The troubles which followed his death, and the division which arose among the children of this prince, on the subject of the succession to the throne, left the field free for Hassan to augment the number of his proselytes. The best-fortified castles of the north-west of Persia fell into his hands. At length, the sultan Sindjar, having made himself master of this kingdom, set seriously about the destruction of the Ismaëlians. Hassan, by artifice, got rid of this dangerous enemy. He seduced one of the servants of the prince; who, whilst he slept, placed a sharp stiletto near his head. When the sultan, on awaking, saw this poniard, he was seized with great fear; but as he was ignorant of the hand that placed it there, he preserved silence upon the circumstance. At the end of some days he received the following letter from the head of the Ismaëlians:—“If good intentions were not entertained towards the sultan, the poniard which he found near his head would have been plunged into his heart.” Sindjar was so terrified, that he consented to make peace with the Ismaëlians upon three conditions: the first was, that they should add no new constructions to their castles; the second, that they should purchase neither arms nor machines of war; and the third, that he should make no new proselytes. He even granted Hassan, by the title of pension, a portion of the revenues of the country of Coumes.
From that time Hassan lived peaceably in the castle of Altamont, in the greatest seclusion, practising the exercises of austere piety, and employing himself in the composition of dogmatic treatises upon his doctrine. It is said that he only ascended to the terrace of his palace, at Altamont, twice during thirty years. He required of his sectaries the most rigid exactitude in the observances of religion. Even paternal tenderness could not lead him to deviate from this severity. Hosséin, his son, having killed the daï of Couhestan, he punished him with death; another son, for having drunk wine, met with the same fate. A man having played upon the flute, in the castle of Altamont, he commanded him to be turned out of the place, and resisted all the prayers that were made to him to obtain his pardon. Some authors pretend, that by sacrificing his sons thus, he wished to prove to the Ismaëlians that he had no intention of fixing the sovereign power in his own family; I doubt whether such a reason can justify Hassan in his barbarity. And yet it would not be the first time that policy has sacrificed the feelings of the heart to state interests.
The ability of this man in the management of affairs equalled his fanaticism. History has preserved several proofs of this, of which I shall only quote the following. Hassan had studied under the imaun Movassek-eddin, in company with Nizam-el-Moulk, one of the greatest statesmen Islamism ever produced; and community of labours established the strictest friendship between them. They entered into a mutual promise that the first of the two that should obtain honours should share them with the other, and that fortune should not affect their attachment. Hassan, after having for a long time led a miserable life, went to Nichapour, where he found Nizam-el-Moulk minister of the great Melik-chah; this was about the year 1073 of the Christian era. Nizam-el-Moulk, faithful to his promise, received Hassan with great kindness, and procured him a post at the court. Endowed with an expansive mind, rare cunning, and great talents for administration, this aspirant was not long in insinuating himself into the good graces of the Sultan, and acquiring his confidence. One day, Melik-chah having conceived some doubt of the probity of his first minister, asked him in how short a time he could draw out a clear statement of the receipts and expenses of the provinces. We should observe, that at that period the dominions of this prince extended from Antioch, in Syria, to Kachkar, in Turkistan. Nizam-el-Moulk said it would require two years; Hassan offered to perform the labour in forty days, provided the Sultan would place at his disposal all the writers of the court; and his offer being accepted, he realized his promise. He was preparing to present the result of his researches to the prince, when Nizam-el-Moulk, who saw his ruin approach, found means to get the statements into his hands, and to mutilate them. When Hassan appeared before the Sultan, the prince put several questions to him relative to the situation and finances of the empire. Hassan had recourse to his papers, and found them incomplete; he hesitated, stammered, and could not answer. Nizam-el-Moulk skilfully took advantage of his tergiversations to degrade Hassan in the mind of Melik-chah. “Wise and prudent men,” said he, “required two years to perform the work commanded by your majesty; an ignorant man, who has pretended to terminate it in forty days, is unable to give satisfactory answers to the questions put to him.” The prince, in his anger, was desirous of punishing Hassan; but, as he was a creature of his court, he allowed the affair to drop, and satisfied himself with despising him. This anecdote, which does little honour to the character of Nizam-el-Moulk, and shows no delicacy on the part of Hassan, towards the man to whom he owed his fortune, proves at least that the latter possessed great aptitude for business.
Such was the man whom the Ismaëlians, or rather the Assassins of the Crusaders, recognised as their chief, and to whom they gave the name of Séidouna,—Our Lord. But before we proceed, it is necessary to enter into some details upon the principles of this sect, upon the denominations that it bore, and upon its organization.
