Assassins
(Translation: Santo Caserio's dagger, with which he stabbed President Carnot on June 24, 1894 in Lyon .)
In the Christian historiography of the Middle Ages, members of the Shiite-Islamic denomination of the Nizarites or this community in its entirety were referred to under the external name Assassins . Christian Europe is in the historical epoch of the Crusadesof the 12th and 13th centuries came into direct contact with this group, which, under the name attached to it, left a deep and lasting impression on his imagination and inspired the formation of legends that is still popular today, without this going into the 20th century would have been accompanied by a deeper knowledge of the historical, theological and structural constitution of this community. To this day, obedience reaching up to self-sacrifice, religious fanaticism , secretive sectarianism and, last but not least, (political) assassination are associated with this term , which is associated with its entry into the vocabulary of several European languages, especially Romance, as an expression for murderer, Murder and murders manifested.
In other words
“In provincia Tyrensi, quæ Phœnicis dicitur, circa episcopatum Antaradensem, est quidam populus, castella decem habens cum suburbanis suis; estque numerus eorum, eut sæpius audivimus, quasi ad sexaginta millia, vel amplior. Hic, non hæreditaria succesione sed meritorum prærogativa, magistrum solent sini præficere, et eligere præceptorom, quem, spretis aliis dignitatum nominibus, Senem vocant: cui tanta subjectionis et obedientiæ vinculo solentum, tamic nihilos obligos tamque durum, tamque durum ad magistri imperium, ardentibus animis nom aggrediantur implere. Nam inter eætera, si quos habent princioes odiosos aut genti suæ suspectos, data uni de suis sica, vel pluribus, non considerato rei exitu, utrum evadere possit, illuc contendit, cui mandatum est; et tam diu pro complendo anxius imperio circuit et laborat, quousque casu injunctum peragal officium, præceptoris mandato satisfaciens. Hos tam nostri, quam Sarraceni nescimus unde nomine Assissinos vocant. "
“In the province of Tire, which is called Phenicia, there is a people in the vicinity of the diocese of Tortosa who own ten castles and the surrounding area and, as we have often heard, are said to consist of about 60,000 or more people. These have the habit of giving themselves to their master not on the basis of hereditary succession, but according to the priority of merit themselves and choosing a master and placing him at their head as a preceptor whom they, disdaining all other honorary titles, call "the old man" to whom they are so committed to submission and obedience that there is nothing hard, difficult, or dangerous that they do not fervently seek to fulfill at the Master's bidding. If he and his people are unpopular or suspicious of any princes, he gives one or more of his own a dagger, and the latter strives to go where he has been ordered, and without considering how the matter might end and whether he can get away would, the one who has received the order immediately goes where he was ordered and does not rest until he succeeds in carrying out the order received and fulfilling the will of the master. Our people as well as the Saracens call this people assassins, without our knowing from which this name is derived. "
Etymological
In spite of Marco Polo's reports of the disciples of the old man made submissive by the administration of drugs, the etymological root of the term assassin and its origin in European linguistics remained unknown until the beginning of the 19th century. Due to the repeated associations of this term with the notorious murderer sect from the Orient, he was only able to do so in Europe with his “imaginative ignorance” of Islam and the Nizarites, first in Italy and then one after the other in France, England and on the Iberian Peninsula, the received slang meaning for murderers . Only after studying the “Book of the Two Gardens regarding the events during the reigns of Nur ad-Din and Salah ad-Din” ( Arabic كتاب الروضتين فى اخبار الدولتين النورية والصلاحية, DMG Kitāb ar-rawḍatayn fī aḫbār ad-dawlatayn an-nūriyya wa-ṣ-ṣalāḥiyya ) by the Damascus religious scholar Abu Schama († 1276), the French linguist Silvestre de Sacy was able to solve the riddle. In this work he is entitled to “the hash machines, hashish people” ( Arabic الحشاشين, DMG al-Ḥaššāšīn , or Arabic الحشيشيون, DMG al-Ḥašīšiyyūn ) as a name for the group that became known as Assassini in the historical works of the Middle Ages written in Latin and Old French . In a lecture given on May 19, 1809 at the Paris Institut de France , he was able to show that the Nizarites were referred to in Arabic sources from the time of the Crusades by a name derived from the Arabic word for grass , hemp , hashish ( Arabic حشيش, DMG ḥašīš ). The conclusion he drew from this that the Latin Assissini is a corruption of the Arabic Ḥaššāšīn has since been accepted as a generally accepted doctrine, see Daftary , Halm and Hauziński.
The Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf recently presented a different thesis in his novel Samarcande (1988), based on allegedly preserved texts from the founding father of the Assassins, Hassan-i Sabbah († 1124). This has his followers as devotees of the Asās ( Arabic أساسيون, DMG asāsīyūn , 'fundamentalists'), in the sense of those who are devoted to the foundation / principle of their belief. According to this, Asās is also an honorary title for Ali († 661), the son-in-law of the Prophet, who is also the first named in the Nizarite count as the foundation of their imam line.
However, it is not known that the Franks of the Crusader states came into contact with Hassan-i Sabbah, who resides in the Persian part of the Islamic Empire , and his writings. The unofficial and official language style of the Muslims in Egypt and Syria , however, was geographically much closer to them. And here the Assassins / Nizarites were, if not exclusively, but also known as Ḥašīšiyyūn . Before Abu Shama, al-Bundari († after 1241/42) had already used this term twice in his work "The Glory of Victory and the Selection from Refuge", completed in 1226 and dedicated to an Ayyubid prince (Zubdat al-Nuṣra wa-nuḫbat al- ʿUṣra) , which in turn is a short version of the “Victory over the languor and the refuge of the nature” (Nuṣrat al-fatra wa-ʿuṣrat al-fiṭra) by Saladin's clerk, Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani († 1201). And before that, the universal geographer al-Idrisi († 1166), who worked in Palermo, knew about the Hashishis living in the mountains around Tartus (Tortosa) . Last but not least, the Shia of the Nizari Ismailites was published in 1123 in the pamphlet “The Striking Lightning - Refutation of the Arguments of the Wicked ” (Īqāʿ ṣawāʿiq al-irġām fī idḥāḍ ḥuǧaǧ ulaʾika l-liʾām) of the caliphs who were enemies with them -Ismailiten al-Amir († 1130) also vilified twice as Ḥašīšiyyūn , which is the oldest known evidence of its designation as a hash machine.
Encounter story
First contacts
The history of the mutual relations between the Christian-Western “Franks” and the Islamic-Eastern “Assassins” is almost as old as that of the Crusades themselves. When the Christians in Clermont were called to the first Crusade in 1095 , they were in a dungeon Cairo the nineteenth Imam Nizar, recognized by the Nizari Ismailis, to death, whereupon his followers ( šīʿa ), who lived in Persia and Syria, separated from that of the Ismailis of Egypt. In 1097 the crusaders, coming from Asia Minor, reached the Levant and occupied the entire coastline up to Ashkelon by 1101 . By establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem and other feudal territories, they drove a wedge between Syria and Egypt, which made them direct neighbors of the Nizarite community spread across Syria. The image of the Crusaders of Islam corresponded to that of a religiously homogeneous world full of "infidels" against whom all Christians were called to defend their rule over the Holy Sepulcher . Because they encountered Islam almost exclusively in the form of Sunniism , they had hardly been able to gain a deeper understanding of the denominational fragmentation of this belief that had actually existed for centuries, let alone develop a feeling for the subtle subtleties of the different currents of Shiaism . And so the first direct encounters between the “knights of Christ” and the group that they later used to call “assassins” were no different than with other “unbelievers” before.
