BOOK VII.

_Conquest of Bagdad—Fall of the Assassins—Remnant of

them._

In the fall of Alamut, the centre of the Assassins was gone; the props

of their authority were broken, in the loss of the castles of Rudbar

and Kuhistan. Still, the grand-prior of Syria refused submission to

the grand-master’s orders to surrender,—the armies of the Mongols

being, as yet, too distant to compel his obedience. A far greater

object occupied the mind of Hulaku, than the destruction of a few

Syrian mountain forts, in which the order, after the fall of Alamut,

and the annihilation of the Ismailites in Persia, might yet, though

with difficulty, raise its head. He entertained no less a project than

the conquest of Bagdad, and the overthrow of the khalif’s throne, on

which the Arabs had, in the prophet’s name, already, for six centuries

and a half, ruled over the world of Islam. This great event is, not

only by its immediate consequences, but also from its proximate cause,

inseparably connected with the destruction of the Assassins.

In the second year after the fall of Alamut, and, consequently, before

the conquest of Kirdkuh the last fortress of the Assassins, which only

surrendered in the third year of the siege, Bagdad, the queen of the

cities of the Tigris, fell. The overthrow of the khalifat, as we have

seen, in the instructions given by Mangu to his brother Hulaku, did

not enter immediately into the plan of the khan, who merely claimed

submission and troops, but Nassireddin, the great _savant_ and traitor,

who had delivered the capital of the Assassins into the conqueror’s

hands, and had paved a road to his own revenge, over its ruins,

laboured unceasingly to urge Hulaku to the destruction of the khalifat.

Besides the close connexion of this event with the one which we have

described, it is in itself so great and important, in the history of

Asia, and the middle ages,—so attractive, from the novelty and rarity

of the subject, that we cannot deny our readers and ourselves the

pleasure of following the khan, in his expedition from Alamut to Bagdad.

The siege and conquest of Constantinople, by the Turks, is, perhaps,

the only event in history, worthy to be compared with that of Bagdad,

by the Mongols; and the fall of the long-sinking Byzantine empire,

may be placed by the side of that of the khalifat. The conquest of

other cities, on whose sieges history has dwelt with astonishment

and admiration, or with pity and terror, is less mighty in its

consequences, because, under their ruins, no throne of universal sway

has been buried. This interest is wanting, in the most obstinate and

glorious sieges of ancient and modern history, however remarkable by

the great names of the assailants, or the consummate skill with which

they may have been prosecuted, or the patient courage with which they

have been defended. Tyre and Saguntum, illustrious in their besiegers,

Alexander and Hannibal; Syracuse, which has immortalized the names

of Marcellus and Archimedes; Rhodes, twice attacked by Demetrius

Poliorcetes, and defended against the Turks, by Villiers de l’Isle

Adam; Candia, and Saragossa; have all earned unfading glory, by the

lion courage of their inhabitants and defenders; but, although these

cities fought for the highest of earthly objects—their country’s

freedom, still their fall did not draw down with it the seat of the

ancient dominion over half the world.

The history of the conquest of other celebrated cities, the seat

of universal monarchy, such as Babylon and Persepolis, under whose

ruin were buried the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, is wrapt in

the distance of thousands of years, and impenetrable obscurity. The

destruction of Jerusalem eclipses in the brightness of its lustre that

of all those cities; not, however, on account of the importance of its

power, or of its siege, for that by Khosroes was not less remarkable

than that by Titus; but because the latter was described by Tacitus.

If Gibbon had had access to the sources which are at our command, the

conquest of Bagdad would not have shone with less splendour, in his

immortal work, than that of Constantinople, nor would it have been

so briefly treated. What we want of his power of expression, must be

supplied by the richness of the material.

After the fall of Alamut, and the other fortresses of the Assassins,

except that of Kirdkuh, Hulaku vacated the territory of Kaswin, and

marched to Hamadan, whither his general, Tanju Nowian, hastened from

Aserbijan, to lay an account of his victories at the foot of the

throne. Hulaku dismissed him, with instructions to advance to Rum and

Syria, and to subject the whole of Asia and Africa, to the extreme

western boundary, to his dominion. In the month of Rebi-ul-ewel, in the

555th year of the Hegira, he commenced his march against Bagdad, and

proceeded as far as Tebris, whence he sent an ambassador to the khalif,

Mostassem, with the message: “When we went out against Rudbar, we sent

ambassadors to thee, desiring aid; thou promisedst them, but sentest

not a man. Now, we request that thou wouldst change thy conduct, and

refrain from thy contumacy, which will only bring about the loss of thy

empire and thy treasures.”

The ambassadors having despatched their mission to Mostassem, the

latter sent the learned Sherefeddin Ibn Jusi, the most famous orator

of his time, and Bedreddin Mohammed, of Nahjiwan, to Hulaku, with a

haughty message. The khan, irritated at this, gave more easy audience

to the counsels of Nassireddin, who continually urged him to march

against Bagdad, and to the treacherous invitation of Ibn Alkami, the

khalif’s vizier. Moyededdin Mohammed Ben Mohammed Ben Abdolmelek

Alkami, who, as vizier, administered the affairs of the khalifat with

unlimited power, and, by the blackest treachery, caused its fall, is

stigmatized ignominiously, as traitor, throughout the whole east; and

the name of Alkami is not less abhorred, in their history, than is that

of Antalcides, in that of the Greeks: as eloquent, and versed in poetry

and the polite literature of the Arabs, as Nassireddin was in the

mathematical sciences, he was no less faithless to his lord. Both poet

and mathematician were traitors.[264]

Nassireddin had personal cause of complaint against Alkami, who, by

his censure, had occasioned the khalif’s throwing into the Tigris the

poem dedicated to him by the former; adding, that it was, in every

respect, badly written. It is probable, that Nassireddin was a better

astronomer than poet; but it is still more probable, that Alkami was

jealous of the credit which he might gain with the khalif. The vizier

would not have deemed it necessary to warn the viceroy of Khorassan,

Nassireddin Mohteshem, with whom the astronomer was, against a mediocre

or bad _Kasside_, who was a juggler, and wished to insinuate himself

into the favour of the khalif. Out of respect for Alkami, the viceroy,

on this warning, threw the astronomer into prison, notwithstanding

he had dedicated his great work, Akhlaki Nassiri, to him. He escaped

to Alamut, where, as vizier of the last grand-master, he, meditating

revenge against Alkami and the Khalif Mostassem, laid the foundation of

it in the ruin of the Assassins.

Ibn Alkami, like Nassireddin, swore vengeance against the khalif: he

had to complain, not only of the neglect of some of the grandees and

favourites being unpunished by Mostassem, but also, he feared for his

own personal security, on account of some severe measures against the

Shiites, to which sect he himself belonged. He entered, therefore, on

the same path of treachery, in which Nassireddin had already preceded

him, and besieged the ear of Hulaku, with complaints and invitations,

which were readily accepted. Nassireddin, Hulaku’s vizier, and Ibn

Alkami, the khalif’s, played mutually into each other’s hands. The

contemporaneous fall of two such powerful sovereignties, as that of the

Assassins and of the khalifat, caused by the jealousy and treachery of

an astronomer and a wit, is unique in history.[265]

Ere we commence the detail of the fall of the khalif throne of Bagdad,

it will be proper to premise a few words, relating to the foundation

and splendour of this renowned city.

Bagdad, the city, valley, or house of peace, the citadel of the

holy, the seat of the khalifat, called also the oblique,[266] from

the oblique position of its gates, was founded, on the banks of the

Tigris, in the 148th year of the Hegira, by Abujafer Almansur, the

second khalif of the Abbas family. It stretches two miles along the

eastern banks of the river, in the form of a bow with an arrow on the

string, and is surrounded by a brick wall, whose circumference of

twelve thousand four hundred ells, is interrupted by four gates and one

hundred and sixty-three turrets. When Mansur resolved upon building the

city, he called his astronomers, at whose head was his vizier, Nevbakht

(i. e. _new fortune_), to determine a fortunate hour for laying the

foundations; and the latter chose a moment when the sun stood in the

sign Sagittarius, by which the new city was promised flourishing

civilization, numerous population, and long endurance. At the same time

he assured the khalif, that neither he, nor any of his successors,

would die within the walls of this capital; and the confidence of the

astronomer, in the truth of his prophecy, is less surprising than its

fulfilment by thirty-seven khalifs, the last of whom, Mostassem, during

whose reign Bagdad fell, did not die within its walls, but at Samara, a

place built below Bagdad, on the banks of the Tigris, by Motassem, the

eighth Abbaside khalif (called the eighther from the coincidence of

the number eight, in his nativity) for his Mameluke guard.[267]

As Bagdad, from the circumstance of no khalif having died within its

walls, merited, most peculiarly, the name of the House, Valley, or

City of Peace; so, also, on account of the great number of holy men

of Islam, who are buried within or without it, and whose tombs are so

many objects of the pilgrimages of the Moslimin, it gained the title of

Bulwark of the Holy. Here are the mausolea of the greatest imams and

the most pious sheikhs. Here reposes the Imam Mussa Kasim, the seventh

of the twelve imams, who, in direct descent from Ali, claimed the right

to the throne and the khalifat, on account of their relationship to the

prophet; also, the imams, Hanefi and Hanbeli, the founders of two of

the four orthodox sects of the Sunna; the sheikhs, Juneid, Shobli, and

Abdolkadir-Ghilani,[268] the chiefs of the mystic sect of the sofis.

