The History of the Assassins, Derived from Oriental Sources

by Freiherr von Joseph Hammer-Purgstall

BOOK II.

Establishment of the Order of the Assassins, and Reign of the first Grand Master, Hassan Sabah.

Egypt, that extraordinary country, so distinguished from all others by the many wonderful phenomena of nature, has ever been in history the memorable theatre of extraordinary exhibitions of the art of governing mankind by wisdom or folly in the name of heaven or earth. In the remote ages of antiquity reigned a caste of priests, in whose hands the king was the servile tool of their power, the lituus (our present bishop’s crosier) was the real sceptre. Superstition, and the external worship of statues and pictures, was the religion of the people, while the secret doctrine of the initiated was concealed under symbols and hieroglyphics. Their mysteries had a particular relation to the state of the soul after death; whereas the popular belief confined its duration to that of its earthly existence. It was a deeply designed but ill-calculated policy, which excluded from the doctrine of immortality the multitude who cleave to the clod, and made it the peculiar prerogative of a certain number of elect, to whom it was permitted to soar beyond the limits of the tomb, without at the same time neglecting the duties and objects of civil life. It was imagined, that the vulgar could only fulfil them with all their energies, and to their full extent, when, instead of being actuated by views extending beyond the grave, they confine to earth the whole activity and faculty of their mind, during the space of time which intervenes between the cradle and the coffin.[39] Thus, neither time nor vigour would be lost in vain hopes or useless speculations; every application of them was devoted to civil existence: this was the object of the state, which reserved to itself the allotment of rewards and punishments, not only here but hereafter. In order to satisfy, in some measure, that longing after continued existence implanted by nature in every breast, though deriving little support from reason, the people sought to preserve their bodies and names for the longest possible period, by mummies and tombs: hence those mighty monuments, and the secret judgment of the dead, in which the priests, as assessors and judges, were the dispensers of this transitory immortality of stone and dust. To the few better informed, and who were not satisfied with this mummery, the judgment of the dead was symbolically explained in the mysteries, and the real immortality of the soul taught; and explanations were afforded by the priests of subjects of which they were themselves entirely ignorant.

Moses, imbued with the Egyptian policy, and initiated into the mysteries of the sacerdotal colleges, among many other of their institutions, retained this, of not imparting to his people the doctrine of immortality, which, in all probability, remained, as in Egypt, the peculiar privilege of the priestly order. We find no trace of it in the books of the Hebrews; except in the Arabic poem of Job, which, in fact, does not belong to them.

How much this concealment of the doctrine of immortality, deemed by the priests such a master-piece of policy, has repressed the spirit of the people, and impeded every loftier aspiration, is sufficiently made known to us, not only in the history of their government, but also by their still remaining monuments, which are so entirely unconsecrated by the hand of art. The sphinxes and colossal statues, the temples, and the pyramids, those astounding monuments of human activity, and of the power of numbers directed to one end, bear the stamp of greatness, from the extent of their proportions, but by no means that of beauty in their execution. This latter dwells only in those favoured regions of light, to which art and religion are together elevated by the idea of immortality. Although this mysterious policy set bounds to the more free developement of civilization, and the elevation of the people to a higher social grade, it is nevertheless very probable, that it proceeded from purely intellectual views, and the honest intention of laying the foundation of the highest prosperity for the kingdom, and the greatest temporal happiness of the people, by the undisturbed activity of all human energies, and the continued application of them to one political object. The secret doctrine benefited the initiated, while it did not injure the profane. Of an entirely opposite nature, was, as we have seen, that which prevailed in modern Egypt, during the middle ages; the former contrived for the strengthening of the throne and the altar, the latter imagined for their ruin. As wide a chasm, as that which lies between the building of ancient Memphis and the founding of modern Cairo, divides the secret tenets of the academies of Heliopolis from those of the modern house of science. Egypt, in remote antiquity the cradle of science and social institutions, afterwards the mother of alchemy and treasure-hunting, by means of the philosopher’s stone and talismans,—became, in modern times, the native soil of secret sciences and societies.

