The History of the Assassins, Derived from Oriental Sources

by Freiherr von Joseph Hammer-Purgstall

Although no murder stains the history of Jelaleddin’s reign, and so far his conduct was in full accordance with his system, the historian is, nevertheless, compelled not only to question the purity of his motives, but also the sincerity of his return to the doctrines of Islamism. Two circumstances place this in a very suspicious light. In the first place, the just mentioned refusal to deliver up the murderer, who had sought within the walls of Alamut, the usual sanctuary of impiety, unless in return for the cession of a village; secondly, in the burning of the books, when Jelaleddin pretended to celebrate an auto da fe, of the works and rubrics of former grand-masters, in order to convince the deputies from Kaswin of the truth of his conversion. In this, however, it is probable that he consumed the works of the dogmatists and fathers of Islamism, while the great library of free-thinking and immorality, together with the metaphysical and theological works of Hassan Sabah, the founder, were preserved, though secretly, and only, as we shall see below, devoted to the flames on the fall of Alamut and dissolution of the order.

It is, therefore, more than probable, that Jelaleddin’s conversion of the Ismailites to Islamism, so loudly proclaimed abroad, and his public abjuration of the doctrine of impiety, was nothing else than hypocrisy and deeply designed policy, in order to re-establish the credit of the order, which had been exposed to the anathemas of priests, and the ban of princes, by the inconsiderate publication of their doctrines, and to gain for himself the title of prince, instead of the dignity of grand-master. Thus the Jesuits, when they were threatened with expulsion by the parliament, and with a bull of dissolution from the Vatican,—when, on all sides, the voices of cabinets and countries rose against the principles of their morals and policy,—denied their doctrine of lawful rebellion and regicide, which had been imprudently hinted at by some of their casuists, and openly condemned the maxims which they, nevertheless, secretly observed as the true rules of the order.

This assertion of a purer moral system and genuine Christianity, availed little in reinstating in the possession of their former greatness and power, the once unmasked and exposed order of the Jesuits; and equally small success had the Assassins, in regaining their preceding influence and authority, by this system of proselytism, which was preached from every pulpit. The twelve years’ reign of Jelaleddin was too short to efface from the minds of the people the traces of a system which had lasted fifty years. Under his son and successor, the Ismailites sank anew into their old habits of impiety and crime, by which they and their forefathers have been the abhorrence of the world and the outcasts of mankind. Poison had put an end to the bloody reign of Mohammed II. the predecessor and father of Jelaleddin; it likewise accelerated the accession of his son, and successor, Alaeddin Mohammed III., a boy of nine years of age. The poisoned goblet, which had supplied the place of the poniard, was now replaced by it. The dagger raged unceasingly, by order of the boy, among his own relatives, who were accused as accomplices in the poisoning of his father. According to the doctrine of the Ismailites, the imam, even though a youth, is always considered as having attained his majority, and the efficiency of his commands is neither enfeebled by the age of childhood nor the childishness of age. His orders require unlimited obedience, as emanating from the higher power, centered in the vice-gerent of the Deity, and the Ismailites blindly followed the deadly behests of the young prince, by which their hands, for twelve years unused to the dagger, again became accustomed to it.

Reign of Alaeddin Mohammed III., Son of Jelaleddin Hassan Nev Musulman.

Although, in the warm climate of Arabia and Persia, human nature arrives sooner at maturity, and the intellect sooner attains the freedom of independence, than in the colder region of Europe, we can more easily conceive a maiden of nine to be marriageable, than a boy of the same age to be capable of governing. It appears more natural that Aishe should, at the age of nine, have become the bride of the prophet Mohammed, than that his namesake should, at the same age, have assumed the throne of the Assassin sovereignty. If this is not surprising, still less is it so that the boy, scarcely emancipated from the care of the harem, should surrender to it both himself, and the administration of affairs. The women governed, and Alaeddin amused himself with feeding sheep, while the Assassins, as heretofore, raged as wolves in the folds of Islamism. All the wise ordinances, which Jelaleddin, the new Musulman, had instituted for the advantage of religion and morality, were abolished by Alaeddin, the new infidel. Atheism and licentiousness again raised their heads, and the dagger was once more red with the blood of virtue and merit. In the fifth year of his reign, Alaeddin, having bled himself without the knowledge of his physician, an excessive loss of blood threw him into a deep depression and melancholy, from which he never recovered. From that time, no one ventured to propose to him any remedies, either for himself, or the disorders of his government. Whoever spoke anything in the least displeasing to him, concerning political affairs, received torture or death for his answer; thus every thing was concealed from him, whether domestic or foreign, and he was without any friends or advisers, who could venture to lay representations before him. The evil increased beyond all measure; the finances, the army, the administration, sunk into the fathomless abyss of utter ruin.

