselves from the top of the tower, and were dashed to pieces at its
foot. “If you desire it,” said the grand-prior to the astonished count,
“all my whites shall throw themselves down from the battlements in
the same way.” The latter declined, and confessed, that he could not
calculate upon such obedience in his servants.
After staying some time at the castle, he was, at his departure, loaded
with presents; and the grand-prior told him, on taking leave, that
by means of these faithful servants, he removed the enemies of the
order.[224] By this horrible example of blind submission, the prior
showed that he trod exactly in the footsteps of the founder of the
order, who had given the ambassador of Melekshah a similar proof of
the devotion of his faithful followers.[225] Jelaleddin Melekshah,
Sultan of the Seljuks, having sent an ambassador to him, to require his
obedience and fealty, the son of Sabah called into his presence several
of his initiated. Beckoning to one of them, he said, “Kill thyself!”
and he instantly stabbed himself; to another, “Throw thyself down from
the rampart!”—the next instant he lay a mutilated corpse in the moat.
On this, the grand-master turning to the envoy, who was unnerved by
terror, said, “In this way am I obeyed by seventy thousand faithful
subjects. Be that my answer to thy master.”
As the historians of the east, as well as those of the Crusaders,
agree in their relation, we cannot, except with regard to the
extravagant amount of seventy thousand Assassins, (stated by William,
Bishop of Tyre, at sixty thousand, and James, Bishop of Acca, at forty
thousand, in which number must be included not only the initiated,
but also the profane subjects of the order), raise a tenable doubt
concerning the truth of the event, any more than with respect to the
noviciate and discipline of the catechumens of murder, of whom, the
Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, was the first[226] to give accounts,
discredited in his time, and doubted, even lately, by men of eminence.
Since, however, this narrative has been found to agree in every
point with oriental sources,[227] Marco Polo’s relation receives new
authority; and after his veracity, like that of Herodotus, has been
doubted by the sceptical for centuries, the fidelity of the father of
ancient history, and of the father of modern travels, shines, from day
to day, with a still brighter lustre, from the unanimous testimony of
eastern writers.
In the centre of the Persian, as well as of the Assyrian, territory
of the Assassins, that is to say, both at Alamut and Massiat, were
situated, in a space surrounded by walls, splendid gardens,—true
eastern paradises. There were flower beds, and thickets of fruit trees,
intersected by canals; shady walks, and verdant glades, where the
sparkling stream bubbled at every step; bowers of roses, and vineyards;
luxurious halls, and porcelain kiosks, adorned with Persian carpets and
Grecian stuffs; where drinking-vessels of gold, silver, and crystal,
glittered on trays of the same costly materials; charming maidens and
handsome boys, black-eyed and seductive as the houris and boys of
Mohammed’s paradise, soft as the cushions on which they reposed, and
intoxicating as the wine which they presented. The music of the harp
was mingled with the songs of the birds, and the melodious tones of
the songstress, harmonized with the murmur of the brooks. Every thing
breathed pleasure, rapture, and sensuality.
A youth, who was deemed worthy, by his strength and resolution, to
be initiated into the Assassin service, was invited to the table
and conversation of the grand-master, or grand-prior: he was then
intoxicated with henbane[228] (_hashishe_), and carried into the
garden, which, on awakening, he believed to be in Paradise: every
thing around him, the houris in particular, contributed to confirm
his delusion. After he had experienced as much of the pleasures of
Paradise, which the prophet has promised to the blessed, as his
strength would admit, after quaffing enervating delight from the eyes
of the houris, and intoxicating wine from the glittering goblets,
he sunk into the lethargy produced by debility and the opiate; on
awakening from which, after a few hours, he again found himself by the
side of his superior. The latter endeavoured to convince him, that
corporeally he had not left his side, but that spiritually he had been
wrapped into Paradise, and had then enjoyed a foretaste of the bliss
which awaits the faithful, who devote their lives to the service of the
faith, and the obedience of their chiefs. Thus did these infatuated
youths blindly dedicate themselves as the tools of murder, and eagerly
sought an opportunity to sacrifice their terrestrial, in order to
become the partakers of eternal, life. What Mohammed had promised
in the Koran to the Moslimin, but which to many might appear a fine
dream and empty promises, they had enjoyed in reality; and the joys of
heaven animated them to deeds worthy of hell. This imposture could not
remain undiscovered; and the fourth grand-master, after unveiling all
the mysteries of impiety to the people, probably revealed also to them
the joys of Paradise, which could, besides, have but little charms for
them, to whom already every thing was permitted on earth. That which
hitherto had served as a means to produce pleasure, became now itself
an object; and the effects of the intoxication of opium, were the
earnests of celestial delight, which they wanted strength to enjoy.
To this day, Constantinople and Cairo show what an incredible charm
opium with henbane exerts on the drowsy indolence of the Turk, and
the fiery imagination of the Arab; and explains the fury with which
those youths sought the enjoyment of these rich pastiles (_hashishe_),
and the confidence produced in them, that they are able to undertake
anything or everything. From the use of these pastiles, they were
called _Hashishin_ (herb-eaters),[229] which, in the mouths of Greeks
and Crusaders, has been transformed into the word Assassin; and, as
synonymous with murder, has immortalized the history of the order in
all the languages of Europe.
END OF BOOK IV.