The Assassins: A Redical Sect in Islam

by Bernard Lewis

  The agreement between the Khorazmshah and the Ismailis did not prove very effective. Desultory quarrels with Sultan Jalal al-Din continued, while the Ismailis maintained friendly relations with the two main enemies of the Khorazmians – the Caliph in the West and the Mongols in the East. In 1228 the Ismaili diplomat Badr al-Din travelled east across the Oxus to the Mongol court; a westbound Ismaili caravan of seventy men was stopped and massacred by the Khorazmians, on the alleged grounds that a Mongol envoy to Anatolia was travelling with them. Bickering between the Ismailis and the Khorazmians continued for many years, enlivened from time to time by fighting, murder or negotiation.

  On one occasion Nasawi was sent on an embassy to Alamut to demand the balance of the tribute that was owing for Damghan. He describes his mission with some satisfaction. ‘Ala al-Din favoured me above all the other envoys of the Sultan, treating me with great respect and bounty. He dealt generously with me, and gave me twice the usual amount in gifts and robes of honour. He said: “This is an honourable man. Generosity to such a man is never wasted.” The value of what was bestowed on me, in cash and in kind, was near to 3,000 dinars, including two robes

  The title page of Lebey de Batilly’s Traicté de’Origine des Anciens Assasins Porte-Couteaux, published in Lyon, 1603.

  The assassination of the Nizam al-Mulk. From a Persian manuscript of the Jami al-tavarikh of Rashid al-Din, in the library of the Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul (Treasury 1653). Early 14th century.

  Authors, with scribe and attendants. From an Arabic manuscript of the Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa (Epistles of the Sincere Brethren–see p. 30 above), in the library of the Siiley-maniye mosque, Istanbul. Completed A.D. 1287 (Esad Esendi 3638).

  Hülegü on his way to capture the Ismaili castles in the year 654/1256. From a Persian manuscript of the Jami al-tavarikh, in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Calcutta; ca. A.D. 1430.

  Hülegü. From an album of drawings in the British Museum (Ms. Add. 18803).

  An inscription on the wall of the castle of Masyaf, in Syria. 13th century.

  An aerial view of the massive Assassin castle of Qa’in.

  A closer view of the walls of Qa’in.

  The castle of Lamasar.

  The rock of Alamut, with the castle on its crest.

  The Assassin stronghold of Maymundiz.

  View of the valley from Qal’a Bozi, near Isfahan.

  The castle of Masyaf.

  Entrance to the citadel of Aleppo.

  of honour, each consisting of a satin cloak, a hood, a fur and a cape, one lined with satin and the other with Chinese crepe; two belts of 200 dinars weight; 70 pieces of cloth; two horses with saddles, bridles and harness and pommels; a thousand dinars in gold; four caparisoned horses; a string of Bactrian camels; and thirty robes of honour for my suite.’29 Even allowing for some exaggeration, it is clear that the lord of Alamut was well provisioned with the good things of this world.

  The quarrel with the Khorazmshah was not the only concern of the Ismailis. Nearer home, they came to blows with the rulers of Gilan, relations with whom can not have been improved by the summary execution of the Gilani princesses after the death of Jalal al-Din Hasan; at some time the Ismailis acquired some additional territory in Gilan, around Tarim. Relations with their old enemies in Qazvin, on the other hand, were fairly peaceful. Ala al-Din Muhammad, somewhat surprisingly, was the devoted disciple of a Shaykh in Qazvin, and sent him a yearly grant of 500 gold dinars, which the Shaykh spent on food and drink. When the Qazvinis reproached the Shaykh for living on the money of the heretics, he replied: The Imams hold it lawful to take the blood and money of the heretics; surely it is doubly lawful when they offer it of their own free will.’ Ala al-Din told the people of Qazvin that it was only because of the Shaykh that he spared the city. ‘Were he not there, I would bring the dust of Qazvin to the castle of Alamut in panniers.’30

  Amid wars, raids, and assassinations, the Ismailis had not forgotten their primary purpose of preaching and conversion, and at about this time gained one of their most important successes in the implanting of their faith in India. The ‘old preaching’ of the Musta‘lian Ismailis had been firmly established in India, especially on the Gujerati coast, for generations; a missionary from Iran now carried the Nizari ‘new preaching’ to the Indian subcontinent, which in later times became the main centre of their sect.