In the spring of 1106, after a brief siege , the crusade leader Tankred captured the Syrian fortress Apamea on the Orontes , which the assassins had only shortly before seized. He had several of their leaders executed, but led their leader Abu Tahir (Botherus) “the goldsmith” into captivity in Antioch in order to have Radwan of Aleppo pay him a large ransom.
The next meeting came only twenty years after the Apamea episode. In 1126 King Baldwin II of Jerusalem launched an attack on Damascus , in whose defense the assassins participated with a force recruited from their community of Homs . The chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi († 1160) paid tribute to her extraordinary bravery on this occasion.
The next contact, only three years later, exemplified the ambivalence in the future relationship between the Assassins and Franks. In 1129 the Assassin Community of Damascus, which had distinguished itself in the defense of the city, fell victim to a pogrom by the Sunni majority population. Several thousand relatives are said to have been massacred. In retaliation for this, their leader Ismail "the Persians" handed over the border fortress of Banyas , which they administered, to the Kingdom of Jerusalem and went there into exile with the survivors of his community. During the time of the persecution by the Sunnis, the territory of the Christians became a safe haven for the Shiite assassins, who later showed their appreciation for this. In the battle of Inab on June 29, 1149 they fought alongside the Christians against the troops of Nur ad-Din .
The country of the mission
Probably from the area of the Christians, the assassins began to establish their own territory in the years after the Damascus pogrom. They concentrated their commitment on the mountainous region of the Jebel Ansariye , which from the Levant coast to the Orontes represented a no man's land between the Crusader states and the Syrian rulers of the Zengids . They took their Persian co-religionists as a model, who had commanded their own state since the end of the 11th century through the occupation of hilltop castles in the north Persian Elburs Mountains . By purchasing it in 1132/33, they acquired the castle of Qadmus as their first fortress , in the vicinity of which they took possession of about a dozen more self-described "castles of the mission" (qilāʿ ad-daʿwa) by 1165 at the latest , thus gaining control over a small, could establish compact territory, which, after its consolidation, was inhabited by at least 60,000 believers in contemporary estimates. By murdering their previous owner in 1140/41, they finally took Masyaf Castle to themselves, which remained the main base of the assassins and the seat of their leader until shortly before the end of their "land of mission" (bilād ad-daʿwa) in 1270.
The organization of the Syrian assassins corresponded to that of a theocracy in which the task of social and religious leadership was entrusted to the person of a missionary, the so-called "caller" (daʿī) . Since each commune was looked after by its own caller, the Syrian “Land of Mission”, i.e. the entire congregation of the Nizarites there, was led and represented externally by a chief missionary, who today is often referred to as “Grand Da'i” or also "Grand Master" is called. He was given a spiritual and moral leadership quality, which is why he was usually addressed as a sheikh (šaiḫ) , which can be translated as “old man” or in the sense of spiritual authority as “wise man”. He was also the senex for the Franks . However, William of Tire was wrong in his assertion that the old man was elected to their head from among the ranks of the assassins thanks to previously earned merit. Until the end of the Crusades, the Franks had no knowledge of the existence of the actual spiritual head of the Nizari-Shia, the imam residing in the Persian Alamut . He had absolute leading authority over his entire supporters and it was he who determined the chief propagandists of the Syrian community. In fact, most of them came from Persia too.
The assassins had become territorial rulers in the middle of the 12th century and from then on had to assert themselves in the interstate relations and disputes of their Christian and Muslim neighbors. As a denominational minority of Islam, they had sought the protection of powerful princes such as Radwan of Aleppo and Tughtigin of Damascus, especially in Syria, who were indifferent to questions of the interpretation of faith in the power political debate. However, their protection had ended with her death, whereupon the assassin communities of Syria were exposed to bloody waves of persecution. In the Sunni majority society, they were hated because of their offensively pursued mission (daʿwa) and their strategic approach against their enemies. In the absence of an army of their own, the assassins had since their inception focused on eliminating political enemies through knife attacks that had become characteristic of them, through which they had already earned a notorious and feared reputation in the Muslim world. Now, as administrators of their own state, they soon reached their limits with this strategy.
The "Castles of Mission":
- al-Qadmūs; Acquisition 1132/33, fallen in May 1273.
- al-Kahf; Acquired before 1140, fallen on July 10, 1273.
- al-Ḫarība (no longer localizable); Acquisition before 1140, loss unclear.
- Maṣyāf ; Occupation 1140/41, fallen in May 1270.
- ar-Ruṣāfa; Acquisition unclear, fallen June 1271.
- al-Manīqa; Acquisition unclear, fallen in May 1273.
- al-Qulaiʿa (no longer localizable); Acquisition unclear, fallen on October 7, 1271.
- al-Ḫawābī; Acquisition before 1154; Loss unclear.
- al-ʿUllaiqa; Acquired after 1162, fallen in May 1271.
An unpredictable alliance
In 1152 assassins murdered Count Raymond II of Tripoli at the gate of his city and with him the knight Ralph von Merle . They were the first Franks to fall victim to the assassins' daggers after a rather peaceful understanding had existed between the two groups. The motives for this act remained unclear. In retaliation for this act, the Knights of the Knights Templar undertook a punitive expedition into the mountains and valleys of the Assassins. Mutual relations then seem to have normalized again, because no more attacks were carried out against the Franks in the next forty years. However, from now on the reputation of the assassins as an unpredictable, assassinate and fanatical sect had begun to establish itself among them, which was firmly anchored in the general consciousness of the Middle Eastern population until its end in the so-called Holy Land. Around the year 1169, on his way from Antioch to Tripoli along the coastal route, Rabbi Benjamin von Tudela bypassed the mountains of Jebel Ansariye and learned for the first time about the assassins who terrorized their neighbors from their headquarters in Qadmus, killing every king and their own Would give life. William of Tire reports that the Assassins had to pay an annual tribute of 2000 dinars to the Order of the Templars in his day. How this came about is not mentioned, but this tributary relationship is likely to have begun in the years after the murder of the Count of Tripoli, after the Templars had undertaken several punitive expeditions into their area. Apparently the assassins preferred to become vassals of the Christians, from whom, unlike the Sunni rulers, they could not expect forced conversion. They made attempts to get rid of this tribute by addressing King Amalrich I of Jerusalem in 1173 . They are even said to have made him the suggestion to convert to Christianity, which the king readily accepted, but the Templars thwarted this request by murdering the assassin's negotiator on his way back to his master.
| The Grand Da'is of the Syrian Assassins |
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| * al-Hakim al-Munaddschim ("the wise astrologer"; † 1103) * Abu Tahir as-Sa'igh ("the goldsmith"; X 1113) * Bahram (X 1128) * Ismail al-Ajami ("the Persian" ; † 1130) *… * Ali ibn Wafa (X 1149) * Abu Muhammad al-Sheikh ("the old one"; † 1162) * Raschid ad-Din Sinan (1162–1193) * Nasr al-Ajami ("the Persian" ) *… * Kamal ad-Din Hassan ibn Masud (named 1223) * Majd ad-Din (named 1227) * Siraj ad-Din Muzaffar ibn al-Hussain (named 1237) *… * Asad ad-Din * Taj ad-Din Abu l-Futuh ibn Muhammad (named 1249) ... * Radi ad-Din Abu l-Ma'ali (1258–1262) * Nadschm ad-Din Ismail (1262–1273) |
King Amalrich died just a year later and the Assassins remained under the domination of the Templars. The preservation of this status quo proved to be opportune for them after Syria was first politically united under Nur ad-Din and finally united with Egypt in 1174 by his officer Salah ad-Din (Saladin) Yusuf . For the Franks as well as for the assassins an existential danger arose in this Sunni superpower, which allowed both to come together to form a community of interests. After joint conspiracy, the Assassins attempted to remove the danger in 1174 and 1176 using their own tried and tested methods. But both attacks on Saladin failed. After the second he turned his superior force directly against the assassins and put Masyaf under siege. But Grand Master Sinan was able to prevent the fall of the Assassin State by making an offer of peace to Saladin, which Saladin willingly accepted. For the sultan, the struggle against the Franks took precedence over the enforcement of loyal faith. On July 4, 1187, Saladin defeated the Franks by the horns of Hattin and then recaptured Jerusalem for Islam.