In the midst of the monuments of the imams and sheikhs, stand those of

the khalifs, and their spouses; of which that of Zobeide, the wife of

Harun al Rashid, has, by the strength of its construction, survived the

repeated captures and destructions of Bagdad, by the Mongols, Persians,

and Turks. Equally splendid specimens of Saracenic architecture are

the academies, colleges, and schools; two of which have immortalized

the names of their founders in the history of Arabic literature. The

academies, Nisamie and Mostansarie, the former instituted in the first

half of the fifth century of the Hegira, by Nisam-ol-mulk, the great

grand-vizier of Melekshah, sultan of the Seljuks, the latter, built two

centuries later, by the Khalif Almostansar-billah, with four different

pulpits for the four orthodox sects of the Sunnites.

The most magnificent of all the palaces was that of the Khalif

Moktader-billah, called the “House of the Tree,”[269] and seated

in a wide extent of gardens. In the middle of the vestibule, near

two large basins of water, stood two trees of gold and silver, each

having eighteen branches, and a great number of smaller boughs. One

of these bore fruit and birds, whose variegated plumage was imitated

with different precious stones, and which gave forth melodious sounds,

by means of the motion of the branches, produced by a mechanical

contrivance. On the other tree were fifteen figures of cavaliers,

dressed in pearls and gold, with drawn swords, which, on a signal being

given, moved in concert. In this palace, the Khalif Moktader gave

audience to the ambassadors of the Greek emperor, Theophilus,[270]

and astonished them with the numbers of his army, and the splendour

of his court.[271] A hundred and sixty thousand men stood in their

ranks before the palace; the pages glittered in golden girdles; seven

thousand eunuchs, three thousand of whom were white, the rest black,

surrounded the entrance; and, immediately at the gate, were seven

hundred chamberlains. On the Tigris floated gilded barks and gondolas,

decorated with silken flags and streamers. The walls of the palace were

hung with thirty-eight thousand carpets, twelve thousand five hundred

of which were of gold tissue; and twenty-two thousand pieces of rich

stuff covered the floors. A hundred lions, held by their keepers with

golden chains, roared in concert with the sound of fifes and drums, the

clang of the trumpets, and the thundering of the tamtam.[272]

The entrance to the audience chamber was concealed by a black silk

curtain; and no one could pass the threshold, without kissing the black

stone of which it was formed, like the pilgrims at Mecca.[273] Behind

the black curtain, on a throne seven ells high, sat the khalif, habited

in the black mantle (_borda_) of the prophet, girded with his sword,

and holding his staff in his hand as a sceptre. Ambassadors, and even

princes, who received investiture, kissed the ground in front of the

throne, and approached, conducted by the vizier and an interpreter,

and were then honoured with a habit of ceremony (_khalaat_), and

presents. So Togrul-beg, the founder of the Seljuks, on receiving

investiture from the Khalif Kaim-Biemrillah, was dressed in seven

caftans, one over the other, and presented with seven slaves, from the

several different states forming the khalifat. He received two turbans,

two sabres, and two standards, in token of being invested with the

sovereignty of the east and the west.[274]

These proceedings of the khalif’s court were copied by that of

Byzantium; and traces of them have been preserved to the present day,

in the ceremonials of the great kingdoms both of the east and the west.

Theophilus, whose love of splendour rivalled that of the khalif, built

a palace in Constantinople, the exact counterpart of the “House of the

Tree,” even to the golden tree,[275] and the artificial singing birds

on it; which was no less an object of admiration to the envoys of the

European courts, than the original at Bagdad had been to the Greeks.

The etiquette of the khalif’s court, which was repeated at Byzantium,

still subsists at the Constantinopolitan courts, as Luitprand describes

it. When the khalif rode out, he was saluted with the shouting a long

formula of benediction;[276] in the same manner was the Greek emperor,

with the cry of “Many years” (πολυχρονιζειν)! and so is the Ottoman

sultan, at this day, with the usual “_Tehok-yasha_” (may he live long)!

The two turbans, which are placed before him when he enters the mosque,

signify his sovereignty over Asia and Europe; the prophet’s sword and

mantle are preserved in the treasury of the seraglio. The _borda_, that

is, the Arabian prince’s mantle of black, afterwards embroidered with

gold, is still worn by the princes of Lebanon, and the emirs of the

desert; its colours, black and gold, were adopted in the livery of the

Roman emperor.

The military force no longer bore any proportion to the splendour and

magnificence with which the sinking throne of the khalifat was still

enriched, as in the glorious days of Moktader. The army, indeed, still

consisted of sixty thousand cavalry, under the command of Suleimanshah;

but even this number was diminished by Ibn Alkami’s treachery. The

latter proposed the curtailing the forces, and dismissing the men,

in order to save their pay and preserve the treasure; and, in spite

of the opposite warning of the four greatest officers of state, the

commander-in-chief, Suleimanshah, the first and second ink-holders, or

secretaries of state, and the chief cup-bearer, he lulled the khalif

into security from the danger of the Mongols, so that he carelessly

stretched himself on the pillow of ease and effeminacy.

While he was occupied with the conquest of Kuhistan, and the

extirpation of the Assassins, Hulaku received a letter from Ibn

Alkami, who promised to deliver into his hands, the bulwarks and

treasure of the khalif city; and magnifying the charms of the capture,

he studiously depreciated the dangers of the attempt, till they

disappeared. The khan, however, did not blindly trust the traitor’s

promises; the former unsuccessful attempts upon Bagdad were too fresh

in his memory. Churmaghun, the general of Jenghis Khan, had, during

the reign of the Khalif Nassir-ledinillah, twice advanced against

Bagdad, with an army of a hundred and twenty-four thousand men; and

twice was he beaten back, with the loss of the greater part of his

forces. Hulaku had recourse to Nassireddin, his vizier, and, through

him, to the stars; in which the latter naturally read the overthrow

of the khalifat, so long determined upon by his revengeful spirit.

Ibn Alkami’s divining-rod struck on the deeply-concealed vein of

Nassireddin’s inveterate rancour, and treachery responded to revenge.

In accordance with Nassireddin’s counsels, Hulaku, as soon as he

reached Hamadan, sent the before-mentioned embassy to the khalif,

whom he requested to send to meet him, one of the two secretaries of

state, the chief cup-bearer, or the commander of the army, with whose

opposition to his views he was fully acquainted. The khalif sent the

learned orator, Ibn-al-jusi, who poured the oil of his eloquence into

the fire of wrath, and returned, without performing his task. Hulaku,

still more enraged, commanded the Emir Sogranjan to advance to Erdebil,

and cross the Tigris, and then to form a junction with the troops of

the Emir Boyanje, on the western side of Bagdad. In the meanwhile,

he himself broke up his head-quarters at Hamadan. On the news of the

advance of the Mongol vanguard reaching Bagdad, the khalif despatched

Fetheddin, one of his oldest and most experienced commanders, with the

secretary of state, Mujeheddin, one of his young favourites, and a

thousand cavalry, armed with lances, who, in the first action, beat the

Mongols, and forced them to retreat.

Fetheddin’s grey-headed experience wished to encamp; but Mujeheddin’s

youthful arrogance incited him so long with insulting charges of

cowardice and treachery, that he, at last, gave orders to pursue the

enemy. They overtook them at the western branch of the Tigris, called

Dojail, or Little Tigris. Fetheddin mounted a common horse, on whose

fore and hind legs he had iron chains fastened, and so remained in one

spot, to show to all that he was determined not to desert his post in

the field, and that he would either conquer or die there. Night, and

the fatigue of both armies, put an end to the combat, and dropping

their arms, they sank into those of sleep; but while the khalif’s army

were buried in slumber, the Mongols cut through some dykes, and the

water broke impetuously on the opposing forces. The darkness of the

rushing waters, and that of the night, was made still darker, by the

despair of the army. Then they saw the words of the Koran fulfilled:

“Darkness on darkness; everywhere darkness;” and, like Pharoah’s

host, they were buried in the waves. The brave old Fetheddin, whose

prudence would have averted the danger, perished; and the rash youth,

Mujeheddin, whose arrogance had produced it, escaped with two or

three companions, who brought the news of the catastrophe to Bagdad.

So blind was the khalif’s partiality to his favourite, so slight his

sorrow for the loss of his army, that on receiving the intelligence,

he merely exclaimed, three times, thankfully: “God be praised for the

preservation of Mujeheddin!” And when the enemy had already advanced as

far as Jebel-Hamr (the red mountain), three days’ march from Bagdad,

and he was informed of their approach, he only replied: “How can they

pass that mountain?” All representations to the contrary were either

unheard or ineffectual.

