Ala ad-Din Muhammad (Imam)

“Here I am telling you about the old man from the mountains,… called Aloadin in their language” (Cý devile du viel de la montaigne,… apellez en leur language aloadin) . Illustration from the Livre des merveilles , a French copy of Marco Polo's travelogue from the 15th century. BnF, ms. fr. 2810, folio 16v.

Ala ad-Din Muhammad , or Muhammad III. ( Arabic علاء الدين محمد, DMG Alāʾ ad-Dīn Muḥammad ; * 1212 ; † December 1, 1255 ), was the 26th Imam of the Shia of the Nizari-Ismailis and the seventh ruler of Alamut .

At the age of nine he succeeded his father Jalal ad-Din Hassan, who died in Ramadan 618 AH (November 1221), in the rule of Alamut. His mother was the daughter of the Prince of Kutam ( Gilan Province ), who is rumored to have poisoned her father. His vizier , who ruled as guardian , used this rumor as an excuse to cruelly kill the members of the ruling family and thus to be able to take over the orphans entirely for themselves. After Muhammad was able to take over the rule himself, he dropped the orthodox Islam of the Sunnah , which his father had called for, and turned back to the dogma of "Judgment Day" advocated by his Shia .

During his rule, the Khorezmier Empire , which was hostile to Alamut, was destroyed by the advancing Mongols of Genghis Khan . Between the Mongols and the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad , the Ismailis from then on pursued a largely successful policy of laving. According to contemporary traditions, this is said to have been due to the capable chief ministers of Alamut, while the imam himself is described as politically disinterested, drunk and even insane. Against the growing power of the Mongols, the "old man from the mountains" (Veteris de Monte) sent a diplomatic mission to the courts of France and England in 1238 to seek military support from their kings, which was not granted. The Ismailis of Alamut are also said to have attempted an assassination attempt against the Great Khan Möngke . At least in its capital Karakorum in 1254 there was a rumor that four hundred disguised assassins (Hacsasini) were on the road with a corresponding murder assignment . Wilhelm von Rubruk, who was traveling there at the time, and his companions were suspected as such and therefore subjected to interrogation. This news marks the last attempted political murder attributed to the Nizarites , which has come down from contemporary reports.

The imam's regiment on Alamut is said to have been characterized by cruelty and moral brutality. He had unpopular people executed and he regularly and publicly abused his son Rukn ad-Din Khurschah . On the last day of the month of Schauwāl 653 AH (December 1, 1255) the drunk imam was murdered in his sleep by his closest confidante Hasan-i Mazandarani with an ax blow while he was on a tour of his domain. Although Churschah had avenged the deed, contemporaries suspected him of being the instigator.

The imam's administrator ( dāʿī ) in the Syrian fortress of the Assassins, Masyaf , was Taj al-Din , who was also referred to by the Christians as the “old man of the mountain” (vieil de la Montaingne) . During the reign of Muhammad III. the scholar Nasir ad-Din Tusi lived in exile on Alamut.

literature

• Farhad Daftary , The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge University Press 1990.
• Farhad Daftary, The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismaʿilis. London 1994.
• Farhad Daftary, Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies. London 2004.
• Heinz Halm, Caliphs and Assassins: Egypt and the Near East at the Time of the First Crusades 1074–1171. Munich 2014, pp. 336–346.

swell

• Ata al-Mulk Dschuwaini , "History of the World Conqueror" ( Ta'rīkh-i Jahāngushāy ) : ed. as a translation into English by John Andrew Boyle, Genghis Khan, the history of the world conqueror (1958), pp. 703-709.
• Hamd Allah Mustawfi , "Selected Story" (Ta'rīkh-i-guzīda) : ed. as a translation into English by Edward G. Browne, The Ta'ríkh-i-guzída or "Select history" of Hamdulláh Mustawfí-i-Qazwíní, part 2 (1913), p. 130.
• Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan ibn Isfandiyār , "History of Tabaristan" (Ta'rīkh-i Ṭabaristān) : ed. as a translation into English by Edward G. Browne, An abridged translation of the History of Tabaristan (1905), p. 259.
• Kirakos of Ganjak “History of Armenia”, ed. as a translation into French by Marie Felicité Brosset , Deux historiens arméniens: Oukhtanès et Kiracos (1870), p. 181.
• Matthäus Paris , Chronica majora, ed. by Henry Richard Luard, (1876), Vol. III, pp. 488-489.
• Wilhelm von Rubruk : Itinerarium ad partes orientales, ed. by Francisque Michel, Theodor Wright, Voyage en orient du frère Guillaume de Rubruk, de l'ordre des frères mineurs, l'an de grace M. CC. LIII., In: Recueil de voyages et de mémoires publié par la société de géographie, Vol. 4 (1839), p. 346.
• Jean de Joinville : Histoire de Saint Louis , in: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. 20 (1840), pp. 259-260.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cf. Guillaume Pauthier: Le livre de Marco Polo, citoyen de Venise, conseiller privé et commissaire impérial de Khoubilai-Khaân. Paris, 1865. p. 98, note 2.

predecessor	Office	successor
Jalal ad-Din Hassan (III.)	26. Imam of the Nizari-Ismailis 1221–1255	Rukn ad-Din Khurschah
Jalal ad-Din Hassan (III.)	Ruler of Alamut 1221–1255	Rukn ad-Din Khurschah