The peace agreement between the Assassins and Saladin promoted a change in their relationship to the militarily weakened Franks in the years that followed. At least it now seems appropriate for them to lean on the stronger party. On April 28, 1192, in Tire , they murdered the margrave Conrad of Montferrat , who had become a hero of the Franks as the defender of the city against Saladin. It was the first attack on one of their own in forty years. Contemporaries on both sides have made various speculations about the motives for this, which have a common denominator in the form of the assumption of contract killing. On the Christian side, Richard the Lionheart in particular was suspected of being the man behind the assassins, as the margrave had been one of his worst political rivals during the third crusade . However, Lionheart had already left the Holy Land just a few weeks earlier, and it seems contradictory that the Crusader murdered the Christians of hope from overseas because of a personal rivalry. On the Muslim side, on the other hand, Saladin was also suspected as the actual client, who, by murdering the margrave, intended on the one hand to repay the disgrace inflicted on him before Tire and on the other hand to eliminate his potentially most dangerous adversary of the future, because the margrave was already the heiress of the kingdom Jerusalem married. Saladin's clerkship chief Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani († 1201) contradicted these allegations and charged the king of England with the murder.
The murder of Tire provided food for people to the other end of Europe for new rumors and legends about the assassins. In Chinon are fifteen in 1195 have been seen of them that King Philip II. Of France had hired the murder of Richard the Lionheart. Duke Ludwig of Bavaria , who fell victim to a knife murder on the Danube bridge at Kelheim in 1231, is said to have been killed by assassins hired by Emperor Friedrich II . The Viennese rhyming smith Jans Enikel even said he knew that the emperor had used young boys in isolated rooms to act willless "diggers" who, like those of the old man from the mountains, would throw themselves off the walls at his command. And shortly before setting off on his crusade, a death squad is said to have set out for France to kill King Louis IX. stabbing in an act of prevention. Whether justified or not, the stories about the purchasability of assassins for contract killings were taken so seriously in Europe in the 13th century that Pope Innocent IV at the Council of Lyon in 1245 was compelled to publish the bull De sentencia et re iudicata , in which the recruitment of assassins to murder political opponents was sanctioned with the threat of excommunication against the client. This was the time in Europe when the term Assassini began to find its way into common usage as “murderer”, after a few years earlier it had awakened completely different associations, especially among poets.
The courtly assassin
It was not only because of their murders that the assassins became notorious in Europe at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. The reports of returning crusaders about their unconditional devotion to the teachings of their master also reached the people of the West and impressed them. Provencal trobadors were reminded of this devotion to their own in courting for a lady, and it was reflected in their poetry. In it, the poet appears as an assassin who devotedly submits to the love of his lady, like his counterpart from the Orient to the commands of his master. Here, too, can be the love of the assassin, to whom the poet succumbs after an "attack".
For example, an anonymous admirer of his lady declared in a love letter (domnejaire) that he was her assassin, who hoped to win paradise by fulfilling her wishes. The lady here becomes the old man from the mountain and the courtly admirer a devoted assassin.
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Lo vostre verais ancessis, |
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The poet Aimeric de Peguilhan revealed to a lady that she ruled him more than the old man controlled his assassins, who would kill his mortal enemies for him, even if they were far from the lands of France. Interesting is the assumption that emerged here that the assassins could already be up to mischief in France. Finally, the poet compares his heart to an assassin because the latter killed him following the will of his lady. Once again the lady becomes the old man from the mountain and the heart of the admirer becomes her submissive assassin, who was sent by her to obtain the love of the “victim” through an “assassination”.
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- Pos descobrir ni retraire - Car mieills m'avetz ses doptanssa, |
- Ice seeds cum l'azimans - Mas faich avetz ansessi |
Bernart de Bondeilhs assured us that he had served his lady's love as tirelessly as the assassins had served their master.
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Tot aissi ∙ m prem com fai as assesis, |
And like Peguilhan, Giraut de Bornelh also recognized that love for his lady is an assassin who kills him.
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Ren als no ∙ lh sai comtar |
Final years
Just as contradictory as the news about the murder of the Margrave of Montferrat appear the other relationships between the Franks and the assassins. According to a later source, Heinrich von der Champagne is said to have visited the old man from the mountains in 1194 in order to initiate a reconciliation with him. But in 1213 the assassins murdered the eighteen-year-old Raymond of Antioch in the cathedral of Tortosa . No one could give a plausible reason for this, but it was rumored that the Hospitaller Order had commissioned the attack. The victim's father then invaded the assassin area together with the Templars and besieged one of their castles. However, two Ayyubid princes hurried to the aid of the assassins, so that the Franks had to withdraw again. Regardless of the credibility of the rumor that the hospitallers were commissioned, this message at least trusts the assassins to be ready to make new contacts with the Franks at that time.
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In fact, the relationship between the two groups returned to normal afterwards. There were no more assassinations until the final year of the Assassin State, and there is evidence of a return of the status quo to that before Saladin, when the assassins were once again considered potential allies. In 1227, two years before Emperor Friedrich II set out on his crusade, he established diplomatic contact with them and bought from them a security guarantee for himself and his army with 80,000 gold dinars. This gold led to a revealing aftermath. In the same year the Knights of the Hospitaller Order demanded the usual tribute from the Assassins, whereupon they refused to pay the Order, trusting their new imperial allies. The Hospitallers then undertook a raid through the assassin area. Apparently, in the early 13th century, the assassins had returned to the tributary relationship with the Franks, as it had already existed before Saladin's time and which had further burdened them even after the end of the emperor's crusade in 1229. The tribute also played a role in their last documented contact with the Franks and in the story of their downfall.
