by Amin Maalouf
For provisions, the Grand Master had storage shafts fitted out for oil, vinegar and honey, he also stockpiled barley, sheep fat and dried fruit in sufficient quantities to get them through an almost total blockade – which, at that time, was far beyond the capacity of any besiegers, particularly in a region which had a harsh winter.
Hassan thus had an infallible shield. He had, one could say, the ultimate defensive weapon. With his devoted killers, he also possessed the ultimate offensive weapon. How can precautions be taken against a man intent on dying? All protection is based upon dissuasion, and we know that important personages are surrounded by an imposing guard whose role is to make any potential attacker fear inevitable death. But what if the attacker is not afraid of dying, and has been convinced that martyrdom is a short-cut to paradise? What if he has imprinted in his mind the words of the Preacher: ‘You are not made for this world, but for the next. Can a fish be afraid if someone threatens to throw it into the sea?’ If, moreover, the assassin had succeeded in infiltrating the victim’s entourage? Nothing could be done to stop him. ‘I am less powerful than the Sultan but I can harm you more than he can,’ Hassan wrote one day to a provincial governor.
Thus, having forged the most perfect tools of war imaginable, Hassan Sabbah installed himself in his fortress and never left it again; his biographers even say that during the last thirty years of his life he only went out of his house twice, and both times it was to go up on the roof! Morning and evening he was there, sitting cross-legged on a mat which his body had worn out but which he never wished to change or have repaired. He taught, he wrote, he set his killers on to his enemies, and, five times a day he prayed on the same mat along with whoever was visiting him at the time.
For the benefit of those who have never had the opportunity to visit the ruins of Alamut, it is worth pointing out that this site would not have acquired such historical importance if its only advantage had been its inaccessibility and if the plateau at the mountain’s summit had not been large enough to support a town, or at least a very large village. At the time of the Assassins it was reached by a narrow tunnel to the east which emerged into the lower fortress with its tangle of alleys and little mud houses in the shadow of the walls; the upper fortress was reached by crossing the maydan, the large square, the only meeting area for the whole community. This was shaped like a bottle lying on its side, with its wide base in the east and its neck toward the west. The bottleneck itself was a heavily guarded corridor at the end of which lay Hassan’s house whose single window looked out on to a precipice. It was a fortress within a fortress.
By means of the spectacular murders which he ordered, and the legends which grew up around him, his sect and his castle, the Grand Master of the Assassins terrorized the Orient and the Occident over a long period. In every Muslim town high officials fell and even the crusaders had two or three eminent victims to lament. However it is all too often forgotten that it was primarily at Alamut that terror reigned.
What reign is worse than that of militant virtue? The Supreme Preacher wanted to regulate every second of his adherents’ lives. He proscribed all musical instruments; if he discovered the smallest flute he would break it in public and throw it into the flames; the transgressor was put in irons and given a good whipping before being expelled from the community. The use of alcoholic drinks was even more severely punished. Hassan’s own son, found intoxicated one evening by his father, was condemned to death on the spot; in spite of his mother’s pleadings he was decapitated at dawn the next day as an example. No one ever dared to swallow a mouthful of wine.
The justice of Alamut was, to say the least, speedy. It was said that a crime had been committed one day within the fortress and that a witness had accused Hassan’s second son. Without attempting to verify the fact, Hassan had his last son’s head cut off. A few days later, the real culprit confessed; he in turn was decapitated.
Biographers of the Grand Master mention the slaughter of his son in order to illustrate his strictness and impartiality; they point out that the community of Alamut became a haven of virtue and morality through the blessing of such exemplary discipline, and this can very easily be believed; however, we know from various sources that the day after these executions Hassan’s only wife as well as his daughters rose up against his authority, and that he ordered them thrown out of Alamut and recommended that his successors do the same in the future in order to avoid the womenfolk having any influence over their correct judgement.
To loose himself from the world, create a void around his person, surround himself with walls of stone and fear – such seems to have been Hassan Sabbah’s demented dream.
However this void started to stifle him. The most powerful kings have jesters or jovial companions to lighten the oppressive atmosphere which surrounds them. The man with the bulging eyes was incurably alone, walled up in his fortress, shut up in his house, closed to himself. He had no one to talk to, only docile subjects, dumb servants and awestruck disciples.
Of all the people he had known, there was only one to whom he could still talk, if not as friend to friend then at least as man to man and that was Khayyam. He had thus written him a letter in which despair disguised itself behind a thick façade of pride:
‘Instead of living as a fugitive, why do you not come to Alamut? Like you, I have been persecuted but now it is I who persecute. Here you will be protected, looked after and respected. No emir on earth will be able to harm a hair of your head. I have founded a huge library where you will find the rarest works and will be able to read and write at leisure. In this place you will find peace.’