In the meanwhile, the main body of the Mongols had pushed forward on

the road of Yakuba, and was encamped on the eastern bank of the Tigris.

Then only did the khalif command the gates of Bagdad to be shut, the

fortifications to be garrisoned, and preparations to be made for

defence. The two secretaries and Suleimanshah once more led the _élite_

of the army, against the enemy. The battle lasted two days, with

various fortune, but with equal loss: on the third, Hulaku prohibited

the Mongols from renewing the attack, and resolved to enclose the city

in a blockade. On all the heights without the city, and on all the

towers and palaces which commanded it, were placed projectile engines,

throwing masses of rock and flaming naphtha, which breached the walls,

and set the buildings on fire.

At this period, the three presidents of the sherifs, or descendants

of Ali, who resided at Helle, on the banks of the Euphrates, not far

from the ruins of Babylon, sent a letter to Hulaku, in which they

offered their submission, and added bitter complaints of the wrongs

which they had suffered from the khalif. They informed him, that

according to a tradition preserved by their glorious ancestor, the Lion

of God, the sage of the faith, the son-in-law of the prophet Ali,

the son of Abu-taleb, the period of the fall of the family of Abbas,

and the conquest of Bagdad, was arrived. Hulaku, equally pleased with

the homage of the descendants of the prophet and with the prophecy,

answered them graciously, and commanded his general, Emir Alaeddin,

to occupy the district of Helle, and to protect the inhabitants from

violence. Thus their hatred against the family of Abbas secured them

against the rage of the Mongols.

After the siege had lasted forty days, the khalif convoked a general

assembly of all the grandees of the realm, in which Ibn Alkami

spoke at great length of the innumerable host of the Mongols, and

the impossibility of long resisting them; he therefore, recommended

a treaty with Hulaku, who was more desirous of the treasures than

the dominions of the khalif; he advised a mutual alliance between a

daughter of Hulaku and a son of the khalif, and between a daughter

of the latter and a son of the former, that the ties of peace and

friendship might be drawn the closer. For this purpose, the khalif

should go in person to the khan’s camp, and thus the blood of thousands

would be spared, the city preserved from utter destruction, and the

khalifat fortified against every enemy by the acquisition of so

powerful an ally.

The fear and pusillanimity of the khalif caused him to listen to

Alkami’s faithless advice. He sent him, in the first place, into the

camp to negotiate peace, under the same conditions as had been offered

to him from Hamadan; he returned with the answer, probably suggested by

himself, that “What was admissible at Hamadan, is no longer so before

the gates of Bagdad.” Then, only one of the great dignities of the

realm was demanded; now all four were, namely: the commander of the

army, Suleimanshah, the two ink-holders or secretaries of state, and

the chief cup-bearer. The siege continued six days longer with renewed

vehemence; on the seventh, Hulaku caused six letters of immunity to be

prepared, in which it was stated that the kadis and the seids, the

sheikhs and imams who had not borne arms should be secure of their

lives and property; these letters were attached to arrows, and shot

into the city on six sides. One of the two secretaries, who despaired

of the safety of the city, and was more anxious for his own, embarked

on the Tigris to seek it in flight; as however, he came abreast

of Kariet-ol-akab, he was stopped by a body of the Mongol troops,

posted there for the purpose of cutting off the communication between

Medain and Basra. Three of his vessels fell a prey to the flaming

naphtha, and he was himself compelled to return. The khalif, who had

already renounced all hope, now sent Fakhreddin Damaghani, and Ibn

Derwish, with presents to Hulaku, and to treat with him concerning the

conditions of peace. These two, however, returning without success, he

despatched, on the following day, his son Abulfase Abdorrahman, with

very considerable presents, and, on the third, his brother Abulfasl

Abubekr, with the noblest and greatest personages in the state. These

embassies were as fruitless as the first, and the vizier, who was sent

into the camp along with Ibn-al-jusi, again brought back the surrender

of Suleimanshah and the secretaries, as the indisputable condition of

the khalif’s free exit.

Suleimanshah, and one of the secretaries, after being assured of

a safe conduct, went to Hulaku, who sent them back to the city,

commanding them to bring with them their families and whole household,

in order that he might send them unobstructedly to Syria and Egypt;

they returned to the camp with a considerable escort of troops, who

seized this opportunity of deserting the city. Different quarters had

just been assigned them, when an Indian struck out the eye of one of

Hulaku’s principal emirs, with an arrow; Hulaku seized this accident as

a pretext for the most sanguinary rage; he commanded the secretary of

state and his suite to be put to death, and the general, Suleimanshah,

and his officers, to be brought, bound, before him: he said to him,

“How comes it, that so great an astrologer as thou could not foresee

the hour of thy death? Wherefore didst thou not counsel thy lord to

enter the path of submission, in order to save thy own life and that of

others?” Suleimanshah replied, that “the khalif’s evil star had made

him deaf to good advice.” After some interrogatories and replies of

this kind, the general and his officers were put to the sword.

Many thousands, who had surrendered into the hands of the conqueror

on the faith of the safe conduct, were murdered, unarmed, after they

had been separated from each other, on pretence of being sent into

different provinces; a cold-blooded and faithless cruelty, which,

however, is not without example, having been repeated both in the

east and in the west. The history of Alexander, of Charlemagne,

Jengiskhan, Timur, and other conquerors, presents us with instances

similar to this atrocity of Hulaku, agreeing also wonderfully with it

in the number of the victims,—from three to four thousand,—as well as

in the circumstances of the promised safe retreat, the division into

detachments, and the dialogue held with the commanders, who, for that

very reason, were the more certain of their lives being spared.

The khalif seeing no farther hope of saving his life except by

surrendering to the conqueror, repaired to the khan’s camp, after a

siege of forty-nine days, on Sunday, the 4th of the month Jafer, in the

656th year of the Hegira; he was attended by his brother and his two

sons, together with a suite of nearly three thousand persons, kadhis,

seids, sheikhs, and imams; only the khalif and the three princes,

his brother and two sons, together with three of the suite (one in

a thousand), in all, seven persons, were admitted to an audience.

Hulaku concealed the perfidy of his designs under the mask of smooth

words, and the most friendly reception. He requested the khalif to

send word into the city that the armed inhabitants should throw away

their weapons, and assemble before the gates, in order that a general

census might be taken. At the order of the khalif the city poured out

its unarmed defenders, who, as well as the person of Mostassem, were

secured. The next day, at sunrise, Hulaku issued commands to fill up

the ditch, demolish the walls, pillage the city, and massacre the

inhabitants. The ditch, according to the expression of the Persian

historian, deep as the deep reflections of wisdom, and the walls as

high as the soaring of a lofty mind, were, in an hour, levelled.

The army of the Mongols, as numerous as ants and locusts, mined the

fortifications like an ant-hill, and then fell upon the city as

destructive as a cloud of the latter; the Tigris was dyed with blood,

and flowed as red as the Nile, when Moses, by a miracle, changed its

waves into blood; or, it was at least as red as the Egyptian river is

to this day, when it is swollen by that annual miracle of nature, its

overflow, and coloured red by the red loam and sand which it washes

down from Abyssinia; affording a natural explanation of the Mosaic

miracle.

The city was a prey to fire and the sword; the minarets and domes of

the mosques glowed, like fiery columns and cupolas; from the roofs of

the mosques and baths, flowed melted gold and lead, setting on fire the

palm and cypress groves which surrounded them. The gilded battlements

of the palaces fell like stars to the earth,—like the demons who

endeavoured to scale the battlements of Heaven. In the mausolea, the

mortal remains of the sheikhs and pious imams, and in the academies,

the immortal works of great and learned men, were consumed to ashes;

books were thrown into the fire, or where that was distant and the

Tigris near, were buried in the waters of the latter. Gold and silver

vessels from the palaces and kitchens of the great, fell, in such

quantities, into the hands of the ignorant Mongols, that they sold

them by weight, like brass or tin. The treasures of Asiatic splendour

and art, accumulated for centuries in the khalif’s city, became the

booty of barbarians. So great a quantity of Persian and Chinese gold

tissues, Arab horses, Egyptian mules, Greek and Abyssinian slaves of

both sexes, coined and uncoined gold, silver, pearls, and precious

stones, was found, that the private soldier became richer than even

the chiefs of the army or the khan himself had ever been before. And

yet the treasures of the khalif’s palace had not been touched, as these

the khan retained for himself.

After four days’ pillage, he went, on the 9th of the month Safir, in

company with the khalif, to the palace of the latter; where he, as

his guest, as he said, desired his host to give him all that he was

able. This Mongol politeness struck the khalif with such terror, that

his whole body trembled, and as he either had not the keys, or could

not find them, he ordered the bolts and locks to be broken open.

Two thousand costly garments, ten thousand ducats, and many jewels,

were brought out; which the khan, without deigning them a glance,

distributed among his suite, and then turned to the khalif, with the

words: “Thy public treasures belong to my servants; now produce thy

concealed ones.” Mostassem pointed to a spot, on excavating which were

found the two basins of treasure, so celebrated in the history of

the khalifat, each filled with bars of gold, weighing each a hundred

miscals. Nassir-ledinillah’s wise economy had commenced filling these

two vessels; Mostanssur’s prodigality emptied them; and Mostassem’s

avarice again replenished them.

