The Assassins

by Bernard Lewis.

This is the history of the Assassin sect: a branch of Ismaili which are a branch of Shia. Thumbnail: Ismaili followed the disinherited Isma'il, who they regard as the correct 7'th Imam. There came to be two branches: Old Preaching and New Preaching. The New Preaching was most prominent in Persia, and the adherents showed two political distinctives: concentrating on acquiring or building castles in mountainous regions, and creating loyalists who were willing to stab those their Imam declared to be enemies--and die in the effort.

Their skills at infiltration must have been terrific, because they were quite successful for a while at making it dangerous for rulers to oppose them. Their killers seem to have limited themselves to daggers, and not used poisons or ranged weapons. And for a surprisingly long time (especially since the Crusaders turned up during their heyday), their enemies and usual targets were Sunnis.

When things started getting hot in Persia they sent missionaries west to Syria, where the "castle in the mountains" approach didn't work so well.

He cites a story, possibly even true, about an Ismaili messenger requesting a personal meeting with Saladin. He was searched carefully, and allowed in, where he said he had a message for Saladin alone. Everybody left except Saladin's private bodyguard.

Saladin said, "I regard these as my own sons, they and I are as one." Then the messenger turned to the two Mamluks and said "If I were to order you in the name of my master to kill this Sultan, would you do so?" They answered yes, and drew their swords, and said "Command us as you wish."

Saladin was impressed.

After a while they decided Crusaders were legitimate targets (or else it was politically appropriate--other times they allied with them), and started killing some. They found that the Hospitallers and Templars were tough, and one of the Ismailis explained why they didn't assassinate many of them. Recall that many of the Middle East rulers held power through personal loyalties, and these didn't always survive their deaths. The spokeman said the Hospitalars would just replace a murdered ruler with another one just as good, so the Ismailis would lose assassins and not achieve any useful objective, so they decided to leave them alone. Another possibility that occurred to me is that Hospitaller security was better (less interest in buying local status luxuries?), making it hard for Moslems to worm their way into proximity--and the Ismailis would never admit that since it would be giving away trade secrets.

At any rate, the Mongols were the last straw for the Persian branch, and their castles were taken from them or destroyed, and in Syria they lost too many local conflicts. The remaining Ismailis seem to have been peaceful--or as peaceful as any other group in the region. Their "force-multiplier" (they were a minority group) assassin corp is long gone.

At the end Lewis found it necessary to cite other scholars' ideas about why the Ismailis went the assassination route--mostly economic. The economic reductionists should get out more.

If you're curious, read it. Lewis writes well.