Alaeddin, nevertheless, treated the Sheikh Jemaleddin Ghili with great reverence; he was entirely devoted to him, and sent him an annual pension of five hundred dinars, on which the sheikh lived, although he enjoyed besides a gratuity from the prince of Farsistan. The inhabitants of Kaswin reproached him for distributing the latter, and living on the money of the impious; the sheikh replied, “The imams declare the executions of the Ismailites and the confiscation of their goods to be lawful; how much more lawful, then, is it, to make use of the money and goods which they give of their own accord!” Alaeddin, to whose ears, probably, this talk of the Kaswiners came, affirmed that he spared them only on the sheikh’s account; and that if Jemaleddin Ghili did not reside there, he would fill sacks with the earth of Kaswin, and hang them on the necks of its inhabitants, and drive them to Alamut. He ordered a messenger, who gave him a letter of the sheikh’s once when he was intoxicated, to receive a hundred blows of the bastinado, and said to him, “Thoughtless and foolish man that thou wert, for giving me a letter of the sheikh’s when I was intoxicated; thou shouldst have waited till I had come from the bath, and recovered my senses.”[241] Besides the sheikh, Alaeddin held in considerable estimation the great mathematician, Nassireddin, of Tus, who had been sent as a hostage to Alamut, by Mohammed Motashem Nassireddin, to whom he had dedicated his celebrated work, Akhlaki Nasseri (the Ethics of Nassir). He, as we shall soon see, as prime minister of Alaeddin’s successor, supported, for a time, the tottering edifice of the Ismailitic rule; it fell, however, at last, affording to the world a remarkable proof, of what talents and a thirst for revenge, are able to effect in the maintenance, and overthrow of thrones.

During the reign of this weak prince, there took place the following negotiation with Sultan Jelaleddin Mankberni, the last of the sultans of Khowaresm, according to the relation of an eye-witness. On his return from India, he had appointed the Emir Orkhan, governor of Nishabur, immediately bordering on the possessions of the Ismailites.[242] Orkhan’s lieutenant, in his absence, ravaged, by bloody and repeated attacks, the territories of Tim and Kain, the capitals of Kuhistan and the principal seat of the Assassins. One of the latter, Kemaleddin, came as ambassador, to request the suspension of hostilities; Orkhan’s lieutenant, however, deigned to give no other answer than the silent but emphatical one, of drawing several daggers from his girdle, and throwing them on the ground, before the envoy, signifying, either that he wished to show his contempt for the daggers of the Assassins, or that he would have him to understand that he would meet dagger with dagger. This hieroglyphical style of embassy is a chief feature in the diplomacy of the east, which not only speaks to women in the language of flowers, but also to princes, by images and symbols rather than words. The most ingenious messages of this kind mentioned by eastern writers, are those which passed between Alexander and the Indian king, Porus, who endeavoured to surpass each other in subtilty and vaunting. They terminated in Alexander’s sending for a cock to pick up the corn which was shaken from a sack before him: intimating that though the hosts of the Indians should be as numerous as the grains of corn, the Greeks, as brave as game cocks, would soon swallow them up. A companion to this hieroglyphic of the cock, is afforded in that of the dead hen, which Alexander is said to have sent to Darius, concerning the claim of the tribute of golden eggs or besana (beisa, meaning an egg), to explain to him, that the hen which had laid these golden eggs was dead. These, and similar hieroglyphical embassies, were as little effectual in settling the quarrel between Darius and Alexander, as they were in the case of the Ismailites, who resolved to procure for themselves that satisfaction which had been denied them.

While Sultan Mankberni was residing at Kendja,[243] Orkhan was attacked without the city walls by three Assassins, and killed on the spot; they then, with their bloody daggers in their hands, entered the city, and shouted the name of the grand-master, Alaeddin: they thus proclaimed the power and sovereignty of their superior in a manner most befitting a combination of homicides, namely, by blood and unsheathed poniards. They sought the vizier, Sherfal-mulk (nobility of the kingdom), in the divan of his house, but not finding him there, he being with the sultan, they wounded one of his servants, as a token of their visit; they ran through the streets of the city, and declared themselves to be Assassins, in which capacity, they had already, at the grand vizier’s residence, left dagger wounds instead of a visiting card; their insolence, however, did not go, this time, unpunished; the people crowded together, and put them to death with a shower of stones.[244]

In the meanwhile, an Ismailite envoy, Bedreddin Ahmed by name, having travelled as far as Barlekan, on his way from Alamut to the sultan’s court, on being informed of the above occurrence, inquired of Sherfal-mulk, the vizier, whether he should continue his journey forwards, or return; the vizier, knowing the enterprising vigour of the Assassins, and dreading the fate of Orkhan, answered that he might come in all security; and on his arrival, the vizier applied all his energies to the satisfaction of his demands, which were the suspension of the ravages of the Ismailite territory, and the cession of the fortress of Damaghan. The vizier succeeded in having the first point promised, and the second was allowed, in a solemn instrument, in consideration of the annual sum of thirty thousand pieces of gold. The sultan departed on a journey to Aserbijan, and the envoy remained as the vizier’s guest.

At a grand banquet, the wine having already mounted to their heads, the envoy said to his host, that, in the immediate retinue of the sultan, among his guards, marshals, and pages, there were several Ismailis. The vizier, curious to become acquainted with these dangerous unknown, entreated the ambassador to produce them, and gave him his handkerchief as a pledge that no harm should befal him. Immediately five of the most confidential of his chamberlains stepped forward as disguised Assassins.