An anecdote is told, in the history of the last reigns of the khalifs,

that Mostanssur, when he paid his first visit to this treasure, prayed

aloud: “Lord, my God! grant me the favour to be enabled to empty both

these vessels during my reign!” The treasurer smiled, and being asked

his reason, he said: “When thy grandfather visited this treasure, he

besought heaven to reign only until he had filled these two basins;

while thou desirest precisely the reverse.” Mostanssur applied this

gold in the foundation of useful institutions, which immortalize his

name; particularly in the erection of the celebrated academy, which was

named after him, Mostansarie, and also Omm-ol-Medaris, that is, the

Mother of Academies. Mostassem, on the other hand, hoarded gold from

avarice; whereas, a politic application of his riches, in the pay of

troops and tribute, might have saved his throne from ruin.

Hulaku’s cruelty to Mostassem, realized the Grecian fable of the wishes

of King Midas. He commanded plates filled with gold to be placed before

him, instead of food; and on the khalif’s observing that gold was not

food, the Mongol told him, by an interpreter: “For that very reason

that it is not food, wherefore hast thou not rather given it to thine

army to defend thee, or distributed it amongst mine to satisfy me?”

Too late, Mostassem repented the consequences of his avarice, and

after spending a sleepless night, tormented with the pangs of hunger

and conscience, he prayed, in the morning, in the words of the Koran:

“O Lord, my God! possessor of all power; thou givest it to whom thou

wilt, and takest from whom thou wilt; thou raisest up and pullest down

whomsoever thou pleasest; in thy hands is all goodness, and thou art

mighty over all things!”

The khan now held a council of his ministers, to deliberate concerning

the fate of the khalif; and it being their unanimous opinion, that

prolonging his existence would only be preserving the bloody seeds of

war and insurrection, and that only with his life could the dominion

of the khalifat be terminated, his death was determined. But as Hulaku

himself deemed it improper that the khalif should suffer as an ordinary

criminal, and the blood of the prophet’s successor be shed by the

sword, Mostassem was wrapped in a thick cloth, and beaten to death.

So great was the religious veneration for the sacred person of the

khalif, and thus did eastern etiquette extend even to the execution of

kings. From similar motives of reverence, the Ottoman sultans, when a

revolt costs them their lives, are not strangled, but are put to death

by compression of the genitals:—a singular and elaborate trait of

executioner tenderness!

As the pillage and sack of Bagdad had commenced four days before

the khalif’s death, so it continued forty days afterwards; till

the barbarians dropped their swords from fatigue, and fuel was

wanting for the flames. If we abstract the usual horrors of insulted

humanity, which have been repeated in every sacked city, and only in

Bagdad were carried to the highest pitch of enormity, we shall not

blame the Mongols so much in their conquest of that city, for the

conflagration of the mosques, and the desecration of the mausolea,

for the destruction of the immense treasures, and the melting of the

gold and silver vessels, nor even for the demolition of the bulwarks

of holiness, and the overthrow of the khalif throne, as for the

annihilation of the libraries, and the loss of many hundred thousand

volumes, which fell a prey to the flames.

They consisted of the treasures of Arabic literature, the accumulation

of nearly five hundred years; together with the relics of the Persian,

which had probably been saved from the destruction of Medain. As the

second khalif had commanded his general, in Egypt, to consume the

Alexandrian library, so he also caused that of Medain, the residence of

Khosroes, to be thrown into the Tigris; and Omar, whom some European

historians have in vain endeavoured to exculpate from this high treason

against literature, is loaded with the double guilt of the double _auto

da fe_ of the Greek and the Persian library, by fire and water. As the

Arabs destroyed these libraries, five centuries before, in two years;

so did the Mongols, in the same space, annihilate the Arabian libraries

of Alamut and Bagdad. To this double conflagration must be added, that

of the great libraries of Tripoli, Nishabur, and Cairo, in the same

century. Thus the conjunction of the seven planets in the same sign of

the zodiac, which indicated, according to some astrologers, a universal

deluge, and according to others, a universal conflagration, might be

justly understood to signify the inundation of the Mongols, and the

burning of the libraries.

A most melancholy observation is suggested by the destruction of the

libraries of Alamut and Bagdad; it is, that the fall of both was

caused by the guilt of learned men: the former, by the perfidy of

the astronomer, Nassireddin; the latter, by the treachery of the _bel

esprit_, Ibn Alkami; both being sacrificed to their revenge. The fate

of these two learned statesmen, distinguished alike by their great

talents and evil hearts, who caused the overthrow of the Assassins and

the khalifat, falls now to be mentioned. A few words will suffice.

After the conquest of Bagdad, Nassireddin built the celebrated

observatory of Meragha; by which, as well as his astronomical tables,

both his name and that of Hulaku are immortalized in the history of

astronomy. Thus that science derived, at least, some advantage from

the many evils in which astrology had been its handmaid. Ibn Alkami,

the man of letters, and vizier, instead of the reward he expected,

reaped that of a traitor. As such, treated by the Mongols with the

most profound contempt, he died, in a few days, a prey to remorse and

despair. The inhabitants of Bagdad wrote on every wall, over the gates

of the caravanserais and schools, in large letters cut in marble: “The

curse of God on him who curses not Ibn Alkami!” One of the traitor’s

partisans, a Shiite, having expunged the “not” from one of these

inscriptions, was punished with seventy blows of the bastinado. The

name of Ibn Alkami is intimately interwoven with that of Nassireddin,

in the history of the fall of the Assassins, and the khalifat. Asia

long trembled from the shock of the violent fall of the empire of the

dagger, and the prophet’s staff.

The conquest of Bagdad has almost diverted us from our proper object,

not merely by the intrinsic importance of the subject, but also on

account of its intimate connexion with the end of the Assassins, whose

overthrow prepared that of the khalifat.

After their castles in Rudbar and Kuhistan had been razed to the

ground, and numbers of them massacred and scattered, they still

maintained their stand, for fourteen years, in the mountains of Syria,

against the armies of the Mongols, the Franks, and the Egyptian sultan,

Bibars, one of the greatest princes of the Circassian Mamelukes of

Egypt. This prince, who zealously sought for supreme power, was not

inclined to share it any longer with the remains of the Assassin

order, which had been chased from the mountains of Persia. During his

reign, Frank and Arab vessels put into the Egyptian ports,[277] with

embassies; which the Christian and Arabic princes, such as the German

emperor, Alphonso of Arragon, the commander of Yemen, and others,

sent with rich presents to the Syrian Ismailites. Bibars, in order

to show that he was far above all fear of the order, levied on all

these presents the usual customs; and sent to the superior in Syria, a

letter, full of threats and reproaches. Terrified and humbled by their

misfortunes in Persia, they answered submissively, and with the request

that the sultan would not forget them in his peace with the Franks, but

include them in his treaty, in token of his protection of them as his

slaves; and, in fact, Bibars, who, in this year, concluded a peace with

the knights-hospitallers, made the abolition of the tribute paid by the

Ismailites, one of the conditions of the treaty. The following year,

he received an embassy of the Ismailites, who sent him a sum of money,

with the words: “That the money which they had hitherto paid to the

Franks, should, in future, flow into the treasury of the sultan; and

serve for the pay of the defenders of the true faith”.[278]

Three years afterwards,[279] when Sultan Bibars was marching against

the Franks, in Syria, the commanders of the different towns appeared

to do him homage. Nejmeddin, the grand-master of the Assassins,

however, instead of following this example, requested a diminution of

the tribute, which the order now paid to the sultan instead of the

Franks. Saremeddin Mobarek, the commandant of the Ismailite fortress,

Alika, had formerly drawn upon himself the anger of the sultan; but

having received pardon on the intercession of the governor of Sihinn,

or, according to others, of Hama, he appeared with a numerous suite,

in Bibar’s presence, who received him into favour and loaded him with

honours. He granted him the supreme command of all the castles of the

Ismailites in Syria, which were no longer to be governed by Nejmeddin,

but by Saremeddin, in the name of the sultan of Egypt. Massiat, as the

property of the sultan, was subjected to the command of Emir Aseddin.

In conformity with his orders, Saremeddin appeared before the walls of

this fortress; of which he possessed himself, partly by stratagem, and

partly by the massacre of a number of the inhabitants. Nejmeddin, the

late grand-master of the order, an old man of seventy years of age, and

his son, implored the sultan’s clemency. He had compassion on them; and

granted the former the restoration of his authority, in conjunction

with Saremeddin, in consideration of an annual tribute of a hundred and

twenty thousand drachmas. A contribution of two thousand gold pieces,

was required of Saremeddin; and Nejmeddin left his son in the sultan’s

court, as a pledge of his obedience and fidelity.[280]

In the meanwhile, Saremeddin having taken possession of Massiat,

drove out Aseddin, the governor named by the sultan; but not being

able to maintain the place against the approaching forces of the

sultan, he threw himself into the castle of Alika. Aseddin returned

from Damascus, whither he had taken refuge, again to Massiat, to the

command of which he was restored by the sultan’s troops, who left him

a garrison and body guard. Malik Manssur, Prince of Hama, who had been

charged by Bibars with the restoration of the emir, and the deposition

of Saremeddin, took the latter prisoner, and brought him before the

sultan, who threw him into a dungeon. The castle of Alika surrendered

to the sultan’s army on the 9th of Shewal.

