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Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ and the Assassins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Laurence Lockhart
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Extract

Persia has on many occasions produced remarkable heresiarchs, several of whom have exercised an influence extending far beyond the boundaries of that country. One of the most notable of these heresiarchs is Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ, the Isma'īlī propagandist and founder and first Grand Master of the Assassins.

Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ was born at Ray, in Northern Persia; the exact date of his birth is unknown, but, as far as can be gathered, it was in A.D. 1052 or A.D. 1053. Though claiming Ḥimyaritic ancestry, Ḥasan was both by birth and upbringing a Persian, and belonged, during his earlier years, to the Shī'a Sect of the Twelve.

Type
Papers Contributed
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , February 1930 , pp. 675 - 696
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1930

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References

page 675 note 1 His geneaology is given in the Sarguzasht-i-Sayyidnā as follows:

page 675 note 2 See Tā'rīkhu'l-Kāmil (Cairo edition of A.H. 1301), vol. 10, p. 131.Google Scholar

page 676 note 1 According to the Sarguzasht:

page 676 note 2 For Professor Browne, 's reasons see his article “Yet More Light on Umar-i-Khayyām” in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1899, p. 409.Google Scholar

page 677 note 1 See Mustaufī, Ḥamdu'llah's Tā'rīkh-i-Guzīda (Gibb Edition), vol. 1, p. 517Google Scholar: Mīrkhwānd gives a somewhat different version of the remark:

page 677 note 2 Some twenty years later, when Ra'īs Abu'l-Faḍl was at Alamūt on a visit to Ḥasan, the latter said to him “Which of us two was out of his senses? And which of us had need of the aromatic beverages and foods mixed with saffron? Thou seest how I kept my promise once I had the aid of two helpful friends!”

page 678 note 1 Mustaufī, Ḥamdu'llah, op. cit., p. 527Google Scholar, says that Alamūt was built:

page 678 note 2 Op. cit., vol. 10, p. 131.

page 679 note 1 This is evidently a misprint for “Āluh Āmūt”

page 679 note 2

page 679 note 3

page 679 note 4 Blochet, E., Le Messianisme dans l'Hétérodoxie Musulmane, p. 110.Google Scholar

page 679 note 5 in Arabic. The Persian form (as given above) is

page 679 note 6 See note 2 on p. 681.

page 680 note 1 See Polo, Marco (Yule's Translation), vol. 1, p. 139 et seq.Google Scholar

page 681 note 1 The Grand Master of the Order was sometimes styled in Arabic the Shaikhu'l-Jabal or “Chief of the Mountain”. This title was mistranslated by the Crusaders as “Old Man of the Mountain”, owing to the Arabic word “shaikh” or “chief” having the secondary meaning of “old man”. The Crusaders, however, merely referred as such to the Grand Master of the Syrian branch of the Assassins; they were probably unaware of the existence of the real head of the Order at Alamūt.

page 681 note 2 … “Ashishin,” from which our word “assassin” is derived, is a corruption of the Arabic word “ḥashīshīyyūn” or “Takers of ḥashīsh”, by which name the followers of Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ were often called. Pious Muḥammadans frequently referred to them as “Malāḥida” or “Heretics”.

page 681 note 3 It must not be supposed that the habitual use of ḥashīsh by the Fidā'īs was encouraged or even permitted. The reverse was the case, for not only were the peculiar properties of the drug still a closely guarded secret at that time, probably known only to Ḥasan-i-Ṣabbāḥ and a few others, but the habitual taking of the drug would, by causing listlessness and languor, have blunted precisely those qualities which it was wished particularly to develop in the Fidā'īs.

page 682 note 1 The weapons employed were generally daggers or knives which were sometimes poisoned. Baṭṭūta, Ibn Cf., vol. 1, p. 167Google Scholar (Defrémery and Sanguinettī's edition):

page 682 note 2 Marco Polo's account is not based on personal observation as far as Alamūt is concerned, but it appears that he did visit one of the castles of the Old Man of the Mountain. It has not been possible to discover which of the many fortresses of the Assassins this one was. (See p. 38 of Penzer, N. M.'s Introduction to John Frampton's Translation of The Most Noble and Famous Travels of Marco Polo, London, 1929.Google Scholar)

page 685 note 1 Malikshāh died very suddenly in 1092, a few weeks after the murder of the Niẓāmu'l-Mulk by the Assassins, and many suspected that he had been poisoned by them.

page 686 note 1 See Guyard, S.'s “Un Grand Maître des Assassins”: Journal Asiatique, 1877, vol. 9, p. 365.Google Scholar

page 686 note 2 See Guyard, , op. cit., p. 370.Google Scholar

page 687 note 1 See Paris, Matthew's English History (Giles', translations), vol. 1, pp. 131–2.Google Scholar

page 688 note 1 If Chardin is correct, Alamūt must have been rebuilt in or sometime before the era of the Safavis, for he states in his Voyages (Langlés edition, vol. 9, p. 115) that it was used by them as a prison for illustrious prisoners who had incurred their wrath. Chardin describes Alamūt as “un fort château, proche de Casbin, bâti sur une haute roche, aux bords d'un précipice, et oú, dans les siécles précédans, les rois reléguoient les personnes de leur sang; et d'autres dont ils vouloient se défaire sans éclat. On les y laissoit vivre quelque temps; et puis, lorsqu'on en étoit las, on les précipitoit sans qu'ils s'en aperçussent en faisant semblant de les transférer d'une tour en une autre.”

Chardin is silent regarding the earlier history of Alamūt, possibly because he had no knowledge of it.

page 688 note 2 D'Ohsson, , in his Histoire des Mongols (vol. 3, p. 202)Google Scholar, states, á propos of this remark of Juvainī's: “Ils (i.e. the Assassins) ne furent cependant pas totalement détruits dans le Couhistan; car Mohammed d'Esfézar rapporte, dans son Histoire de Hérat, que, de son temps, c'est-á-dire vers l'année 1500, une partie des habitants de cette province était encore attachée aux erreurs de la secte. Ils levaient, parmi eux, une contribution pécuniaire, sous le titre de denier de Hassan Sabbah, dont le produit était consacré á l'entretien et á l'ornement de son sépulchre, ‘et l'on dit même,’ ajoute cet auteur, ‘que maintes vieilles femmes mettent á part chaque dixiéme pelotte de fil qu'elles ont filée, ce qu'elles appellent la dixme de l'Imam, c'est-á-dire de Hassan Sabbah.”