CHAPTER 23
Since he had left Isfahan, Khayyam had been leading effectively the existence of a fugitive and a pariah. When he betook himself to Baghdad, the Caliph forbad him to speak in public or to receive his numerous admirers who presented themselves at his door. When he visited Mecca, his detractors sniggered: ‘A pilgrimage of servility!’ When, on his return, he passed through Basra, the sons of the qadi of the city came to ask him, in the politest of terms, to cut short his stay.
His fate then was unsettling in the extreme. No one contested his genius or his erudition; wherever he went large groups of intellectuals gathered around him. He was questioned on astrology, algebra, medicine and even religious problems and he was listened to warmly. However, without fail, a few days or weeks after his arrival, a clique would emerge and would disseminate all sorts of lies. He would be called an infidel or a heretic, and his friendship with Hassan Sabbah would be recalled. Sometimes the accusations of being an alchemist, raised against him of old in Samarkand, were dredged up. Ardent opponents were sent to break up his discussions and those who dared shelter him were threatened with reprisals. Usually, he put up no opposition. As soon as he felt the atmosphere become uncomfortable he would feign illness in order not to appear in public again, and he would then not linger, but would go away to somewhere new where his stay would be just as short and precarious.
Honoured and cursed, with no companion other than Vartan, he was constantly in search of a roof, a protector and a patron too; the generous pension which Nizam had allotted to him was no longer being paid out since his death and he was forced to visit princes and governors and prepare their monthly horoscopes. However, even though he was often in need, he managed to get himself paid without bowing his head.
It was told that a vizir, astonished to hear Omar demand a sum of five thousand golden dinars, remarked:
‘Do you know that I myself am not paid that much?’
‘That is quite normal,’ retorted Khayyam.
‘And how so?’
‘Because there is only a handful of intellectuals like me every century, while one could name five hundred vizirs like you every year.’
The chroniclers state that the man found this extremely amusing and went on to satisfy Khayyam’s demands, courteously recognising the correctness of such a haughty equation.
‘No Sultan is happier than I, no beggar sadd
er,’ Omar wrote during this period.
The years passed and we find him again in 1114 in the city of Merv, the old capital of Khorassan, still famous for its silks and its ten libraries, but deprived for some time now of any political role. To restore some lustre to its tarnished court, the local sovereign was trying to attract the celebrities of the time. He knew just how to seduce Khayyam – by offering to build him an observatory identical to that of Isfahan. At sixty-six years of age, Omar no longer dreamt of anything else and he accepted with adolescent enthusiasm and set right down to work on the project. Soon the building was rising up on a hilltop in the district of Bab Senjan in the middle of a garden of daffodils and white mulberries.
Omar was happy for two years and he worked feverishly. We are told that he carried out astonishing experiments in weather forecasting, his knowledge of the sky allowing him to note exactly the changes of climate over five successive days. He also developed his mathematical theories which were way ahead of his time. It was not until the nineteenth century that European researchers recognized him to be the brilliant precursor of non-Euclidean geometry. He also wrote rubaiyaat, stimulated, we must believe, by the outstanding quality of Merv’s vineyards.
For all that, there was evidently a negative side. Omar was obliged to be present at endless palace ceremonies and to pay homage solemnly to the sovereign at each feast, whenever a prince was circumcised, upon the sovereign’s return from the hunt or the country, and to be in frequent attendance at the diwan, ready to utter a witticism, a quotation or a fitting verse. These sessions exhausted Omar. As well as the impression of having put on the skin of a performing bear, he was always aware of losing precious time at the palace which he could have turned to better use at his work table, not to mention the risk of unpleasant encounters.
Like the one which took place that cold February day, when someone picked a memorable quarrel with him over a youthful quatrain which had fallen into jealous ears. That day the diwan was packed with beturbaned intellectuals and the monarch was overjoyed as he blissfully contemplated his court.
When Omar arrived, debate was already raging on a subject which fascinated the men of religion: ‘Could the universe have been created better?’ Those who replied ‘yes’ laid themselves open to accusation of impiety since they implied that God had not taken sufficient care over his work.
Those who replied ‘no’ were also open to accusation of impiety, as they were giving to understand that the Almighty was incapable of doing better.
They were in hot discussion, with much gesticulating. Khayyam was happy absent-mindedly to watch everyone’s expressions. However a speaker called him, heaped praise upon his erudition and asked for his opinion. Omar cleared his throat. He had not yet uttered a single syllable when the grand qadi of Merv, who had never appreciated Khayyam’s presence in his city, nor the considerations constantly shown to him, jumped up from his place and pointed an accusing finger at him.
‘I did not know that an atheist could express opinions on the questions of our faith!’
Omar gave a tired but worried smile.
‘Who gives you permission to treat me as an atheist? At least wait until you have heard me out!’
‘I have no need to hear you. Is it not to you that this verse has been attributed: “If You punish with evil the evil I have done, tell, what is the difference between You and me?” Is not the man who puts forward such words an atheist?’
Omar shrugged.
‘If I did not believe that God existed, I would not address Him!’