  Juvayni and the other Persian Sunni historians paint a very hostile picture of Ala al-Din Muhammad, who appears as a drunken degenerate subject to fits of melancholia and madness. During his last years he came into conflict with his eldest son Rukn al-Din Khurshah, whom he had designated, while still a child, as heir to the Imamate. Later he tried to revoke this nomination and appoint one of his other sons, but the Ismailis, ‘in accordance with their tenets, refused to accept this and said that only the first designation was valid.’

  The conflict between father and son came to a head in 1255. In this year ‘Ala al-Din’s insanity grew worse and . . . his displeasure with Rukn al-Din increased . . . Rukn al-Din felt that his life was not safe . . . and on this account he was planning to flee from him, go to the castles in Syria and gain possession of them; or else to seize Alamut, Maymundiz and some of the [other] castles of Rudbar, which were full of treasure and stores and . . . rise in rebellion . . . Most of the ministers and chief men in Ala al-Din’s kingdom had become apprehensive of him, for none was sure of his life.

  ‘Rukn al-Din used the following argument as a decoy. “Because,” he said, “of my father’s evil behaviour the Mongol army intends to attack this kingdom, and my father is concerned about nothing. I shall secede from him and send messengers to the Emperor of the Face of the Earth [the Mongol Khan] and to the servants of his Court and accept submission and allegiance. And henceforth I shall allow no one in my kingdom to commit an evil act [and so ensure] that land and people may survive.” ’

  In this predicament, the Ismaili leaders agreed to support Rukn al-Din, even against his father’s men; their only reservation was that they would not raise their hands against Ala al-Din himself. The Imam, even when demented, was still sacrosanct, and to touch him would have been sacrilege as well as treason.

  Fortunately for the Ismailis – or for all but a few of them – no such terrible choice was required. About a month after this agreement, Rukn al-Din was taken ill and lay helpless in bed. While he was thus visibly incapacitated, his father Ala al-Din, asleep, according to Juvayni, in a drunken stupor, was murdered by unknown assailants. This happened on 1 December 1255. The assassination of the assassin chief in his own stronghold gave rise to wild suspicions and accusations. Some of the dead Imam’s retainers who had been seen near the site of the murder were put to death, and it was even claimed that a group of his closest associates had conspired against him and brought outsiders from Qazvin to Alamut to carry out the deed. Eventually, they agreed on a culprit: ‘After a week had passed the clarity of the signs and indications caused it to be decided . . . and unanimously agreed that Hasan of Mazandaran, who was Ala al-Din’s chief favourite and his inseparable companion night and day and the repository of all his secrets, was the person who had killed him. It was said too that Hasan’s wife, who was Ala al-Din’s mistress and from whom Hasan had not concealed the facts of the murder, had revealed that secret to Rukn al-Din. Be that as it may, after a week had passed, Hasan was put to death, his body burnt and several of his children, two daughters and a son, likewise burnt; and Rukn al-Din reigned in his father’s stead.’31

  During the last years of Ala al-Din Muhammad’s reign the Ismailis drew nearer to the final confrontation with the most terrible of all their enemies – the Mongols. By 1218 the armies of Jenghiz Khan, the ruler of the new Empire that had arisen in Eastern Asia, had reached the Jaxartes river, and become the immediate neighbours of the Khorazmshah. A border incident soon provided the pretext for a new advance westwards. In 1219 Jenghiz Khan led his armies across the Jaxartes into the lands of Islam. By 1220 he had c
aptured the ancient Muslim cities of Samarqand and Bukhara and reached the Oxus river; in the following year he crossed the Oxus, captured Balkh, Marv and Nishapur, and made himself master of all eastern Iran. The death of the Khan in 1227 brought only a brief respite. In 1230 his successor launched a new attack on the faltering Khorazmian state; by 1240 the Mongols had overrun western Iran, and were invading Georgia, Armenia, and northern Mesopotamia.

  The final attack came in the middle of the thirteenth century. The great Khan, now ruling from Peking, sent a new expedition under the command of the Mongol prince Hülegü, the grandson of Jenghiz Khan, with orders to subjugate all the Muslim lands as far as Egypt. Within a few months the long-haired Mongol horsemen thundered across Iran, carrying all before them, and in January 1258 converged on the city of Baghdad. The last of the Caliphs, after a brief and futile attempt at resistance, begged in vain for quarter. The Mongol warriors stormed, looted and burned the city, and on 20 February the Caliph, with as many of his kin as could be found, was put to death. The house of Abbas, for half a millennium the titular heads of Sunni Islam, had ceased to reign.