In 1248 King Ludwig IX broke. from France with a force on the last great crusade for the liberation of Jerusalem. In the spring of 1250 he failed disgracefully in the Nile Delta of Egypt and fell into Egyptian captivity. In May of the same year he was released from it, whereupon he went to Acre , the capital of the Oriental Franks since the loss of Jerusalem to Saladin. The crusader Jean de Joinville was an eyewitness here when three emissaries of the old man from the mountain came to an audience with the king. Behind the spokesman, his two companions had stood silently at his side. One presented three daggers, the blades of which were inserted into the handles of the other, the other had a white sheet (a potential shroud ) wrapped around his arms. Underlined by these menacing accessories of the silent death threat, the spokesman demanded that the king pay a tribute such as the Emperor of Germany, the King of Hungary and the Sultan of Cairo would have paid them. But if the king is not ready to do so, he can also induce the grand masters of the knightly orders to renounce their own demands for tribute to the assassins. In addition, they declared that it would be pointless for them to kill one of the grandmasters, since in the knightly orders a new one would be elected in their place, who would seamlessly continue the policy of the predecessor. The demand made with the threatening gestures did not catch on with the king and the grandmasters also gave the assassins a harsh rebuff. It was only for the king's sake that they had refrained from drowning the embassy at once in the sea for their insolence. Instead, the assassins were supposed to appear before the king again within fourteen days with a letter and gifts from their master in order to win his forgiveness for their threats. And so it finally happened. The old man from the mountains sent the king several precious gifts, including one of his shirts, as this was closer to him than anything else, and a particularly beautifully forged gold ring, with which the old man intended to “marry” the king unite.
After that, King Ludwig had rich gifts sent to the old man from the mountains. They were brought by a monk named Yves from Brittany , who spoke Arabic and who was able to talk extensively with the old man, probably Taj ad-Din . Although the monk did not understand everything correctly, it is thanks to him that the Franks received a deeper knowledge of the belief system of the assassins. Benjamin of Tudela had already reported that the assassins had given up the faith of Islam, and William of Tire had once written that they had broken with the faith of the Saracens and were viewed by them as heretics. This made it possible for them to submit their offer to King Amalrich I to convert to Christianity. Brother Yves now also learned that the assassins were following the “Law of Ali ” (la loy Haali) and were therefore regarded by followers of the “Law of Muhammad” as infidels, describing the sectarian conflict between Shi'a and Sunniism within Islam . Ali once helped his nephew Mohammed to power, but was then dropped by him, whereupon he gathered a following of his own, which from then on would have been in opposition to the followers of Mohammed. Nor would the assassins fear death because they believed they would be reborn in a happier body. Nor do they wear armor, because God has predetermined every fate of death, and they despise the Franks because they go into battle with armor for fear of death.
The diplomatic exchange with Louis IX. marks the last documented personal contact between the assassins and the European Franks. Only one letter from the Syrian Grand Da'is to King Manfred of Sicily , dated 1265, has survived , in which the master assures the king of his support in the fight against the Pope and Charles of Anjou . For the Franks as well as for the Assassins, the years after 1250 heralded their last in the so-called Holy Land. In 1260, the Mamluks, under the leadership of Sultan Baibars, inherited the old Egyptian-Syrian empire of Saladin and removed the last Christian and Shiite strongholds in the Levant. The assassins were fatally due to their tribute, which was still being paid to the Hospitallers, which made them suspicious of Baibars as a secret ally of the Franks, against whom he was already at war ( jihād ) . At first Baibars had intended the submission of the assassins to his sovereignty, which he achieved thanks to his military superiority. As early as May 1270 he occupied Masyaf and got the Grand Da'i to stop paying tribute to the Hospitallers and instead pay it to his treasury as a financial contribution to his jihad. Apparently the sultan also made the murderous talents of the assassins available for himself, because he was suspected of being the principal behind their attacks on Philip of Montfort and the cruising Prince Edward of England . However, the assassins tried to get rid of his growing power through an assassination attempt on him, which was carried out in the spring of 1271 in the camp in front of the besieged Hospitaller festival Krak des Chevaliers , but was foiled. And after the conspiracy of the Assassins with the Prince of Antioch and their resumed payments to the knightly orders had become known to the Sultan, he knew no more mercy. One after the other, the assassin castles capitulated to his superior army. Al-Kahf was the last to fall on July 10, 1273, the end of the assassin state.
Similar to the assassins, the Franks suffered in the following years. After Baibars had already been able to conquer most of their castles and cities, his death in 1277 gave them a respite. But in 1291 one of his successors ended their rule in the Holy Land with the conquest of Acre, and with it the history of the Crusades. In contrast to the Franks, who disappeared from the Orient at the end of the 13th century, the descendants of the Assassins, the members of the Nizari Shia, remained in Syria, albeit politically marginalized after the loss of their castles. Many of them broke up after 1310 by the nizari and followed by the name Mu'miniten own Imam line. In the early 14th century, this new Ismaili Shia seems to have reconsidered the legacy of its ancestors. At least the explorer Ibn Battuta († after 1368) learned on his way through the old "Land of Mission" there in the summer of 1326 that the Fidāwīya had repossessed their old castles and now for a blood money contract killings for the Sultan an-Nasir Muhammad († 1341) would do. They would use poisoned daggers to do this. And Brochard the German also warned King Philip VI. of France in his 1332 expedition report in preparation for a new crusade against the "cursed and to be avoided assassins" (execrandos et fugiendos nomino Assasinos) in the Holy Land, who would still kill innocent people for payment.
Re-encounter in the modern age
In the Ottoman Empire , the Ismailis were able to assert themselves as a tolerated sect and subject to a special tax, but at that time they experienced a demographic slump and only lived in the areas around Masyaf, Qadmus and al-Kahf. In Europe, after the end of the Middle Ages, this community fell out of the historiographical field of vision and was ultimately believed to have been extinguished. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that the British travel writer Alexander Drummond († 1769) learned during his tenure as British consul in Aleppo (1751-1759) that the assassin people, who had been declared dead, still existed and lived in the mountainous regions between Antioch and Tripoli. He mistakenly recognized this ethnic group as a descendant of the ancient Parthian ruling dynasty of the Arsacids . About half a century later, the French consul general of Aleppo Joseph Rousseau († 1831), who incidentally corresponded with Silvestre de Sacy, was the first European to ever become acquainted with the imam of the Nizari, who resided in Kahak ( province of Ghom ) during a trip to Persia in 1810. Ismaili Shah Chalil Allah III. († 1817), which he identified as the descendants of those "ancients from the mountains" who were once known as the leaders of the assassins. His great-grandson Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III. († 1957), finally visited Queen Victoria in Windsor in 1898 and Kaiser Wilhelm II in Potsdam in 1900 .
The imams of the Mu'mini-Ismailis had emigrated to India as early as the 16th century, where the trace of the last one in 1796 was lost. In the 19th century, most of their Shia rejoined the still existing line of Nizari Ismailis, but a small minority refused to accept this reunification and stuck to their line that had now disappeared into obscurity ( ġaiba ) . This Shia still lives in the villages around Masyaf and Qadmus. In 1964, the Ismaili community in Syria numbered 56,000 people, which was about one percent of the total population.
Legends, myths, half-truths
drug consumption
Thanks to Marco Polo's travel report and, last but not least, the etymological deciphering of terms by Silvestre de Sacy, the supposed drug consumption of the assassins is still one of the fixed components in popular cultural and historiographical recitation. In his castle in the mountains of Persia, the old man from the mountains showed his disciples the advantages of heavenly paradise by numbing them with a specially prepared drink and then having them carried into his lush gardens, where they after their intoxication had vanished, believed to have awakened in paradise . Here they were allowed to eat the tasty fruits for a while, drink from streams of water, wine, honey and milk and listen to the poetry and music recited by the beautiful harem girls. Afterwards, again numbed with the drink, they were carried out of the gardens again, so that after their awakening they thought they were back in this earthly world. But after that each of them strived to become a devout believer and assassin of the old man, in the hope of finding death in the execution of the old man's commands in order to be able to return to heavenly paradise forever.
