The Fatimid Kalifs of Egypt had many secret agents in Persia and Syria. The Assassins went to Syria about the same time as the Crusaders. In the first year of the XIIth century Jenah-ed-devlet, then Prince of Emesa, died by their daggers while he was hastening to the castle of the Kurds, Hosn Ak Kurd, which the Count of St. Gilles was besieging. He had been attacked four years earlier in his palace by three Persian Assassins, but had succeeded in saving his life. Risvan, the Prince of Aleppo, was suspected of causing this attack. There was reason to suspect him, since he was a bitter enemy of Jenah-ed-devlet, and a friend of the Assassins.
Risvan had been won to the Order by one of its agents who was very persuasive; an astrologer and a physician, who had the power to attract by methods of his own, which were separate from those of the Order. Four and twenty days after this unsuccessful attempt, the astrologer died, but his place was soon filled by a goldsmith from Persia named Abu Tahir Essaigh, who roused Risvan to still greater activity. This Prince of Aleppo was hostile to every Crusader, and to his own brother, Dokah, the Prince of Damascus. He was anxious for a new influx of Assassins, since their acts favored his policy.
Abul Fettah, the nephew of Hassan Sabah, was at that time [[215]]Grand Prior in Syria; his chief residence was Sarmin, a fortified place one day’s journey from Aleppo.
Some years later, when the people of Apaméa implored aid of Abu Tahir Essaigh, the goldsmith, now the commandant in Sarmin, against Khalaf, their governor from Egypt, he had Khalaf slain by Assassins under Abul Fettah, and took Apaméa for Risvan, but he could not hold it against Tancred, who seized the place and took Abu Tahir to Antioch where he kept him till ransomed. Abul Fettah expired under torture. Other captives were given to Khalaf’s sons. Tancred took from the Assassins the strong castle of Kefrlana.
Abu Tahir on returning to the Prince of Aleppo used all his influence to kill Abu Harb Issa, a great Khojend merchant, who had come to Aleppo with five hundred camels bearing much merchandise. This man had done what he could to cause harm to the Order. A man named Ahmed, who was secretly an Assassin, had been present in the caravan from the boundary of Khorassan, and was watching to avenge his brother slain by the people of that merchant. On reaching Aleppo he went to Abu Tahir and Risvan, whom he won through accounts of Abu Harb’s immense wealth, and his hatred of the Assassins. On a day, while the merchant was counting his camels, the murderers fell upon him, but his slaves, who were near, showed their courage and slew the attackers before they could injure Abu Harb. The merchant complained to Syrian princes and they reproached Risvan bitterly, but he denied every share in that action. No one believed him, however. Abu Tahir, to save himself from punishment, fled to North Persia and remained there for a season.
Hassan’s policy swept through the country, selecting its victims from the powerful and the rich. In 1113 Mevdud, then Prince of Mosul, fell, stabbed to death while walking with Togteghin of Damascus through the forecourt of the great mosque in that prince’s capital. The Assassin who killed him was decapitated straightway. That same year died Risvan, Prince of Aleppo, who had long protected the murderous Order most carefully, and had used it effectually in extending his own dominions.
Risvan’s son, Akhras, succeeded him. This youth of sixteen was assisted in governing by Lulu, a eunuch. He began rule by [[216]]condemning to death all people belonging to the Assassin Order. By this sentence more than three hundred men, women and children were slain, and two hundred were thrown into prison. Abul Fettah, a son of Abu Tahir the goldsmith, and his successor as head of the Assassin Order in Syria, met with a death no less terrible than that of his namesake, the nephew of Hassan Ben Sabah. The trunk of his body was hacked into pieces at the gate looking eastward toward Irak, his legs and arms were burned, and his head was borne through Syria as a spectacle. Ismail, a brother of that astrologer who had brought the Order into friendship with Risvan, died with the others. Many Assassins were hurled into the moat from the top of the fortress. Hossam ed din, son of Dimlatsh, a Dayi who had just come from Persia, fled from the rage of the people to Rakka where death found him promptly. Many saved themselves by flight, and were scattered in towns throughout Syria; others, to avoid all suspicion of belonging to the Order, denounced their own brothers, and killed them. The treasures of the Order were searched out and taken. Thus did Akhras, Prince of Aleppo, take vengeance on the Assassins for their evil influence over his father.
Later on the Order avenged this “persecution” in various ways, and most cruelly. In an audience given by the Kalif of Bagdad to Togteghin, the Atabeg of Damascus, three murderers attacked and killed the Emir, Ahmed Bal, then governor of Khorassan, whom they mistook, as it seems, for the Atabeg. The Emir was their enemy, but not the enemy whom they had come to destroy with their daggers,—though of this they were ignorant.
In 1120 Ilghazi received a command from Abu Mohammed, the chief of the Assassins in Aleppo, to surrender the castle of Sherif. Ilghazi, who feared the Order, feigned to yield up the castle, but ere the envoy could return with this answer the people had pulled down the walls, filled the moats, and joined the castle to Aleppo. Khashab, who had thought out this exploit and saved a fortress from the Assassins, paid with his life for the service. Bedü the governor of Aleppo became their victim, as did also one of his sons. His other sons cut down the murderers, but a third slayer sprang forward and gave one of them, wounded already, his death blow. When seized and taken to Togteghin the surviving [[217]]Assassin was punished with simple imprisonment, for Togteghin did not dare to mete out justice.
A few years later Nur ed din, the famous Prince of Damascus, received from the Assassins a command to surrender the castle of Beitlala. He yielded apparently and then roused up the people in secret to prevent the Order from gaining the fortress. They did this by destroying it hastily. So greatly did the princes fear the Assassins that they dared not refuse to obey their commands; they would promise obedience, and then rouse the people to pull down their own strongholds.