  The Imams of Alamut, like other Muslim rulers of the time, were by no means single-minded in opposition to the heathen Mongol invaders of Islam. The Caliph al-Nasir, locked in combat with the Khorazmshah, had not been displeased by the appearance of a new and dangerous enemy on the far side of the Khorazmian Empire – and his ally, the Imam Jala! al-Din Hasan, had been among the first to send messages of good will to the Khan. Sometimes, indeed, the Ismailis showed solidarity with their Sunni neighbours against this new menace. When Jenghiz Khan was conquering eastern Iran, the Ismaili chief in Quhistan gave a generous welcome to Sunni refugees in his mountain fastnesses. ‘I found him,’ says a Muslim visitor, speaking of the Ismaili chief in Quhistan, ‘a person of infinite learning . . . with wisdom, science, and philosophy, in such wise, that a philosopher and sage like unto him there was not in the territory of Khurasan. He used greatly to cherish poor strangers and travellers; and such Muslims of Khurasan as had come into proximity with him he was wont to take under his guardianship and protection. On this account his assemblies contained some of the most distinguished of the Ulema of Khurasan . . . and he had treated all of them with honour and reverence, and showed them much kindness. They stated to this effect, that, during those first two or three years of anarchy in Khurasan, one thousand honorary dresses, and seven hundred horses, with trappings, had been received from his treasury and stables by Ulema and poor strangers.’ His ability to do this suggests that the Ismaili centres were immune from attack, and his generosity soon brought a complaint to Alamut from his subjects, who requested – and obtained – a governor less lavish with Ismaili money to outsiders. The historian Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani, in the service of the rulers of Sistan, went on three visits to the Ismaili centres in Quhistan – on diplomatic missions concerned with reopening trade routes, and on a shopping expedition, to buy ‘clothing and other requisites’, which had become rare in eastern Iran ‘in consequence of the irruption of the infidels’. Clearly, the Ismailis of Quhistan were turning their immunity to good advantage.

  Whatever understanding may have existed between the Ismailis and the Mongols, it did not last. The new masters of Asia could not tolerate the continued independence of this dangerous and militant band of devotees – and there was no lack of pious Muslims among their friends and associates to remind them of the danger which the Ismailis presented. The chief Qadi of Qazvin, it is said, appeared before the Khan in a shirt of mail, and explained that he had to wear this at all times under his clothes, because of the ever-present danger of assassination.

  The warning was not wasted. An Ismaili embassy to the grand assembly in Mongolia was turned away, and the Mongol general in Iran advised the Khan that his two most obstinate enemies were the Caliph and the Ismailis. At Karakorum precautions were taken to guard the Khan against attack by Ismaili emissaries. When Hülegü led his expedition into Iran in 1256, the Ismaili castles were his first objective.

  Even before his arrival, the Mongol armies in Iran, with Muslim encouragement, had launched attacks on the Ismaili bases in Rudbar and Quhistan, but achieved only a limited success. An advance in Quhistan was repelled by an Ismaili counter-attack, while an assault on the great fortress of Girdkuh failed utterly. The Ismailis in their castles might well have been in a position to offer a sustained resistance to Mongol attacks – but the new Imam decided otherwise.

  One of the questions on which Rukn al-Din Khurshah had disagreed with his father was that of resistance or collaboration with the Mongols. On his accession, he tried to make peace with his Muslim neighbours; ‘acting contrary to his father’s disposition he began to lay the foundations of friendship with those people. He likewise sent messengers to all his provinces ordering the people to behave as Muslims and keep the roads secure.’ Having thus protected his position at home, he sent an envoy to Yasa’ur Noyan, the Mongol commander in Hamadan, with instructions to say that ‘now that it was his turn to reign he would tread the path of submission and scrape the dust of disaffection from the countenance of loyalty’.33

  Yasa’ur advised Rukn al-Din to go and make his submission in person to Hülegü, and the Ismaili Imam compromised by-sending his brother Shahanshah. The Mongols made a premature attempt to move into Rudbar, but were driven back by Ismailis in fortified positions and withdrew after destroying the crops. In the meantime other Mongol forces had again invaded Quhistan, and captured several of the Ismaili centres.