In Christian reporting, Marco Polo has remained the only author who knew about drug use by the assassins. This description was brought to him by locals during his passage through Persia, on which he had passed the area around Alamut and the other assassin castles, which at that time had long been razed by the Mongols. It must not have been a coincidence that he just recorded this story in Persia. Almost a century earlier, the Sunni scholar Ibn al-Jschauzi († 1201) from Baghdad in his "Devil's Deceptions" (Talbīs Iblīs) subordinated the founding father of the Nizari Shia Hassan-i Sabbah to his young followers by administering a mixture To have made crushed walnuts, honey and coriander so weak-willed and so receptive to his heretical teachings.
On the Muslim side, Ibn al-Jschauzi can claim a certain unique position for himself, because in no other Muslim tradition has the Nizari-Shia been assumed to have any particular tendency towards drug consumption; not even from their most ardent enemies. Such an allegation has probably only remained an opinion among isolated and religiously prejudiced persons such as Ibn al-Jschauzi, through whom they tried to explain the success of the Nizarites' doctrine, condemned as heretical by Sunni orthodoxy, who the Shia especially in Persia 12th century has gained a large following. Other authors believed to have found an explanation for this success in the magic power and witchcraft inherent in the ancients of the mountains. By the late 13th century, when Marco Polo traveled through Persia, such opinions ultimately became one of the many black legends about the Nizarites and their imams, who had meanwhile withdrawn into the underground, and who finally came to Europe through the Venetian world traveler have become popular there.
Now, however, the members of the Nizarites are denigrated by some Arab authors (see above), all Sunnis without exception, and not least in the Amir's guidance of the Mustalites competing with them as "hashish smokers ". In all of these examples, however, it should be taken into account that this term was used in a derogatory and insulting motivation and that they did not give any further explanations as to why they used this of all things. Farhad Daftary pointed out that the term Ḥašīšīya in Arabic does not necessarily imply drug use, but is still a common swear word for social outsiders, criminals, the dangerous mob and also for the mentally insane. And from the standpoint of Sunni orthodoxy, the Nizarites were regarded as nothing else because of their belief system based on the beginning of the “resurrection” (qiyāma) . Her abuse as hashish smoker was still considered moderate. Their condemnation as a "heretic" ( malāḥida ) by Sunni zealots like Ata al-Mulk Juwaini († 1283), however, was clearer and more momentous, since those who apostate Islam and its law ( šarīʿa ) were considered outlaws. In the general judgment of modern historical research, the assumption of hashish-smoking Nizarites has meanwhile been rejected.
Leap of death
The story of the death jump of the assassins has enjoyed great popularity in both Muslim and Christian historiography, although it is based only on hearsay with all known authors and is probably similar to drug consumption from the "black legend established around the assassins “Generated.
In his earliest descriptions, he was associated with Raschid ad-Din Sinan († 1193), the leader of the Syrian assassins, who, as a demonstration of his absolute authority over his followers, asked them to jump to their death from the highest point of his castle. The oldest mentions of the leap of death can be found in the travelogue (Riḥlab) of the Arab-Spanish pilgrim Ibn Jubair († 1217), who heard about it on the occasion of his Hajj to Mecca, which he committed from 1183 to 1185 , and in the “Book of the Chosen One on the Unveiling of Secrets “ (Kitāb al-Muḫtār fī kašf al-asrār) by the Syrian scholar al-Jaubari († after 1222). After all, this story is described in the Sinan biography of the Aleppine historian Ibn al-Adim († 1262), which was part of his biographical dictionary "Everything Desirable about the History of Aleppo" (Buġyat al-ṭalab fī taʾrīḫ Ḥalab) , but today is only preserved as a copy. In this vita, the author noted the allegation made by an envoy Saladin , to whom Sinan allegedly demonstrated the blind loyalty and contempt for death of his followers by jumping off the castle wall. Abu'l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi († 1201), in turn, has in his works "Parent listing of the history of the rulers and peoples" (Al-Muntaẓam fī ta'rīḫ al-Muluk wa-l-Umam) , and "The Devil's deceptions" (Talbees Iblees) the death leap associated with Hassan-i Sabbah, the founding father of the Nizari Shia. He had demonstrated his inherent power over his disciples to an envoy of the Seljuk sultan Malik Shah by asking one to abduct himself with a knife and another to throw himself from the wall of the castle, which both of them did immediately.
The oldest known description of the leap of death by a Christian author can be found in the aforementioned Chronica Slavorum by Arnold von Lübeck , to whom his information about the assassins was passed on to sources he considered credible. The continuer of the Chronicle of William of Tire (late 13th century) reported that the death leap against Heinrich von der Champagne († 1197) should have been demonstrated when he visited the unnamed lord of the assassins at his castle. The death jump is also mentioned by the Italian chronicler Francesco Pipino († after 1328).
In popular cultural reception, the leap of death has found its way into the computer game series Assassin's Creed (since 2007) and its film adaptation of the same name (2016) as the “Leap of Faith” . In the novel cycle Die Kinder des Grail (1991-2005) by the German author Peter Berling , he is a test of loyalty of the Fida'i imposed by their Grand Da'i.
Willless suicide bombers, hired killers, terrorists
Along with the story of the leap of death, the assassins were also assumed to be willing to commit suicide , which once again denied their commitment to the Islamic faith, in which suicide is one of the most serious sins . Combined with the knife attacks they committed, this allegation took on a new quality with the emergence of Islamist terror in the 20th century. The extremely high rate of loss of the assassins in the attacks they carried out conveys the image of suicide bombers who allegedly sought their way to heavenly paradise through their suicide in execution of their orders . Arnold von Lübeck said they had such endeavors and this judgment is still used today about Wilhelm von Tire and Marco Polo. For example, recently in the TV documentary series Die Marco Polo-Fährte (2011), in which the assassins are characterized as "the al-Qaeda of their time".
As Shiites, the assassins of yore were believers in the prophet's preaching as recorded in the Koran , just like the Nizarites of today. They did not commit their way back to the paradisiacal original state of faith in God through suicide, but through the proclamation of the "resurrection" by their Imam Hassan II († 1166) in 1164. The belief in the resurrection that comes with the fall of all The outer sheaths of Islam (Sharia, fasting, prayer, pilgrimage) are a central element of Islamic eschatology and are shared by Sunnis and Shiites. The only thing that distinguishes the Nizarites from all other Islamic denominations is the resurrection that has already occurred in them, which has made them heretics in the judgment of orthodoxy. The quintessence of Shi'aism includes the allegiance to the rightful head ( imām ) of the Shia as the deputy ( ḫalīfa ) of the Prophet. Because only the rightful Imam opens up the inner meaning in the external wording of the Koran, in which the believer can consequently only participate through the mediation of the Imam. The imam's expressions of will are considered religious dogma and are binding for his Shia. With overseas (European) outsiders in particular, they have left the impression of a band of seemingly mindless deluded people who obey every command of their master without questioning him. This concept was well known among the Franks. In their knightly order, too, there was an unconditional duty of obedience on the part of the members to their masters, whose spiritual overlords, incidentally, resided in far away Rome . Just as the knights of the Franks were not mute tools in the hands of their leaders, so were the assassins on the other side. They killed no less than two of their own imams by their own hands.