Nejmeddin, the former grand-prior, again held the command of the

Ismailite castles in Syria,[281] in the name of the sultan, by whom

Shemseddin was retained at court, as the pledge of his father’s

fidelity. On a suspicion being raised against him, he came in person

to court, and offered, with his son, Shemseddin, to deliver up all the

castles, and to live in future in Egypt; his offer was accepted, and

Shemseddin departed for Kehef, to induce the inhabitants to surrender

within twenty days. Not appearing, however, at the end of this term,

the sultan admonished him, by letter, to fulfill his promise; and

Shemseddin desired that the castle of Kolaia should be left in his

possession, in exchange for which he engaged to yield all the rest. The

sultan acceded to his request; and sent Aalemeddin Sanjar, the judge

of Hama, for the purpose of receiving from Shemseddin, the oath of

allegiance, and the keys of Kehef; the inhabitants, however, secretly

instigated by the latter, refused to admit the envoy.

A second embassy having no better effect, Bibars gave orders for the

castle to be besieged. On this, Shemseddin left Kehef, and repaired to

the sultan, who was encamped before Hama, and was honourably received;

receiving, however, intelligence in a letter, that the inhabitants

of Kehef had sent Assassins into the camp, in order to murder his

principal emirs, Bibars caused Shemseddin and all his suite to be

arrested, and carried into Egypt. At the same time, two officers of the

order, who had persuaded their friends in the castle of Khawabi, to

surrender to the sultan, were seized at Sarmin. This castle surrendered

to negotiation, that of Kolaia to force; and, in the following

year, those of Menifa and Kadmus fell into the sultan’s hands. The

inhabitants of Kehef wished to oppose a longer resistance; but being

closely blockaded, and cut off from all relief, they at length sent

Bibars the keys of the town; and the Emir Jemaleddin Akonsa made his

entry on the 22d of Silvide.

From this moment, Bibars was master of all the forts and castles which

had been in the possession of the Ismailites; and he ruined their power

in Syria, as Hulaku had done in Persia. Next to Massiat, the residence

of the grand-master, Shiun, a strong place on a rock, abundantly

supplied with water,[282] and at a short day’s journey from Latakia,

had been lately particularly distinguished, by the valiant exploits

of its commandant, Hamsa, one of the greatest heroes among the Syrian

Ismailites. This Hamsa must not be confounded with Hamsa, the companion

of the prophet, and one of the bravest heroes of Mohammedanism; nor

with Hamsa, the founder of the religion of the Druses. The numerous

battles and enterprises of the Assassins, their valorous defence

against the armies of the Crusaders, and the Egyptian sultan, Bibars,

and the adventurous character of their whole history, offered a fertile

source to the Syrian romance writers and story-tellers; a source of

which they did not fail to avail themselves.

This was the origin of the Hamsaname, or Hamsiads,[283] a kind of

chivalrous romance, modelled after the style of the Antar, Dulhemmet,

Benihilal, and other Egyptian works. After the conquest of Syria, by

the Ottomans, the tales of the feats and adventures of Hamsa passed

from the mouths of the Arabian story-tellers and coffee-house orators,

to those of the Turks; and Hamsa, together with Sid Battal (Cid y

Campeador) the proper Cid of the orientals, an Arabian hero, who fell

in battle against the Greeks, at the siege of Constantinople, by Harun

al Rashid,[284] afforded the richest materials for Turkish romances,

which are exclusively occupied by the feats of Hamsa and Sid Battal.

The tomb of the Sid in the Anatolian Sanjak Sultanoghi is, to this

day, a much frequented resort of pilgrimages, enriched by the Sultan

Suleiman, the legislator, with the endowment of a mosque, a convent,

and an academy.[285]

The conquest of Massiat was succeeded by that of Alika, and, at length,

two years after, by that of Kahaf, Mainoka Kadmus, and of the other

castles on the Antilebanon; and thus the power of the Ismailites was

overthrown, both in Syria and Persia. One of their last attempts at

assassination is said to have been directed against the person of St.

Louis, King of France, but the falsity of this supposition has already

been demonstrated, by French writers.[286]

The power of the Ismailites had now terminated, both in Persia and

Syria; the citadels of the grand-master, in Rudbar, and of the

grand-priors, in Kuhistan and Syria, had fallen; the bands of the

Assassins were massacred and scattered; their doctrine was publicly

condemned, yet, nevertheless, continued to be secretly taught, and the

order of the Assassins, like that of the Jesuits, endured long after

its suppression. In Kuhistan, in particular, remains of them still

existed; that being a region which, on account of its very mountainous

character, was more impracticable than the surrounding countries, and,

being less accessible to the persecutors of the order, it afforded the

partisans of the latter a more secure asylum.

Seventy years after the taking of Alamut and Bagdad, in the reign of

Hulaku’s eighth successor, Abu Said Behadir Khan, the great protector

of the sciences, to whom Wassaf dedicated his history, the whole of

Kuhistan was devoted to the pernicious sect of the Ismailites, and the

doctrine of Islamism had not yet been able to enter the hearts of the

natives, hard as their mountain rocks. Abusaid determined, in concert

with the lieutenant of the province, Shah Ali Sejestani, to send an

apostolic mission, for the conversion of these miscreants and infidels.

At the head of the society of missionaries, which was composed of

zealous divines, was the Sheikh Amadeddin, surnamed of Bokhara,

one of the most esteemed jurisconsults, who, on the destruction of

that city, had fled to Kuhistan. His grandson, Jelali, in his work,

“Nassaih-ol-Moluk” (_Counsels for Kings_), dedicated to the Sultan

Shahrokh, the son of Timur, relates the history of this mission from

the mouth of his father, who had accompanied his grandfather to

Kuhistan.[287]

Amadeddin, with his two sons, Hossameddin and Nejmeddin, the father

of Jelali, and four other Ulemas, in all seven persons, went to Kain,

the chief seat of the Ismailites; where, since the illuminative period

of Hassan II., the mosques had fallen down, the pious institutions

decayed—where the word of the Koran was no longer heard from the

pulpit, nor the call to prayers sounded from the minaret. As prayer,

five times a day, is the first of the duties of Islamism, and the call

to it proclaims aloud the creed of the faithful, Amadeddin resolved

to commence his mission with it. He went, therefore, with his six

companions armed, to the terrace of the castle of Kain, from whence,

they began, at the same instant, to cry out on all sides: “Say God

is great! there is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet. To

prayers! Up! to do good!” This summons, to which the unbelieving

inhabitants had long been unaccustomed, instead of collecting them

in the mosque, excited them to a tumult against the summoners; and,

although the latter had taken the precaution to be armed, they did not

deem it expedient to purchase the crown of martyrdom with their lives,

by defending themselves, but took refuge in a drain, where they hid.

As soon as the people were dispersed, they again mounted the terrace,

and repeated the call to prayers, and the retreat to the drain. In this

manner, their obstinate zeal, supported by the power of the governor,

succeeded in accustoming the ears of the infidels to the formula of

the summons to prayer, and then to that of prayer itself; and sowed

the good seed of the true doctrine of Islamism on the waste field of

infidelity and atheism.[288]

While the political wisdom of Abusaid was endeavouring to extirpate

the Ismailite doctrine in Persia, its ashes still smouldered in

Syria; and, from time to time, threw out destructive flames, which

were extinguished in the blood of the slaughtered victims. As it

had originated in Egypt, and had but served as an instrument of the

ambitious designs of the Fatimites; so the Circassian sultans of that

country availed themselves of the last fruits of the wide-spread tree

of murderous policy, in order to execute their revenge, and to try the

dagger on those enemies who resisted the sword. A memorable instance of

such an attempt, is afforded us in the history of the Emir Kara Sonkor,

who had deserted the court of the Egyptian sultans, and had entered

into the service of the khan of the Mongols.

Two years after[289] Abusaid had sent the before-mentioned learned

Jelali to Kuhistan, the Egyptian sultan, Mohammed, the son of Bibars,

sent no less than thirty Assassins from Massiat to Persia, to sacrifice

the Emir Kara Sonkor to his vengeance. They arrived at Tebris, and the

first having been cut to pieces in his murderous attempt, the report

was soon spread that Assassins were come to murder the Khan Abusaid,

the Emir Juban, the Vizier Ali Shah, and all the Mongol nobles. A

second attempt on the life of Kara Sonkor cost, like the former one,

that of the murderer. A similar attack had been made on the governor of

Bagdad, and Abusaid, the great khan, prudently shut himself up in his

tent for eleven days. Nevertheless, the Egyptian sultan, Mohammed, did

not give up his vengeful attempt on the life of Kara Sonkor. He sent a

merchant, named Yunis, to Tebris, with a large sum of money, to hire

new Assassins. Yunis sent for them from Massiat, and concealed them

in his house. One day, as the Emir Juban was riding in company with

the Emirs Kara Sonkor and Afrem, two Assassins watched a favourable

opportunity to murder the two latter. The first assailant, who was too

hasty in his attack on the Emir Afrem, only tore his clothes with his

dagger, instead of wounding his breast, and being cut down on the

spot, the second did not think it advisable to approach Kara Sonkor.