The lodge of Cairo, whose political aim was, as we have already seen, to overthrow the khalifat of the family of Abbas, in favour of the Fatimites, spread its secret doctrine, by its Dais (i. e. political and religious missionaries). To these were subordinate the ordinary partisans, Refik, or fellows, who, initiated into one or several grades of the mysteries, were, nevertheless, neither to teach them, nor to collect the suffrages for any dynasty; this being the peculiar privilege of the Dais, whose chief, the Dail-doat, or grand-master, resided at Cairo, in the House of Sciences. This institution remained unchanged, from its foundation by Hakem,[32] to the time of the khalif, Emr-Biahkam-illah,[33] when the Emir-ol-juyush, or commander-in-chief of the army Efdhal, on the occasion of an insurrection fomented by the members of the lodge,[34] caused it to be shut up, and, as it appears, to be destroyed. When, after his death in the following year, the society strongly urged their re-opening, the vizier, Maimun, refused to open the academy on the same spot, but permitted them to erect, in a different situation, another building, dedicated to the same purpose, which was Darolilm-jedide (i. e. the new House of Sciences); where public courses of instruction and secret meetings, as before, continued, till the downfall of the Fatimite dynasty. The effects of their doctrine soon appeared in the increasing power of the Fatimites, and the feebleness into which the khalifat of the family of Abbas gradually sank.[35] The Emir Bessassiri, one of the most zealous partisans and defenders of the former, took possession,[36] for a whole year, at Bagdad, of the two royal prerogatives of Islamism, the mint and the pulpit, in the name of the Egyptian khalif, Mostanssur, who would have retained them, had not Bessassiri fallen in the following year, by the sword of Togrul, who had hastened to the assistance of the Abbassides. In the meanwhile, the fellows, Refik, and the masters, Dai, inundated the whole of Asia; and one of the latter, Hassan-ben-Sabah Homairi, was the founder of a new branch of the sect, namely, the eastern Ismailites, or Assassins, before whose cradle we now stand.

Hassan Sabah, or Hassan-ben-Sabah, that is, one of the descendants of Sabah, was the son of Ali, a strict Shiite of Rei, who took his name from Sabah Homairi, and pretended that his father had gone from Kufa to Kum, and from Kum to Rei. This allegation met, however, with considerable contradiction from the natives of Khorassan, particularly those of Tus, who unanimously asserted that his ancestors had constantly dwelt in the villages of that province. Ali was universally suspected of heretical notions and expressions, which gained him the reputation of Rafedhi, or Motasal (Dissenter, or Separatist). He sought, by false confessions and oaths, to prove his orthodoxy to Abumoslem, the governor of the province, a strict Soonnite, and afterwards withdrew to a monastery, to lead a life of contemplation. This retirement, however, had not the effect of securing him from public report, which at one time accused him of heresy and heterodoxy, at another, of infidelity and atheism. In order to clear himself, as much as possible, from this suspicion, he sent his young son, Hassan, to Nishabur, and placed him in the school of the illustrious Mowafek Nishaburi, who, at that time past eighty years of age, not only enjoyed the well-merited consideration of being the first doctor of the Soonna, but also the advantageous reputation, which events justified, of securing the temporal happiness of all who studied the Koran and Soonna under his auspices. Great was the concourse of distinguished youths who sought from him happiness and instruction, and justified, by the developement of fortunate talents, the established opinion of the Imam’s wisdom and auspicious conversation. His last pupils, even to his death, contributed to confirm his reputation:—three of them, who flourished at the same time,—Hassan, Omar Khiam, and Nisam-ol-mulk, endued with the most splendid talents, pursued the most different careers, with the most fortunate results. They shone among the constellations of mighty minds of their age, like the three stars in Orion’s belt,—Omar Khiam, as an astronomer and philosophical poet; Nisam-ol-mulk, as grand vizier; and Hassan-ben-Sabah, as the head of a sect and founder of the Assassins. The first, useless in civil society, was innoxious, by his epicurean mode of life; the second was a beneficent, active, and learned statesman, under three of the Seljukide sultans; and the third, by his diabolical policy, became a pernicious scourge to humanity.

The ambition of the latter burst forth even in his youth, when he endeavoured to lay the foundation of his fortune, with his two school-fellows, by mutual promises. One of them, the vizier, Nisam-ol-mulk, that is, order of rule, himself relates, in his character of historian, the obligations into which they entered, and their sequel. “The general opinion is,” said Hassan, one day, to the other two, “that the imam’s pupils are certain of their fortune; now, let us promise each other, that if this proves true of only one of us three, he will share his good fortune with the other two.” Omar Khiam and Nisam-ol-mulk agreed to Hassan’s proposal, with mutual engagements; the first too indolent to involve himself in politics, the second too magnanimous not to wish to share with the restless ambition of the third, that prosperity, which his great talents and honest industry ensured him in that career. Years elapsed, during which Nisam-ol-mulk travelled through the countries of Khorassan, Mawarainehr, Khasnin, and Kabul, and filled the lower offices of the state, till he at last attained, under Alparslan, the great prince of the Seljuks, the highest post in the empire,—that of vizier. He received with honour his old school-fellow, Omar Khiam, who was the first to visit him, and mindful, as he himself relates, of his youthful promise, offered him his credit and influence, in procuring him an office; which is the more probable, as Nisam’s knowledge of the world convinced him that Khiam’s love for epicurean enjoyments would reject the offer; and that, in any case, such a rival, as vizier, could never prove dangerous to him. Omar Khiam thanked him, and merely requested peaceful leisure to devote himself, undisturbed, to the pursuit of the sciences; and, as he constantly gave the same answer to Nisam-ol-mulk’s repeated offers to make him vizier, the latter granted him an annual pension of one thousand ducats, out of the revenues of Nishabur, in which place, removed from the turmoil of public affairs, and in the bosom of luxurious independence, he henceforward devoted his life to the cultivation of his genius and the sciences, and gained great fame as a poet and astronomer. Although his love of ease did not permit him to transmit his glory to posterity, by any considerable work, yet he has preserved it in the history of Persian poetry, merely by his four-line strophes. These are unique in their kind, by the licentiousness of their overwhelming wit, which, without the least scruple, indulged itself in pleasantries, at the expense of all pious persons, and particularly the mystics, not only on the doctrines of the Sofis, but also the Koran itself; so much, as to be held by the orthodox in the worst reputation for impiety. Omar Khiam, in the collection of his quatrains (Rubayat), and Ibn Yemen, in that of his fragments (Mokataat), merit, before all Persian poets who have gained a name, that, more particularly, of philosophical. The genius of the former is allied to that of Young, the latter to that of Voltaire.

