Abu Tahir as-Sa'igh

Abu Tahir as-Sa'igh ( Arabic أبو طاهر الصائغ, DMG Abū Ṭāhir aṣ-Ṣāʾigh  'Abu Tahir the goldsmith'; † 1113 ) was the leading missionary ( dāʿī ) of the Shia of the Nizarites ( Assassins ) in Syria in the early 12th century. In this position he succeeded the “wise astrologer” who died in 1103 . He was also known in Christian historiography as Botherus .

Abu Tahir came from Persia and, like many of his successors, was entrusted with the leadership of the Syrian community by the Gran-Da'i of the Nizarites, Hassan-i Sabbah († 1124), who resided in Alamut . Like his predecessor, he had the patronage of the Seljuq emir Radwan of Aleppo .

Under his leadership, the Syrian Nizarites tried for the first time to gain a fortified refuge. In February 1106, led by him , they murdered the Emir of Apamea , Chalaf ibn Mulaib . The emir was the last subordinate of the Fatimid caliphs ruling in Egypt in Syria, i.e. the Ismaili counterimame of the Nizari Shia. After the murder, several hundred Nizarites occupied Apamea, but a son of the emir managed to escape and found refuge with the Christian prince of Antioch , Tankred . This is then raised with an army of knights to siege Apamea. After the city was starved, the Nizarites had to surrender. Abu Tahir fell into the captivity of Tankred, from which, however, he was ransomed by Radwan a little later. This episode marks the first direct contact of the Nizarites with the Christian crusaders, in whose historiography they were to become known as "assassins" in the future.

After repeated attacks against their opponents, the general mood in Aleppo against the Nizarite community had heated up in the following years. On October 2, 1113 in Damascus they murdered the Emir of Mosul, who had previously been victorious against the Christians, Maudud , at the entrance to the great mosque after the Friday prayers. The emir was seen as a competitor to Radwan for rule over Syria. But already in December 1113 Radwan died, with which the Nizarites had lost their patron. His successor, Alp Arslan , triggered a wave of persecution against the Nizarites under the influence of his Atabeg, in which many of their leaders were imprisoned and supporters were expelled from Aleppo.

Abu Tahir was executed together with a brother of the “wise astrologer”. The next Da'i of the Syrian Nizarites known after him was Bahram († 1128).

literature

• Farhad Daftary , The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge University Press 1990, pp. 333-334.
• Heinz Halm , caliphs and assassins. Egypt and the Middle East at the time of the First Crusades 1074–1171. Munich 2014, pp. 128–131.
• Heinz Halm, The Assassins. History of an Islamic secret society . Munich 2017, pp. 44–47.

swell

• Abū Yaʿlā ibn Asad ibn al-Qalānisī , “Continuation of the story of Damascus” (Ḏail taʾrīḫ Dimašq), ed. and translated by Hamilton AR Gibb, The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades. London, 1932.
• ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Athīr , "The Perfect Chronicle" (Al-Kāmil fī ʾt-taʾrīḫ), in: RHC, Historiens Orientaux , Vol. 1 (1872), pp. 232-235, 290-291.
• Shams ad-Dīn Abūʾl-Muẓaffar Yūsuf ibn Qızoġly ibn ʿAlī Sibṭ ibn al-Ǧauzi , “Mirror of the times with regard to the history of eminent personalities” (Mirʾāt az-zamān fī taʾrīḫ al-aʿyān), in: RHC, Historiens Orientaux, vol. 3 (1884), pp. 530, 549-550.
• Kamāl ad-Dīn ʿUmar ibn Aḥamd ibn al-ʿAdīm , “The cream of milk from the story of Aleppo” (Zubdat al-ṭalab min taʾrīḫ Ḥalab), in: RHC, Historiens Orientaux, Vol. 3 (1884), p. 594– 595.
• The First and Second Crusades from an Anonymous Syriac Chronicle, ed. and translated by Arthur S. Tritton and Hamilton AR Gibb in: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 92 (1933), p. 85.
• Albert von Aachen , Historia Hierosolymitana, in: RHC, Historiens occidentaux, Vol. 4 (1879), pp. 639-642.