Inquiries were immediately set on foot into the Funduks (_Fondaeki_)

of Tebris, for the purpose of discovering the haunts of the Assassins;

the merchant, Yunis, was arrested, but his life was preserved by the

interest of the vizier. The Emirs Afrem and Kara Sonkor took all

necessary precautions for the preservation of their own. A servant of

the latter, a native of Massiat, searched the whole city of Tebris, to

find out the Assassin who was to have poniarded his lord; and found

him, at last, in the person of his own brother. The emir, in order to

gain him over, gave him a hundred pieces of gold, and a monthly salary

of three hundred dirhems, together with other presents; for which, he

was induced to betray his accomplices. One of them escaped; another

stabbed himself; a third expired under the torture, without confessing

anything.

In the meanwhile, the Assassins at Bagdad executed their commission

better than those at Tebris. One of them threw himself on the governor,

as he was going out to ride, and plunged his dagger into his breast,

saying: “In the name of Melek Nassir;” and escaped so quickly to

Massiat, that he could not be overtaken. From that place, he sent

information of the accomplishment of the murder of the governor, to

Sultan Mohammed.[290] The two emirs redoubled their vigilance; and, by

means of the Ismailite in Kara Sonkor’s pay, discovered four others,

who were immediately put to death. Nejmeddin Selami, who had been sent

as ambassador, from Mohammed to the Khan Abusaid, insinuated himself

into a confidential intercourse with the Emir Juban, and the vizier. He

informed his master of the execution of the four Assassins; in whose

place four others were immediately sent; three of them being arrested

and discovered, expired under the pangs of the torture; fortunately for

Selami, the fourth escaped, who was the bearer of the sultan’s letter

to his plenipotentiary at Massiat, whence he apprised the sultan of the

ill success of his mission.

Selami continued his negotiations with the Emir Juban and the

vizier, so happily, that they concluded a peace with the sultan, on

condition that he should send no more Assassins into their country.

Notwithstanding this, the Emir Kara Sonkor was attacked anew, while he

was hunting, by a murderer, who only, however, wounded his horse in the

thigh, and was immediately killed by the guard. Even in the suite of

the Emir Itmash, who came on his second embassy to Abusaid’s court, two

Assassins were detected; one of whom immediately stabbed himself, and

the other, after refusing to confess, was put to death in chains. Juban

loaded Itmash with reproaches, saying that, by sending these murderers,

the sultan scoffed at the treaty; and the ambassador assured him, in

return, that if they really were Assassins, they must have arrived at

Tebris, before it was signed. After Itmash and Selami had returned to

the sultan, their master, in Cairo, the latter wrote once more to the

Massiat Ismailites, reproaching them for not fulfilling their contract.

They sent him for answer, one of their best Fedavis, a great eater, who

devoured a calf, and drank forty measures of wine a-day. After being

kept some time, at Keremeddin’s house, in Cairo, he went to the court

of the great Khan Abusaid, in the suite of Selami, who was sent as

ambassador, with presents.

At the feast of Bairam, when the emirs were attending the khan, Selami

ordered the Assassin to watch the moment when Kara Sonkor should leave

the palace, from the banquet: “The first,” said he, “who comes out,

is the destined victim.” By accident, the vizier called the Emir Kara

Sonkor back, just as he was on the point of quitting the palace; and

the governor of Rum, who was dressed in red, like him, fell beneath

the blows of the murderer, who jumped from a roof on to the governor’s

horse, and stabbed him. Being taken, he died under the most horrible

tortures, without confessing a word. Murderer succeeded murderer, in

attempting to satisfy the sultan’s desire of revenge; but, fortunately,

Kara Sonkor escaped them all. If we may credit the testimony of

Macrisi, no less than one hundred and twenty-four Assassins lost their

lives in attempting that of Kara Sonkor; so little is the life of man

in the power of his species, and so incapable are the tools of murder

of cutting the thread of those days, which the Almighty has numbered.

Three generations after Abusaid’s mission, when the whole of Kuhistan

had returned, at least in appearance, within the pale of the true

faith, the Sultan Shahrokh, the son of Timur, sent Jelali, of Kain,

who usually lived in Herat, and was thence called Al Herat, and Al

Kaini, for the purpose of ascertaining the state of belief in that

province. Jelali felt himself the more called upon to engage in

this inquisitorial affair, as his grandfather had presided over the

apostolic mission, and because the prophet had appeared to him in a

dream, and put a broom in his hand, with which he was to sweep the

country. He interpreted this vision as a celestial call, by which he

was appointed to the high office of cleansing away all the impurities

of unbelief; and he entered upon it with a conscientious zeal, and a

spirit of more than Islamitic toleration. His before-mentioned work,

“The Counsels for Kings,” contains the results of the report of his

inquiry given to Sultan Shahrokh, and likewise, some information

respecting the secret policy of the still unconverted Ismailites, taken

from Jowaini’s “History of Jehan Kusha (_the Conqueror of Worlds_).”

Within the space of eighteen months, Jelali travelled through the

whole of Kuhistan; and every where found that the Ulemas, or teachers

of the law, were true orthodox Sunnites. The seids, the descendants

of the prophet, passed for such; and, still more, the dervishes, who

represented themselves to be sofis, or mystics. The emirs of Tabs and

Shirkuh were good Sunnites; but the commanders of the other castles,

and even the servants of the government (_Beg-jian_), were to be

suspected. For the rest, the peasants, merchants, mechanics, were all

good Moslimin.

Notwithstanding the people were entirely devoted to the true doctrine

of Islamism, still it appears that the order preserved its existence in

secret, long after the loss of temporal power, in the hope of, sometime

or other, recovering it, under more favourable circumstances. The

Ismailites, indeed, no longer ventured to unsheath the dagger against

their foes; but the chief aim of their policy, to acquire influence

in affairs of state, remained; they, in particular, sought to make

proselytes of the members of the divan; in order, by this means, to

secure the majority of voices in their favour, and to stifle in their

birth, all complaints and denunciations of their secret doctrine. For

this reason, the author of “Jehan Kusha, (_Conqueror of the World_),”

as well as the writer of the “Siasset-ol-Moluk” (_Art of Governing;

or, Discipline of Kings_), warns princes to place in the divan none

of the officers of Kuhistan, who were more or less to be suspected,

on account of their principles. When intrusted with the management of

the finances, they were, indeed, never in arrear with their contracts;

so that the public treasury had never any claims against them; they,

however, ruined the villages which they farmed, and sent the surplus of

the taxes to their secret superiors, who still preserved an existence

at Alamut, the centre of the ancient splendour of the order. Thither

also flowed a portion of the revenues of pious institutions, the

produce of which was destined for the support of mosques and schools,

servants of religion, and teachers. Similar well-intentioned warnings

have, in our own times, been frequently given to princes: the attentive

ear of government is always the most powerful obstacle to the rise of

secret orders and societies to power.

Remains of the Ismailites still exist both in Persia and Syria,[291]

but merely as one of the many sects and heresies of Islamism, without

any claims to power, without the means of obtaining their former

importance, of which they seem, in fact, to have lost all remembrance.

The policy of the secret state-subverting doctrine of the first lodge

of the Ismailites, and the murderous tactics of the Assassins, are

equally foreign to them. Their writings are a shapeless mixture of

Ismailite and Christian traditions, glossed over with the ravings of

the mystic theology. Their places of abode are, both in Persia and

Syria, those of their forefathers, in the mountains of Irak, and at the

foot of Antilebanon.[292]

The Persian Ismailites recognise, as their chief, an imam, whose

descent they deduce from Ismael the son of Jafer-Essadik, and who

resides at Khekh, a village in the district of Kum, under the

protection of the shah. As, according to their doctrine, the imam is

an incarnate emanation of the Deity, the imam of Khekh enjoys, to this

day, the reputation of miraculous powers; and the Ismailites, some

of whom are dispersed as far as India, go in pilgrimage, from the

banks of the Ganges and the Indus, in order to share his benediction.

The castles in the district of Rudbar, in the mountains of Kuhistan,

particularly in the vicinity of Alamut, are still inhabited, to this

day, by Ismailites, who, according to a late traveller, go by the

general name of Hosseinis.[293]

The Syrian Ismailites live in eighteen villages, dispersed round their

ancient chief place, Massiat, and are under the rule of a sheikh or

emir, who is the nominee of the governor of Hamah. Being clothed in a

pelisse of honour, he engages to pay to Hamah an annual sum of sixteen

thousand five hundred piastres; his vassals are divided into two

parties, the Suweidani and Khisrewi: the former so named after one of

their former sheikhs; the latter, for their extraordinary veneration

of the prophet Khiser (Elias), the guardian of the spring of life:

the former, who are by far the smaller number, live principally at

Feudara, one of the eighteen places under the jurisdiction of Massiat;

three miles east of that fortress lies a strong castle, whose name,

pronounced Kalamus, is probably the same with the Kadmos of Arabian

historians and geographers; from thence, the chain of mountains, after

several windings, descends to the sea, near Tripoli.