  A message now arrived from Hülegü, who professed his satisfaction with Shahanshah’s embassy. Rukn al-Din himself had committed no crimes; if he would destroy his castles and come and submit in person, the Mongol armies would spare his territories. The Imam temporized. He dismantled some of his castles, but made only token demolitions at Alamut, Maymundiz and Lamasar, and asked for a year’s grace before presenting himself in person. At the same time he sent orders to his governors in Girdkuh and Quhistan ‘to present themselves before the king and give expression to their loyalty and submission’. This they did – but the castle of Girdkuh remained in Ismaili hands. A message from Hülegü to Rukn al-Din demanded that he attend on him immediately at Damavand. If he could not reach there within five days, he should send his son in advance.

  Rukn al-Din sent his son – a boy of seven. Hülegü, perhaps suspecting that this was not really his son, sent him back on the grounds that he was too young, and suggested that Rukn al-Din send another of his brothers to relieve Shahanshah. Meanwhile the Mongols were drawing nearer to Rudbar, and when Rukn al-Din’s embassy reached Hülegü, they found him only three days’ march from Alamut. The Mongol’s answer was an ultimatum: ‘if Rukn al-Din destroyed the castle of Maymundiz and came to present himself in person before the King, he would, in accordance with His Majesty’s gracious custom, be received with kindness and honour; but that if he failed to consider the consequences of his actions, God alone knew [what would then befall him].’34 Meanwhile the Mongol armies were already entering Rudbar and taking up positions around the castles. Hülegü himself directed the siege of Maymundiz, in which Rukn al-Din was staying.

  There seems to have been some difference of opinion among the Ismailis, between those who thought it wise to surrender and get the best terms they could from Hülegü, and those who preferred to fight to the end. Rukn al-Din himself was clearly of the first opinion, and was no doubt encouraged in this policy by advisers such as the astronomer Nasir al-Din Tusi, who hoped – with reason – that after the surrender he would be able to make his own accommodation with the Mongols and embark on a new career under their aegis. It was Tusi who, we are told, advised the Imam to surrender on the grounds that the stars were inauspicious – Tusi again who went on Rukn al-Din’s final embassy from the fortress of Maymundiz to the camp of the besiegers, to negotiate the capitulation. Hülegü agreed to receive Rukn al-Din, his family and dependents and his treasure. As Juvayni puts it, ‘he . . . offered his treasures as a toke
n of his allegiance. These were not so splendid as fame had reported them but, such as they were, they were brought out of the castle. The greater part thereof was distributed by the King among his troops.’35

  Rukn al-Din was well received by Hülegü, who even indulged his personal whims. An interest in Bactrian camels bought a gift of 100 females of the species. The gift was insufficient; Rukn al-Din was interested in camel-fighting, and could not wait for them to breed. He therefore indented for 30 he-camels. A still more striking benefaction was permission to marry a Mongol girl with whom he fell in love and for whom he declared his willingness, not wholly figuratively, to give up his kingdom.36

  Hülegü’s interest in Rukn al-Din was obvious. The Ismailis still held some castles, and could give a lot of trouble. The Ismaili Imam, urging them to surrender, was a valuable addition to the Mongol court. His family, household and servants, with his personal effects and animals, were billeted in Qazvin (the comments of the Qazvinis are not recorded), and he himself accompanied Hülegü on his further expeditions.

  Rukn al-Din earned his keep. On his instructions, most of the fortresses in Rudbar, near Girdkuh, and in Quhistan, surrendered, thus saving the Mongols the immense cost and uncertain fortunes of siege and assault. Their number is put at about a hundred – certainly an exaggeration. In two places the commandants refused to surrender, disregarding the orders of their own Imam – perhaps in the belief that he was acting in taqiyya, under duress. These two were the great Rudbar strongholds of Alamut and Lamasar. Mongol armies invested both fortresses, and after a few days the commandant of Alamut changed his mind. ‘The garrison, having cast a glance at the consequences of the matter and the vagaries of Fate, sent a messenger to sue for quarter and beg for favourable treatment. Rukn al-Din intervened on their behalf and the King was pleased to pass over their crimes. And at the end of Dhu’l-Qa‘da of that year [beginning of December 1256] all the inmates of that seminary of iniquity and nest of Satan came down with all their goods and belongings. Three days later the army climbed up to the castle and seized whatever those people had been unable to carry off. They quickly set fire to the various buildings and with the broom of destruction cast the dust thereof to the winds, levelling them with their foundations.’37 Lamasar held out for another year, and finally submitted to the Mongols in 1258. In Girdkuh, the Ismailis, rejecting Rukn al-Din’s orders, were able to retain control of the fortress, and were not finally overcome until 1270.