The medieval assassin can only withstand a comparison with modern terrorists to a limited extent. In contrast to the terrorist militias operating in the Middle East today, such as Hamas , al-Nusra and Daesch (“Islamic State”) , they did not commit any mass killings or specifically factored in the murder of uninvolved people in their actions. Their attacks have typically been limited to individuals in government and clerical leadership positions, with collateral damage being a rare exception. In fact, it was actually the other way around. As a denominational minority, it was the assassins who had to go through times of bloody persecution in the Sunni majority society, especially in its founding years. Their dogmas, branded as heresy, and the unpredictability of their killing strategies have made the Shia suspect and hated by the general public. If they lost the protection of a political power, they became practically outlawed. In 1113 several hundred Nizarites were killed in a pogrom in Aleppo, in 1124 this was repeated in Diyarbakır . After all, several thousand members of the Shia were massacred in the Damascus pogrom in 1129 , some traditions count up to 20,000. After assassins murdered a Sunni Abbasid caliph in Isfahan in 1136 , the local community there also began to pogrom. As a result, the Nizarites had emigrated from the urban milieu in both Syria and Persia by the middle of the 12th century or had only been able to move within it in public denial of their faith.
On the other hand, it is true that an assassin had to take his own death into account when carrying out an act, especially if the selected target was a high-ranking person of spiritual or secular authority, since this person was usually accompanied by a bodyguard corps. The murder of an enemy alone was considered a pious act for which the perpetrator, through his own death as a “martyr” ( šahīd ), could only provide additional evidence of the purity of his faith. A person entrusted with a killing order was therefore often called a “sacrifice maker” ( fidāʾī ) by his Shia and praised for his self-sacrificing devotion to their faith. But in contrast to the modern suicide bomber, the Fida'i was not a doomed man who would have consciously sought his own death in the exercise of his deed. In almost all cases it is reported that the assassins attempted to escape after striking. But they were usually caught by the victim's bodyguard and killed immediately. The first Fida'i, who killed the Seljuq vizier Nizām al-Mulk in 1092 , subsequently stumbled over a rope of tent, which sealed his own fate. But there are also cases in which the assassins managed to escape. Those Fida'is whose targets were low-ranking representatives of local authorities, especially qadis and muftis , who had not had extensive protective measures in place, had a higher chance of survival .
Contrary to all embellishments employed later, an assassin did not have to go through any special training to become a Fida'i, only his determination to act was what mattered. Only a dagger was used as a weapon and no other imaginative murderous tools, such as the often mentioned poisons. The execution of the crime had to be approached purposefully and systematically. The priority was the death of the selected target, an escape plan was only of secondary importance and therefore usually had to be improvised. It was precisely this approach that set the assassins apart from all other assassins and gave them their very own characteristic. Assassinations to eliminate political enemies were not a novelty in the Islamic world in their time, only before murderers were used to a more subtle approach to the execution of the crime. An attack usually took a lot of time to prepare, because it was not uncommon to first infiltrate the immediate vicinity of the target and study its habits, sometimes even gaining personal trust. The assassins' tactical approach also included placing one or more sleepers in the immediate vicinity of a potential target. Had this then confessed to the enemies of the Shia and planned any actions against them, or simply proved to be dispensable for reasons of political opportunity, the sleepers could have been activated at any time and tasked with his liquidation. Strikes were usually made during the daytime and, if possible, in public. The presence of a bodyguard was also not undesirable. Because with their assassinations the assassins also intended to spread a psychological terror. No enemy of the Shia should underestimate the fanatical determination of a Fida'i to approve of his own death with the aim of killing him. At no point should the enemy feel safe, no matter how many bodyguards he was surrounded by. This approach established their dreaded reputation, which was carried to distant Europe.
The assassins often accompanied successful murders of their enemies with festivities lasting days. Lists were later found on Alamut in which they meticulously documented their assassinations with the names of victims and perpetrators. The Persian historian Raschid ad-Din († 1318) included some of these lists in his universal history. Occasionally they have even claimed murders of known enemies for themselves, even though these were carried out by others. Conversely, they have also been accused of having committed attacks by others, especially since they were simply trusted to commit any murder. Another assumption attached to them was that their talents for killing could be bought. The Syrian branch of the assassins in particular was constantly under suspicion among contemporaries, which is not so easy to dismiss in view of its history. In their early years the Assassins of Syria lived under the protection of local princes, in order to retaliate, they could probably have willingly eliminated their enemies. After taking possession of their own territory, financial motives seem to have led them to sell their talents. At least that's what contemporary authors on both sides have given them credit for. Especially when there was no plausible motive for their actions, as in the cases of Margrave Konrad von Montferrat and the young Raimund von Antioch , the authors embarked on wildest speculations. Since the Syrian assassins have been in a tribute relationship to the Christian knightly orders since the late 12th century, the assumption has been made that they might have rendered this tribute in the form of special services. Even in the face of existence-threatening power constellations, they seem to have known far fewer scruples in carrying out a contract killing, provided that they could get rid of the threatening displeasure of the clients, to whom the orders of knights, Saladin , Richard the Lionheart , or Baibars were counted.
The old man from the mountain
Among the authors of the Franks, only Albert of Aachen knew one of the masters of the assassins by name ( Botherus ) , who for him was only one of the many Saracen princes against whom the knights of the first crusade had fought. For everyone else, however, the masters have remained without names. Not least because of this, the Franks fused them into a semi-mythical figure, which in their Latin texts is usually only referred to as the “prince of the mountains” (princeps de montanis) or “the old man” (senex) . In a rare case of etymological interest they actually translated the latter title from the Arabic šaiḫ , see William of Tire . The privilege of being the first to be given this title is usually attributed to Raschid ad-Din Sinan († 1193), as he was the reigning Grand Master of the Assassins at the time, to whom the reporting of the Franks referred. But according to his Aleppine biographer Ibn al-Adim († 1262), who used several of Sinan's statements made to him, it was the latter himself who called his predecessor Abu Muhammad “the old man” (aš-šai welcher) who in 1162 “ in the mountains ” (fī l-ǧabal) died. In the written sources of the Franks of the 13th century, written in old French, the mysterious master finally became the “old man of the assassins” (vieil des Haississis) and then the “old man of the mountains” (vieil de la Montaigne) .
For almost all chroniclers of the Crusades, the old man from the mountains, who resided on Masyaf, was the head of the assassins; they knew nothing about the imam of the Nicarite-Ismaili Shia who ruled him. A European in the 12th century almost got on the track of the true balance of power of the assassins. The Jewish-Spanish world traveler Benjamin von Tudela crossed the path of the assassins twice on his journey between 1169 and 1173. First in the Syrian Levant and finally in the mountains of northern Persia. He had learned that both groups of assassins living there were subject to "old age", although he had not realized that that of Syria (Masyaf) was subordinate to that of Persia (Alamut). It is possible that Emperor Frederick II had a vague idea of the true balance of power among the assassins, because according to a contemporary Muslim report, the gift of money sent to their Syrian master in 1227 was to be passed on to his overlord in Alamut. Perhaps the Mongolian traveler Wilhelm von Rubruk also got an idea that the true master of the assassins is more likely to be located in Persia than in Syria. Because he reports that in the spring of 1254 in Karakorum the rumor spread about several assassins who had invaded the city to murder the great Khan Möngke , who had become dangerous for him, on behalf of the old man from the mountains . Since the Mongols were still operating on the borders of Persia at that time (Alamut fell in 1256) and have not yet represented an acute threat to Syria, Persia may have been the place of origin of the supposed threat. Incidentally, Rubruk was suspected by the Mongols of being one of the sent assassins and was therefore subjected to questioning. It was only through Marco Polo that the news of the actual head of the assassins reached the West. In addition to this real “old man from the mountains”, the Venetian was even given the name Aloadin , who fell into the madness of turning his innocent disciples into willless assassins in the gardens of paradise at Alamut. Since then, the title has become synonymous with both the Great Da'i sitting in Masyaf and the Imam of the Nizari Shia sitting in Alamut.
symbolism
Assassins are said to have a special relationship with the color white. The sacrifices of the old man from the mountains are said to have preferably worn white robes (blans vestus) . Sinan says he traveled from Persia to Syria on a white donkey.
