Assassins

Assassins, a fanatical branch of the secret Moslem sect of the Ismailis (q.v.). The esoteric doctrines of the latter taught that all actions were morally indifferent; and the atrocious career of the Assassins was but a natural sequence of such teaching. The founder of this body, Hassan-ibn-Sabbah, a Shi'ite of Khorassan, had, about the middle of the 11th century, studied at Nishapur, and had subsequently obtained from Ismaili dais, or religious leaders, a partial insight into their secret doctrines, and a partial consecration to the rank of dai. But at Cairo he quarrelled with the heads of the sect, and was forced to quit Egypt, and return by Aleppo and Damascus to Persia. Here he gradually gathered followers, and in 1090 he conquered the rock-fortress of Alamut, in Persia, founding there a famous society, resembling the Ismailis in speculative doctrines, but marked by one peculiar feature—the employment of secret assassination against all enemies. The internal constitution of the order was as follows: First, as supreme and absolute ruler, came the Sheikh-al-jebal, the 'Old Man of the Mountains.' Then came his three vicegerents, the Dai-al-kirbal, or grand-priors of the order; thirdly, the Dais, or priors; and fourthly, Refiks, associates, which last were not initiated, like the former, into all the secret doctrines. To the uninitiated belonged first of all the Fedavis or Fedais ('the devoted'), a band of resolute youths, the ever-ready and blindly obedient executioners of the Old Man of the Mountains. Before he assigned to them their bloody tasks, he used to have them thrown into a state of ecstasy, by the intoxicating influence of the hashish (the hemp plant), which circumstance led to the order being called Hashishin ('hemp-eaters'). The word was changed by Europeans into Assassins, and transplanted into the languages of the West with the signification of 'murderers.' The Lasiks, or novices, formed the sixth division of the order, and the labourers and mechanics the seventh. Upon these the most rigid observance of the Korân was enjoined; while the initiated, on the contrary, looked upon all positive religion as of no importance. This powerful and unscrupulous sect soon inspired widespread terror. Hassan died in 1124, leaving as his successor his chief dai, Kia-Busurg-Omid. Under him the Assassins established a stronghold in Syria, and proved their power by the murder of two successive califs. In 1163 Hassan II. was rash enough to extend the secret privilege of the initiated—exemption, namely, from the positive precepts of religion—to the people generally, and to abolish Islamism in the Assassin state; which led to his falling a victim to his brother-in-law's dagger. Under the rule of his son, Mohammed II., who acted in his father's spirit, the Syrian Dai-al-kirbal Sinan became independent, and entered into abortive negotiations with the Crusaders. It was his emissaries who killed Count Raymond of Tripoli and Conrad of Montserrat. Mohammed was poisoned by his son, Hassan III., who reinstated Islamism for the uninitiated. Hassan was succeeded by Mohammed III., a boy only nine years old, who, by his effeminate rule, led to the overthrow of the order, and was eventually murdered by the command of his son, Rokneddin, the seventh and last Old Man of the Mountains. In 1256 the Tartar prince, Hulaku, burst with his hordes upon the hill-forts of Persia held by the Assassins, and destroyed them. The Syrian branch was also nearly extirpated in 1270 by the Mameluke sultan, Bibars. A heretical sect descended from them still linger in the mountainous parts of Syria, among the Druses and Ansarii, and cling to a belief in the allegorical interpretation of the Korân. See Von Hammer, Geschichte der Assassinen (1818); Walpole, The Ansayrii, or Assassins (3 vols. 1851); and Guyard, Fragments relatifs à la Doctrine des Ismaelis (1874).