‘But you would address him in that tone?’ sniggered the qadi.
‘It is to sultans and qadis that one must speak with circumlocution – not to the Creator. God is great, he has nothing to do with our airs and graces. He made me a thinker and so I think, and I give over to him the undiluted fruits of my thought.’
To murmurs of approval from those present, the qadi withdrew, uttering dire threats. When he had stopped laughing, the sovereign was beset with worry, fearing the consequences in certain quarters. As his expression became gloomy his visitors hurried to take their leave.
As he returned home accompanied by Vartan, Omar inveighed against court life with its snares and time-wasting, promising himself that he would leave Merv as soon as possible; his disciple was not too concerned as it was the seventh time that his master had threatened to leave; as a rule, he was much calmer the next day having taken up his research again, and that was the appropriate time to console him.
That evening, back in his room, Omar wrote in his book a vexed quatrain which ended as follows:
Swap your turban for some wine
And without regrets, put on a woollen hat!
Then he slipped the manuscript into its usual hiding place, between the bed and the wall. When he woke up, he wanted to re-read his rubai since one word seemed to him out of place. He groped about and grasped the book. It was as he opened it that he discovered the letter from Hassan Sabbah which had been slipped between the two pages as he slept.
In an instant Omar recognized the writing and the nomenclature agreed upon between them forty years earlier: The friend from the caravansary at Kashan.’ As he read it he could not help bursting out laughing. Vartan, who was just waking up in his adjoining room came in to see what was amusing his master so much after his ill feelings of the night before.
‘We have just received a generous invitation. We can be lodged, protected and have all our expenses looked after until the end of our lives.’
‘By which great prince?’
‘The prince of Alamut.’
Vartan jumped. He felt guilty.
‘How could the letter have got here? I checked all the doors and windows before I went to lie down!’
‘Do not try to find out. Sultans and Caliphs themselves have given up protecting themselves. When Hassan decides to send you a message or a dagger’s blade, you can be certain of receiving it whether your doors are wide open or padlocked.’
The disciple held the letter to his moustache, sniffed it noisily and then read and re-read it.
‘That demon may well have a point,’ he concluded. ‘It is indeed at Alamut that your safety would be best assured. After all, Hassan is your oldest friend.’
‘For the moment, my oldest friend is the new wine of Merv!’
With childish glee, Omar set to tearing up the sheet of paper into a multitude of little pieces which he threw up in the air. As he watched them flutter down, he started to speak again:
‘What do we have in common, this man and I? I worship life and he worships death. I write: “If you cannot love, what use is the rising and the setting of the sun?” Hassan demands his men to give no heed to love, music, poetry, wine or the sun. He despises the most beautiful things in all creation, yet he dares pronounce the name of the Creator – and to promise people paradise! Believe you me, if his fortress were the gateway of paradise, I would renounce paradise! I shall never set foot in that den of pious shams.’
Vartan sat down and had a good scratch of his neck before saying, in the most exhausted of voices:
‘If that is your response then the time has come for me to reveal to you a secret which has been kept too long. Have you never wondered why the soldiers let us pass through so easily when we fled from Isfahan?’
‘It has always intrigued me, but since I have seen nothing but loyalty, devotion and filial affection from you for years, I have not wished to stir up the past.’
‘That day, the officers of the Nizamiya knew that I was going to save you and leave with you. That was part of a strategy which I had drawn up.’
Before carrying on, he served his master, and himself, a useful glass of grenadine wine.
‘You do know that the list of outlaws set up by Nizam al-Mulk contained the name of one man whom we had never managed to reach – Hassan Sabbah. Was he not the man principally responsible for the assassination? My plan was simple: to leave with you in the hope that you would take refuge in Alamut. I
would have accompanied you, asking you not to reveal my identity and I would have found an occasion to rid the Muslims and the entire world of that demon. However, you have stubbornly refused to set foot in the dark fortress.’
‘Yet you stayed by my side all this time.’
‘At the beginning I thought I would just have to be patient and that when you had been chased out of fifteen cities in succession you would resign yourself to taking the road to Alamut. Then, as the years passed, I grew attached to you, my companions have been dispersed to the four corners of the empire and my determination has wavered. See now how Omar Khayyam has saved Hassan Sabbah’s life a second time.’
‘Do not bewail it – it may well be your life that I have saved.’
‘In truth he must be very well protected in his hideout.’
Vartan could not suppress all traces of bitterness, which amused Khayyam.
‘Having said that, if you had revealed your plan to me, doubtless I would have led you to Alamut.’
The disciple jumped out of his seat.
‘Is that the truth?’
‘No. Sit yourself down! I only said that to give you cause for regret! In spite of all the evil Hassan has managed to commit, if I were to see him drowning in the River Murghab I would offer him my hand in help.’
‘Well I would shove his head down under the water! However, your attitude gives me some comfort, and it is just because you are capable of such words and acts that I chose to stay in your company. And I do not regret that.’