In 1809, the Nossairis, the neighbours and enemies of the Ismailites,

possessed themselves, by treachery, of their chief fortress, Massiat;

the inhabitants were pillaged and murdered; the booty amounted to

more than a million piastres in value. The governor of Hamah did not

suffer this rash enterprise of the Nossairis to go unpunished; he

besieged Massiat, and compelled them to resign the fortress to its

ancient possessors; the latter, however, sunk into complete political

insignificance. Externally they practise the duties of Islamism with

austerity, although they internally renounce them: they believe in the

divinity of Ali; in uncreated light as the principle of all created

things; and in the Sheikh Rashideddin, the grand-prior of the order

in Syria, contemporary with the grand-master, Hassan II., as the last

representative of the Deity on earth.

We shall mention here, in passing, as they are neighbours of the

Ismailites, the Nossairis, the Motewellis, and the Druses, three sects

anathematized by the Moslems, on account of their infidelity and

lawlessness. Their doctrine agrees, in many points, with that of the

Ismailites; their founders having been animated with the same spirit of

extravagant fanaticism,—of unprincipled licentiousness. The Nossairis

and Druses are both older in their origin than the eastern Ismailites;

the former having appeared in Syria, as a branch of the Karmathites,

as early as the fifth century of the Hegira; the latter received their

laws from Hamsa, a missionary of Hakem-biemrillah’s from the lodge of

Cairo. The former believe, like the Ismailites, in the incarnation

of the divinity in Ali; the latter consider that maddest of tyrants,

Hakem-biemrillah, as a god in the flesh. Both abjure all the rules of

Islamism, or only observe them in appearance; both hold secret and

nocturnal assemblies stigmatized by the Moslimin, where they give

themselves up to the enjoyment of wine and promiscuous intercourse.

The origin and doctrine of the Motewelli is less known than that of

the Nossairis and Druses. Their name is corrupted from Motewilin,

the _interpreters_; and therefore, probably, indicates a sect of the

Ismailites, who taught the _Tenvil_, or allegorical interpretation of

the commands of Islamism, in opposition to the _Tensil_, or positive

letter of the word, not from God, the sense of which is a command to

the true believer.[294]

The reproach of immorality, which these sects share in common, is

certainly much more applicable to the Motewellis than to their

neighbours. For the inhabitants of the village of Martaban, on the road

from Latakia to Aleppo, who offer travellers the enjoyment of their

wives and daughters, and who consider their refusal as an affront, are

Motewellis.[295]

In still worse report than the Ismailites, Motewellis, Nossairis and

Druses, are some tribes of Syrian and Assyrian kurds, who are called

Yezidis, because they hold in peculiar veneration Yezid, the khalif

of the Ommia family, who persecuted, sanguinarily, the family of the

prophet, and likewise the devil, neither of whom they curse like other

Moslimin. Their sheikh is called Karabash, that is, Blackhead, because

he covers his head with a black scarf. The name of their founder is

Sheikh Hadi, who, according to opinion, prayed, fasted, and gave alms

for all his future disciples; so that they believe themselves exempted

from these duties of Mohammedanism, and that, in consideration of his

merits, they will go to heaven without appearing before the tribunal of

God.[296]

All these still existing sects are designated by the Moslimin,

generally, Sindike (_free-thinkers_), Mulhad (_impious_), and Batheni

(_esoterics_), and, on account of their nocturnal assemblies, sometimes

the one, sometimes the other, receive from the Turks the name of

_Mumsoindiren_, or the _extinguishers_; because, according to the

accusations of their religious adversaries, they extinguish the lights,

for the purpose of indulging in promiscuous intercourse, without regard

to kindred or sex.

Similar charges have been, at all times, raised against secret

societies, whenever they concealed their mysteries under the veil of

night; sometimes groundlessly, as against the assemblies of the early

Christians, of whose innocence Pliny affords a testimony; sometimes but

too well founded, as against the mysteries of Isis, and, still earlier,

against the Bacchanalia of Rome. As the latter was the first secret

society mentioned in Roman history, as dangerous to the state, and

which assumed religion as a cloak to every enormity, the similarity of

the subject, renders the mentioning them not out of place here.

As, in the sixth century, after the flight of the prophet, and the

establishment of Islamism, the pest of the Ismailites threatened, under

the appearance of religion, to undermine and overthrow the edifice,

so, also, in the sixth century, after the foundation of Rome and the

republic, the pest of the Bacchanalians, menaced the ruin of the city

and the state, under the mask of religion.[297]

“A Greek, of mean extraction,” says Livy, “came first into Etruria,

skilled in none of the arts which that most learned of all nations has

devoted to the culture of the mind and the body, but a sacrificer and

soothsayer; not that he spread his doctrine by public teaching, or

filling the mind with a sacred horror, but, as the president of secret

and nocturnal sacrifices. At first, but few were initiated; afterwards,

however, the people, both men and women, were admitted. In order to

attract the mind the more, wine and banquets were added to religious

sacrifices. When the intoxication of the wine, night, the mixture of

the sexes, and of youth and age, had extinguished every shadow of

shame, vice and corruption of all kinds burst forth, every one having

at hand the means of gratifying his desires. There was not merely one

species of vice and the mere promiscuous intercourse of noble youths

and maidens; but also from this source proceeded false witnesses, false

documents, false informations, and accusations, poisoning, and secret

murder,—so secret, indeed, that even the bodies of the dead were not

found for sepulchre. Much was attempted by stratagem, but most by

violence. Violence remained concealed, because, in the midst of the

yells, and noise of cymbals and drums, the cries of the violated and

the murdered could not be heard.”

The consul, Posthumus, had no sooner given intelligence to the senate

of the discovery of the existence and object of this secret society,

than the latter adopted the most powerful measures, for the safety

of the state and the commonweal, and proceeded against the members

of the Bacchanalia, as criminals against the state, with the utmost

rigour. The speech of the consul to the people, advised them to watch

over the peril which threatened the state, from the conspiracy of vice

with religion. “I am not sure (said he) that some of you may not have

fallen into error; for nothing has a more deceptive appearance than

corrupted religion. When the Deity is made a cloak for iniquity, the

mind is seized with terror, lest, in the punishment of human imposture,

some divine law may be transgressed.” This unveiling of crime, from

which the mask of religion had been torn, and the rigour with which the

Bacchanalians were persecuted, not only in Rome, but also throughout

Italy, with the sword and exile, stifled, in its birth, the monster

whose increasing strength menaced the state with ruin. Had the princes

of the east acted in the same spirit towards the first secret societies

and the emissaries of the lodge of Cairo, as the senate and consuls had

done, the sect of the Ismailites would never have attained political

influence, nor would the blood-dropping branch of Assassins have

sprouted from that poisonous stem.

Unfortunately, as we have seen in the course of this history, several

princes were themselves devoted to the secret doctrine of infidelity

and immorality, and others were deficient in strength to restrain its

progress with effect. Thus, through the blindness of princes and the

weakness of governments—through the credulity of nations, and the

criminal presumption of an ambitious adventurer, like Hassan Sabah, the

monstrous existence of secret societies and an _imperium in imperio_,

attained so frightful an extent and power, that the murderer seated

himself openly upon the throne, and the unbounded dominion of the

dagger in the hands of the Assassins was an object of terror to princes

and rulers, and insulted mankind in a manner unexampled and unique

in history. We have, more than once, briefly pointed out the analogy

which the constitution of the order of the Assassins presents with

contemporary or more modern orders; but, although so many points of

similarity are found, which can neither be accidental nor yet spring

from the same cause, but which, probably, through the medium of the

Crusades, passed from the spirit of the east into that of the west,

they are still insufficient to make a perfect companion to the order of

the Assassins, which, thank Heaven, has hitherto been without parallel.

The Templars, incontrovertibly, stand in the next rank to them; their

secret maxims, particularly in so far as relates to the renunciation of

positive religion, and the extension of their power by the acquisition

of castles and strong places, seem to have been the same as those of

the order of the Assassins. The accordance, likewise, of the white

dress and red fillets of the Assassins, with the white mantle and red

cross of the Templars, is certainly remarkably striking.

As the Templars, in many respects, trod in the footsteps of the

Assassins, so also did the Jesuits, whose exertions for the

aggrandisement of their order, and its preservation, if not by

political power, at least by secret connexions and influence, agree

entirely with the similar policy of the Assassins after the fall of

Alamut. The Assassins were, themselves, as we have seen, a branch of

the Ismailites, the proper Illuminati of the east. The institution

of their lodge at Cairo; the various grades of initiation; the

appellations of master, companions, and novices; the public and the

secret doctrine; the oath of unconditional obedience to unknown

superiors, to serve the ends of the order; all agree completely with

what we have heard and read, in our own days, concerning secret

revolutionary societies; and they coincide not less in the form or

their constitution, than in the common object of declaring all kings

and priests superfluous.