Various Shiite groups used white as a color to identify them well into the Middle Ages in order to distinguish it from the black of the Sunni Abbasid caliphs. For this reason they were also called "the white-clad" (al-mubayyiḍa) , for example on the occasion of the battle of Fachch in 786.
Assassination list
This list shows the most prominent attack targets. Marked with an X were killed.
| date | Victim | position | place | Brief description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 14, 1092 | Nizam al-Mulk X | Vizier of the Seljuks | Sahnah (near Nehawand ) | |
| May 1, 1103 | Janah ad-Daula X | Emir of Homs | Homs | Presumably on behalf of Radwan and / or al-Hakim al-Munaddschim . |
| February 1106 | Chalaf ibn Mulaib X | Emir of Apamea | in the Qal'at al-Mudiq (Apamea) | |
| 1111 | Fachr al-Mulk X | Vizier of the Seljuks | ||
| October 2, 1113 | Sharraf ad-Din Maudud X | Emir of Mosul | Damascus | Presumably on behalf of Radwan and Tughtigin . |
| 1114/15 | Ahmadil al-Kurdi X | Prince of Maragha | Baghdad | Presumably on behalf of Tughtigin . |
| 1119 | Sa'id ibn Budai X | Atabeg from Aleppo | on the Euphrates | The Atabeg was responsible for the pogrom committed against the Nizarites of Aleppo in 1113, which resulted in hundreds of deaths. Two of his sons were killed with him. |
| December 11, 1121 | al-Afdal Shahanshah X | Vizier of the Fatimids | Cairo | The attack was put under the authority of the Nizarites, who also complained about it, but there are suspicions of an internal overthrow of the palace. The vizier was responsible for the Ismaili schism and the death of Imam Nizar in 1094 . |
| 1125 | Ibn al-Hashshab X | Kadi of Aleppo | al-Zajjājīn, Aleppo | Jointly responsible for the pogrom of 1113. |
| November 26, 1126 | Aq Sunqur al-Bursuqi X | Emir of Mosul | Mosul | Presumably on behalf of Tughtigin . |
| 1127 | Mu'in al-Din Ahmad X | Vizier of the Seljuks | Merw | |
| October 7, 1130 | al-Amir X | Caliph of the Fatimids | Cairo | In 1122 the counterimam of the Mustali Ismailis denied the Nizarites the right to exist. |
| May 7, 1131 | Taj al-Muluk Buri X | Atabeg of Damascus | Damascus | The Atabeg was responsible for the pogrom committed against the Nizarites of Damascus in 1129, which resulted in several thousand deaths. He survived the assassination attempt, but died on June 9, 1132 of the long-term effects of his wounds. |
| May 25, 1133 | Aq Sunqur al-Ahmadili X | Atabeg from Maragha | at Hamadan | |
| August 29, 1135 | al-Mustarshid X | Abbasid Caliph | Maragha | |
| June 1136 | al-Rashid X | Abbasid Caliph | Isfahan | |
| 1143 | Dawud X | Seljuks prince | Tabriz | |
| 1152 | Raimund II. X | Count of Tripoli | Tripoli | Motive unclear. The knight Ralph von Merle was killed with the count . |
| December 1174 | Salah ad-Din Yusuf | Sultan of the Ayyubids | before Aleppo | Attack failed after bodyguard intervened, killing one officer. |
| May 1176 | Salah ad-Din Yusuf | Sultan of the Ayyubids | before Azaz | The hood of his mail shirt saved the Sultan. |
| April 28, 1192 | Conrad of Montferrat X | Acre | Motive unclear. Probably a contract killing. | |
| 1213 | Raymond of Antioch X | before Our Lady of Tortosa | Motive unclear. | |
| March 17, 1270 | Philip of Montfort X | Lord of Tire | Tire | Probably on behalf of Baibars . |
| Spring 1271 | Baibars I. | Sultan of the Mamluks | before Krak des Chevaliers | |
| June 1272 | Edward of England | Acre | Probably on behalf of Baibars . |
Assassins in the media
Literature:
- In the Club des Hachichins in the 19th century, well-known scientists, writers and intellectuals such as Victor Hugo and Eugène Delacroix devoted themselves to testing drugs and less to the art of murder.
- Assassins are recurring characters in the historical novels of the German author Peter Berling († 2017). In the series The Children of the Grail (1991-2005) the main characters witness the fall of Alamut. In Paradise of the Assassins (2007) the protagonist becomes a member of a sect himself.
Film and TV:
- In the adventure film In the Kingdom of Kublai Khan (1964), the protagonist Marco Polo has to flee from the mad old man from the mountains ( Akim Tamiroff ).
- In the low-fantasy film adaptation of Conan the Barbarian (1982), the antagonist Thulsa Doom commands a sect who are blindly devoted to him and followers of a snake cult, who also carry out attacks on his closest family members. He demonstrates to the protagonist the unconditional obedience of his followers by ordering one of them to jump off a rock and into death.
- In the video game adaptation Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), “Hassansine” appear as a warrior sect gifted by magic in ancient Persia with their typical characterization as drug users and assassination service providers.
- In 2003, ZDF produced the documentary work Terra X: Messengers of Death from Alamut - The Assassin's Secret Society in the Terra X series
- In the series DC's Legends of tomorrow , the series character Sara Lance plays a former assasin.
PC and video games:
- In the video game series Assassin's Creed (since 2007), the Assassins are portrayed as a secret society that existed before the time of the Crusades and is still active today; the player takes on the role of an assassin and fights against the templars .
- Assassins appear as antagonists in the computer game series Prince of Persia (since 1989).
literature
- WB Bartlett: The Assassins. The Story of Medieval Islam's Secret Sect , Sutton, London 2002.
- Max van Berchem : Epigraphy of the Assassin de Syrie. In: Journal asiatique , 9th series (1897), pp. 453-501.
- Frank M. Chambers: The Troubadours and the Assassins. In: Modern Language Notes. 64: 245-251 (1949).
- Farhad Daftary : The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
- Farhad Daftary: The Assassin Legends. Myths of the Ismaʿilis. Tauris, London a. a. 1995, ISBN 1-85043-950-8 .
- Farhad Daftary and Kurt Maier: Brief History of the Ismailis: Traditions of a Muslim Community. Ergon, 2003, ISBN 978-3-89913-292-2 .
- Stanislas Guyard: Un grand maître des Assassins au temps de Saladin. In: Journal Asiatique , Vol. 9 (1877), pp. 324-489.
- Heinz Halm : The Schia. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1988.
- Heinz Halm: Caliphs and Assassins. Egypt and the Middle East at the time of the First Crusades 1074–1171. CH Beck, Munich 2014.
- Heinz Halm: The Assassins. History of an Islamic secret society (= CH Beck Wissen 2868). CH Beck, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-406-70414-7 .