Hassan Sabah lived in obscurity, and unknown, during the ten years’ reign of Alparslan. Immediately, however, after the accession of Melekshah, under whom Nisam-ol-mulk enjoyed the same unlimited power, as vizier, as he had under his predecessor,—the son of Sabah also appeared at the court of the Sultan of the Seljukides, and with harsh words from the Koran, directed against promise-breakers, reminded the vizier of the fulfilment of the obligations of his youth. Nisam-ol-mulk received him with honour, procured him considerable titles and revenues, and introduced him to the sultan, of whom Hassan, by crafty hypocrisy, and under the mask of virtuous frankness and candid honesty, soon became master. The sultan consulted him on all important occasions, and acted according to his decision. The authority and influence of Nisam-ol-mulk were soon essentially endangered, and Hassan laboured with zeal to accomplish the fall of his benefactor. With consummate art, he caused the smallest oversights of the divan to come to the sultan’s knowledge; and on being questioned, contrived, by the most insidious representations, sophisms, and unfavourable impressions, to turn his sovereign’s mind against the vizier. The most cruel blow of this kind was, according to Nisam-ol-mulk’s own confession, Hassan’s pledging himself to lay before the sultan, within forty days, the balance sheet of the revenues and expenditure of the state,—a task, to the execution of which the vizier had requested a period ten times as long. Melekshah placed at Hassan’s disposal all the secretaries of the chamber, with whose assistance he performed the desired computation within the promised time. Nisam-ol-mulk relates, that, although Hassan gained the victory, he reaped no advantage from it; for, after having sent in his accounts, he was compelled to leave the court with dishonour. He, however, does not give us the proper cause of his disgrace. According to the statement of other historians, it is very probable, that Nisam-ol-mulk, consulting his own preservation, found means to mutilate Hassan’s estimate, by the abstraction of some leaves; and as no account could be given by the latter to the sultan, of this unexpected disorder in his papers, he increased the sovereign’s displeasure, in order to remove so dangerous a rival for ever from the court. He declares, very naïvely, in his Political Institutes (Wassaya), that if this misfortune had not befallen the son of Sabah, he would himself have been necessitated to adopt the same course,—that is, to have abandoned the court and his office.[37]

Hassan retired from Melekshah’s court to Rei, and then to Ispahan, where he kept himself secluded in the house of Abufasl, in order to escape the inquiries of Nisam-ol-mulk. He soon gained over the Reis to his opinions, and lived sometime with him. One day, he concluded the complaints which he was making against Melekshah and his vizier, with the expression, that “if he had had at his bidding but two devoted friends, he would soon have overturned the power of the Turk and the peasant” (the sultan and the vizier). These remarkable words unveil the profound and extensive plans of the founder of the Assassins, who already contemplated the ruin of kings and ministers. The canon of the whole policy of this order of murderers is comprised in them. Opinions are powerless, so long as they only confuse the brain, without arming the hand. Scepticism and free-thinking, as long as they occupied only the minds of the indolent and philosophical, have caused the ruin of no throne, for which purpose religious and political fanaticism are the strongest levers in the hands of nations. It is nothing to the ambitious man what people believe, but it is everything to know how he may turn them, for the execution of his projects. He is satisfied with finding ready slaves, faithful satellites, and blind instruments. What may not two such, animated by the soul of a third, and obeying his behests, accomplish? This truth, which lay open to the enterprising soul of Hassan, found no access to the understanding of his host, the Reis Abufasl, one of the shrewdest and most intelligent men of his time. He considered these words as a sign of madness, and doubted not that they were the effusion of delirium; for, thought he, how could it occur to a man of sound intellect, to place himself, with two adherents, in opposition to Melekshah, whose power extended from Antioch to Kashgar. Without imparting his thoughts to his guest, he placed before him, at breakfast and dinner, in hopes of restoring his health, aromatic drinks and dishes, prepared with saffron, which were considered as strengtheners of the brain. Hassan guessed his host’s design, and prepared to leave him. The latter in vain employed all his eloquence to retain him;[38] he soon after repaired to Egypt.[39]