The ostensible object of this institution was in itself sufficiently

laudable, and the exoteric doctrine had merely for its object the

extension of knowledge, and the mutual support of the members. The

house of science, at Cairo, or the public school of the lodge, was the

temple of the sciences, and the model of all academies; the greater

number of the members were certainly deceived into good faith by the

fair exterior of a beneficent, philanthropical, knowledge-spreading

form; they were a kind of Freemasons, whose native country, as we have

seen, may really be sought and found in Egypt, if not in the most

ancient times, at least in the history of the middle ages. As in the

west, revolutionary societies arose from the bosom of the Freemasons,

so in the east, did the Assassins spring from the Ismailites.

Traces of retribution immediately executed, which fulfilled the

sentence of the order as infallibly as though it were the arm of fate

itself, are, perhaps, likewise to be found in the proceedings of the

Vehme, or secret tribunal, although its existence only commenced

two hundred years after the extermination of the order of murderers

in Asia.[298] The insanity of the enlighteners, who thought that by

mere preaching, they could emancipate nations from the protecting

care of princes, and the leading-strings of practical religion,

has shown itself in the most terrible manner by the effects of the

French revolution, as it did in Asia, in the reign of Hassan II; and

as, at that period, the doctrine of assassination and treason openly

proceeded from Alamut, so did the doctrine of regicide produce from the

French National Convention, in Jean de Brie, a legion of regicides.

The members of the Convention who sat with Robespierre on the side of

the mountain, and who decreed the king’s execution, would have been

satellites worthy of the Old Man of the Mountain. Like the initiated to

murder, they almost all died a violent death.

The dominion of the Assassins sank under the iron tramp of Hulaku;

their fall drew after it that of the ancient throne of the khalif, and

of other dynasties; thousands bled under the conquering sword of the

Mongols, who went forth as the scourge of Heaven—like Attila and Jengis

Khan, to steel with blood the deadened nerves of nations. After him,

the remains of the hydra of Assassination quivered in the remnant of

the sect of the Ismailites, but powerless and venomless; held down by

the preponderance of the government in Persia and Syria; politically

harmless, somewhat like the juggling of the Templars of the present

day, and other secret societies watched by the vigilant eye of the

police in France.

In writing this history, we have set two things before us as our

object, to have attained which is less our hope than our wish. In the

first place, to present a lively picture of the pernicious influence of

secret societies in weak governments, and of the dreadful prostitution

of religion to the horrors of unbridled ambition. Secondly, to give a

view of the important, rare, and unused historical treasures, which

are contained in the rich magazine of oriental literature. We have but

seized the prey which the lions of history have abandoned: for Müller,

in his twenty-four books of history, has not mentioned the Assassins at

all; and Gibbon, who, according to his own avowal, let no opportunity

escape him of painting scenes of blood, has treated them but

superficially; although, at the same time, both these great historians

have snatched from oblivion, with the pencil of the most masterly

description, many other insignificant events, the sources of which were

accessible to them. We may easily estimate from this condensed account

of all that is worth knowing of and concerning the order of Assassins,

and which is but sparingly scattered through the works of eastern

writers, how many concealed rarities and costly pearls are to be found

in the untrodden depths of the ocean of Oriental history.

END OF BOOK VII.

AUTHORITIES.

Khitati-missr-lil Macrisi (Arabic). The Topography of Egypt, in 2 vols.

folio, in the Imp. Library at Vienna, Nos. 97 and 98.

Mokaddemei Ibn Khaledun (Arabic), and translated into Turkish. The

Historical Prolegomena of Ibn Khaledun, in the collection of Count

Rzewusky.

Jehannuma (Turkish). The Mirror of the World, Hadji Khalfa’s large

geographical work, printed at Constantinople.

Takwimet-tevarikh (Turkish). Hadji Khalfa’s Chronological Tables,

printed at Constantinople.

Gulsheni Khulifa (Turkish). The Khalif’s Rose Garden, by Nasmisade.

Jamiet-tevarikh (Turkish). The Collector of Histories, by Mohammed

Katib, dedicated to Murad III.; in the author’s collection.

Jami-ol-hikayat, translated into Turkish. The Collector of Tales, by

Jemaleddin Mohammed Alufi; in the author’s collection.

Tenhimet-tevarikh (Turkish). Exposition of Histories, by Hersarfenn;

in the author’s collection.

Nokhbetet-tevarikh. The Selection of Histories, by Mohammed Effendi;

in the author’s collection.

Abulfeda. Annales Muslemici Arabice et Latine, Opera Reiskii, Edidit

Adler. Hafniæ.

Tarikhi Mirkhond. Mirkhond’s Universal History; in the Imperial

Library, at Vienna, and that of Count Rzewusky, and the History of the

Assassins, translated from it, in the Notice de l’Histoire Universelle

de Mirkhond, par M. A. Jourdain.

Tarikhi Ibn Forat. Ibn Forat’s History, in nine vols.; Imperial

Library, Vienna; unique in Europe.

Teskeret-esh-shuara (Persian). The Biography of Persian Poets, by

Devletshah; Imperial Library, Vienna, and in the collection of Count

Rzewusky.

Tarikhi Thaberistan u Masenderan (Persian). History of Thaberistan and

Masenderan, by Sahireddin; Imperial Library, at Vienna, No. 117.

Nassaih-ol-Moluk. Counsels for Kings, by Jelali of Kain, in Persian;

Imperial Library, Vienna, No. 163.

Tarikhi Wassaf (Persian). Wassaf’s History; in the collections of Count

Rzewusky and the author.

Tarikhi Lari, translated from the Persian into the Turkish. The History

of Lari; in the collections of Count Rzewusky and the author.

Nigaristan (Persian). The Picture Gallery, by Ghaffari; in Count

Rzewusky’s collection.

Fussuli-hall-u Akd-we-ussuli Kharj-u-nakd (Turkish). Sketches of

Loosing and Binding, Maxims of Giving and Receiving; by the historian

Aali; Imperial Library, Vienna, No. 125.

Siret-ol Hakem-biemrillah (Arabic). Biography of Hakem-biemrillah;

Imperial Library, Vienna, No. 107. The passages quoted are translated

in the Mines de l’Orient, vol. III. p. 201.

Enis-ol-jelil fit tarikhi Kods u Khalil. The Sublime Associate, in the

History of Jerusalem and Hebron (Arabic); in the collections of Count

Rzewusky and the author. The places quoted are translated in the Mines

de l’Orient, vol. IV.

Memorie istoriche del Popolo degli Assassini, e del Vecchio della

Montagna loro capo, e Signore per Mariti; Livorno, 1787.

Eclaircissement sur quelques Circonstances de l’Histoire, du Vieux de

la Montagne, Prince des Assassins, dans les Mémoires de l’Académie des

Inscriptions, et des Belles-Lettres, par Falconet, XVI. and XVII. tom.

Mémoire sur les Ismailis et Nossairis de Syrie, par M. Rousseau;

Annales de Géographie, cah. XLII. et cah. LII.

Mémoire sur la Dynastie des Assassins, et sur l’Origine de leur Nom;

par M. Silv. de Sacy; Moniteur, No. 210, 1809.

Mémoire sur les Ismailiens dans les Mémoires Géographiques et

Historiques sur l’Egypte, par M. Quatremère, tom II. et dans le IV.

vol. des Mines de l’Orient.

Mémoire sur la Vie et les Ouvrages d’Alaeddin Ata Melek Djovaini, par

M. Quatremère, dans les Mines de l’Orient, tom II. p. 220.

Mémoire sur l’Observatoire de Meragha, par M. Jourdain.

Herbelot Bibliothèque Orientale.

Gesta Dei per Francos.

Wilkins’s Geschichte der Kreuzzüge.

Withof’s Das Meuchelmörderische Reich der Assassinen.

Anton’s Versuch einer Geschichte des Tempelherrenordens.

Deguignes’ Histoire Générale des Huns.

Viaggi di Marco Polo.

NOTES.

Note A, page 127.

After giving a view of the dogmas of the Ismailites, Rousseau

adds:—[299]

“Such were, substantially, the dogmas of the first Ismailis; and such,

nearly, are those which their descendants in Syria profess to this day.

I say, nearly; for there can be no doubt that the latter, having fallen

so tremendously from their ancient social organization, must also have

lapsed from their original faith. This belief, now more than ever

disfigured, is become, to the last degree, extravagant, from a mass of

abuses and senseless superstitions, introduced in the course of time. A

certain Sheikh Rashideddin, who appeared among them, I believe, three

hundred years ago, put the finishing stroke to their errors, by making

them believe that he was the last of the prophets, in whom the divine

power was to be manifested. This impostor, who was profoundly versed

in the sacred writings, appears to be the author of the book, some

fragments of which I have translated, and in which he promulgates his

principles as if he were himself the Almighty.”

Note B, page 131.