You have seen, sir, the origin of the denomination of Ismaëlian, given to the branch of the partisans of Ali to which Hassan belonged. This name is not, however, the only one under which these heretics were known by orthodox Mussulmans. They were likewise called Bathenians, Nezzarians, Molaheds, and Hachichens; but the two last epithets alone applied to the proselytes of Hassan.
The title of Bathenian designated the principles established by the Ismaëlians. One of the characters of their religion was to explain, in an allegorical manner, all the precepts of the Mussulman law; and this allegory was carried so far by some of their doctors, that it tended to nothing less than the destruction of all public worship; and to the elevation of a purely philosophical doctrine, and a very licentious morality, upon the ruins of all revelation and all divine authority. This is why they were called Bathenis, or Bathenians; which is to say, partisans of interior worship.
Molahed, the plural of the Arabian word Molhed, signifies impious; the partisans of Hassan did not receive this epithet till towards the year 1164 of Christ, and under the reign of one of his successors, named Hassan, the son of Mohammed. This prince, from his youth, gave himself up to the study of the dogmatic books of the sect; and as his father, to whom he succeeded, was unacquainted with science, he appeared in the eyes of the people a very profound scholar, and an extraordinary man. This good opinion, with respect to his person, increased daily, and the Ismaëlians became more blindly willing to execute his orders. Hassan, rendered bold by this success, put forth some extravagant opinions, and gave himself out to be the Imaun of the age. His father was still living; and, in his ignorance, scrupulously followed the doctrines of his sect. The pretensions of his son disgusted him, and he put to death two hundred and fifty of those who favoured them. As long as Mohammed lived, Hassan suppressed his real intentions; but he resumed them the moment the death of his father put him in possession of the throne. He permitted everything that religion prohibited, abolished the exterior practices of the Mussulman faith, allowed his subjects to drink wine, and dispensed with all the obligations which the law of Mahomet imposes on its sectaries; he declared that the knowledge of the allegorical sense of the precepts dispenses with the observance of the literal sense, and at length caused himself to be proclaimed son of Nezzar, son of the caliph Mostanser, and the caliph of God on the surface of the earth.[143] This heretical conduct procured for the Ismaëlians the denomination of Molahed, impious.
The surname of Nezzarians is derived from that Nezzar, of whom I have spoken, and was given to those Ismaëlians who adhered to the party of that prince, the eldest son of Mostanser, caliph of Egypt. The sectarians of Hassan were of the party of Nezzar.
I now come to the epithet of Assassins. The origin of this word had been the object of numerous researches, which still remained without any satisfactory result, when an illustrious scholar proved, in an evident manner, supporting all he advanced upon various Arabian texts, that it was a corruption of the word hachichen; and that it was given to the Ismaëlians, because they made use of an intoxicating liquor called hachich. This hachich is a preparation of the leaves of hemp, or some other part of that vegetable, which they employ in different manners; as a liquor, under the form of confections; or as pastilles, sweetened with saccharine substances; and even as fumigations. “The intoxication produced by the hachich,” says M. Silvestre de Sacy, “throws the person who takes it into an ecstasy similar to that which the Orientals experience in the use of opium; and according to the testimony of a great many travellers, we may be satisfied that men in this state of delirium imagine that they enjoy the ordinary objects of their wishes, and taste of a felicity, the acquisition of which costs them little, but the use of which, too often repeated, changes the animal organization, and leads to marasma and death. Some of them, in this state of transient insanity, losing the consciousness of their weakness, commit actions of a brutal nature, capable of disturbing public order. It cannot be forgotten that, during the sojourn of the French army in Egypt, the general-in-chief was obliged strictly to prohibit the sale and use of these pernicious substances, the indulgence in which has become a necessity for the inhabitants of Egypt, particularly the lower classes of the people. Those who give themselves up to this custom, are still called Hachichin, Hachachin; and these two expressions plainly show why the Ismaëlians have been called by the Latin historians of the crusades, sometimes Assissini, and sometimes Assassini.
With a small acquaintance with the Arabic tongue, and an observation upon the alterations certain words of that language have experienced in being transferred to the works of Latin and Greek authors, it is impossible to raise any objection to the correctness of the etymology advanced by M. Silvestre de Sacy. We may, however, believe that all Ismaëlians did not employ the hachich; that their chief alone was acquainted with this preparation, and that he only administered it to those whom he destined to exercise the infamous trade of fedai, or assassins; for there prevailed among the partisans of this sect a remarkable hierarchy: the dai, the refik, and the fedaï, formed three perfectly distinct classes.