- Jerzy Hauziński: The Syrian Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs after the Fall of Alamūt. Imāmate's dilemma. In: Rocznik Orientalistyczny , Vol. 64 (2011), pp. 174-185.
- Jerzy Hauziński: Three Excerpts Quoting a Term al-ḥašīšiyya. In: Rocznik Orientalistyczny , Vol. 69 (2016), pp. 89-93.
- MGS Hodgson: The Order of Assassins: the struggle of the early Nizari Isma'ilis against the Islamic World. Mouton, 's-Gravenhage 1955.
- Bernard Lewis : The Assassins. On the tradition of religious murder in radical Islam (= The Other Library, Vol. 59). Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-8218-4727-1 (Original: The Assassins: A radical sect in Islam, New York 1968).
- Charles E. Nowell: The Old Man of the Mountain. In: Speculum , Vol. 22, pp. 497-519.
- Hans Martin Schaller : King Manfred and the assassins. In: German Archive for Research into the Middle Ages , Vol. 21 (1965), pp. 173–193.
- Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy : Mémoire sur la dynastie des Assassins, et sur l'étymologie de leur nom. In: Annales des Voyages , Vol. 8 (1809), pp. 325-343; Republished in: Mémoires de l'Institut Royal de France. Vol. 4 (1818), pp. 1-84.
- Mireille Schnyder: The pillow book of the old man from the mountains. In: Book Culture and Knowledge Transfer in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times. 2011, pp. 202-214.
- Samuel M. Stern: The Epistle of the Fatimid Caliph al-Āmir (al-Hidāya al-Āmiriyya). Its date and its purpose. In: The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1950), pp. 20-31.
Individual evidence
- ↑ See RHC , Historiens occidentaux, Vol. 1 (1844), pp. 995-996. For the translation cf. Halm (2014), pp. 226-227.
- ↑ See Daftary (1990), pp. 10-11, 23-24; Halm (2014), p. 157; Hauziński (2016), pp. 89–90.
- ↑ Al-Idrisi, Nuzhatu ʾl-Muštāq fī-ʾḫtirāqi ʾl-āfāq, ed. and translated into French by Pierre Amédée Jaubert , Géographie d'Edrisi I in: Recueil de voyages et de mémoires publié par la société de géographie, vol. 5 (1836), p. 359.
- ↑ Benjamin von Tudela, Massa'ot shel Rabbi Benjamin, ed. and translated into English by Marcus Nathan Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (1907), pp. 16-17.
- ↑ Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene , Vol. 3, ed. by William Stubbs (1870), p. 283.
- ↑ Jans Enikel, Weltchronik, verses 28623–28659; Fürstenbuch, verse 2566-2583, ed. by Philipp Strauch, Jansen Enikels Werke (1900), pp. 568, 649.
- ↑ See Hermann Suchier, Monuments Provençal Literature and Language, Vol. 1 (1883), No. 11, lines 9–11, pp. 311–312.
- ↑ See Alfred Pillet, Henry Carstens, Bibliographie der Troubadours (1933), Lied 10.42, lines 28–32.
- ↑ See Alfred Pillet, Henry Carstens, Bibliography of the Troubadours (1933), song 10.24, lines 13-14.
- ↑ Cf. Carl Appel, Provenzalische Inedita from Pariser Manschriften (1892), p. 22.
- ↑ Cf. Adolf Kolsen, Complete Songs of Tobador Giraut de Bornelh, Vol. 1 (1910), No. 48, lines 73-76.
- ^ Jean de Joinville, Historie de Saint Louis , in: RHGF , Vol. 20 (1840), pp. 259-261.
- ↑ Ibn Battuta, Riḥla, ed. and translated into English by HAR Gibb , The travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, AD 1325-1354, Vol. 1 (1958), pp. 106-109.
- ↑ Brocardus, Directorium ad passagium faciendum, in: RHC, documents arméniens, Vol. 2 (1906), pp. 496–497.
- ↑ Alexander Drummond, Travels through different cities of Germany, Italy, Greece, and several parts of Asia. London 1754, pp. 217-218.
- ^ Joseph Rousseau, Mémoire sur les trois plus fameuses sects du musulmanisme, les Wahabis, les Nosaïris et les Ismaélis. Paris 1818, pp. 51-58.
- ↑ See Halm (1988), p. 229.
- ↑ Marco Polo, Le divisament dou monde, ed. and translated into English by Hugh Murray, The travels of Marco Polo, greatly amended and enlarged (1855), pp. 200-202.
- ↑ See Daftary (1990), p. 24.
- ↑ Ibn Jubair, Riḥlab , ed. and translated into English by Ronald JC Broadhurst, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr: being the chronicle of a mediaeval Spanish Moor concerning his journey to the Egypt of Saladin, the holy cities of Arabia, Baghdad the city of the Caliphs, the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem , and the Norman kingdom of Sicily. London 1952, p. 264.
- ↑ Al-Jaubari, Kitāb al-Muḫtār fī kašf al-asrār, quoted by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall , Fundgruben des Orients, fourth volume. Vienna 1814, p. 377.
- ↑ Ibn al-Adim, Buġyat al-ṭalab fī taʾrīḫ Ḥalab, ed. and translated into English by Bernard Lewis, Kamāl al-Dīn's Biography of Rāšhid al-Dīn Sinān, in: Arabica, Vol. 13 (1966), p. 230.
- ^ Arnold von Lübeck, Chronica Slavorum, in: MGH , SS Vol. 21 (1869), pp. 178-179.
- ↑ Guillelmi Tyrensis continuata belli sacri historia, in: PL , Vol. 201 († 1855), Col. 958-959.
- ↑ Francesco Pipino, Chronicon, in: RIS , Vol. 9 (1726), Col. 705-707.
- ^ Arnold von Lübeck, Chronica Slavorum, in: MGH, SS Vol. 21 (1869), pp. 178-179.
- ↑ Ibn al-Adim, Buġyat al-ṭalab fī taʾrīḫ Ḥalab, ed. and translated into English by Bernard Lewis, Kamāl al-Dīn's Biography of Rāšhid al-Dīn Sinān, in: Arabica, Vol. 13 (1966), p. 232.
- ^ L'estoire de Eracles Empereur et la Conqueste de la terre d'Outremer, in: RHC, Historiens occidentaux, Vol. 2 (1859), pp. 192, 216, 460; Jean de Joinville, Historie de Saint Louis, in: RHGF Vol. 20 (1840), pp. 259-261.
- ↑ Benjamin von Tudela, Massa'ot shel Rabbi Benjamin, ed. and translated into English by Marcus Nathan Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (1907), pp. 16-17, 53-54.
- ↑ Al-Hamawi , at-Taʾrīḫ al-Manṣūrī, ed. and translated into Italian by Michele Amari, Estratti del tarih Mansuri (1884), pp. 20-21.
- ^ 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.
- ↑ Guillelmi Tyrensis continuata belli sacri historia, in: PL, Vol. 201 († 1855), Col. 958.
- ↑ Ibn al-Adim, Buġyat al-ṭalab fī taʾrīḫ Ḥalab, ed. and translated into English by Bernard Lewis, Kamāl al-Dīn's Biography of Rāšhid al-Dīn Sinān, in: Arabica, Vol. 13 (1966), p. 230.
- ↑ a b c David Cook: Were the Ismāʿīlī Assassins the First Suicide Attackers? An Examination of Their Recorded Assassinations . In: The Lineaments of Islam . January 1, 2012, pp. 97-117. doi : 10.1163 / 9789004231948_007 .